Threatened Legal Action and Document Reclassification
Before the book's publication, the Reagan administration claimed that unclassified source documents were released to Bamford in error, and threatened him with prosecution if he did not return 250 pages of documents he had obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The documents in question related to a 1975-76 Department of Justice investigation, and described the NSA's widespread illegal monitoring of domestic communication, warrantless surveillance of Americans, and monitoring of commercial cable and telex traffic. Bamford's attorney, believing that they would prevail in court, invited the Department of Justice to prosecute, but no case was ever brought. In the wake of the dispute, classification rules were revised to allow document reclassification, and the contested documents were reclassified. NSA agents then visited libraries to remove other source documents from circulation.
The new rules allowing document reclassification were outlined in Executive Order 12356. Previously, Executive Order 12065, issued by Jimmy Carter in 1978, had prohibited document reclassification. Executive Order 12356, issued by Ronald Reagan in 1982, eliminated the reclassification prohibition and described situations in which documents could be reclassified. Released documents could be reclassified as long as they could be reasonably recovered (meaning that documents available to the public at large would not meet this criterion). It also allowed documents requested under the FOIA or Privacy Act to be classified or reclassified provided they met specified requirements (e.g., certain matters related to national security). According to Bamford, he could not be prosecuted under the new rules because of the principle of ex post facto.
Read more about this topic: The Puzzle Palace
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