Two cases do little for First Amendment

Two recent news stories piqued the interest of this Erstwhile Editor: the publication of thousands of pages of raw, highly classified military reports from the Afghan war and the posting of a decades-old video that cost an Agriculture Department employee her job. Both incidents raise First Amendment issues, but I'm afraid neither does the First Amendment proud.

The Pentagon is investigating the leaking of the classified war reports as a possible violation of espionage laws. These are "military secrets" in the literal sense. Of more concern is the possibility that enemy forces might learn the identities of informants who have assisted NATO forces. This release puts innocent people and friends of the government in jeopardy.

This release to Wikileaks has been compared to the Pentagon Papers case, but the analogy does not fit well. The Pentagon Papers consisted of an in-depth study by an outside consultant (the Rand Corporation) of the conduct of the Vietnam War. This week's release is raw combat reports by junior officers in the field. It is information, but it is not balanced or digested; it does not present a "big picture," just a series of vignettes of the war. Its value to historians might be considerable many years from now, when perspective and consequences are clearer, but now it is just snippets of information, and it is information that could "aid and comfort" the enemy. The World War II admonition that "loose lips sink ships" applies here. It is doubtful that this raw information promotes the education of voters, serves the public interest or enhances the principles behind the First Amendment. Although I spent 30-plus years advocating for greater openness in government and more information for taxpayers and voters, there are some limits to these principles, especially in wartime.

In the other case, Shirley Sherrod lost her federal job after a conservative blogger posted a heavily edited and misleading portion of a 30-year-old speech she gave. The edited tape gave the impression that Sherrod was biased against a white farmer who had come to her for help. The full tape, as well as that farmer's own testimony, shows that, on the contrary, her speech was about non-discrimination and accepting people of all races as equals. Sherrod is now suing the blogger for libel. If she can show that the blogger acted maliciously, deliberately distorting her views, she might have a case. Regardless of how the lawsuit comes out, this incident should not be viewed as "journalism." Deliberate distorting of facts is not journalism. Although news sources too often claim they were misquoted or incompletely quoted, those complaints are nothing compared to Sherrod's situation, in which her point was turned 180 degrees by selective editing.

It's said that hard cases make bad law, and these two cases make poor examples for supporters of the First Amendment.