WASHINGTON – For national security reporters, Washington often feels like hostile territory.
Just ask Dana Priest, The Washington Post reporter who led an investigation into U.S. national security and intelligence agencies. Since the three-part series, “Top Secret America,” was published last week, Priest has been under attack for disclosing information that threatens the nation’s security and the lives of government workers, critics claim.
“Top Secret America,” co-reported by William M. Arkin, makes allegations of waste, mismanagement and unprecedented spending in agencies that have become so complex even top government officials can’t navigate the labyrinth-like apparatus charged with protecting Americans.
National security experts have criticized the series for sensationalism and misleading the public. Government officials have claimed the Post’s work undermines national security efforts. Government contract workers have expressed concern that their workplaces will become targets for terrorists.
Meantime, journalists have celebrated the series as proof that, in an age when newspapers are cutting staff and a tenuous future has media outlets scrambling to reinvent themselves, journalism is still relevant.
“In the highest compliment I can give, I wish I’d thought of it, researched it and written it,” Politico reporter Jonathan Allen said of the series.
The Washington Post investigation was so relevant to lawmakers, in fact, that senators referenced it throughout the three-hour confirmation hearing for Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, the president’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, on July 20.
Clapper rebuffed most of the findings in The Washington Post and called the series “sensationalism” that made national security contractors vulnerable to attacks.
“I must say I’m very concerned about the security implications … This may be easy for adversaries to point out specifically the location of the contractors who are working for the government,” Clapper told senators at his hearing.
In his July 25 column, Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander quoted an email from a national security contractor: “You’re jeopardizing not only the jobs, but the lives of people like myself that go into an office every day to protect the security of this nation and the lives of its people,” the contractor wrote to the newspaper.
The Editor’s note in Top Secret America says information about the companies was pulled from their own websites.
Some experts criticize the series for sensationalizing contracts and spending, many of which are already under review.
“It was pretty generally well-known,” said Gabriel Schoenfeld, a national security expert at think tank Hudson Institute. The government was already working on many of the issues Priest reported on, he said.
Mark Lowenthal, former intelligence analyst for the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, said Priest made national security into “some dark conspiracy, which it is not.”
“I think the tone of the articles is overblown,” he added.
The criticisms appear to contradict each other: How could the articles both disclose information that threatens national security and be a sensationalized recount of “generally well-known” information?
“That is so counterintuitive, I can’t believe it,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where Priest serves on the steering committee.
By exposing the vast expanse of national security agencies and their burgeoning staff and private contracts, the investigation pressures policy makers to improve the efficiency of national security agencies and make the country safer, some supporters argue.
“There are an incredible number of people in the country who are authorized to see secret information,” Dalglish said. “There is no way they are all going to be as careful with the information as they should be.”
According to The Washington Post, an estimated 854,000 people have top-secret security clearances, nearly one-third of who are employed by private contractors. There are 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private firms in 10,000 locations that work on counterterrorism.
“Transparency like this can enhance the quality of that discussion,” Alexander wrote in his column. “And that can lead to greater security.”
Alexander, who is independent from the newspaper and not a member of its staff, said the Post was cautious in its decision to disclose – and withhold – information. “Top Secret America” was compiled from public documents, tools employed by most investigative journalists.
Many national security journalists and experts said they already knew most of what Priest reported in “Top Secret America.” For those inside the beltway, there were few surprises.
For the American public outside Washington, however, the story holds revelations that could change the way people view the government and choose their elected officials, Dalglish said. But the story hasn’t generated as much interest outside the nation’s capital and nucleus of the Washington Post’s readership. Local media now have the responsibility to make the story relevant to Americans outside the Washington bubble of national security experts and journalists, Dalglish said.
“This demonstrates why there is still a role in the world for journalists,” Dalglish said.
Heather Somerville is a national security reporter for Medill News Service. She wrote this blog for Washington Reporting 2.0 to explore reactions to an investigation by The Washington Post, a series on national security that dominated discourse across the nation’s capital following its July 2010 publication.