Good overview from NYT today on that latest in the various executive, administrative and legislative efforts to crack down on leaks from with the country’s national security bureaucracy and, what the Times says, is a chilling effect on reporting. “Striking,” actually, is the phrase used.
Already the deterrent effect of the investigation on officials’ willingness to discuss security and foreign policy issues, presumably one purpose of the leak crackdown, has been striking. Some government officials and press advocates say Americans are learning less about their government’s actions.
“People are being cautious,” said one intelligence official who, considering the circumstances, spoke on condition of anonymity. “We’re not doing some of the routine things we usually do,” he added, referring to briefings on American security efforts and subjects in the news.
“Reporters are beginning to resort to the old practice of meeting on a park bench to avoid leaving an electronic trail,” Gregg Leslie, interim executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told the Times. That’s based, he said, on recent crackdown efforts compounding an earlier “growing awareness” of employee e-mail and phone contact tracking.