The way some in government and national security agencies view publication of certain sensitive information reveals the obvious strain on journalism.
They see it as the equivalent of handling stolen goods.
Not only is leaking classified information against the law but, as the law contends, so too is publishing those details.
Publication of classified material is treated as if it were a pilfered watch or laptop, regardless of the public interest in its exposure.
So it is with the dossier of defence secrets at the heart of an investigation into ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, one of whom — Mr Oakes — faces the prospect of criminal prosecution.
If — and it is still an if — the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) wants to pursue Mr Oakes in a criminal court, Attorney-General Christian Porter will have to decide whether the charges should be laid.
While the Government claims this extra level of scrutiny better protects journalists, it raises the question as to whether the fate of the free press should lie in a politician's pen.
Publishing prompts police probe
In 2017, the ABC published a series of stories, now known as The Afghan Files, detailing serious allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
The story was based on leaked, classified information, prompting the Defence Department to call in the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to investigate the source.
Those stories are still online. The ABC maintains the accuracy of the reporting has never been challenged.
The police inquiry ran alongside a second AFP probe into a leak to News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst, on a separate story also based on classified information.
The two investigations reached fever pitch when officers raided Ms Smethurst's Canberra home, and the ABC's Sydney headquarters on consecutive days in June 2019 — spurring global headlines and accusations Australia was becoming a police state, where press freedom was under serious attack.
Signing on the dotted line
In the months after the raids, the nation's chief law officer stepped into the fray.
Christian Porter, a former state prosecutor in his home patch of Western Australia, issued a practice direction requiring Commonwealth lawyers to get his approval before launching any prosecutions.
It was a move made without concession from the Federal Government that the dial had swung too far in favour of national security over the public's right to know on issues the establishment wanted kept under wraps. The Coalition had commissioned Federal Parliament's powerful Intelligence and Security Committee to investigate that matter.
Mr Porter's decision was welcomed by some, who viewed it as a roadblock to reporters being forced to sit in the dock. There's little appetite in government ranks for journalists being pursued in the criminal courts.
But the Attorney-General's direction to Commonwealth lawyers was also seen as effective acknowledgment that the national security framework was too strict — or at the very least, journalists were not intended targets.
The move made some uneasy. Critics, including the media union, argue an elected politician now holds all the cards.
It's an argument, at its most extreme, that suggests a government wouldn't be keen to drop a prosecution of a particularly troublesome journalist.
A matter of process
The Attorney-General has a number of oversight roles built into legislation — a lot of which deal with national security, terrorism and serious Commonwealth criminal offences.
For example, Mr Porter would have signed the warrants ASIO needed to search the home of New South Wales state Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane.
Mr Porter approved the prosecution of senior Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and former spy Witness K, something his predecessor George Brandis was not prepared to do.
Ironically, the rubber stamp of the Attorney-General's office will also get a workout if charges of war crimes are levelled against special forces officers who served in Afghanistan — the very matter Mr Oakes reported on in 2017.
In a statement, a spokesman for Mr Porter said his "strong disinclination" to prosecute journalists was on the public record and he would not pre-empt the decision he would make if the matter was put before him.
The argument is over what constitutes criminality and whether journalists, by publishing stories, meet that threshold.
It's a debate that's raged for more than 650 days, and one likely to continue for many more months to come.
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