WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama’s administration has tightened its control over intelligence - including unclassified information - by setting limits on officials’ interactions with the media.
A March 20 directive from the director of national intelligence says that only certain intelligence officials are authorized to speak to the media, and everyone else must report all intentional or unintentional contact with reporters. Violating this rule could result in an employee losing his security clearance and job.
It is the latest Obama administration effort to try to limit interactions between reporters and government officials, and it was issued the same day as a directive for protecting intelligence agency whistle-blowers.
A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said the new media directive is nearly two years in the making and is the Obama administration’s alternative to a proposed 2012 law that would have clamped down on national security leaks to reporters.
Government officials already are prohibited by law from disclosing classified information. Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden, for instance, has been charged with three offenses in the U.S for disclosing classified details about the government’s surveillance programs. Snowden could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of charges under the Espionage Act.
The new directive, however, is broader and applies to unclassified information as well.
“The new directive is far more sweeping than any previous policy, since it applies to basically everything having to do with intelligence,” said Steven Aftergood, a government-secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood first reported the new media policy in a blog post Monday. “By trying to regulate reporters’ ability to independently gather unclassified information, the directive will undermine the credibility of all intelligence-related news.”
The timing of the two directives suggests the administration is telling intelligence agency employees that if they’re concerned about something and are considering taking those concerns to a reporter, they should use the official procedures for whistle-blowers instead, Aftergood said.
After a series of high-profile disclosures in 2012 - including details about U.S. involvement in cyberattacks on Iran and an al-Qaida plot to place an explosive device aboard a U.S.-bound airliner - Congress considered passing a law to stem national security leaks. Support for the law came as Republicans accused the administration of intentionally disclosing classified information in an election year.
The bill would have restricted the number of employees in the intelligence community authorized to speak to reporters and prohibited current and former intelligence officials from doing contract work with the news media.
Many believed the law would impose a chilling effect on the media. In an attempt to work with Congress, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he would develop guidelines, said Clapper’s spokesman, Shawn Turner. The March 20 directive is the result, and it codifies what has long been the practice in many intelligence agencies, he said.
Other rules were issued in 2012 to stop unauthorized leaks of classified information, including a requirement that lie-detector tests for intelligence agency employees start to include a question about unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
The Obama administration has pursued an unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists’ records.
Earlier this year, Clapper said the reporters who published classified documents leaked by Snowden are “accomplices.”
The “accomplices” Clapper referenced during a January Senate hearing referred to “anyone who is assisting Edward Snowden to further threaten our national security through the unauthorized disclosure of stolen documents related to lawful foreign intelligence collection programs,” Turner said at the time.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 04/23/2014