NEW LAW TO GUARD NATIONAL SECRETS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100043-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: August 18, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

J L.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100043-4
Both Sides of Debate
NEW LAW TO GUARD NATIONAL SECRETS?
"Leakage of Secrets
Poses a Great Danger"
Interview With
William E. Colby
Director,
Central Intelligence
Agency
Q Mr. Colby, in your view, is a new law needed to protect
official secrets in this country?
A Yes. We need a new law because the present legislation
is inadequate to protect our intelligence activities. The
present law applies essentially only to people who turn
secrets over to a foreign power with intent to injure the
United States. It does not apply to employes or former
employes of the Central Intelligence Agency who deliberate-
ly leak to the press the names of intelligence agents or
information concerning some very sensitive technical system
that we operate.
Q Is that a serious problem for you?
A Yes. A former CIA official is publishing a book here that
names every individual, foreign and American, with whom
he worked while he was employed by the Agency. He
obviously includes in that list the names of many of our
officers, many people who worked with us in foreign intelli-
gence services, and many private foreign citizens who
worked with us at various times. As a result, some of these
people have been exposed to possible legal action in their
own countries. Others have been exposed to terrorist action.
Q And there's nothing you can do about it?
A The CIA attorneys tell me there's practically nothing I
can do about it-certainly nothing as far as criminal prosecu-
tion is concerned-even though all of us at the Agency
signed secrecy agreements as a condition of employment and
as a condition of getting access to sensitive material.
Unlike a number of other Government departments, there
is no law which the justice Department may utilize to bring
criminal proceedings against an employe or former employe
of the CIA who merely reveals our sensitive material.
Q Do you mean that the CIA has even less power to
protect secrets than ordinary Government departments?
A Very much so. An Internal Revenue Service employe
who reveals your income-tax return without proper authori-
zation can be prosecuted. A member of the Department of
Agriculture who releases cotton statistics to some friend is
guilty of a crime. A member of the Census Bureau who
reveals an individual census return commits a crime.
Q The CIA has been operating for 28 years. Why has this
problem suddenly become so acute as to require a new law?
A The main reason stems from the various investigations
(continued on next page)
"We Already Have More
Protection Than We Need"
Interview With
Senator
Alan Cranston
Democrat,
Of California
Q Senator Cranston, why are you opposed to a new law
that would provide additional protection for official secrets?
A I believe that we already have more protection for
official secrets than we need. My main concern is that
classification of information by the Government is out of
control. Too many different people have authority to classi-
fy-and they often do it with excessive zeal to protect
themselves and people higher up. They often seem more
interested in job security than in national security. Not long
ago someone with direct experience testified that more than
99 per cent of classified material should not be treated that
way.
We would open up a very dangerous situation if we started
to write laws that anybody who transmits or receives any
classified information without proper authority is guilty of a
crime.
Q What should be done to protect Government agencies
against wholesale leaking of secret documents?
A I'm more concerned about the need for protecting
reporters and the free flow of information to the public than
I am about the need for protecting Government agencies. I
think that we need a shield law to exempt reporters from
prosecution for refusing to reveal their sources.
A great deal of the information that the American public
gets about what its Government is up to does not come out in
formal press releases. It comes from digging by the press and
from leaks by officials who think the Government is doing
improper things. If you close that off, you would threaten the
free press and the ability of the people in this democracy to
know what is going on.
Q Do you consider the leaking of official secrets desirable?
A Yes-if the official secret is information that the Gov-
ernment is improperly hiding from the public and which the
public has a right to know. That is a very important part of
democracy.
A free press is an essential restraint on government; it is
basic to our constitutional concept of a government of
limited powers. I think the Founding Fathers had a very
acute understanding of that when they wrote the First
Amendment. They were more concerned about protecting
people against the abuses of government than enabling the
government to do things for people-or to people.
(continued on next page)
Copyright ? 1975, U.S. News & World Report, Inc.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100043-4
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100043-4
Interview With CIA Director Colby
[continued from preceding page]
now going on. In these investigations we are taking an over-
all look at our intelligence system in order to update the old
image. In the process, the amount of leakage of sensitive
secrets poses a great danger to running an. effective intelli-
gence service in the future.
Q In what way have these leaks damaged your intelligence
operations?
A A number of countermeasures have been taken by
other countries because they learned of certain activities of
ours. These countries have been able to frustrate our contin-
ued access to that particular form of information.
We're in a situation where we are losing agents. There's no
question about it. And I am sure there are situations in which
a number of foreign intelligence agencies, have considered
whether to give us a particularly delicate item, and they've
said: "Well, these days, no. It might leak." We are developing
a reputation in other intelligence services of not being able
to keep secrets in this country.
