Intel Chief Bans Employees From ‘Unauthorized’ Media Contact
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is banning employees in the intelligence community from talking to anyone in the media without prior authorization.
The directive orders that contact between US intelligence employees and the media regarding such issues “must be authorized by their IC [intelligence community] element,” such as the agency chief, his or her deputy, or a public-affairs official. “Unplanned or unintentional contact with the media” must be reported to the relevant agency’s public affairs office…
“The new policy will make it harder for reporters to discover and to report facts and opinions that are at odds with the official line,” said Steven Aftergood, the Federation of American Scientists intelligence analyst who first blogged about the directive.
“Some of the best reporting on the lead-up to the Iraq war described dissenting views about the state of Iraq’s nuclear program. Those kinds of ‘unauthorized’ perspectives are going to be tougher to find and to present to the public.”
