As long as there are official secrets, there will be those who will reveal them — anonymously. That distresses people in authority, but also some ordinary citizens. You may think that the media, on the other hand, would cheer. Not necessarily.

In the first place, editors have to struggle with whether the revelation is harmful to national security or overridingly in the public interest. And, secondly, they have to face running a story based on information provided by “anonymous sources.” Those two words have hung like a dark cloud over the media in recent years; newspapers raced to tighten rules on the use of unnamed sources after notoriously fake articles appeared in several publications, including The New York Times and my alma mater, USA Today.

Spc. Casey Tylek, of Camp Liberty, Iraq, is one of those who hates it when sensitive or classified information is revealed to the press anonymously. In a letter to the editor, he wrote: “All too often you read in the newspaper stories about terrorism, covert operations and national security. And [in] these stories are quotes from people speaking on condition of anonymity, because the nature of their source of information is sensitive or not cleared to be released.”

He cited a report in September that the U.S. had been spying on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to learn what his government was up to at all times. Whoever told The Washington Post about that “should have declined comment,” Tylek said. “If you have to speak anonymously, then you shouldn’t be speaking, period.” (Supporters of the paper said that eavesdropping on the nation’s enemies was understood, but doing so on friends was highly questionable.)

Tylek isn’t alone. Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond of Missouri and other Republican senators introduced a bill in August that would considerably broaden the prohibition against a government employee revealing classified material without authorization. A similar bill was vetoed by President Bill Clinton in 2000. Title 18 of the U.S. Code already makes it a crime to reveal secret national security information such as codes, ciphers and the like. The Bond bill would make it a crime to reveal more general types of classified information. The bill remained in committee, and I asked Bond’s aides what’s next.

He has not yet reintroduced the bill, his office said in an e-mail, but continues to fight leaks, which he believes pose a serious threat to national security. “Senator Bond has stressed that until leakers see one of their kind end up in an orange jumpsuit we won’t be able to address this problem effectively,” the statement said.

As the battle continues over what to do with people who reveal classified information, the media considers its own interests and responsibilities.

Neither Tylek nor Bond target the media in the attacks on leaks, but reporters and leakers are entwined in an embrace of virtue or iniquity, depending on your point of view. Attempts in the courts to get reporters to reveal their sources have caused enormous legal bills and, in some cases, have resulted in reporters going to jail.

Most states have reporters’ “shield laws” that curb such probing. The federal government does not. A bill to create one passed in the House earlier this year but withered in the Senate. Congressional backers, urged on by media associations, plan to reintroduce the bill in both houses next year.

Above all, media outlets emphasize the importance of their watchdog role. There are those in government who leak information for personal benefit, or political advantage, or maybe even mischievousness. But some do so to publicize and therefore stop wrongdoing, or because they believe citizens have a right to know about closed-door acts that will affect them.

And sometimes, important changes occur. Last year USA Today ran articles that showed the Pentagon acted slowly to develop Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) for the troops in Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he found the coverage interesting and ordered a push to get more of the vehicles developed.

(Stars and Stripes is prohibited by a Defense Department directive from knowingly publishing “classified [national security] information”; it can do so if the information is first reported by another media outlet.)

The government can and does claim on occasion that the media endanger national security. In December 2005 The New York Times revealed that the government was conducting secret surveillance of home telephone calls by and to Americans. Citing its anti-terror campaign, the government tried to get The Times to kill the story. It failed but made a case strong enough to persuade the paper to hold the report for a full year, in order to do more reporting while deleting some secret information.

Regardless of whom you agree with, you’d have to admit there was no mindless rush to get the story in the paper.

These controversies will always be with us. Pray for the good sense and good faith of leakers and leakees.