ADMINISTRATIVE SECRECY AGREEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030011-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: December 3, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, IN
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
Page 5 STATION WTTG-TV
December 3, 1983 10:30 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
Administrative Secrecy Agreement
HOSTESS: Tonight on Page 5 we'll take a look at the
controversy
not have the
over whether the Federal Government should or should
power to censor and institute lie-detector tests in
an effort to stop leaks to the press.
Executive Director of the Association
Officers, and Alan Adler, legislative
Civil Liberties Union.
Welcome, both of you.
With us is John Greaney,
of Former Intelligence
counsel for the American
Mr. Greaney, if we could start with you. To some
people, this system of censorship and polygraph testing conjures
visions of George Orwell's 1984, if you will. What is the
justification?
JOHN GREANEY: Well, I think we go back to the basic
premise that the United States Government has classified material
that is needed to be protected. And my experience was with the
Central Intelligence Agency. And there, a specific statute, the
National Security Act of 1947, specifically ordered the Director
to be responsible to prevent intelligence sources and methods
from unauthorized disclosure.
Now, that's the premise that this protection starts
with. They instituted secrecy agreements whereby employees of
the agency signed a contract agreeing to prior review of manu-
scripts before they were published. At the same time, they had a
system of the use of polygraph for employees being considered for
'employment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Both of which,
in my opinion, h.ave worked very well to protect the classified
material.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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HOSTESS: Mr. Adler, do you agree with this?
ALAN ADLER: Our problem, basically, is that we think
there's far too much information classified. And when it is
classified, it's not always clear that there are genuine national
security concerns involved in the classification process. All
too often the experience has been, in the past, that information
is classified, generally, because it's politically embarrassing
to be disclosed to the public because it puts a particular
Administration's actions or policies in a bad light.
And particularly this kind of policy, involving pre-
publication review and censorship of former government officials,
the people who have the most insight into the way policies are
formulated and the way government actually works, would deprive
the public of a trernendou-s source of information about their own
government. And we think that the situation that the President
cited in justification for this kind of a policy, which was
largely his dissatisfaction with institutional leaks, is not
really one that's addressed by this problem. Because, after all,
institutional leaks occur while government employees are serving
in their offices in the government. That certainly doesn't
justify imposing lifetime censorship on them after they leave
government.
HOSTESS: To both of you. Do you feel that a lie-
detector test violates, basically, the rights of that employee,
of that government employee?
GREANEY: I do not. I had several lie -- we would like
to refer to them as polygraphs, because I think there's a
difference, and it's not just semantic. On the theory that a
polygraph is an instrument used as one means in investigation.
It's a tool as part of the investigation. The Office of Security
administers these. But that's the basis. It is not -- nobody
that I've ever talked to about the instrument has tried to put
forth that it is entirely correct in a hundred percent of the
cases. It's merely used as an additional tool in the investiga-
tion.
It's unnerving to take one, yes. But it's necessary,
and I think it's useful.
ADLER: We think part of the problem with this, particu-
larly the expanded intended use of the polygraph test that seems
to be` contemplated by the President's directive -- up until now,
the policy on using polygraphs, even in security investigations,
has always been based upon the idea that. the individual volun-
tarily subjects himself to the polygraph exam, and that an
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individual's refusal to submit to a polygraph doesn't lead to any
adverse consequences, either with respect to his employment or
any possible subsequent criminal action that could be taken
against him.
However, under this directive, that would change. In
fact, individuals, in the context of leak investigations, would
be required to submit to polygraph examinations. And if they
refused, adverse administrative sanctions could, in fact, be
levied against them. This could run the gamut of having individ-
uals denied security clearances, which in the case of jobs,
particularly, in the State Department or in the Defense Depart-
ment would mean they couldn't perform their current jobs, and
ultimately would have to be demoted. It would raise substantial
questions about their future career advancement in this area, and
in fact could ultimately lead to them having recorded in their
files, as government employees, the fact that they are suspected
of being risks in terms of security.
Beyond that, I think, because of the fact that the
evidence about the reliability of polygraphs is really so vague
and so contradictory at this point, I think it's fairly clear
that they're not really useful for the purpose that the President
seems to have in mind, in the context of leak investigation.
