You know the government has gone too far with classifying information when the person who spent more than three decades secreting away documents comes out and says enough is enough.

 

J. William Leonard, Washington’s former classification czar, who spent 34 years keeping government records out of the public’s reach, has filed a formal complaint against the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice because, he says, officials classified a document that contained no secrets.

 

What especially irked Leonard was the document in question—an NSA email entitled “What a Success”—was among the classified material that prosecutors tried to use to punish Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA employee who was accused of illegally storing secrets at home and sharing them with The Baltimore Sun. The case against Drake ultimately fell apart, but Leonard was nonetheless upset that a document that had no business being classified could have helped put a man in prison.

 

“If you’re talking about throwing someone in jail for years, there absolutely has to be responsibility for decisions about what gets classified,” Leonard told The New York Times.

 

He added: “I’ve never seen a more deliberate and willful example of government officials improperly classifying a document.”

 

Leonard wants the NSA and the Justice Department to take disciplinary measures against officials who violate classification rules. The punishment could include dismissal, suspension without pay, reprimand or loss of a security clearance.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Complaint Seeks Punishment for Classification of Documents (by Scott Shane, New York Times)

Judge Slams Government Lawyers in Failed Whistleblower Case (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

When Secrecy Can Make Us Less Secure (by Nikki Troia, First Amendment Center)