Teacher:In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: The nation’s top spy has prohibited all of his spies from talking with reporters about “intelligence-related information” unless officially authorized to speak. Intelligence Community Directive 119, signed by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper last month and made public Monday in a report by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, threatens to reduce the flow of information from the national security establishment to the press — and hence the public. 
  
 As Aftergood notes, Directive 119 does not merely bar intelligence community employees from sharing classified intelligence information with reporters. It also bars the discussion with the media of unclassified intelligence information “related” to intelligence. Under Directive 119, any and all conversations between spooks and reporters not explicitly authorized by top officials will be criminalized at the worst or potentially put intelligence employees out of a job at the least. The same discussion of unclassified matters between an intelligence community employee and a non-reporter would be allowed, Aftergood further notes. 
  
 Directive 119 increases the insularity of the national security state, making the public less safe, not more. Until this directive was issued, intelligence community employees could provide subtext and context for the stories produced by the national security press without breaking the law. Starting now, every news story about the national security establishment that rates disfavor with the national security establishment — no matter how innocuous — will rate a full-bore investigation of sources by authorities. 
  
 Directive 119 achieves through executive order much of what the spooks tried to accomplish legislatively in the summer of 2012, when the Senate Intelligence Committee approved a measure that would have banned background briefings between reporters and all intelligence officials except “press officers and agency directors or deputy directors,” as Reuters correspondent Mark Hosenball reported. Such briefings have been routine during most recent presidential administrations, Hosenball wrote. An avalanche of protests smothered the measure, killing it until Clapper resurrected elements of it in Directive 119. 
  
 The tussle between secret-keepers in government and the secret-sharers in the press goes back to the founding of the republic, as Rahul Sagar delineates in his recent book Secrets and Leaks: The Dilemma of State Secrecy, which I reviewed earlier this year. Efforts like Directive 119 — designed to restrict the flow of information — can lead to unintended results, Sagar found. By tightening the normal circle of secrecy, a president automatically reduces the number of advisers he can draw on to make decisions, and this reduces the amount of brainpower that can shine on an intelligence issue or a foreign crisis and increases conformity. Administrations that “turn inward” tend to exclude dissidents and doubters — emboldening loyalists and suck-ups, and hindering oversight and debate. 
  
 One excessively ingrown presidential administration, as you may recall, acted on its excessively ingrown intelligence information and analysis to invade a foreign land to capture diabolical biological and chemical weapons that didn’t exist. If ever we needed more unauthorized leaks to neutralize all the authorized leaks of bogus information to gullible reporters, it was during the prelude to that war. 
  
 Congress would have little idea of what the White House was doing if not for news reports based on leaks of classified information, Sagar writes, making the leaks and the press reports essential to governance and the avoidance of an imperial presidency. He quotes former Representative Norman Mineta, who as a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence once said, “We are like mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us a lot of manure.” 
  
 But don’t weep for Congress. They‚Äôre the ones who criminalized leaks of classified information in the first place. This paradox, noted by Sagar, means Congress prohibits the very sustenance required to keep itself informed about the executive branch. As an executive order, Directive 119 impinges on the authority of Congress to police the president: In a perfect world Congress would refuse the manure being fed to it, demand real information, and legislate a reversal of Directive 119. On the other hand, if you liked the war in Iraq, you’ll love Directive 119. 
  
 Another of Sagar’s findings, worthy of mention in the Directive 119 discussion, is that extreme state-secrecy tends to short-circuit the checks and balancing process that keeps the president from vectoring off in a dictatorial direction. Members of Congress who criticize an administration‚Äôs national security policies can find themselves marginalized in debates by a strong-armed president, as was the case with Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). As a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Wyden knew much about the National Security Agency’s runaway surveillance programs. But owing to the position of trust he occupied, he could not inform the public of those programs in a way that would allow them to be debated. Not until NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked his stash to reporters Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman (talk about unauthorized contact between an intelligence community employee and the press!) was an honest and needed debate about domestic surveillance possible. 
  
 Directive 119 might make sense if the administration could point to a pattern of unauthorized discussions that has done lasting damage to national security. But that it does not do. Instead, it tightens the circle. And it feeds us all another helping of dung. 
  
 ****** 
  
 My favorite quotation cited in Secrets and Leaks: “[A]n increase in the secrecy of governmental action may be taken as an index of the draft for the garrison state in America.” Send your favorites to Shafer.Reuters@gmail.com and watch my Twitter feed for quotations from the work of Ben Hecht. Sign up for email notifications of new Shafer columns (and other occasional announcements). Subscribe to this RSS feed for new Shafer columns. 
  
