The United States does not have an Official Secrets Act, the all-purpose law the British government uses to suppress information it finds unpleasant, but it may get something like it if a proposal by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., becomes law.
The bill would subject U.S. government employees, current and retired, to jail terms of up to three years for leaking "properly classified" information. Government bureaucrats wield the "secret" stamp with abandon, and this law would potentially put acres of information off-limits to the public.
Espionage and information theft are already illegal, and it is also a crime for a government official to disclose classified information related to national defense to someone who might injure the United States. This proposed law would extend to non-defense information and there would be no need to prove an intent to injure.
Basically, it would allow federal officials to use the threat of prosecution to suppress disclosures that might prove embarrassing or awkward — money misspent, policies that failed, incompetent conduct, critical internal reports.
The bill has the support of many government agencies, and bureaucracies will always come down on the side of greater secrecy. Clearly, the FBI would have been a lot happier if the public could have been kept ignorant about its missteps — leaked, for the most part — from Waco to Wen Ho Lee.
From going after leakers, it would only be a short step for the government to go after the reporters who print and broadcast the leaked information. The Richard Nixon administration would have been ecstatic to have had this law; it would have been the reporters and not the Watergate conspirators who would end up in jail.
Information leaks may be a nuisance in the conduct of government, but they are a tolerable side effect of an open, democratic government.
This measure actually passed last year without hearings, House or Senate debate or roll-call votes. The outcry when its contents became generally known caused President Bill Clinton to veto it.
The Bush administration has yet to take a position. President Bush should oppose the measure, and if the bill gets as far as his desk likewise veto it.