Quarantine or hes in the hospital and they wonder whether hes going to die. And i havent checked the news the local news yet, because i still have it on cspan right now to see whether hes going to live or die. And continue to let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400. Email at comments at cspan. Org. Or send us a tweet cspan, comments. Now, the washington posts bob woodward moderates National Security. It was part of the annual sources and secrets conference from earlier this year. This is about 50 minutes. Do we get a cold start here or im bob woodward the washington post. Let me introduce the panel. Weve got a great group. First jane mayer who ive known for forever. It seems. Worked at the wall street journal, the new yorker now for almost 20 years. Its astonishing. Many journalism honors, especially for your 2008 book the dark side. How the war on terrorism turned into the war on american ideals. So thats one of those titles where you know where youre coming from. [ laughter ]. We have bob deitz in the middle here. The distinguished professor at George Maison of public policy. Hes been the con cig lee yarry to the Intelligence Community. Did you work for allen dulles or not. The first cia director. No. Bob was general counsel to the nsa for eight years. Is that correct . Amazing. He then was the counselor to the cia director general haden for three years. Has worked in defense department, state department and was unbelievably a law clerk to Justice William o douglas, one of the great civil libertarians. So well get to the question of what douglas would think of your career path. [ laughter ]. Mark mazzetti of the New York Times worked u. S. News, l. A. Times, shared in a pull itser prize for great reporting on afghanistan, pakistan and i think im going to say this from the point of view of the washington post, covers the particularly the Senate Intelligence committee better than anyone. And next to him at the end is peter maass, Senior Writer for new look media. First look. First look. Im sorry. Done a number of books including the book love the neighbor on bosnia the war in bosnia. Want to make this a conversation, not presentations. And do not hesitate to interrupt. Ill do the same, if thats okay. And our topic is the pearls of covering National Security. And i think well start with jane and go around. What is the what are the perils of covering National Security now . Well, i think its become harder in that i think that our sources are under more pressure than they used to be. And so ive had a source in particular during the bush years who was under investigation by the Justice Department for violating National Security and for having spoken to me. My phone number appeared on his cell phone apparently. And it ruined his life for quite a while. It was very expensive for him to get legal counsel. Do we know who this is . I dont think i should identify him but he was falsely accused and eventually cleared. But the point was, that during that period, you know, the cliche about what happens to the press in such situations is that it has a chilling effect. It wasnt just chilling, it was frozen. He couldnt speak. I couldnt speak to him. I was toxic to others who wouldnt want to get drawn into this snare this was the bush administration. This was during the bush years. And i dont think its probably loosened up a lot since, but it has when there are more legal risks for sources, theres not a clear dividing line between the sources and the journalism that comes from them. It becomes an issue for the reporters as well. We get people in trouble by interviewing them when we dont mean to. And when we dont need to . When we dont mean to. Right. We get them in trouble. We put them at legal risk. We cant guarantee that we are not going to put them at legal ric risk. It is hard to tell the truth. Holding them accountable is basically what were trying to do. So is it tougher now. Yeah. I think it is tougher now, for sure. Bob deitz. Inevitably in conferences like this theres a lot of talk about the risks that reporters undertake, editors undertake in reporting the news and, of course, the First Amendment makes it clear that news is important to the American People. The trouble i have is that while that goal, that role, is very important, the government also has an important goal and that is to keep the American People safe. You know, what were talking about here, National Security leaks, were not talking about leaks from the fda or the department of agriculture, were talking about leaks that may, in some circumstances, imperil the safety of the United States. Between those two issues, i think that the safety of the American People wins. Now, i understand the importance of the press the Important Role the press plays, but by hypothesis, stuff thats highly classified, provided to people who swear that they will not violate the confidentiality thats been provided them, and then go ahead and leak it and the press publishes it, to me they imperil the safety bob, do you think theres been examples of things that have been published that really have endangered the American People . Yes, i do. Example. If i could just tell the principle first and then give the example. Okay. The prings spl that in the intelligence area the leak ends up being the harm. You know, in other words, if something is leaked about some new military capability, yeah, thats serious, but the bad guys still have to figure out how to counter that new weapons system or new defense, whatever. In the intelligence area if you leak information about how information was acquired, the bad guys immediately know stop using that means of communication or that yeah, that means of communication. And thats i think very risky. So do you have an example . Yeah. I think that the i think that the leak involving that special nsa program during the bush years was very damaging. In what way . You were there at the nsa at the time. Yes. Yes. I was told and i think i was told responsibly that you would get a stream of data