LIE-DETECTOR TESTS FOR GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100030113-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 113
• Publication Date: April 28, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030113-3
RADIO TV REPORTS, in
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
PROGRAM ABC World News Tonight S&AnON WJLA-TV
ABC Network
DATE April 28, 1983 7:00 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
Lie-Detector Tests for Government Employees
STEVE BELL: Congress began hearings today on proposed
Administration regulations that would require lie-detector tests
for government employees who handle classified information.
Justice Department officials say there is just too much leaking.
But many members of Congress worry that the restrictions may be
too broad.
Richard Threlkeld has more on government leaks, a
virtual art form in this city.
RICHARD THRELKELD: Frank Snepp is unemployed. He's an
author who can't write a book or give a speech or teach a class
without first clearing it with a government censor, ever, for the
rest of his life. He used to be with the CIA, and he wrote a
book critical of it without clearing it with the CIA censor, just
in case he'd revealed some secrets. He didn't reveal any, but
the Supreme Court decided he'd violated his agreement with the
CIA and ordered him to turn over all his book and movie royal-
ties, $180,000, to the government. Now, he says, he feels like
one of those South African dissidents -- banned.
FRANK SNEPP: When someone who cannot speak, talk, get a
job because he's offended the regime, he's called banned. Well,
that's,what's happened to me.
.THRELKELD: Last month the Reagan Administration started
applying the Snepp rule to tens of thousands of Frank Snepps
still in government, anybody with access to top secrets. They'll
all have to take a pledge not to leak secrets and take a lie-
detector test if they're suspected of it, and let the censors go
over anything they ever write or say about their service.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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RICHARD WILLARD: We have had a problem of too much
classified information leaking out, one way or another, some from
negligence, some from deliberate disclosures.
THRELKELD: Mr. Willard, whose committee recommended the
crackdown, insists the leaks have been damaging, but can't say
exactly how. That's secret.
Certainly, there are a'lot of national secrets that
ought to stay that way. But which ones? There are an estimated
16 million national secrets. At one time, even the White House
dinner menu was secret.
Strictly enforced, the no-leak rule would require a
whole library of books by government movers and shakers, past and
present, to go to the censor. It would require Walter Mondale,
for one, to have his presidential campaign speeches censored.
Washington has always been a veritable sieve of leaks,
and the most incorrigible leakers have been our Presidents. John
Kennedy remarked that America is the only ship of state that
leaks from the top. Just last month, Ronald Reagan leaked some
pictures showing the Russians in Cuba and the Cubans in Nicara-
gua.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: These pictures only tell a small part
of the story. I wish I could show you more without compromising
our most sensitive intelligence sources and methods.
THRELKELD: And the way the White House figures it, from
now on there'll only be one leak.
You can leak if the President wants to leak or the
President says it's okay.
WILLARD: That's the President's authority in our system
of government. And the only alternative to that would be to have
anarchy, where every government employee could decide the
question for himself.
THRELKELD: Mr. Willard points out that censorship
victims can always take it to court. And besides, the censor is
supposed to only X out-the secrets, not honest criticism.
Frank Snepp is naturally skeptical. -
SNEPP: The record of the CIA's enforcement of its
secrecy agreements and secrecy regulations leads to no other
conclusion. It's the critics who've been bludgeoned.
THRELKELD: The White House is hoping the Frank Snepp
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030113-3
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story will scare enough bureaucrats that the no-leak rule won't
have to be enforced. In fact, most leaks aren't treasonous,
they're just embarrassing. They don't threaten the safety of the
Republic, they just make running it a little tougher.
The Nixon White House hired some plumbers to try to plug
its leaks. Apparently, the Nixon people didn't consider or
didn't dare try the Reagan solution:* turning off the tap.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100030113-3