Our Secrecy Paradox

The government can’t stop intelligence leaks, but it stifles our national debate by preventing the publication of unclassified information.

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Two decisions by the Justice Department in the last month reveal the inanity of the U.S. government’s secrecy system. The department’s new policy against seizing reporter communication information in leak investigations highlights government fecklessness in halting the flow of classified national security secrets to the public. And its cessation of legal actions started by the Trump administration against former National Security Adviser John Bolton over the publication of his memoir, while good for Bolton, highlights how successful the government normally is in preventing the publication of unclassified information. 

The executive branch cannot or will not stop leaks about the classified secrets that matter, and yet it imposes a broad prior restraint on the publication of unclassified information vital to public debate. This central paradox of the American secrecy system has a single root cause: massive overclassification of information by a tumefied intelligence bureaucracy.

The Justice Department backdown on reporter records grew out of leak investigations that began during the Trump administration. At least two sets of leaks appear to be in play. First, an April 2017 New York Times article revealed that the United States (with the help of a Dutch intelligence service, it was later disclosed) had penetrated elements of the Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. 

Second was a series of leaks related to the government’s investigation of the 2016 Russian interference, and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. These leaks included intercepted conversations between the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn; of Russian officials discussing their supposed influence over Flynn and “derogatory” information on Trump and his campaign staff; and of Kislyak reporting to Moscow that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, wanted to open a secret communication channel during the presidential transition.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    Isn’t the root problem that we can’t trust our own citizens to handle classified information because we don’t teach basic patriotism?

    In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful

    -cs Lewis

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  2. Katie

    Your critique of classification and pre-publication processes was very helpful, although, as you note, seemingly no one will act to remedy these problems. For me, the most enlightening paragraph was the one about the recent leak investigation that began "These are large exaggerations. The First Amendment does not prevent the government from getting these records. Most of the records were apparently obtained by grand jury subpoena, and some by a court order.* It turns out that, contrary to early reports, members of Congress were not targeted." This was news to me, perhaps because I derived much of my "knowledge" about this controversy from my favorite, increasingly-less-trustworthy cable news channel.

    Speaking of cable news, as much as social media has injected misinformation into our news sphere, I contend that 24/7 cable news is just as guilty: Too many talking heads opining and speculating and too many government officials grandstanding rather than governing. These channels have to fill those many hours of airtime somehow! I will never forgive the cable news hosts who repeated the "Russian bounties on American soldiers" refrain ad infinitum but who did not exhibit the same enthusiasm/repetition when the ODNI report issued after Biden was inaugurated determined there was no solid evidence for this claim. Similarly, I'm aware of Adam Schiff's outrage about being targeted, but I must have missed the sound bite in which he apologized for spreading misinformation. No wonder the public is so divided and our government so dysfunctional.

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  3. Shaybult

    Wow, this is a really long article. I'm all for depth and detail but this could have given the same information in half as many words.

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  4. piefunfun

    "Ooh an article on classification."

    "Wow this one's long."

    "Wow 4 million out of 300 million people have security clearances. That's more than 1/100 people. Neat"

    "Holy shit I guess I'm not one of them. OK I'm going to read the first sentence in every paragraph."

    "Phew, OK. I'm glad I skimmed that one. Who the heck wrote this?? Oh, right - Harvard. Got it."

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  5. ExploreOK

    Interesting article. I've always thought we give journalists and leakers too much leeway, but it sounds like government policy is a bigger problem.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Nick H

    The word "tumefied" is now my new favorite adjective to describe bureaucracy. Sounds much worse than "bloated" does.
    I was hoping that the author would be able to suggest meaningful reforms that would tighten up classifications, but I agree that it's unlikely. I can dream about a President who would take on our tumefied system (and not just the one involving national intelligence), but it's a complete fantasy. No matter how desperately we need it, there's no political benefit for a President so it'll never happen.

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    1. Katie

      Ditto re "tumefied" - much more graphic than "bloated."

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  7. Avatar photo
    Adam Bridge

    Yet another article that screams for editing. How many times did we get the same thing regurgitated in yet another way to no advantage? Far too many, I'd assert.

    But I agree with the fundamental thrust of the article: that it's too easy to classify too much information for no good purpose.

    I remember when Compartmented Information was created after the Pentagon Papers was (were?) released because the fewer people who knew a secret the less chance of it leaking. And yet I saw shipmates exposed to mortal danger after the NYT published articles about Top Secret and compartmented information. Of course a Soviet spy was at the core of that release, but nevertheless I felt the Times was irresponsible. Because they could publish they did. In case you can't tell I'm still angry.

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    1. jmk789

      Agreed with all this. It would help to have headings and subheadings on these longer reads. Maybe even a few images too in the middle (perhaps some examples of classified docs?). I don't want to say that the Dispatch shouldn't do longreads (it should!), but there's an art to presenting them in a readable way that enhances their value.

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    2. Alex DeLarge

      Agreed. He had some interesting information but it was way too long.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    The use of “tumefied” is inaccurate. The expansion of the secrecy document obsession is entirely natural. For a lower level official to become associated with classified data is a feather in their cap.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Nick H

      Tumefied means swollen or bloated, not unnatural. The swelling (or expansion) is, as you accurately point out, completely predictable given the current system.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Chris L

    Thank you for this brilliant summary of the apparently Byzantine process regarding classified information. And yet it is remarkable for how much it resembles analysis of employee engagement in any corporate setting - namely, high employee engagement leads to high corporate compliance in all areas, whereas widespread employee disengagement converts all operations to anarchic mayhem. When employees are disengaged, no enforcement mechanism will be strong enough to truly force compliance - any attempt to do so will only exacerbate the problem.

    Certainly, the more employees you have, the more difficult the oversight and the more bugs you find in the machine, which this article states clearly. But with a healthy work environment (here, specifically with fewer political shenanigans), leak enforcement happens on its own; the stronger enforcement measures are there to get the recalcitrant Snowden-types, and of course you can never get them all. In sum, more carrot, less stick.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Man-Eating Cow

      I think this is not wrong. There is another aspect, though: Classifying something is safer than not classifying it, from a career-advancement perspective. The consequences of letting information out that should not have been are almost always a lot worse than the consequences of classifying information that should not have been. This creates an immediate bias in favor of classifying.

      Assuming, of course, that you're not a high-level political operative with friends at the New York Times. I don't know how to enforce a law against the press publishing information they have every reason to believe is classified and will hurt the country. But I also don't see anything unreasonable about ordering someone who has received stolen goods -- even if they insist they received them in good faith -- to cooperate with law enforcement in catching the thief. Why is it different when the stolen goods are intellectual property of the government under a classification restriction?

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      Bill Nelson

      “...high employee engagement leads to high corporate compliance in all areas...”
      Not always. I was engaged in a number of disputes with our regulatory compliance group who saw it their function to create work for the product producers. If they weren’t doing this then why have them. The favorite term they used was “show compliance” which could mean anything they wanted. I asked the head of their organization when a document would be done, his answer was that “it is done when we tell you it is done “. Hard standard to meet.

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