-Caveat Lector-
New Law Could Jail Whistleblowers
NewsMax.com Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000
Honest government employees who blow the whistle on corruption
and other
illegal acts could face prison terms once a new bill is signed
into law by President Clinton.
The law, critics say, will have a chilling effect on
whistleblowers and could deter them from coming forth with
information the public has a right to know.
Moreover, under the new intelligence law sure to be signed by
Clinton, reporters could face being jailed for refusing to
disclose their sources who leaked information to them.
The bill, the fiscal 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act,
contains a so-called anti-leak provision that makes leaking
"properly classified" government information a criminal act
punishable by as much as three years in prison.
It was backed by Attorney General Janet Reno, who has been
plagued by leaks coming from her own department revealing her
adamant refusal to appoint a special counsel to investigate Vice
President Al Gore's 1996 campaign fund-raising abuses.
It split GOP ranks, with top leaders such as House Judiciary
Committee Chairman Henry Hyde opposing Rep. Porter J. Goss,
R-Fla., chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, and the provision's author, Sen. Richard C.
Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence.
Hyde was joined by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the Judiciary
Committee's ranking Democrat. The two sent a letter to Goss, the
House sponsor of the bill and a former CIA official, in which
they insisted that extending criminal sanctions to leaks of all
"properly classified information" was a matter that House rules
mandated be addressed by their committee.
"It has profound First Amendment implications, and goes to the
very heart of the ability of the public to remain informed about
matters of critical public interest, which often relate to
governmental misdeeds," they wrote.
"Moreover, since the Executive Branch asserts unilateral
authority to define what information should be classified, this
extension would grant the administration a blank check to
criminalize any leaking they do not like."
Joining Hyde and Conyers in fighting the provision, Rep. Robert
L. Barr Jr., R-Ga., a former CIA official and U.S. attorney,
told the House: "This legislation contains a provision that will
create - make no mistake about it, with not one day of hearings,
without one moment of public debate, without one witness - an
official secrets act.
"It has been broached many times. ... But our regard for
constitutional civil liberties ... has in every case in which an
effort has been made to enact an official secrets act beaten back
those efforts.
"Currently, if an individual discloses certain categories of
important national security information, he can and should be
prosecuted," Barr added.
"This provision, though, would silence whistleblowers in a way
that has never before come before this body and which has never
before been enacted."
During the House debate Goss said, "Leaking classified government
information is not a right or a privilege of U.S. officials or
employees who have access to that information.
"Too often over the past few years, we have significantly risked,
and sometimes lost, fragile intelligence resources because those
employed by the government ... have chosen to leak that
information."
Goss told the House that the anti-leak provision was adapted to
conform with language suggested by Reno and Justice Department
lawyers, who wanted criminal sanctions to apply to the
unauthorized disclosure of "properly"
classified information, so that in any criminal case, the
government would have to prove not only that the information was
stamped classified but also that its release actually injured the
nation.
Despite protests from media organizations that reporters are
threatened by the bill's anti-leak provision, Sen. Shelby told
the Senate, "I can assure this body that in passing [the
anti-leak provision], no member of the Select Committee on
Intelligence intended that it be used as an excuse for
investigating the press."
A memorandum prepared by Shelby's staff and obtained by the
Washington Post asserts that the Justice Department "rarely seeks
to interview or subpoena journalists when investigating leaks."
The memo adds that there has never been a prosecution of a
journalist under existing laws - even the statute covering
unauthorized disclosure of the
identities of intelligence operatives, which criminalizes the
release, and the receipt, of such information.
That may be true, but under the bill's provisions it could
change, media
groups charge.
Prosecuting leakers, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of
the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, will inevitably
lead prosecutors to subpoena journalists to identify their
sources, which journalists will inevitably refuse to do.
"I could therefore see more journalists going to jail for
contempt of court than I see leakers going to jail for leaking
the information to begin with," Dalglish told the Post.
The anti-leak provision would lead not only to more media
subpoenas but also to "the over-classification of information and
a draconian interpretation of existing classification
regulations," warned the Reporters Committee and
eight other media organizations, including the American Society
of Newspaper Editors and the National Newspaper Association, in a
letter to Congress in July.
"Every day is Earth Day, when you own the land." George W. Bush
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FROM THE DESK OF:
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