SECRECY PROPOSAL: RISKS WEIGHED AGAINST GAINS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100020133-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 133
• Publication Date: February 20, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100020133-2
ON PAGE_14-1-/4 20 ?nutty 198
Secrecy Proposal: Risks Weigne
cupunary sanctions against Govern-
mhnt employees who refuse to take
polygraph, or lie-detector, tests in in-
vestigations of unauthorized disclo-
sires, or leaks.
,
menu who handle certain iatellijence ,prepublication review does not prevent
seen eta to sign lifelong censorship + L.....an??ymousu leaks,' Mr. willaid ac-
eswm.wawM T'Lw ~L.~?_1.a _II _ a__ ...w__~._ _ . __
.
than 100,000 officials in the White i ' -..e most serious problem by far is
House, the military and other depart the leak, the anonymous leak
and
By STUART TAYLOR Jr.
spec d to Tae New Yaet Timm
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 - Congress
has forced President Reagan to back
off, at least temporarily, from using
more censorship and polygraph testing
to protect national security, not be-
cause it thought the goal unimportant,
but out of doubt that such
measures, would ac com-
News , plash much.
Analysis 'In the view of Congrees=
sional critics, Mr. Res-
gan's plan bate on vital issues and would
compromise
the civil liberties of Government offi-
cials while doing little to prevent leak-
= less to wprotecclassified t national security.
'the opposition to two secrecy meas-
ures ordered by Mr. Reagan on March
11, 1983, forced the White House to an.
nounce last week that it would seek it
"bipartisan solution" on the measures.
The-Administration apparently real-
ized that Congress, which had already
blocked these measures until April 15,
was likely to extend the ban or make it
permanent:
One measure would require more
Few it any members of Congress
have proposed prohibiting the censor-
ship agreements and polygraph testing
the executive branch has long required
of intelligence agents. So the issue-is
not so much whether some freedoms
must give way to protect national- se-,
purity as it is to what degree they must
give way.
The Congressional position reflects a
kind of cost-benefit analysis: The costs
to civil liberties of the Reagan plan
were seen as outweighing the benefits
to the national security, benefits that
some critics deemed negligible.
Richard K. Willard, the Justice De-
partment official who was the principal
architect of the measures, has stressed
that the Congressional intelligence
committees complained in the late'
.1970's that national security secrets
were
Thus, he a~ssertteed in protecteiL
an interview last
week, ff Congress Will riot MWort the
Reagan secrecy plan, "it's time for
Congress to come forward and say
what their solutiop is to the problem.""
What Degree of Protection
;Against Gains;
Meanwhile, Mr. Reagan has not re_ Such benefits, in the view of many in
yoked his March 11 order, only sus- Congress, including Senator Charles
pended it pending talks with Congress. McC. Mthias, Republican of Mary.
Security and censorship
The Administration may have diffl. " stem of censorship.
culty convincing Congress that the na- The sypolygraph, say Mr. Willard and
tional security requires former ofil- other Administration officials, is poten-
ver
y useful both for ferreting out
cials to submit their writings and tially
speeches for the rest of their lives for thong who leak Government
for catching ecrets to
"prepublication review," or censor- the press and for foreign
such a requirement, at best, would m-' Few of Matblue Cited
habit debate and, at worst, could be They maintain not only that poly-
used by incumbents as a pretext for si- graph can detect in man
lencing their critics. cases but~also that the fear Hof detection
William .1. Casey Directorof central often spurs people to confess or deters_
Intelli genoe; said in a mein them' from leaking in the brit place.
sst year that censorship agree- Congressional opponents of in-
ments contain "the minimum anent. creased polygraph use, led by Repro.
a e standards for orotectina the se- 9entative Jack Brooks, Democrat of
runty" of inten;?enoe sour and Texas, say they doubt his, and some
methods experts assert that the polygraph is all
But Mr. Willard conceded that the but usel detecting whether a per-
MWIMMMM
ld d
p p wou
o nothing son Is JYM&
to prevent or detect espionage and little , Even those who concede that wide-
to Prevent unauthorized disclosures
spread polygraph use might uncover
'
closure of Informatiain in books and
speeches was something we could do
something about-..
Few Disclosures Involved Secrets
aCperal Accounting Office found
last yaw, in a survey of six agencies,
that only 21 of the 328 unauthorized dis-
closures of classified information over
a five-year period bad occurred
through former officials' writing or
speeches. Only one or two of these in-
volved inWligence secrets of the kind
that would subject officials who handle
them to lifelong censorship...
Such evidence led many Republicans
as well as Democrats in Congress to
conclude that the Reagan censorship
program was a draconian solution to an
almost nonexistent. problem.
Mr. Willard has suggested that the
censorship program would make its
most important c ntribution by mak
ing Government employees and others 1
sensitive to the. need for secrecy,
putting some fear in them and thus bey
discouraging the rather casual traf-
ficking in, Government secrets long
practiced by officials both high and
low, reporters, lobbyists and others.
some, leakers and spies question
whether this would be worth the cost to
thefr+eedom and dignity of the innocent
employees subject to the testing.
Some employees would falsely be
branded as liars, just as' some liars
would incorrectly be identified as
truthful, Mr. Brooks asserts. And even
advocates of polygraph testing'such as
Mr. Willard concede that the machines
and their operators sometimes matte
Another reason for the resistance to
expanded Polygraph testing is that
many in Congress are of two minds
about leaks, which have been do.
nonced by every recent President,
most forcefully by Mr. Reagan.
. While there is a sentiment preventing Government loyees
from disclosing genuine military, intel-
ligence and diplomatic secrets, many
members recognize that the executive
sands of documents p si secret thou.
threat
whatsoever to national security and
has sometimes done so to cover up
.politically embarrassing information..
The vast
classified materials the Press and to
thate tthher hitself as little involve,
to do with the na-
tional security or is already available
to the Soviet Union and other nations.
Members of Congress sometimes de-
pend on such leaks in doing their jobs,
and many responsible would fo ur tthem hunted
see employees
down with polygraph machines.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100020133-2