Government Secrecy & Government Spying

One sign of a government that has lost the moral authority to govern is that it seeks to punish those who publicize any of the government's illegal, unethical, and immoral conduct. Democratic governments depend upon the will of the people; this, in turn, depends upon the people being informed about what the government is doing in their name - especially if the actions are legally questionable.

John Morrocco writes in The Vietnam Experience: Rain of Fire about the secrecy surrounding the illegal bombing of Cambodia begun by the Nixon administration, and the reaction of the administration when news began to leak out:

Secrecy was of vital importance to both Nixon and Kissinger, who were determined to keep the bombings out of e newspapers. Kissinger insisted all information be kept on a strict “need to know” basis. The B-52 strikes were to be conducted outside the Strategic Air Command’s normal command and control system. ... Besides the B-52 crews and radar controllers, only Gen. Abrams and key personnel at MACV headquarters Saigon were to know the true nature of the missions. Even at the Pentagon, knowledge was restricted. to the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs, Col. Sitton, his two immediate superiors at SAC headquarters, and a small number of JCS staff members.

Some people in the administration objected to the plan, to the secrecy, or to both. Their objections were ignored, however:

Only Secretary of State William P. Rogers, fearful of the diplomatic consequences of violating Cambodian neutrality, was opposed to the plan. Although he approved of the bombings, Secretary of Defense Laird was concerned about the president’s insistence on secrecy. A former Republican congressman from Wisconsin, Laird knew that Congress would eventually find out and that political repercussions would inevitably follow. He urged the president to go public from the start, justifying the bombings by providing evidence of Hanoi’s activities in Cambodia.

President Nixon was unwilling to provoke a confrontation with antiwar critics which might further limit his options in Vietnam. Obsessed with what he perceived to be a hostile media, Nixon wanted to prevent the kind of information leaks to the press that he felt had plagued the Johnson administration. He found a natural ally in Kissinger, who shared this penchant for secrecy. Although Kissinger may have had his doubts about the wisdom of the bombing, he kept them to himself. Over the objections of Laird and Rogers, Nixon secured the NSC’s backing for a decision he had already made.

The meeting set the tone that was to characterize the administration’s decision-making process regarding the Vietnam War for the next four years. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, who continually sought to achieve a consensus among his advisers, Nixon was willing to act on his own instincts. Those who dissented would be isolated from the policy-making process, so gradually Nixon relied more and more on a small circle of loyal and trusted advisers who shared his views.

The similarities to the Bush administration are almost eerie — and certainly frightening. Informed and intelligent staff members object to a course of action that was never in doubt for the president. People who object or criticize the plans are effectively shut out from the decision-making process altogether; the only people left are thus those who already agree and thus can’t offer alternatives, or those afraid to disagree and thus won’t offer alternatives. In this manner, an administration becomes locked into a course of action with no one around able to willing to change things for the better.

Rogers was right, of course — people found out:

Despite all the precautions, the story was leaked to the press. A sketchy article in the New York Times by William Beecher on May 9 caused little public stir, but Nixon was furious. He ordered Kissinger to have FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover investigate the source of the leak. Suspicion centered on NSC staffer Morton Halperin, a former official in the Johnson administration known for his dovish views on the war. When Hoover informed Kissinger of his suspicions, Kissinger agreed that Halperin’s phone be tapped.

This was to be the first in a series of phone taps and surveillance operations authorized by the president in the name of national security interests. In the following years, criticism of his Vietnam policies mounted so did his obsession for secrecy. But in early 1970, the president still had some political room for maneuver.

Digby quotes from Rick Perlstein's forthcoming book Nixonland, revealing how the practice of domestic spying and illegal wiretapping progressed after wiretaps on NSC staffers produced no results:

A reporter was next. This time, however, it wasn't Kissinger working through the legal channel of the FBI. It was the President, tapping one of Henry Kissinger's friends, in a way that Henry Kissinger couldn't find out. John Ehrlichman knew just the guy: he got John Caulfield, a new addition to the White House staff, a former detective of New York's version of the Red Squad who had known Nixon since he'd protected him on the campaign trail in 1960.

Caulfield called a friend, who'd worked sweeping Nixon's hotels for bugs during the 1968 campaign. They cased the target's Georgetown townhouse and told Ehrlichman the job would be very, very difficult. Ehrlichman insisted they go forward, because national security was at stake. So they scrounged up some phone company credentials and shimmied up a pole to affix a bug to the writer's phone wire.

