At 01:19 AM 2/23/02, you wrote: >It is true that there has been in the past a nexus between the CIA and >large American media outlets. But it is also true that most >publications would likely to what the WSJ did (share PC contents with >the Feds) if the situtation were the same. > >In other words, the WSJ did what everyone else would do. Doesn't seem >like a big deal to me.
If the press is known to serve as a contracted or volunteering conduit for its home country intelligence agencies, then the target country will treat the press of the adversary country as it would intelligence agents of that country. It will kidnap them, disappear them, publicly murder them, convict them, imprison them, etc. That means that the press will be endangered, and it means that there will be less press coverage inside the target country by the press on "our" side. The "other" press can be dismissed as propagandists, and their facilities can be jammed, cluster bombed, etc. "Our" defense department wins the information battle, given the absence of any contrary information. As if it were needed, "our" press further assists this by screening/censoring itself in what it will let us see (a la bin Laden tapes). That means that we will hear what the defense department releases to the press. You can debate whether or not the current claims to not do disinformation as earlier floated, is disinformation, itself. The press, and the information consumer, loses. For nation-states with laws or traditions along the lines of the US first amendment that make frontal legal attacks on information gathering and dissemination problematic, this is a productive way to side step those complicating issues and enlist your adversary in the violent distruction of the information flow by killing "our" press. Our adversaries kill and chill "our" press on "our" behalf, reducing the story sources to "our" defense department. It's the practical application of game theory. It doesn't really matter whether or not the press is acting as a surrogate intel agency for its country; it is sufficient that the target country suspect that it is. That is sufficient reason for the intel agencies to disavow any prohibition of that usage of the press. Wherever a person in the press gets dangerous, a little disinformation from an intel agency can paint a target on him and his location (he does have to transmit content, which broadcasts his coordinates to sigint). Poof - end of story, and the blood is on the hands of the evil enemy while "our" intel agency has plausible deniability. "our" and "other" vary as the sides shift (see eastasian-eurasian, mujahadeen-taliban, evil empire-russia, etc.) One wonders how deeply the WSJ thought through this.
