This is a story with three lessons.
One: Confidential government memos rarely stay private. Two: Good intentions can have bad outcomes. Three: Once a negative narrative takes hold, it’s nearly impossible to change it.
The story begins not with anything the news media did wrong, but the belief that an authorized and fully monitored interview for a routine story done by a local newspaper gave away a bit too much information, the kind of thing that might be useful for the enemy to know in a war.
This prompted a service wide reassessment, and a period of stepping back from media engagements on the fine art of practicing OPSEC, or Operational Security, something codified in the iconic World War II poster slogan, “Loose lips may sink ships.”
The offending story appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Washington Examiner’s sister paper, and was prompted by an Air Force press release touting the fact that the National Space Defense Center in Colorado Springs was entering a new phase with 24-hour operations, according to the article’s author.
The problem was after the story appeared, higher-ups questioned why the public affairs shop was being so forthcoming about identifying “a national center of gravity” to potential adversaries.
The center has a mission to protect the nation’s satellites.
A confidential memo was sent to all Air Force public affairs officers suspending all base visits, reporter embeds, and outreach to the media, while everyone got a refresher course on how to “avoid giving insights to our adversaries which could erode our military advantage.”
The memo leaked to Defense News, and an immediate firestorm of outrage ensued, not just from journalists, but also from retired military public affairs officers on Facebook and Twitter, who believed the stand-down would have a chilling effect on engagements with the media and the American public.
“If we do not inform the public on our activities within the bounds of OPSEC and other boundaries that we have all operated under in the past, then we ‘the services’ lose out on gaining and maintaining public support,” wrote retired Army Col. Steve Boylan, a former military briefer on Facebook.
The Military Reporters and Editors association, while expressing an understanding for the need for operational security, worried the policy is ripe for abuse.
“Given the ambiguity about what’s allowed and the message from the top stressing secrecy, officials who are wary about their careers may err on the side of withholding information,” said John Donnelly, the group’s president and a reporter with Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call. “In a worse case scenario, such guidance could be used to justify keeping out of public view data that may simply be embarrassing to the Air Force but that the U.S. citizenry needs to know.”
The Air Force’s top public affairs officer told the Washington Examiner the policy is not a gag order, and the OPSEC training will be completed in the coming weeks
“It’s not a freeze. We continue to do many press engagements daily,” said Brig. Gen. Ed Thomas. “We are fully committed — and passionate about — our duty and obligation to communicate to the American people.
“The DoD principles of ‘maximum disclosure with minimum delay’ remain foremost as we provide transparency while protecting operational security,” Thomas added.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct Ed Thomas’ rank. He is a brigadier general.
