Communicating From Within the Shadows: The Israel Security Agency and the Media

摘要

Communicating with the media is an ongoing complicated task intelligence services tackle from the day they are established. The relationship is inherently tense because one side wishes to reveal what the other wishes to conceal, highlighting the constant contradiction between two major principles: the public's right to know versus the government's duty to protect national security. Reconciling these two principles becomes exceedingly complex during crisis situations because both the media and the public demand to know what is happening and why, whereas intelligence services can offer only limited and often incomplete information, a limitation imposed by the need to protect vital secrets. Moreover, the services frequently face a quandary: they are innately secretive and cannot advertise their accomplishments and successes, but these are commonly exposed when they fail. This distorts the natural balance other organizations are generally able to maintain between failures and achievements and any publicity about them.