European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 21, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Daily Magazine prison terms for those who leak information stronger lock on classified files at the a splay of 7ib is the heart suppose to beat True 0r skip a beat new York times by Stuart Taylor new York times new american ea3u presidents have complained for decades about government secrets showing up in the morning paper or on the evening but Ronald Reagan and other administration officials have sought with special vigor to control the flow of now there is a move afoot to plug leaks by sending the leaders to the White House has confirmed that legislation Mak ing it a crime for government employees to disclose any classified information without authorization had been proposed by the Central intelligence Agency and was being considered within the and the Justice for the first has won a ruling from a Federal judge in Baltimore that such disclosures can already be prosecuted under existing criminal these and previous administration Lea plug Ging initiatives including efforts to impose lifelong censorship upon officials with Access to secrets and expand use of lie Detector tests to track Down leaders had As their principal targets officials who make not reporters who publish but the administration has also taken aim at Jour not with Legal sanctions but by denouncing them and restricting their Access to government info asked at his press conference in March to comment on statements by critics raising doubts about the patriotism of president Reagan suggested the Media were but said ill leave that argument to the others include George Shultz who said in it seems As though the reporters Are always against us and so there always seeking to report something that going to screw things and defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger suggested in december that the Washington Post had Given Aid and Comfort to the enemy by reporting classified details about a planned space shuttle the Post responded that most of the information was already in the Public the administration restrictions on Access to information include a presidential order giving officials greater leeway to classify documents Strick controls on press Access to Grenada during the october 1983 invasion4 a new in the Pentagon and some other of requiring top level approval before senior officials can give and efforts to narrow the Freedom of information the Reagan administrations policies Are causing the most significant Media Access restrictions on government information since the end of voluntary censorship in world War says Jack executive director of the reporters committee for Freedom of the what they really Are Landau is that they own the information and that neither the press nor the Public has a right to know or publish what the government decides should be attorney general Edwin Meese has said that he hoped journalistic ethics would prevent people who have obtained what is in effect stolen stolen from utilizing it in a Way that would com Promise or Hurt the National part of the logic underlying this View is that military secrets Are just As accessible to such foreign adversaries As the soviet Union when they Are published As when they Are ferreted out by foreign most journalists disavow publishing things that would betray vital Many administration complaints involve publication of secrets More Likely to stir political controversy than to give foreign Adver Saries new earlier this for exam Shultz said that an article in the new York times about american contingency plans for deploying nuclear depth charges in Allied countries had done us a considerable amount of he acknowledged the plans had previously been published the damage was apparently political fallout in the Allied Justice department lawyers say that a reporter who knowingly publishes an officially classified National secret is guilty of violating broadly worded espionage Laws that Date Back to civil libertarians and journalists dispute and the department has never put its theory to the test against a but the department is trying to jail Samuel Loring a naval intelligence for giving a Brit ish military Magazine classified satellite intelligence photographs of a soviet aircraft Carrier under construct he is charged with espionage and the theft of government the Only similar Case on record was the Nixon administrations prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo for giving the Pentagon a classified study of the Vietnam to the new York times and other that Case was dismissed on account of governmental Federal District judge Joseph Young of Balti More has upheld the governments position that Mori son can be convicted if the government can prove he deliberately sent secret documents to the even if he had no intent to harm National if adopted by appellate Legal scholars judge Youngs pretrial ruling in March in effect Means that the United states has had a Broad official secrets act on the books for More than 60 april 1985 the stars and stripes Page 13