Striking a Balance --- Whistleblowing, Leaks, and Security Secrets
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2015
⏱️ 117 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, following the New York Times revelation of the purported identities of three covert CIA agents, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, along with the James Madison Project and Just Security, hosted an entitled “Whistleblowing and America’s Secrets: Ensuring a Viable Balance,” which with the support of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins, we now present to you in full. In the discussion, Bob Litt, General Counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, along with Ken Dilanian of the Associated Press, Dr. Gabriel Schoenfeld of the Hudson Institute, and Lawfare’s own Steve Vladeck, tackle the important legal and policy questions surrounding classified leak prosecutions, the responsibilities of the press, whistleblower protections, and the future of the Espionage Act.
Mark Zaid, the Executive Director of the James Madison Project moderated the discussion.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair no bull, |
| 0:27.2 | and the aftermath. |
| 0:31.7 | Because I think the New York Times disgraced itself over the weekend by publishing an article |
| 0:37.2 | in which it purported to name three covert CIA officers. |
| 0:42.1 | The Times is justification and I'm reading this here is the New York Times is publishing |
| 0:47.7 | the names because the individuals have leadership roles in one of the government's most significant |
| 0:53.0 | paramilitary programs and their roles are known to foreign governments and many others. |
| 0:57.8 | I think that's a pretty weak justification. |
| 1:00.8 | Number one, the problem is not whether foreign governments know them. |
| 1:04.2 | The problem is whether terrorists and lone wolves were being solicited by groups like |
| 1:08.5 | ISIS to make individual attacks in the United States whether they knew who these people |
| 1:13.4 | are. |
| 1:14.4 | Number two, it's not only them that's at risk, it's their families and their contacts |
| 1:18.6 | when they served in covert capacities overseas who are now going to be put at risk. |
| 1:23.2 | Number three, if you read the New York Times story, the identity, the specific name to |
| 1:28.3 | the individuals who was completely gratuitous. |
| 1:30.9 | I'm Cody Poplin and this is the LawFair podcast May 2nd, 2015. |
| 1:37.2 | That was Bob Lit you just heard. |
| 1:39.3 | General Counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. |
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