Could the National Security Archive be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing historical documents that U.S. intelligence agencies now say are classified?
Could Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice be detained for continuing to publish historical intelligence records on the State Department web site that the CIA has flagged as classified?
Could thousands of historians and librarians around the country be arrested for retaining and circulating volumes of the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series that are now considered to contain classified documents?
These seem to be silly questions.
And yet the theory of the Espionage Act that has been adopted by the government in its prosecution of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (who are not charged with espionage) may extend even to silly cases such as these.
The Espionage Act’s prohibitions on the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information apply to “whoever” may violate them, the government insisted in a January 30 motion.
“Whoever means, ‘no matter who’,” the government contended. “The statute covers ‘anyone’.”
Until now, the Espionage Act has never been interpreted this broadly, and for good reason. Using the Act to penalize the public receipt and distribution of government information leads to absurd conclusions.
Most patient safety challenges are not really captured and there are not enough tools to empower clinicians to improve. Here are four proposals for improving patient safety that are worthy of attention and action.
The Trump administration has often cited consolidation as a path to efficiency. But history shows that USDA reorganizations have weakened, not strengthened, the agency’s capacity.
Grace Wickerson, the Federation of American Scientists’ Senior Manager, Climate and Health, today accepted a national recognition, the “Grist 50” award, bestowed by the editorial board of Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization.
The bootcamp brought more than two dozen next-generation open-source practitioners from across the United States to Washington DC, where they participated in interactive modules, group discussions, and hands-on sleuthing.