Christiane Amanpour Redux
Yesterday, we commented on a most curious question posed by Andrea Mitchell to James Risen, author of ‘State of War
Mitchell: You don’t have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
Risen: No, no I hadn’t heard that.
Today, the MinuteMan alerts us to a classic non-denial denial:
A senior U.S. intelligence official told CNN Thursday that the National Security Agency did not target CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour or any other CNN journalist for surveillance.
As Tom and my own commenters have noted, that doesn’t mean Cristiane was not caught up in the snare:
…even though Ms. Amanpour was not “targetted”, as per the NSA denial, she may well have been caught up in the surveillance *IF* she received a call *from* a phone that was being monitored for AL Qaeda connections. And IIRC, that might include public phone booths in Kabul – that is where calls to two of the 9/11 terrorists originated, if memory serves. Presumably, other public phone booths are surveilled as well.
All of which brings us back to the question posed by Academic Elephant:
Amanpour is most likely in contact with our enemies, even with Al Qaeda, in the pursuit of her work as a reporter with a Middle East beat. As Colin says, “[s]he’s doing her job.” Fair enough, but it leaves me with a series of questions. I do not have ready answers, but I think we have to ask them, and then to try to work our way to honest answers: if Amanpour is in contact with these admittedly terrorist characters does her status as a reporter give her an automatic free pass from surveillance that would be appropriate for any other citizen? Or does the government have the responsibility to monitor her activity, too–and to not take any action against her if it is deemed legitimate and harmless to national security (even if they don’t like her reporting)?
That is to say: are there special moral or ethical obligations that pertain to contacts between known or suspected terrorists and journalists? It is, indeed, a debate well worth having (or at least revisiting – I’m sure the subject has been covered exhaustedly in other contexts)…
Reporters should be able to operate with the expectation of not having the government monitor them. That’s as much a part of a free press as the lack of censorship. The flip side of that is that a reporter should not be alarmed if the government might be monitoring one of their shady contacts in the world of crime or in today’s world transnational terrorism. Monitoring Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s cell phone even when he’s calling an Al Jazeera reporter to give that reporter an exclusive, does not inhibit a free press.
Also, reporters do not need to be monitored, even if they are in contact with nefarious sources. Those sources, through programs like the NSA intercept program, data mining an other OSINT (open source intelligence operations), and good HUMINT, can be monitored without incumbering a free press with privacy concerns. However, for security to be protected and for our rights to remain unviolated, a reasoned approach to these sorts of programs must be taken. Partisan shreiking will result in us going to one extreme or the other (security without liberty, or liberty without security).
My two cents:
the press is open to monitoring like anyone else. I have been trying to refocus some badly distracted legal mines to point out the legal surveillance allows for monitoring any and all who contact the target. Let’s take the legal, warranted surveillance of a crime boss. He orders a pizza – the police will know it and it doesn’t require any additional warrant. The crime boss talks to his chief ‘enforcer’, no additional warrant. A reporter calls the crime boss for a story – no additional warrant required. When a ‘target’ is being monitored, all who enter the target’s sphere are fair game. That is what a warrant is and why you need a court order for criminal ones here in the US.
Another legal surveillance activity is the warrantles monitoring of terrorists overseas. It is the exact same process, but doesn’t require a warrant. This is especially true in times of war. But since AQ had declared war on us multiple times, a declaration of war by Congress is superfluous.
So, if a reporter contacts the target of an NSA program to monitor a terrorists – that is fair game.
The reporter is not being forced to make the contact and should know all communications with these people are being watched.
Ignorance is not an excuse.
A related question:
Reporters and publishers routinely agree to “embargo” a news story for future release — for example, when the text of a speech is released to the press in advance so that they can comment intelligently immediately after the speech, or when a scientific result is released to the press, so that they can comment intelligently immediately after its formal publication in a journal. Journalists honor these commitments because the alternative is not finding out about the next result until the rest of the world does. If an Al Qaeda source informs a U.S. reporter of an impending terrorist attack, in order to enable the press to comment intelligently on the cause and meaning of the attack immediately after the attack, on the condition that the reporter keep the attack secret until it actually occurs, what are the journalist’s ethical obligations?
Is he obligated to inform the military or law enforcement; is he obligated to keep quiet; or is he free to do as his conscience may dictate?
It seems to me that the distinction is being lost (at least by some) between 1) whether or not one or more conversations Amanpour might have had fell into the net cast by the NSA, due to the person on the other end of the line; and 2) whether Amanpour herself was the “subject” of a surveillance operation.
Even if 1) is true, it does not follow that 2) is also true.
Journalists should not be targetted by the government solely because of their work, and they should be allowed to contact anyone they please. But just as there are limits to free speech, neither is the freedom of the press limitless.
Amanpour herself would certainly treat a call to Zarqawi differently than her other more mundane contacts; she should not be surprised that the US government does the same.
So let’s turn the question a bit. Say a reporter is known to have contact with some number of shady characters – terrorists in our example. This contact is judged to be legitimate, i.e.; not for the purpose of terrorism collaboration but for reporting. The government, citing national security concerns, chooses to actively monitor this reporter’s communications rather than stumble open them (as is being claimed). How does this change the argument? Somewhat like criminal profiling, wouldn’t it be prudent/efficient to monitor those people who are known to be in contact with our enemies? This would likely have a chilling effect on reporter’s ability to maintain these contacts, should we care about that? Are reporters members of a special class deserving of protection?
I certainly don’t know the answers – it would make a good political thriller, though, would it not? The enterprising reporter, famous for her scoops and analysis, is pulled ever deeper into a shadow world – and then one day she hears something that makes her blood run cold…kind of writes itself, doesn’t it? (Note to self – quit giving away excellent story ideas!)…
Dude, you’re the next Tom Clancy!