Federal courts, for example, do not consider the results of a
polygraph exam admissible as evidence in any kind of a prosecu-
tion. And, of course, since the President does in fact emphasize
that disclosure of this kind of information is a violation of
criminal law, ultimately that would seem to be where they would
prefer to head in these kind of cases.
Beyond that, I think, the ACLU also clearly regards the
use of polygraphs as a mechanism that raises substantial ques-
tions about self-incrimination and possible violations of Fifth
Amendment due process rights as well.
GREANEY: If I could interrupt there just a minute.
HOSTESS: Go ahead.
GREANEY: That last statement about the Fifth Amendment.
That is only applicable in a criminal prosecution, that you talk
about raising the Fifth Amendment defense.
ADLER: That's true. In those terms, it is. But, of
course, what -- since you are contemplating here administrative
sanctions, in terms of the result of the conclusion that an
individual in fact may have been the source of a leak, clearly
you're asking an individual to incriminate himself with respect
to that subsequent consequence.
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GREANEY: But I think you have to agree that there are
also different standards to be set for an administrative proce-
dure as opposed to going through the indictment and the grand
jury proceedings and everything else in a criminal. As you stay
in the administrative cycle, you don't have the same criteria and
guarantees as you would in a criminal prosecution.
ADLER: Well, that's true. And I think that that's all
the more reason why the controversy about the utility of poly-
graph examinations in this raises real questions about whether
its use should be expanded beyond what is currently permitted in
the law.
GREANEY: But I would still argue that the question of
not being able to introduce it as evidence in a criminal prosecu-
tion is not asubstantial-argument to deny its use in an investi-
gation for a leak, because you're at a different level of
intensity with regard to the administrative investigation versus
a criminal prosecution.
ADLER: That's probably true if you consider that past
policy has always been that the individual must voluntarily agree
to submit to a polygraph. We are now talking about a situation
where the individual does not have that choice. The individual
is asked to submit to the polygraph exam, and informed that, in
fact, his career will probably suffer in a fairly serious fashion
if he refuses.
GREANEY: But what would you consider about the possi-
bility of installing this on the same basis as the prior-
publi-cation review -- that is, on the basis of a contractual
agreement? Would you have any objections that if the conditions
to take a polygraph were. incorporated into the secrecy agreement,
which is then determined to be a contractual agreement?
ADLER: I think that raises additional questions about
what a government employee should have to agree to submit to in
order to become a government employee, in order to serve the
public and to serve the government, particularly because you're
addressing here individuals who are generally in senior policy
positions, at least with respect to the lifetime censorship
requirements under the President's directive. I think what you
face here is a situation where you would actively discourage
individuals from seeking government careers and from seeking to
serve the public in government because you raise the ante each
time you say that, individually, we would like to look a little
bti more into your background, to get a little bit more assurance
about your security clearance, and just to be certain that we
know as much as we need to know about you. And I think that that
is an adverse consequence that I don't think the President has
adequately considered.
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GREANEY: Well, I would argue, to support the Presi-
dent's position, that what we're attempting to do is to increase
the quality of the government employee.
HOSTESS: Hold that right there, Mr. Greaney. We will
come right back and continue this subject.
HOSTESS: There is growing concern that the censorship
of writings and speeches could shut the American public out.
With us is John Greaney, Executive Director of the
Association of Former Intelligence Officers, and Alan Adler,
legislative counsel-for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mr.. Adler, I believe you touched on it in our last
segment. With the censorship of speeches and writings, it will
sacrifice, or will it sacrifice, an important element of free
speech to the public, with this concern over national security?
Mr. Greaney to comment on that also.
ADLER: I think it sacrifices an important element of
that, both for the individual government employees, who then
leave the government but remain subject to this requirement even
in their private lives thereafter, and also does deprive the
public of a source of information.
For the individual employees, of course, they proceed to
go into careers either pursuing law or in the media, possibly in
the academic or business world, where, basically, they try to
advance their careers based upon their experience in government.
Someone who has served in the diplomatic corps, for example, or
in the Defense Department hopes to be able to use that experience
in securing profitable employment in the private sector. And if
that individual is required to, for the rest of his working life,
submit anything he writes which is based upon his experience in
government, which is filtered through his experience in govern-
ment, to a government agency for censorship, then he becomes of
questionable value to the people who might otherwise want to
utilize him based upon his experience.
Beyond that, of course, you then deprive the public of
information, timely information, where current events require
that the public be informed by government officials who have been
inside the government, who understand the way policy is formu-
lated, the way decisions are made.
