Forward from "Journalism After Snowden"

The following is an excerpt from Lee Bollinger's forward to Journalism After Snowden: The Future of the Free Press in the Surveillance State. The anthology is edited by Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School. It was published by Columbia University Press in 2017.

"Every society that accepts the principle that government must operate under some degree of legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens faces this difficult question: How should it balance the government’s need to conduct its business with privacy, even secrecy, against the public’s need to have access to government information in order to exercise, meaningfully and intelligently, its responsibilities of oversight and ultimate sovereignty? The problem becomes more complex when, in practice and over time, it becomes clear that every government will vastly overuse its powers to operate out of public view and, most worrisome of all, will do its very utmost to hide from its citizens any evidence indicative of its mistakes, errors, or outright misconduct. Meanwhile, there are always some individuals inside the system ready and willing, for good and bad reasons and with good or bad judgment, to act as the conduit of information to those outside. These are the leakers. And, finally, there are those who engage with the leakers, perhaps even persuading them to don that role, who then make their own decisions, again for good and bad motives, about what to publish and what to withhold from publication.

This scene can be observed day after day and poses a host of vexing issues: What degree of secrecy does an effective government really need? What means does it possess to protect itself against unwarranted disclosures? What motivates leakers and what should be done with them? What harms to the nation have resulted from leaks? When people or institutions—notably, the press—receive improperly released information, how should they proceed? Consult with the government? Presume that the government will be right in its estimation of the harms that will ensue from publication? Or presume the opposite? What should happen to those who choose to publish the information in the public domain? This list reflects only the beginning of the dilemmas to be faced."

Learn more about Journalism After Snowden.