-Caveat Lector- From http://www.sptimes.com/News/100700/news_pf/Opinion/A_heavy_handed_secret.shtml }}>Begin Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies A Times Editorial A heavy-handed secrets act � St. Petersburg Times, published October 7, 2000 A bit of mischief has been made part of an intelligence authorization bill that is now in House-Senate conference committee. If allowed to remain, America would have its first version of an "Official Secrets Act." When government employees leak classified information that reveals nuclear secrets or puts intelligence agents at risk, they can go to jail. But the Senate is proposing a wide expansion that goes well beyond what is necessary to protect national security. Section 303 of the must-pass authorization bill would criminalize any unauthorized disclosure of "properly classified" information. For the uninitiated, the government decides what constitutes a national secret through a heavy-handed system that tends to favor keeping information out of public reach. The process is exploited by federal officials who classify all sorts of documents as a way to conceal mistakes, illegalities and incompetence. Typically, the only way the news media, Congress and ultimately the public are able to uncover corruption and mismanagement in our military and intelligence services is by relying on conscientious government employees and military personnel to leak information. But by punishing every innocuous disclosure of classified information with up to three years in prison and a large fine, the law would intimidate potential whistle-blowers into silence. Why is this measure on Congress' agenda now? For years, the Central Intelligence Agency has pressured Congress to make it a crime to disclose anything classified. One need look no further than the recently declassified information about the CIA's role in Chile to see why the agency is so skittish about having its work revealed. In 1973, socialist and democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a CIA-sponsored coup. He was replaced by the tyrannical Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who instituted a reign of terror that was carried out with the full knowledge and complicity of the American intelligence community. The revelations should have prompted Congress to call for less secrecy rather than more. If you're concerned that America's covert operations will become an open book, don't be. Serious breaches already carry jail sentences, and there are administrative penalties for disclosing innocuous classified information. Employees who make unauthorized disclosures lose their security clearances and often their jobs. This is disincentive enough. We don't have to take the next step and make it a crime every time someone brings information to the public that it should have had access to anyway. Home Business | Citrus | Commentary | Entertainment Hernando | Floridian | Obituaries | Pasco | Sports State | Tampa Bay | World & Nation � Copyright 2000 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved. End<{{ A<>E<>R Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the "democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded subjects. [[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard, Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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