-To-give you a good example, when the country learned, in
fact, that the United States had invaded Grenada, immediately, in
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the next day, virtually every major newspaper and magazine
contained interviews or, in fact, op-ed pieces or articles from
former government officials. And usually those government
officials were people who had served in the State Department, the
Defense Department, the intelligence community, or, in fact, in
the White House in some capacity, because they are the ones who
would have the most insightful comments to make on the impact
such an action would have on American foreign policy and our
standing in the world.
But, of course, if those individuals were subject to
this kind of a requirement of censorship, as is contemplated in
the directive, they would have to submit those articles to the
agency for whom the,y had worked. It's very doubtful that the
agency would. be able to-turn those articles around and provide
them back for publication in time to satisfy the news media.
And beyond that, of course, it allows the government,
then, to decide what that former government official can say on
hte particular event, because they determine what is in fact
classified information, that they would then reserve the right to
delete from anything that is written.
HOSTESS: Mr. Greaney, are we depriving the public of
vital information?
GREANEY: No, I don't think so. I think Mr. Adler's
comment about the Grenadian rescue operation was that people that
had been involved in government and had experience were not
deprived from talking because they were not involved in the
classified planning that went into the operation.
The thing I'd like to bring out at this point is to
demonstrate how the Central Intelligence Agency has operated with
their Publication Review Board which is based on the secrecy
agreement and is not covered by this current directive. They
have been going since 1977. They have completed -- there have
been 974 submissions to this Publications Review Board, 700 of
which were cleared without any deletions whatsoever. Sixteen
were disapproved. And they have required and met the requirement
to have this review done within the 30 days that was established
by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Marchetti case.
Now, the question of deadlines where additional pieces
aer being submitted for publication on op-ed pages, as Alan
mentioned,. they do make adjustments to make those reviews very
quickly.
Now, the question of what their review is for is not for
the substance. It gets into the question of identifying classi-
fied information. That's the purpose of the review, is
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to identify classified information. And I think experience and I
think litigation has demonstrated it has been very fair on
classified information.
ADLER: Let me say, John, that in citing those figures
for the CIA, which is one agency and an agency that is known to
be particularly secretive about its activities and repeatedly
informs its employees that they are to be, even after they leave
government, since 1977 -- we're talking about six years -- over
almost a thousand, almost one thousand articles, books, manu-
scripts had to go through this progress.
Now, can you imagine, since the GAO has informed
Congress that approximately some 130,000 individuals currently in
government outside of the intelligence community would now be
under this obligation, can you imagine what that would mean in
terms of people who work for the State Department, writing
articles, the Defense Department, the Department of Energy, all
of the various other agencies? You would have to multiply it by
a factor that would mean that the government would have to have a
bureaucratic process for reviewing and censoring -- and it is
censorship because, although you say it's not addressing sub-
stance,the government decides something is classified information
and cannot be published.
GREANEY: But they have to determine within the guide-
lines of the executive order to meet the test for classification.
And you, from experience, are well aware of what it takes to
prove in a court something is classified. It is not easy. And I
think experience has demonstrated that the more that this -- the-
longer this period has -- this publication has gone on, the
better the testing has been to come up with hard classification
items when they ask for a deletion. I don't think it's been
abused in any way by the agency.
ADLER: Well, I think we would disagree with you on that
because -- to give you the example you mentioned, the Marchetti
case. From the time that thebook was submitted to the time that
the final order, when they'd gone through the district court and
the court of appeals, that took over two years. In the interim
period, in between the district court decision and the court of
appeals, that book was published because both the authors and the
publishers did not want to wait any longer. So they accepted
some 168 deletions from the book.
Now, in the subsequent period, we have litigated under
the -Freedom of Information Act to try to have many of those
deletions declassified and released. And they have been, very
many of them have been. And when you see what it was, in fact,
that the government represented would cause harm to national
security from disclosure, it's fairly incredible that they would
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actually be able to represent to a court, let alone to the
American public, that these things require absolute secrecy.
GREANEY: Now, wait a minute. I'm sorry. But I will
tell you that the evidence that went into the court, Judge
Bryan's court, to support the deletions in the Marchetti case...
HOSTESS: Mr. Greaney, I hate to do this, but thank you
so much for being with us. We are running out of time.
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