PARANOIA, NOT SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030027-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: October 27, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030027-9
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27
Paranoia, Not Security
Not content with secrecy agreements that bind
intelligence agents and code specialists, the Reagan
Administration has elevated its campaign against
information leaks to fantastic heights. A new pro-
gram would force 113,000 more handlers of classi-
fied information to obtain advance Government ap-
proval for any speech or article, delivered now or
years from now, that deals in any degree with a
Government secret. The contracts would cover the
Government workers for life.
Last week the Administration also heartily en-
dorsed the idea of giving random lie-detector tests
to all Federal employees with access to classified
data. Even If polygraph examinations fall short of
scientific perfection, a Justice Department official
explains, they serve admirably to deter potential
leakers.
Congress finally seems nervous about the
President's surrender to zealots, who have yet to
demonstrate that greater secrecy is needed to en-
hance security. The Senate has voted to hold up the
censorship plan, and Congress has postponed a
sweeping Pentagon plan for systematic lie-detector
.checks until at least next April. The legislators are
right to be nervous.
The censorship scheme would seriously inhibit
public discussion of the most vital public issues. It
would restrict the contributions of experienced na-
tional security officials to that discussion. It would
probably discourage some leading citizens from
accepting public service.
It. would mean that a former Air Force Secre-
tary, for example, could not submit an article for
publication criticizing a successor until a censor -
working for that successor - cleared the work.
Even private citizens working for, say, Henry Kis-
singer's commission on Central America might be
forced to accept lifetime censorship as the price of
access to intelligence information.
As for lie detectors, they detect excitement, not
lies. Their accuracy varies with the emotional state
of the subject and the skill of the operator. They are
most useful in the highly specialized interrogation
that may occur toward the end of a criminal case,
when the operator already knows what questions
are most pertinent. The machines can falsely in-
criminate merely nervous individuals and they
have been known to exonerate pathological liars or
tricksters taking depressant drugs.
As the Justice official acknowledges, however,
the machines don't merely measure fear. They
create it. And that is what the Administration aims
to spread - in an entire class of trusted public ser-
vants whom it would regularly expose to an annual
integrity lottery.
Only the most extraordinary crisis could justify
that kind of intimidation in American government.
Yet the Reagan Administration does not even
argue, much less prove, that secrecy breaches are
now measurably greater than before or that news
reports or commentary by former public officials
are compromising security.
How this intimidation and censorship would en-
hance security, in other words, is not at all clear.
How they would undermine freedom of speech and
respect for government should be obvious.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030027-9