![]() But maybe, just maybe, now that the classification system has ensnared each of the last two presidents, people will start coming to their senses: tear down the US secrecy system before it tears down its next victim.Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked Congress passed the "USA/Patriot Act," an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court. It’s true there is a severe double standard that has ruined the lives of so many brave whistleblowers. Or maybe it’s all Top Secret and also basically nothing, because the US government classifies everything.Īs journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out, political elites constantly mishandle classified documents, but never receive the severe punishment lower level whistleblowers do when they commit same or similar crimes. Yet CNN also said that a “White House official characterized the documents as ‘fewer than a dozen,’ … none of which are ‘particularly sensitive’ and ‘not of high interest to the intelligence community.’” CNN reported that the “classified materials included some top-secret files with the ‘sensitive compartmented information’ designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.” They cited an anonymous source (almost certainly law enforcement). Take the reporting on the Biden controversy. ![]() Even efforts to reform the secrecy system end up classified themselves. No one is ever punished for overclassifying information, yet plenty of people go to prison for disclosing information to journalists that never should have been classified to begin in. And it doesn’t matter that, time and again, they have been shown to grossly exaggerate or lie about the true nature of those supposed “secrets.” The system is set up so the government has every incentive to claim any information is of the utmost sensitivity because they know anyone they prosecute cannot challenge their classification decisions. Of all the money spent on the classification system, less than half of one percent is spent on de-classification. A tiny fraction will ever see the light of day, despite the fact the vast majority never should have been given the “secret” stamp in the first place. Tens or hundreds of millions of documents are classified per year. Even the people who have been in charge of administering the secrecy system often denounce it once they leave government. The US government has a massive overclassification problem - and that’s not just my opinion as a transparency advocate. The reason the Justice Department is able to potentially wield it over so many people is because the secrecy system itself is irrevocably broken. Regardless, such an overly broad and dangerous law should not be on the books in the first place. (Ironically, first the Trump administration, and now the Biden administration may be trying to change that with its unprecedented and dangerous charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.) ![]() ![]() Thankfully the First Amendment should ultimately protect both the Guardian and its readers from prosecution. The Guardian, like every other major newspaper reporting on US news, has published documents the government considers classified or “national defense information.” The Snowden files are only one example there are likely countless others. “Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document…relating to the national defense…willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” is in violation of the statute. But it’s actually so broad that if you are a longtime reader of the Guardian, you’ve probably technically broken the law too! Instead of actual spies, the hundred year-old law is usually abused to prosecute whistleblowers and threaten journalists. As I’ve explained before, even using the Espionage Act to go after Trump should not be cheered on by Democrats. That’s because the Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. Whereas it seems Biden’s team actually alerted the authorities that the president had them in his office and is fully cooperating in their return.īut here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean Biden didn’t potentially violate the Espionage Act – at least according to some legal experts. Trump had mountains of secret documents he purposefully absconded with that he both refused to give back and arguably lied to authorities about. Now, before someone accuses me of “both side-ing” the separate Trump and Biden scandals here: no, they are not the same.
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