Secrecy and Security

Report Outline
Secrecy and Security
Jencks Decision and Access to F.B.I. Files
Obstacles to Freer Information Policy
Special Focus

Secrecy and Security

Proposal to Punish Newsmen for Defense Leaks

Secrecy in government, long a subject of controversy, continues to provoke heated debate among legislators, public officials, and members of the press. The federal Commission on Government Security raised a storm of criticism recently when it proposed extension of the espionage laws to provide punishment for reporters who willfully divulge information classified as secret. Conversely, the June 3 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Jencks case, affirming a defendant's right under certain circumstances to inspect secret documents in the government's possession, has stirred fear that undue disclosure may hamper law enforcement agencies.

Editors are challenging with increased vehemence the federal government's practice of withholding large quantities of information on the ground that disclosure would prejudice national security or the public interest. Much of this information has little or no bearing on the country's security. Suppression may in fact work to the detriment of security, editors argue, because a well-informed public is essential to national strength in a democracy.

A separate but related criticism concerns secrecy in internal security activities and federal loyalty-security programs. The right to due process is violated, according to one view, when persons who become the object of charges based on secret information are denied access to data necessary to their defense. As in the case of the widely asserted “people's right to know,” the fundamental issue is that of reconciling the conflicting interests of freedom and security in an era of unremitting tension.