Intelligence Leaks: News or Disinformation

“Leaks” of the details of the secret operations of our intelligence agencies in the war on terror by the news media are almost a daily occurrence these days. These leaks have generated a great deal of chatter among the media and politicians but the most important question of all is not being asked are these revelations for real or are they deliberate disinformation on the part of the intelligence community?
Disinformation; the spreading of false information to fool your enemies, is a time honored tactic practiced by both the military and the intelligence community. During World War II for example, the Allies went to great lengths to fool the Nazis, in one famous example British spies dumped a dead body dressed in an officers’ uniform with a briefcase full of fake invasion plans into the sea in hopes that German agents would find it.
This leads me to wonder if most of the information about our intelligence agencies’ secret war on terrorists is real or simply disinformation? I wouldn’t put it past the spooks to make up lies about their activities and leak them to reporters in hopes they’ll get published and read by terrorists.
Just look at some of the stuff supposedly leaked to the media in recent months such as the details about Uncle Sam’s secret programs to monitor Americans’ phone calls and financial transactions. Politicians and pundits have howled about these revelations because they think these leaks might show terrorists how to avoid detection. That might be just what the government wants, the terrorists believing those stories will take the wrong steps to avoid detection and get caught.
Obviously this is a good strategy for the government to adopt because it fools our enemies into making mistakes. Unfortunately it raises some serious questions about the role of the intelligence community and the reliability of the news media.
We saw how the Bush Administration used the leaking of questionable possibly false intelligence data about “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to the media to sell its case for the Second Iraq War to the American public. We’ve also seen a widely variety of data leaked to the media by critics and opponents of the war for blatantly political reasons.
This is a worrisome development for it transforms and betrays the role of intelligence, instead of gathering objective data, intelligence agencies go out searching for facts to support political agendas. Obviously in such an environment, intelligence agents will only present their political masters or customers in the press with the data that support their foregone conclusions. Only the information that justifies the case the leaker is trying to make is leaked, other data that may point to other conclusions is ignored or suppressed.
Leaks also do tremendous damage to journalism, instead of going out and researching stories for themselves, reporters simply regurgitate whatever is leaked to them by sources in the intelligence community. Since these sources are usually anonymous it is often impossible for other reporters to investigate the leaked information and verify it or to locate additional facts which might challenge the claims made in the leaked data. The result is not journalism but doctored data presented to the public as news in an effort to influence public opinion in other words: propaganda.
So what can be done about leaking? The ongoing efforts of prosecutors inside and outside the Bush Administration to track down officials who leak data for political purposes is a good start. The prosecution of Scooter Libby might be a good start to this effort, but it is only a start.
Journalists must learn how to say no to leaked information no matter how sexy it seems to be. Reporters must forget their romantic delusions of meeting Deep Throat in the parking garage and instead do good old fashion leg work. That is go out and research stories and see if they are true and get the other side of the story. Editors, publishers and producers must learn to reign in reporters who rely on leaks and to say no to anonymous sources and leaked information no matter how compelling it seems.
The public and advertisers must learn how to say no to news outlets that rely on leaks and anonymous sources. They must stop watching and reading news outlets that rely on such methods and advertisers must tell media executives that they’d better reign in the journalists or face lost ad revenue.
Finally, intelligence officials and politicians must learn self discipline they must learn to stop leaking data for political or strategic purposes. Even though such leaks make for good political propaganda and are often a good tactic in the war on terror. Our leaders should ask themselves is the corruption of the intelligence community and the profession of journalism worth the momentary political and strategic gains that can come from “leaked information?”