At least President Nixon started slowly; President Bush, in contrast, appears to have leapt immediately to the most expansive, far-reaching surveillance of the American people that has ever occurred — and all without court warrants, without oversight, and without any sort of accountability. First we learned that the NSA was monitoring international phone calls where one party was in the United States, and doing so without a court order was justified because it was only “bad guys” and “suspected terrorists” who were monitored.

Then we learned that major telephone companies — AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth — sold out the American people by selling trillions of phone records to the NSA. Once again, this was justified by saying that it was necessary for security and those who have done nothing wrong should have nothing to hide. Finally, it appears that the government targeted not just “suspected terrorists,” but also journalists who receive confidential tips from government employees who disagree with the ongoing government abuse of power.

ABC News reports that, in a face-to-face meeting, a confidential government source informed them that the government was monitoring their phone calls. Almost 40 years have passed and nothing has changed:

“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

That this information came from a personal contact rather than a phone call may be one indication that it’s true. Even if it’s not true, however, it will surely have a chilling effect on anyone’s desire to reveal further government corruption. Defenders of the administration’s crimes may insist that people who have done no wrong should have nothing to hide from these government investigators — but if that’s true, then the government should also have nothing to hide and, therefore, should be more willing to be honest with the American people about what they are doing.

Consider some of the comments to the above report:

Good! I hope they do find out who is leaking national security info to the press. I’m tired of the press helping our enemies. Maybe you guys should start trying to “FOR the USA” instead of “AGAINST the USA” ALL THE TIME. I hope the FBI nails lots of idiots who are out to destroy the intelligence agencies and cost us more soldiers and spys!
- Posted by: Grace

‘Bout time you guys are roped in.
- Posted by: Brad

Excellent the Media needs looking after, Traitors most of them.......
- Posted by: ken wiley

good, you seditionist creeps deserve what you get. who knows how many serviceman have died because of your “right to know”
- Posted by: jeff bynum

I hope the information they gain allows them to catch the scum that leak information, and helps them arrest the communist scum who publish it.
- Posted by: Dave Mottolo

I am a journalism graduate, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also a veteran.

I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights.
- Posted by: Tom Camp

The arrogance of the press is amazing. The CIA and NSA is supposed to keep secrets not leak them to the press. It is absolutely wrong and illegal for bureaucrats to leak our nation's most sensitive secrets to the press. I'm with Bill Bennett - let's start arresting journalists for publishing our nation's top secrets.
- Posted by: Chris Johnson

I wonder how many of the comments like the above and how many are just sarcasm? Lines like “communist scum” represent a perspective that hasn’t changed since the days of Nixon, which surely isn’t coincidental. Nixon’s administration is often held up as an example of how a lawless government can abuse power, break the law, and shred constitutional liberties. It seems clear, however, that the Bush administration is trying to surpass Nixon on every point possible.

Georgia10 at Daily Kos points out that, in New York Times Co. v. Gonzales, Judge Sweet ruled against Patrick Fitzgerald’s attempt to get copies of the phone records of Judith Miller and Philip Shenon:

Judge Sweet ruled that indeed the phone records in that case were “protected by the qualified reporters’ privilege for confidential sources, which exists pursuant to the First Amendment and federal common law.” The government in that case was unable to overcome that privilege, so it could not have access to the phone records. [...]

Now, of course, journalists were compelled to disclose their sources in the Plame investigation, where the court ruled that the government’s interest outweighed whatever interest Miller and Cooper had in protecting their sources. However, as Judge Sweet pointed out, when it comes to phone records, all of a journalist’s confidential sources, even those wholly unrelated to the investigation, can be exposed. Not to mention that the privacy of the individual reporter is implicated.

A democratic government requires as much openness as possible, because a government cannot be based on the will of the people when the people are kept in the dark about what the government is doing in their name. An oppressive, dictatorial government is one which tries to impose as much secrecy and control over information as possible, denying the people the ability to make informed decisions by denying them information.

In the place of informed decisions by the voters, such governments and their defenders insist that the people simply trust the leaders to do the right thing. Thus in place of being governed by the will of the people, we are governed according to the will of the leaders — or The Leader.

 

Quick Poll:Should the government monitor the phone records of reporters in order to catch leaks of information of illegal, unethical, or questionable activity by the government?

1. Yes, that's illegal and the leakers should be punished.
2. Yes, that's treasonous - both the leakers and the reporters should be punished.
3. No, we need to know when the government is doing such things in our name.
4. I don't know.
5. I don't care.

Click an option to vote, or View Current Poll Results

 

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