That time I really angered the Director of National Intelligence...

In the aftermath of the SEAL Team Six raid on Osama Bin Laden, I reported, based on two sources, that an advanced surveillance drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, had prowled above the scene in Pakistan, undetected by the country's radar and air defense surveillance systems. No one picked up on this nugget, which was relatively unimportant in the scheme of things, until the Washington Post advanced the story: that drone had been back and forth across the Afghanistan border quite frequently, helping CIA officers and agents on the ground map out Abbottabad. The Post noted that I had first reported the use of the drone.

Moments after the article was published online, I received an e-mail from James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence. In effect, he accused me of being too cavalier with government secrets. I was abusing my privilege as a national security journalist.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.