Official Secrets Act Proposed

Raw Story is running a piece saying the Republicans are considering the possibility of introducing a version of the UK's Official Secrets Act to prevent leaks damaging to the Bushies. I believe that is the law that the leakers of the memo saying Bush had planned to bomb the al Jazeera headquarters are being tried under in the UK. I'm not sure of this, but I believe they are the first to be tried under that act.

It is also the law that Patrick Fitzgerald cautioned about in his press conference on Scooter's indictment. If you recall, Fitzgerald said that excessive use of the laws prohibiting leaks of classified information could lead the U.S. down the slippery slope of creating a de facto Official Secrets Act. He went on to say that was one of the reasons why he was not pursuing indictments under those laws.

This is not a law we want on the books of our country. But, the Bushies have been trying to distort our existing laws into a version of the Official Secrets Act anyway, so they'll be delighted to have one of their own making. Here's what John Dean said about this back in 2003.

Friday, Sep. 26, 2003

Except in a few highly egregious circumstances relating to national security information (espionage and atomic secrets), the U.S. Congress has, in the past, never made it a crime to leak information to the news media. As a result, for over two hundred years, our government has operated without an "official secrets act."

In contrast, Great Britain and other nations have long criminalized the disclosure of government information. But there's a crucial difference between them and us: They lack an equivalent of our First Amendment.

Despite the free speech costs, President George W. Bush has created the equivalent of an official secrets act for America - and it is only growing stronger. Indeed, by cobbling together provisions from existing laws, Bush's Justice Department has effectively created one of the world's most encompassing, if not draconian, official secrets acts.

If Attorney General John Ashcroft has his way, we will see many more prosecutions of this ilk. Ashcroft has told Congress he wants a "comprehensive, coordinated, Government-wide, aggressive, properly resourced, and sustained effort" to deal with "the problem of unauthorized disclosures."

It's important to watch Ashcroft's lips here: He said "unauthorized" disclosure - not, say, disclosures of classified information relating to national security, which would be a very different matter. Plainly, he is targeting anyone who leaks information the Bush Administration would rather not have made public - even when security is in no way at risk.

This time, however, it is already too late, for Ashcroft has outfoxed the watchdogs. Rather than pressing for new legislation that might spark similar controversy, he has decided to twist and distort laws already on the books to create the equivalent of such legislation. However, these laws were never intended to criminally prosecute such conduct.