Q Isn't there a danger that a new law to protect intelli-
gence secrets might be used to cover wrongdoings by CIA?
A I think we are going to eliminate the potential of cover-
ups in several ways as a result of the investigations now going
on. Looking ahead, I think we are going to have clearer lines
of direction of the CIA and much better supervision within
the executive branch and by Congress. The better the
external supervision, the better the internal supervision. This
will tighten up everything and would prevent the use of new
legislation for anything other than a good reason.
Moreover, I think we've had a rather rich lesson in the last
couple of years of the dangers of trying to cover things up. In
a big Government bureaucracy you really can't cover up,
because somebody always writes a memorandum or leaves
the service and tells about it, and an enterprising reporter
finds out about it.
Q Who would determine what are real intelligence secrets
that require legal protection-the CIA itself?
A No. I would have no problem in demonstrating to a
judge in chambers, if necessary, that any case brought under
a new law involved a sensitive intelligence matter and was
not an arbitrary or capricious prosecution. Only after a judge
had established that fact would the case go to trial-in
public. That would determine whether the defendant was
guilty of communicating the secrets illegally. The secrets
themselves would not be exposed in open court.
EXEMPTING PRESS FROM PROSECUTION-
Q In your view, should the press be held liable for publish-
ing intelligence secrets?
A I don't believe that I should be able -to- prosecute a
newsman who picks up something and then publishes it, and
the new law I proposed would prohibit such a prosecution. I
do think the individual within the system who gave it to him
should be punished, however. I am not in favor of the sort of
Official Secrets Act that Great Britain has, which makes it a
crime for anyone to release secrets-whether officials or
newsmen.
Q What are your chances of getting the kind of legislation
that you advocate to protect secrets?
A Well, if I were asking for this legislation on my own and
in isolation, I admit the chances would not be good in the
present climate. But in the process of taking a fresh look at
our intelligence structure as -awhole, we Americans cannot
responsibly consider how to run an intelligence organization
without resolving this problem of how to keep a few Ameri-
can secrets.
Interview With Senator Cranston
[continued from preceding page]
Of course, there are areas where I am very strongly
opposed to the revelation of classified information. But I
want to be certain that the information is properly classified.
Q How would you do that?
A Well, it's necessary to define very precisely the categor-
ies of information that are really vital defense secrets. In my
opinion, these would be limited to cryptographic informa-
tion, plans for military-combat operations, information re-
garding the actual method of operation of certain weapons
systems, and restricted atomic data. The disclosure of infor-
mation in these categories obviously would be very damag-
ing to the United States and should be against the law.
There are other areas of information involving national
defense where disclosure would not necessarily be damag-
ing-for example, cost overruns on weapons development. I
think it would be proper for somebody to blow the whistle on
that if he were aware of abuses. In this category of informa-
tion, we need the tightest possible definition of what can be
classified as secret. Also, we must take into account the
intent of anyone who reveals this sort of information.
I am absolutely opposed to any catchall phrase-like
national security-to cover information that should be classi-
fied as secret. We've learned in the Watergate and other
scandals that the term "national security" is subject to the
broadest possible stretching to cover up wrongdoings.
"CIA HAS HAD TOO MUCH POWER"-
" What about the CIA? Is additional legislation needed to
prevent officials or former officials of that Agency from
revealing names of agents and similar secrets?
A The CIA should have adequate protection, but we have
to think out very thoroughly precisely what that protection
should be. I think the naming of agents is improper. But if an
agent acts in violation of the law, that's something else again.
In a case of that sort, it's a matter of individual judgment
whether or not it should be made public.
Basically, it's my view that the CIA has had too much
power-and this has led to a lot of abuse. You can't really
draw a distinction between the use of power by the CIA to
protect sensitive information and the use of that same power
to do almost anything they choose and then cover it up. We
certainly need more control over the intelligence agencies-
and that control must include a greater ability by Congress to
decide what should and should not be classified as secret.
Q The news media have revealed a number of intelligence
operations-such as the salvaging of a sunken Russian sub-
marine and interception of telephone conversations between
Soviet leaders and the Kremlin. Should the press be liable for
compromising such espionage operations?
A No. I would leave the decision whether or not to
publish to the professional judgment of the press. I don't
think that you can start writing definitions of information
that it is illegal for the press to publish, without making
governmental restrictions on the availability of information
subject to vast abuses.
Q Is it possible to operate an effective intelligence organi-
zation in this country in those circumstances?
A Yes. We obviously need an intelligence community, but
we don't want to subvert what we are supposed to be
protecting-which is our fundamental democracy-by giv-
ing Government agents power that is too sweeping.
Basically, I believe that because Government is getting
bigger and bigger and ever more powerful, we have to be
very much on guard against giving it authority and secret
power without proper, constitutional restraints.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100043-4