and then all of a sudden it would stop and you would see a corelation. It wasnt like anybody said, oh, wow, nsa is on to us and we must stop using this. You would get intercepts and then they would stop and you would see the correlation between the leak and the stopping of the communication. Okay. Mark, what do you think is the main peril of covering National Security. I agree with a lot of what james said about the difficulty these days. I dont think its ever been harder to do this kind of reporting. Its not only the theres a crackdown that has taken place on leakers and the number of investigations that create this climate that jane talked about. You also in the wake of the revelations over the last year about surveillance has created this, you know, perception among people that the surveillance is everywhere, right . And that everything is being watched. And so a similar experience to jane, you have people who you have developed relationships with over the years who wont talk anymore because theyre concerned. People who otherwise may have been, you know, on the fence who have never dealt with reporters who might be inclined to do it, you know, i think maybe second guess it and they start to think, whats in it for me to do this . You have phone calls with people you know, used to be sort of ironically talking on the phone and they say, so if anyone is listening to this call, im not revealing anything. Now actually people without any irony will say on the phone, whoever is listening to this call, i am not revealing classified just like its accepted that somebody is listening to this phone call, which is do you think they are . I mean, possibly. I think over the last again, over the last year, whether its people listening to my calls or my sources, you know, theyre trying to get the source. I think increasingly we certainly have to be under suspicion more and more than youre still able to function and work . You have to function differently. You have to be more careful certainly about electronic communication, about phone calls. Its less efficient, i suppose, and especially the daily paper that can be hard. So how do you communicate . Do you move the flower pot . You meet in parking garages. Its you know, you try to have more firstperson meetings. Theres also you know theres but to set those up. Its hard. You have to somehow set them up in some means by some means. And, you know, people are going to encrypt eed communications n. I think that if you do that, both sides have to be doing it, right . So i think that you know, the concern is about when youre a reporter and you want to get someone to be comfortable and to talk to you and youve never met this person, the first thing you say is, hi, im i want to talk to you and youve got to use this phone because otherwise youre going to go to jail. You know, who is going to want to talk . Again so do you use encrypted communication . I dont know how much i should say. Yes, i do. Well, you decide. But its more recent. I didnt use to. And thats got to be you are talking to somebody for the first time or for the 20th time and say, lets go encrypted. Arent they smart enough to realize that automatically that is an admission that theres some sort of transaction going on people surveilling the situation no. If they find out x, y and z have established encrypted communications with the intelligence reporter for the New York Times, thats semiincriminating, right, mr. Deitz . Yes. So how do you i think we can all agree on that. Right. Maybe we were just talking about sports. Okay. But look, peter, thats the main peril here. Well, first off, to kind of respectfully disagree with what bob said here about leaks being the harm. I think in many cases the lack of leaks is the harm. If there had been more leaks for example in 2002 2003 upon the decision to invade iraq was made, our National Security would have been better rather than harmed. Thats just kind of basic point we can talk more about that perhaps. But, you know, it is more difficult for everybody up here, for people in the audience, for people who are watching. You know, one example ill give is couple of a number of months ago somebody, if youre asking how this works and how it doesnt work, a number of months ago somebody contacted me through a friend and had something that this person wanted to kind of talk about and provide to me that related to iraq and it wasnt monumental but it was interesting. And i stied this person, okay. And we were talking not through phones that could be traced to me, at least. Dont send it to me via email. Print it out and here is the address, send it to me over the mail because at this moment in time, i think mail is more secure than email for certain things. And this was a workaround, which did not work because i never received this material, either it was intercepted or wasnt sent. I believe it wasnt sent. And so having to set up that kind of security operation obviously affected the fact that this person did not provide the material. And that is a cost, a tax in a way on this new era that were in. Yes, sources will not come forward. But i would say that on the other hand and this is why i dont like necessarily the framing of this in such a dur ridgelike way. We as journalists are presented now with this incredible dhajing, exciting story. Kind of the story of our lives. I feel like ive had several of these stories of our lives and its hard and what is that story . Just define it. In my view, challenges to the fourth and First Amendment of the United States constitution, which involves a crackdown on journalists ourselves and our sources and i think that we have this incredible role to play to expose what is going on to try to prevent it from continuing to go on. And this is you know, i covered in most of my life overseas conflicts, you know, made my name, i guess n a way in bosnia first. And, boy, there was a people aa, that people didnt care very much and it was difficult to cover because it was hard to make people here understand why it would