 PHOTOS: Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper appears before the House Intelligence Committee on “Worldwide Threats” in Washington February 4, 2014. REUTERS/Gary Cameron¬† 
  
 Accused government whistleblower Edward Snowden is seen on a screen as he speaks via video conference with members of the Committee on legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe during a hearing on “mass surveillance” at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler¬† ||||| The Director of National Intelligence has forbidden most intelligence community employees from discussing “intelligence-related information” with a reporter unless they have specific authorization to do so, according to an Intelligence Community Directive that was issued last month. 
  
 “IC employees… must obtain authorization for contacts with the media” on intelligence-related matters, and “must also report… unplanned or unintentional contact with the media on covered matters,” the Directive stated. 
  
 The new Directive reflects — and escalates — tensions between the government and the press over leaks of classified information. It is intended “to mitigate risks of unauthorized disclosures of intelligence-related matters that may result from such contacts.” See Intelligence Community Directive 119, Media Contacts, March 20, 2014. 
  
 Significantly, however, the new prohibition does not distinguish between classified and unclassified intelligence information. The “covered matters” that require prior authorization before an employee may discuss them with a reporter extend to any topic that is “related” to intelligence, irrespective of its classification status. 
  
 The Directive prohibits unauthorized “contact with the media about intelligence-related information, including intelligence sources, methods, activities, and judgments (hereafter, ‘covered matters’).” 
  
 If an employee’s contact with the media involves an unauthorized disclosure of classified information, then he could be subject to criminal prosecution. But even if classified information were not communicated to the reporter, the Directive indicates, violation of the new policy “at a minimum… will be handled in the same manner as a security violation.” 
  
 “IC employees who are found to be in violation of this IC policy may be subject to administrative actions that may include revocation of security clearance or termination of employment,” the Directive states. 
  
 The new Directive creates an anomalous situation in which routine interactions that are permissible between an intelligence employee and an ordinary member of the public are now to be prohibited if that member of the public qualifies as “media.” 
  
 So under most circumstances, an intelligence community employee is at liberty to discuss unclassified “intelligence-related information” with his or her next-door neighbor. But if the neighbor happened to be a member of the media, then the contact would be prohibited altogether without prior authorization. 
  
 Meanwhile, the Directive defines membership in “the media” expansively. It is not necessary to be a credentialed reporter for an established news organization. It is sufficient to be “any person… engaged in the collection, production, or dissemination to the public of information in any form related to topics of national security….” 
  
 Moreover, even approved contacts are to be formally documented for future review. “IC elements should ensure their records on media contacts are sufficient to support executive and legislative branch oversight requirements.” 
  
 Essentially, the Directive seeks to ensure that the only contacts that occur between intelligence community employees and the press are those that have been approved in advance. Henceforward, the only news about intelligence is to be authorized news. 
  
 The IC policy bears some resemblance to a proposal that was advanced by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2012, and then withdrawn in response to widespread criticism. 
  
 The Senate’s initial version of the FY2012 intelligence authorization act (Section 506) would have required that only specifically designated officials would be permitted to provide “background or off-the-record information regarding intelligence activities to the media.” 
  
 That provision would “lead to a less-informed debate on national security issues, by prohibiting nearly all intelligence agency employees from providing briefings to the press, unless those employees give their names and provide the briefing on the record,” said Sen. Ron Wyden at the time. 
  
 “I haven’t seen any evidence that prohibiting the intelligence agencies from providing these briefings would benefit national security in any way, so I see no reason to limit the flow of information in this manner,” he said then. 
  
 Likewise, there is no particular reason to think that routine interactions between intelligence agency employees and reporters — especially on unclassified matters — pose any kind of threat to national security, or that limiting them will offer any benefit. However, the new policy is likely to be effective in reducing the quality, independence and critical content of intelligence-related information that is available to the press and the public. 
  
 “I think we are going to make headway over the next few weeks on media leaks,” said outgoing National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander at an event on March 4. At the time, it was unclear what he was referring to, but he might have had the March 20 Intelligence Community Directive 119 in mind. 
  
  |||||
Student:
The nation's intelligence chief has issued a new directive that severely clamps down on his underlings' ability to talk to reporters, reports the Federation of American Scientists. James Clapper's intent with Directive 119 is to eliminate leaks of classified information and thus make the country safer. Instead, this bone-headed directive—which makes even the discussion of non-classified information off-limits—will do just the opposite, writes Jack Shafer at Reuters. One big problem is that the move "increases the insularity of the national security state," and insularity can be a dangerous thing. Instead of healthy debates about national security, we get an ever-shrinking circle of yes-men decision-makers. "One excessively ingrown presidential administration, as you may recall, acted on its excessively ingrown intelligence information and analysis to invade a foreign land to capture diabolical biological and chemical weapons that didn’t exist," writes Shafer. If only we had "more unauthorized leaks to neutralize all the authorized leaks of bogus information to gullible reporters," we might have saved ourselves from a war. Click for his full column, which draws from lessons offered in the new book Secrets and Leaks by Rahul Sagar.