It's very common for "technical details" of a system to receive a different classification than the "fact of existence" of said system.

In other words, it's widely known that the Navy has a system for listening. The internal designation, capabilities and limits of operation are not widely known and that information should be kept secret.

> The Navy asked that the specific system used not be named, citing national security concerns.

So the name, and internal designation, is "top secret"? You're saying the capabilities are also secret but the newspaper just reported the data it generated, which certainly suggests what its capabilities are.

And why is it "widely known" that the military has this listening system? If it's really "top secret" then no, the public shouldn't know about it. Seems like everything is "top secret" until someone wants to show off all the cool toys.

I think existence of automatic surveillance isn't a secret.

The secret bits would include what this can detect, but I guess the presumption here is that an imploding civilian sub is easier to hear than a Russian military sub. So not really giving anything away.

That's ridiculous though, either it is "top secret" or it isn't. There shouldn't be some arbitrary sliding scale of what's ok to reveal and what's not.

There kinda is though, this is true for almost all military gear: it's quite hard to hide the existance of a new tank once you're actually making it in large quantities, for example, but the detailed drawings of it, and the test results showing the strengths and weaknesses of it will be varying levels of secret. In the case of a listening system, it's the kind of thing which is pretty obvious to do, but the exact nature and means of it being secret makes sense (cageyness about the name of the system is odder: but it may be a concern about revealing exactly which system this came from, assuming there's multiple, for correlation with other information which may be less public).

(The same thing happened with the snowden leaks, BTW: it was suspected for a long time that the NSA or FBI had a survellance system similar to PRISM, because it's the kind of thing that they would want to do and have the means to do, even absent any concrete evidence of its existance. The leaks just confirmed the existance undeniably and also showed how extensive it was)

I'll note that Snowden, whatever you think of him, had the balls to come forward and put his name on all his disclosures. He got help from journalists as far as summarizing and prioritizing and coordinating with major newspapers but he never was "an anonymous source" or "a person with knowledge of the meeting."

As to the other points, when some top secret info does get revealed, legally or not, and the public reaction is pretty much, ehh, we already assumed that -- that seems like a pretty big failing of the whole concept of "secret." And on the other hand, I'll grant you a few exceptions, like the names of spies, position of gear or troops, perhaps the detailed weapons specs like you mentioned -- but when the name of this system is "top secret" and seemingly well over 90% of what is marked "classified" lacks any informational value whatsoever, that's a failing in the other direction, people stop caring about "secret" because so little of it is actually important.

It's usually illegal for the person to tell the reporter, but legal for the reporter to repeat what he was told. Notice that the Navy asked (not told) the reporter to withhold certain details.

I can understand that, if the reporter is not aware that the information is secret. But clearly they do know this is a "top secret" system, it's in the headline, so I'd assume the plausible deniability excuse doesn't apply.

It's not about plausible deniability. They know the information is top secret. They asked the Navy for comment and were probably told that.

The 1st amendment still protects the reporter. They are legally in the clear. The person who told them is not.

The First Amendment doesn't mention anything about secrets, that's not what this is about. If I sell you a stolen item, and you know it is stolen, you're guilty of a crime. If you later try to sell or move those goods, that's a more severe crime, fencing. In this case the reporter is obtaining "stolen" information and passing it along, it's exactly the "fencing" of information.

I'm aware this practice has been going on for decades, people leaking private and/or classified information, often illegally. But it's like money laundering, just "info" laundering through an "unnamed source," and it feels pretty sleazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_of_stolen_goods

Normal citizens have no obligation to keep the secrets of any government organisation. It is the person who holds security clearance that leaks the document that commits a crime, whereas journalists have a constitutionally protected right to publish. It's not sleazy, and is part of a healthy system that holds governments to account.

eh, not quite. The laws which protect secret information apply to everyone (it does require that you have reason to believe the information is secret, but it does not require that you have clearance). There are however quite powerful defenses considering the 1st amendment, especially for journalists (in other countries this often much less strong, though usually there's something analogous. For example the somewhat famous idea of signing the official secrets act in the UK doesn't mean anything except that the penalties for breaking it get more severe: you can still expect to be prosecuted under it if you are handed information marked as secret and then pass it on, unless you can succesfully argue that it is somehow in the public interest for it to be published).

"holding governments to account" is rarely a function of classified information, it's typically revelation of some corruption that was found via some kind of investigative work -- and almost always via public documents, hence the importance of the FOIA.

When leaked classified documents show something highly troubling, like the Snowden leaks or Wikileaks, the government doubles down and does everything it can to punish those leakers to the maximum extent, which is not what a "healthy system" would do to a whistleblower exposing illegal or corrupt activity.

The Supreme Court had ruled that the publication of secret information is a first amendment issue[0]. Stolen information is fine. Theft has not a thing to do with it.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United...

The First Amendment is a constant, like a straight line, applicable to every American and all speech. The First Amendment gives you the right to say anything. However, the courts have recognized that there are a few rules that supersede even the First Amendment -- the classic "can't say fire in a crowded theater," but also libel, blatantly false advertising, etc. It's not that the First Amendment doesn't apply, but some other law or rule has higher priority, i.e. above that flat, constant line that is the 1st.

A government official privy to classified information is subject to secrecy rules that supersede the 1st. The question at issue is whether a journalist who becomes privy to the the same classified information is subject to the same rules. "The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information." i.e. which takes priority, the 1st, or rules about secrecy (the Espionage Act, in this case).

From your wikipedia article: "New York Times v. United States ... did not void the Espionage Act or give the press unlimited freedom to publish classified documents." The Court did not say that journalists have free reign, they simply refused to grant an injunction against publication. While this, and subsequent cases, certainly signal wide breadth of press freedom, it's not absolute and not a guarantee against a future prosecution.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/22/521009791...

FBI Director James Comey demurred. "That's a harder question, as to whether a reporter incurs criminal liability by publishing classified information," Comey said.

freedom of the press is not absolute, even in the U.S. According to a recent paper from the Congressional Research Service, the question is far from settled

The justices didn't block the government from exercising what's called "prior restraint" — that is, preventing a news organization from publishing or broadcasting news.