SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 76
July 6, 2006

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Support Secrecy News: http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp

CRS ON PROTECTING NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION

"It's not a crime to publish classified information," explained Washington Post reporter Dana Priest in an electric moment on last Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, even though "[commentator William] Bennett keeps telling people that it is."

Mr. Bennett, who was sitting right next to Ms. Priest, had declared last April that reporters like Ms. Priest who publish classified information "against the wishes of the President" should be "arrested."

"I don't think what they did was worthy of an award," Mr. Bennett had said, referring to the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting by Ms. Priest and two New York Times reporters -- "I think what they did is worthy of jail." (Editor and Publisher, 04/18/06).

But Mr. Bennett was wrong and Ms. Priest was correct: There is no comprehensive statute that outlaws the publication of classified information.

(As Ms. Priest went on to explain, there are several narrow categories of classified information, such as communications intelligence, covert agent identities, and a few others that are protected by statute.)

A new report from the Congressional Research Service describes the legal framework governing the disclosure and publication of classified national security information.

"This report provides background with respect to previous legislative efforts to criminalize the unauthorized disclosure of classified information; describes the current state of the laws that potentially apply, including criminal and civil penalties that can be imposed on violators; and some of the disciplinary actions and administrative procedures available to the agencies of federal government that have been addressed by federal courts."

"Finally, the report considers the possible First Amendment implications of applying the Espionage Act to prosecute newspapers for publishing classified national defense information."

The Congressional Research Service does not make its products directly available to the public. But a copy of the new CRS report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Protection of National Security Information," June 30, 2006:

ENGINEERING BIO-TERROR AGENTS

A private researcher investigating the history of the U.S. biological weapons program at the National Archives recently came up empty.

"She asked for the files for Fort Detrick from 1946 to 1956, and was brought 16 cartons," recounted Milton Leitenberg of the University of Maryland. "However, every single file in every one of the 16 cartons had been removed, and replaced with a page dated post-2002, saying that the item had been withdrawn."

The Fort Detrick records were removed from public access "after the Bush administration ordered agencies to withhold anything that might aid terrorists," reported Scott Shane, then of the Baltimore Sun, in an August 1, 2004 Sun story on Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division.

Meanwhile, the record of a congressional hearing that was held last year on biological terrorism has just been published.

See "Engineering Bio-Terror Agents: Lessons from the Offensive U.S. and Soviet Biological Weapons Programs," House Committee on Homeland Security, July 13, 2005:

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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

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