When I was at CIA or NSA , my public affairs staff would sometimes enlist me to intervene with an editor to stop the publication of what we viewed to be classified information . I would invariably begin the conversation with the journalist by pointing out that I knew that , `` We both have a job to do protect American security and liberty , but how you 're about to do yours is going to make it harder for me to do mine . '' That introduction reflected my true feelings , so—like most Americans—I am conflicted about the current row over protecting press freedom and protecting national secrets . Let me be clear . The two prominent cases being debated were indeed serious leaks , because they touched upon sources , not just information . In the case of the Associated Press report on a Yemen-based bomb plot , the source had apparently penetrated an al Qaeda network and there were hopes that he could continue to be exploited . In the Fox News report on North Korea 's intention to test a nuclear weapon , James Rosen told us not just that the United States judged that Pyongyang would respond to impending sanctions with a test . He pointedly added that a source in North Korea had told us so . These kinds of stories get people killed . While at CIA I recounted to a group of news bureau chiefs that , when an agency presence in a denied area had been revealed in the media , two assets had been detained and executed . The CIA site there wrote : `` Regret that we can not address this loss of life with the person who decided to leak our mission to the newspapers . '' And , since the Yemen source appears to have actually been recruited by a liaison partner , the impact of a leak goes far beyond our own service . In that same talk with bureau chiefs , I pointed out that several years before 9/11 , one chief of station reported that a press leak of liaison intelligence had `` put us out of the ( Osama ) bin Laden reporting business '' . In both stories , investigations were in order . Journalists , of all people , should understand the need to protect sources and relationships . But the investigations have been very aggressive and the acquisition of journalists ' communications records has been broad , invasive , secret and—one suspects—unnecessary . A quick survey of former Bush administration colleagues confirmed my belief that a proposal to sweep up a trove of AP phone records or James Rosen 's e-mails would have had a half-life of about 30 seconds in that administration . And , although Rosen seems to have worked his source with tradecraft and elicitation techniques more reminiscent of a case officer than a press conference , charges of co-conspiracy and flight risk are quite a stretch . If this had been a Predator strike rather than an investigation , we would have judged the target ( leaks and leakers ) to have been legitimate , but the collateral damage ( squeezing the First Amendment and chilling legitimate press activity ) to have been prohibitive . Which brings me back to being conflicted and to a sense of resignation that this legitimate free press-legitimate government secrets thing is a condition we will have to manage , not a problem that we will solve . When the press decides to publish something that the government considers classified , it is assuming for itself an inherently governmental function . And as David Ignatius once pointed out , `` We journalists usually try to argue that we have carefully weighed the pros and cons and believe that the public benefit of disclosure outweighs any potential harm . The problem is that we are n't fully qualified to make those judgments . '' True enough , but no one who has served in government would claim that the public release of every document marked with a classification stamp would actually harm American security . Over-classification is common . Government confuses things further with controlled releases of formerly classified data for both policy and political reasons . So many anonymous government officials have commented on drones and targeted killings in recent years that I told a Senate committee last summer that I simply did not know what of my personal knowledge of those programs I could or could not publicly discuss . If there exists a body of information that can fairly be labeled `` publicly known but still officially classified , '' the protection of truly secret data will be eroded . When lines are not bright , it is more likely that even well intentioned people will end up on the wrong side of them . The problem promises to get harder , not easier . While at CIA I asked my civilian advisory board to consider whether America would be able to conduct espionage in the future within a political culture that seemed to every day demand more transparency and more public accountability from every aspect of national life . They were n't optimistic . Beyond this cultural trend , modern technology arms inquisitive journalists with powerful tools to gather and link disparate data , to turn what were once globally dispersed shards of glass into revealing mosaics . Many things intended to be secret , like the airlift of Croatian weapons to Syria , simply do n't stay that way . So , how do we limit the damage ? Well , journalists will have to expand the kind of sensitivities to the national welfare that some already show . In those calls I made to slow , scotch or amend a pending story , most on the other end of the line were open to reasonable arguments . In one case a writer willingly changed a reference that had read `` based on intercepts '' to `` based on intelligence reports , '' somewhat amazed that that change made much of a difference . ( It did . ) The government may also want to adjust its approach to enforcement . The current tsunami of leak prosecutions is based largely on the Espionage Act , a blunt World War I statute designed to punish aiding the enemy . It 's sometimes a tough fit . The leak case against former National Security Agency employee Thomas Drake collapsed of its own overreach in 2011 . Perhaps in many of these cases the best approach is not through the courts or the Department of Justice . Intelligence agency heads should be urged to make fuller use of their administrative authorities to suspend or dismiss employees or to lift clearances—actions with a lower threshold than criminal prosecutions but whose promptness , frequency and certainty could still deter many unauthorized disclosures . Finally , we should ( belatedly ) admit that there is some common ground here . Intelligence agencies often act on the edges of executive prerogative and move forward based on a narrow base of lawfulness and limited congressional notification—and these are often sufficient to underpin a one-off covert action . But democracies do n't get to do anything repeatedly over a long period ( like drone strikes and targeted killings ) without political support—and political support is the end point of a process that begins with informed debate . Informed debate depends on information , the kind that most journalists seek . We can not make public the nation 's legitimate secrets , but Americans need a broad outline of what is being done on their behalf . Ironically , the public dialogue generated by a free press may be one of the best guarantors that the Republic will , in the future , be able to act boldly ( and occasionally secretly ) in its own defense .
Ex - CIA director , says the AP , Fox reports were serious , and related to sources of intelligence . He says even though leaks were damaging , the administration went too far in its probes . He says there 's a need to balance state secrets against freedom of the press .