The face of the next administration --that of King George (Bush) II-- is already apparent, and the CIA (headquartered in the new "George Bush Building") has begun to legislate ... NO OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT! Editorial, San Francisco Examiner, November 2, 2000 Legislation approved by Congress criminalizes the flow of information from government whistle-blowers to citizens President Clinton should veto a bill vastly increasing government secrecy at the expense of the public's right to know. The provision, part of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2001, was sought by the Central Intelligence Agency. The ostensible rationale for the legislation is that too many national secrets are being leaked to the press and their disclosure has created grave dangers to the national security. Advocates of free speech believe the real reason is that government wants no interference with those of its initiatives that may be unpopular, unethical or, in some cases, illegal. If the bill becomes law, it would create an official secrets act of a kind that exists in totalitarian regimes but has never been tolerated in this country. Government officials who disclose classified information - even inadvertently - could be prosecuted for a criminal offense. Laws protecting national security already exist. They are sufficient to protect the nation's real interests in safeguarding real secrets. In the new legislation, whistle-blowers are not the only group targeted. News organizations would be inhibited in gathering and publishing information about government activities. And the real losers would be American citizens, whose ability to learn about what their government is doing would be decisively curtailed. Democracy demands an informed citizenry. It also demands, to the greatest degree possible, that government functions be conducted in an open and accessible manner. The tyrannies of despots are possible, in part, because of secrecy. Former President Eisenhower's warning about the then-emerging military-industrial state wasn't merely a caution about the conjunction of power, influence and high finance. It was an admonition to beware of a hidden network of relationships that he believed threatened to subvert democratic institutions. Consideration of news stories that, had there been an official secrets act, might not have been published in the past is disheartening. The Pentagon Papers is in that class. Watergate might qualify. Iran-contra certainly would. So would radiation and biological experiments on American citizens, fraud by defense contractors, industrial spying abroad by the government, and abuses by the CIA. The new legislation raises many questions. Who defines what is classified? What's to prevent government from classifying everything, including school lunch menus and subsidies to hog farmers? Will government officials become so gun-shy that they won't disclose even the time of day? One of the bill's opponents is Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon. He says it makes his job nearly impossible. None of us can afford to give government a blanket to hide its misdeeds. Trust and verify, former President Reagan used to say about dealing with foreign powers. That's a good strategy, too, for citizens in their relations with the government. Unless President Clinton intervenes, however, the second part of that formulaton will be lost under a shroud of official secrecy. A presidential veto is in everyone's interest. And that's no secret.
