Early pushback on classified-leak crackdown scores a win

[struggle4progress]

By Elana Schor
March 1, 2007

A possible Senate Judiciary Committee flare-up in the battle between media and government over reporting on White House anti-terrorism strategies cooled down yesterday amid early pushback from press groups.

The Judiciary panel plans to mark up a bill this morning requiring federal agencies to disclose their use of data mining, a practice that has grown highly controversial since The New York Times revealed in December 2005 the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. The Sunshine in Government Initiative, an alliance of nine leading media organizations, got early word of a possible amendment from Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) that would make it a crime to share any element of the government’s “war on terror” operations.

The prospect of Kyl’s amendment alarmed Sunshine members, which include the Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists. The coalition quickly criticized Kyl’s effort as a U.S. version of the British Official Secrets Act, a broad law that allows the U.K. to punish government employees and reporters who share classified information ...

... as of press time, Kyl’s proposed changes to the Espionage Act were moving away from a ban of the deliberate release of information “concerning the communication intelligence activities of the or any foreign government.” Instead, Kyl may offer changes that would restrict criminalization to the classified agency’s data-mining reports as mandated by the bill, and limit punitive action to government employees who share those reports ...

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/030107/leak.html