affect this country, america, and their lives and i couldnt make a very persuasive argument about that. But, boy, when youre talking about challenges to the first and Fourth Amendments of the constitution, you are talking about how life is lived, how our democracy exists what the future of your children is as members of a free society. Thats a much easier argument to make and much more important than some slaughter of people. And i find myself as passionate about this story as i did about genocide. Okay. Jane go ahead. I was going to say, to bob was that i think whats hard from one of the things thats difficult from a standpoint of the press is the way that the National Security community sometimes and you in this case, define whats protecting the American Public. Its not as if the press is trying to harm the American Public. I accept that. We just define it as a stronger country when theres a free flow of ideas, when theres consent of the governed because they understand what the programs are that you are implementing in their name and we feel that even bad news sometimes strengthens the country because the rest of the world gets to see that our transparency and our accountable system. And so, its a larger framing of what National Security is, but because of the panel before defined it, because of the way the executive branch has kind of a monopoly on defining what National Security is, you get to put your own parameters on it and define us as outside of it sometimes. But were not trying to harm the country by writing these stories. In fact, i think most reporters feel that they are really helping by getting this information out to the voters. I accept most of what you said. I mean, i, too, agree that reporters are not out to undermine the country. But i also am very clear in my mind that reporters often do not understand why something can be harmful or why certain kinds of things would be guarded. Now, one of the arguments thats always dragged out in these kinds of meetings is the overclassification of materials. And i accept that. Im sure they are. This is not, i think, caused generally by evil intentions. I think its that when people are writing reports, you know, there are three different classification levels. Most people just put the default, top secret. Now, there ought to be a way of addressing that, for sure. Okay. But reporters are not helpless in this . Bob deitz, youre saying, oh, look, reporters dont understand the implications of publishing some of this stuff, but, i mean, as im sure mark and peter and jane can testify to, when you find out something, you go to the government. Uhhuh. And you engage in lets be honest a negotiation of sorts yep. And a listening like one of hilalary clintons listening tours, you go listen and you say what is the argument that this is going to cause harm. And if you look at the snowden case in my own newspaper, the washington post, we have been extremely careful about what we have published. Agreed. Always going with the government. And the government making their case. And i think ering on the side, okay, the government says this. Lets listen. Does it make sense. And so there is a lot left out. So im not sure i mean, you kind of are suggesting that the reporters are a bunch of people rushing in to it and just kind of publishing willy nilly. Thats not the way it works. Is that right, mark . Sure. On any beat you cover, right, youll be calling for comment, youll be going to the agency youre writing about. Its happening far more used to than it used to where the government pushes back to try to get you to not publish. We i think keep pretty high standards for what we would not publish and there are different standards that if the government is making a case that this does specific harm to specific individuals, this story im talking about, thats one thing. And we listen to it really seriously. If the argument, as was the case in many many of the wikileaks arguments, this is going to be really embarrassing for us, the government. It will hurt that is a lower standard and usually thats not a reason not to publish. And when you go to the government, you learn all kinds of things. First of all, you get a second or third source, if you can get them to validate what you have, which makes sleep much easier at night. And often in those its not just a matter of calling and saying, i want your onesentence comment. Its meeting with people. Its having serious discussions. Sometimes weeks or months go by before some of these stories are published. I think were finally beginning to learn what bob woodward does. Well the inside story. Well, but it makes sense. And ive been in the oval office and the seventh floor of the cia and other places where people have said if you publish this, you know, recently somebody said if you publish this, we could lose a war. Well, that gets your attention and you listen very, very carefully. No, i agree. Pretty much everything that i wrote in the book, the dark side i ran by the authorities at the cia just to check it, make sure it was correct, which is incredibly important, and see basically if it was going to cause some kind of undue harm. And, you know, we didnt always agree, but at least i was able to weigh their arguments and see what whether i thought they make sense. Mark, go ahead. Classification. I dont think its just a question of whether something is overclassified because we all agree that generally things are. Its really that i dont think theres a period in the countrys history where the basic the entire war is conducted in a classified manner, right . It is a secret war. Theres been the wars of iraq and afghanistan but so much of it is intelligence wars and wars carried out clan december tently and theyre still secretly even when they shouldnt be by the drone strikes. Theyre not secret but theyre technically still classified. The government will there are people in the government who will officially validate and discuss those. But they still wont cut after a strike come up and stand up and say