Nothing titillates the nation’s capital like a sex scandal masquerading
as a policy controversy. The American news media will use any
excuse to get into public officials’ private lives so it can try to achieve
the ratings of Entertainment Tonight-style celebrity gossip shows while
maintaining a veneer of “responsible journalism.” In America’s
unique celebrity-driven culture, this phenomenon happens in political
campaigns as well as the current scandal involving David Petraeus, the
recently cashiered CIA spy chief.
However, the thin national security implications of this scandal have
put the American media out on a limb. In the Petraeus case, the compromise of secrets does not seem to have been an issue,
and no laws seem to have been broken (in the case of Gen. John
Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, adultery can be a crime in the
tradition-oriented military, even in this day in age). So the
sensationalist American media risks looking as if it’s just digging for,
well … details of top U.S. officials’ sexual relationships — the ultimate
in gotcha political journalism.
The U.S. media badly needs some political cover to continue getting to
the bottom of this scintillating story. Here’s an angle that might actually help the country. The
real scandal doesn’t involve sex, spy agencies, or the U.S. military; it
involves the FBI’s role and its potential violation of the civil
liberties of those officials and people targeted in the investigation.
The FBI seemingly opened an investigation into the cybercrime of
threatening emails when Jill Kelley, a friend of David Petraeus, showed
emails she received from Paula Broadwell, the alleged paramour of
Petraeus, to a friend who was an FBI agent. Such access. The
ultimate gumshoe investigation — at great government expense and
opportunity cost in investigating real cyber threats in an age of
cyberterrorism — apparently uncovered only harassing emails in perhaps a
romantic rivalry, a tawdry private extramarital affair that was none of
the government’s business, and no breach of security. The FBI
should have dropped the matter long ago.
One can’t help but wonder if the FBI, which has a mutual historical
hatred of the CIA, didn’t continue the investigation and leak it to take
down the CIA’s leader and his theretofore golden-boy reputation.
Yet David Petraeus is now out of a job and has his career at least
damaged; Gen. Allen is now being investigated by the Department of
Defense’s inspector general for “inappropriate communication” with
Kelley after the FBI turned over a treasure trove of tens of
thousands of pages of emails through which it snooped. Allen’s
promotion to supreme allied commander of NATO forces is on hold
while the sifting of perhaps steamy emails continues.
Rather than spending taxpayer dollars on further investigation of such
merely personal matters, maybe our federal snooping agencies should
focus their efforts on real national security investigations.
The American media will probably not focus on this mundane federal abuse
of privacy and civil liberties when there are potentially salacious
details in the air. After all, some of the actual emails may
eventually be aired, sending ratings soaring. Of course, in a free
society with commercial media, the media is only catering to what the
American people want — unfortunately many times, juicy sex scandals and
episodes where celebrities and the mighty have fallen.
But despite trends toward democratization, we still have a republic with
representative government, and the people’s representatives should be
concerned with people’s civil liberties and the FBI’s possible violation of
privacy in this case. The congressional intelligence committees
should also be concerned that they weren’t notified early on about the
FBI investigation of the CIA director. Maybe they could have
monitored the investigation and closed it down earlier. That’s
what checks and balances in constitutional government are supposed to
do. Congress can still thoroughly investigate the FBI’s handling
of this unseemly matter. And by the way, while at it, Congress
should also abolish the crime of adultery in the military. As in
the civilian sector, it may be a moral issue but should not be a crime
or even a reason to fire someone, unless it directly affects a
supervisor-employee relationship.
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