PROTECT RIGHTS OF ALL PRIVY TO U.S. SECRETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100020132-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 132
• Publication Date: February 22, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100020132-3
ARTICLE APPEARED NEV YORK TIMES
ON PAGE ~'L3 22 February 198+
Protect Rights of All
Privy to U.S. Secrets
By Frank Snepp
LOS ANGELES Now that the .officers-wallowing in secrets yet less
Reagan Administration has shelved, , edept than other bureaucrats at keep
for the moment, its infamous censor- )ng them. But the reality is just the
ship decree, Congress is considering ? opposite: Intelligence officers are far
better trained in swurty
ways to keep it on the shelf perma- ' than other bureaucrats; coedures '
nently. But none of the proposals of- job ob in the_ criminatory arrangement now in ef- so far would eliminate the dis- mtoentation is so rigid that few in the..
f : Irate Bence officers still have as many secrets as even a lowly
? their writings screened and censored clerk ; with the National Security
Council or a State Department desk
:.by the Government, while intelli- officer; genre consumers in the State Denart- ; and the most sensitive se-
m
on post.
m
ment anu elsewhere who are exposed --- ' PO"cz r,cw? and uirecuves are MploYment censorship (five year
to the same secrets would be allowed almost never shared with intelligence old "secrets" are generally too stale
;. to sli the muzzle once officers' to be sensitive). And since the Admin. retire.
The censorship in quesstiioon arises Adm. Bobby Inman, Deputy Direc- istration claims the right to "reclassi-
from a 1980 Supreme Court ruling for of Central intelligence from 1981 fy," hence censor, unclassified ma-
..against me that upheld the right of 1 to 1982, has suggested that the most terial, Congress should carefully de.
::the Central Intelligence Agency to egregious security breaches are com- fine what can and cannot be struck
? subject its employees to lifelong nutted by high-level appointees in the: from a manuscript, and what must be
,.prepublication review and censorship executive branch who are less versed ".cleared" in the first place.
,of their writings. Last March, the Ad- in the lore of secrecy than are intelli- - To do any less would be an Orwel-geDCe ison Porn cited the ruling as justi- bears tofs out. . My thown e experience Ilan compfbmise~ leaving some pub.
extending these strictures
Government tic .servants far. less 'equal than
.to 120,000 Federal employees outside was preparing to sue me for publish- others. Worse, it would establish a
,the the C.I.A. who have security clear- ing my unclassified C.I.A. memoirs, dangerous precedent. Once you begin
ances. i a former ambassador took scores of slicing First Aiirendment rights too.
The Administration's recent re:_ classified documents from the State thin, neither the press nor the private
treat spares those 120,000 - at least . Department and then, because of . citizen is safe. I
,,until after the election. Nevertheless, carelessness, they were, stolen from
'-numerous intelligence officials, in- him (the ambassador was forgiven; I
side and outside the C.I.A., remain was gagged for life).
muzzled under the "Sriepp" decision. The moral of all this is self-evident.
Amazingly, some of our most dis- Congress should . assure all b re u-
;:tinguished First Amendment experts Co who are privy to secrets equal
? seem reconciled to this prospect. treatment under the First Amend-
;.Floyd Abrams, who represented The meat. C.I.A. employees, no less than
.New York Times in the Pentagon State Department officers, should be
;;Papers case, has written: "It is one free of censorship- Administration of
.thing to say that C.I.A. agents such as ficials will object, of course, that this
,'Frank Snepp must abide by a con- could lead to an outpouring of na-
.tract of silence ... It is quite another tional security information. But if
,to say that the First Amendment you're out to leak secrets, gag rules
could conceivably tolerate the sweep. and the threat of censorship won't
:rig new restrictions an freedom of ex- - stop you (Philip Agee, a former
pression of thousands of former Gov- C.I.A. agent, kept on disclosing C.I.A.
-.ernment officials not' involved with agents' names even as I was being
' the C.I.A.!'" C clobbered in court). Moreover, there
You almost have to have been an in- already a plethora of laws that
telligence officer to understand why criminalize the disclosure of intelli-
Mr. Abrams and others of his persua- gence agents' identities and our most
-lion are wrong. As putsiders, they critical technological secrets.
'seem to harbor an image of C.I.A.
Frank Snepp, a lecturer at the Uni-
,.versity of Southern California and au-
thor of ;:Decent Interval,' was a Cen- .
trial 'Intelligence Agency strategy
analyst from 1969 to 1976.
STAT
If Congress ignores logic and ac-
cepts the idea of selective censorship,
it ought at least to institute safe.
guards to protect intelligence offi-
cers, First' Amendment rights. Con-
gress should establish an independent
review board to keep the C.I.A.. and
other ? intelligence agencies from
under overcensoring; clarify how, and
circumstances, a cen-
sored author can challenge excisions.
i
n court; and set a ti
it
e li
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100020132-3