USA TODAY International Edition
SOME SECRETS SHOULD BE LEAKED
Some secrets are plainly necessary. The disclosure of sensitive national defense information that puts the country at risk deserves to be punished to the maximum extent of the law. But if there are necessary secrets, are there also necessary leaks?
The Trump administration, leaking like the Lusitania after it was struck by a torpedo, has put that question squarely before us. President Trump professes outrage. “Classified information is being given to the media that could have a devastating effect on the U. S.,” he has tweeted. “FIND NOW.”
Never mind that Trump loved leaks during the campaign. And never mind that some of the leaking appears to be coming from the White House itself, sending spokesman Sean Spicer rummaging through the electronic devices belonging to his own staff.
The president would appear to have a point. At least some of the leaking is a violation of the law, and much of it pours sand into the gears of a duly elected government. Our democracy will be at risk if it cannot keep its national security deliberative processes and plans secure.
CRITICAL INFORMATION At the same time, the leaks have informed us of critically important developments. They have provided an advance look at some of the president’s more controversial executive orders. They have treated us to valuable snippets of telephone conversations that the president has conducted with foreign leaders.
And they have supplied one revelation after another about the connections between Russia and Team Trump, and discrepancies in various accounts of those connections. Without leaks, Michael Flynn might still be national security adviser and Attorney General Jeff Sessions might still be in charge of investigations of Trump’s campaign.
No one disputes that the U. S. government habitually misclassifies and overclassifies information. A great deal of material stamped secret is innocuous. At the same time, government secrets are disclosed almost daily. While leaks can damage our security, most do not fall into that category. Rather, the disclosure of classified information is an integral part of the system by which the electorate in our democracy is informed.
Yet one of the real problems before us today is that not all the information being leaked is innocuous. Quite the contrary. It is some of the most closely held information collected by the U. S. government. For instance, the U. S. cannot successfully conduct diplomacy if our president’s confidential words to foreign leaders are broadcast to the entire world.
That is precisely why unauthorized disclosure of sensitive classified information — of truly necessary secrets — is not only a criminal offense but also an assault on democracy itself. Unelected bureaucrats, making use of confidential journalistic channels, are abusing their access to advance their private views of what is right and just. Such anonymous leaking is a bastardized form of civil disobedience, for it is civil disobedience without consequences. It is as if Rosa Parks chose to wear a mask while refusing to move to the back of the bus.
MORAL CALCULUS In normal circumstances, those engaged in this kind of sabotage of democracy should face serious sanctions. But the significant wrinkle is that we inhabit unprecedented circumstances. The Trump administration itself poses perils — in multiple ways — to democratic rule. Its high officials, disregarding checks and balances, have declared that the president’s national security decisions cannot be questioned by the courts. It regularly purveys false information to the public about matters great and small. It ferociously attacks the intelligence agencies and attempts to politicize their findings. Reports about an ongoing FBI investigation into Russian interference with the presidential election suggest that close associates of the president, if not Trump himself, might have been involved in activities bordering on treason.
Under these circumstances, the criminal laws punishing leaking remain fixed, but the moral calculus is turned on its head. Ordinarily a potential threat to democracy, leakers might now be one of democracy’s salvations.
Whatever one’s view of the ethics of leaking, the omnipresent possibility of leaks is a key check on Trump’s ability to trample on the Constitution. With our country under threat from its own leadership, we are in a world in which necessary secrets must give way to necessary leaks. Now that the president has declared our free press to be the “enemy of the American people,” it is past time to open the floodgates.