Do you have family in the USAF?

aaronman · Feb 7, 2011

Because you might be a spy...

Americans who have accessed the WikiLeaks web site may have violated the Espionage Act, under an extreme interpretation of the law advanced by Air Force officials last week.

Many government agencies have instructed their employees not to download classified materials from the WikiLeaks web site onto unclassified computer systems. The government's position is that although the material is in the public domain, its classification status is unaffected. Therefore, to preserve the integrity of unclassified systems, the leaked classified information should not be accessed on such systems. If it is accessed, it should be deleted.

But on February 3, Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base issued startling new guidance stating that the leaked documents are protected by the Espionage Act and that accessing them under any circumstances is against the law, not simply a violation of government computer security policy.

â€œAccording to AFMC's legal office, Air Force members - military or civilian - may not legally access WikiLeaks at home on their personal, non-governmental computers, either. To do so would not only violate the SECAF [Secretary of the Air Force] guidance on this issue,â€¦ it would also subject the violator to prosecution for violation of espionage under the Espionage Act,â€ the AFMC legal office said.

Then, in an astounding interpretive leap, the AFMC went on to say that similar prohibitions apply to the relatives of Air Force employees.

â€œIf a family member of an Air Force employee accesses WikiLeaks on a home computer, the family member may be subject to prosecution for espionage under U.S. Code Title 18 Section 793.â€

This is a breathtaking claim that goes far beyond any previous reading of the espionage statutes.

â€œThat has to be one of the worst policy/legal interpretations I have seen in my entire career,â€ said William J. Bosanko, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, by email.

If taken seriously for a moment, the AFMC guidance raises a host of follow-on questions. What if a family member accessed WikiLeaks on a computer outside the home? What if a non-family member accessed WikiLeaks on the home computer? What if one learns that a neighbor has accessed WikiLeaks in the neighbor's home? Is the Air Force employee obliged to intervene or to report the violation to authorities? And how could any of this possibly be constitutional?

Since the AFMC guidance is not based in existing case law or past practice, these questions have no immediate answers.

Last December, a Department of Homeland Security official complained to Secrecy News that government policy on WikiLeaks produced the incongruous result that â€œmy grandmother would be allowed to access the cables but not me.â€ But if the new Air Force guidance can be believed, this is incorrect because the official's grandmother would be subject to prosecution under the Espionage Act.

In reality, there does not seem to be even a remote possibility that anyone's grandmother would be prosecuted in this way.

Instead, ironically enough, the real significance of the new AFMC guidance could lie in its potential use as evidence for the defense in one of the pending leak prosecutions under the Espionage Act. Defendants might argue that if the Espionage Act can be seriously construed by Air Force legal professionals to render a sizable fraction of the American public culpable of espionage, then the Act truly is impermissibly broad, vague and unconstitutional.

For a standard view of the general subject see â€œThe Protection of Classified Information: The Legal Frameworkâ€ (pdf), Congressional Research Service, January 10, 2011.

Update: Josh Gerstein at Politico was told by the Air Force Monday afternoon that the AFMC guidance â€œis being taken down pending a further review of the legal opinions it was based on.â€

However, several copies of the AFMC statement were also entered into the Lexis-Nexis database by States News Service, Targeted News Service and US Fed News. Those remain in circulation and unaffected.
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lol.

Irishchoctaw · Feb 7, 2011

oh jeez. *facepalm*

morefreedom · Feb 7, 2011

No less than the best from our government

Members of the military are subject to an expanded police state that everyone will have to endure in the times to come if government keeps expanding

I'm just glad me and none of my family is in the military, or ever plans to go into the military.

SIRSOG · Feb 7, 2011

So wait, its considered illegal to view any of the wikileak docs? the us govt betterg get on arresting like 60% of their citizens then, and get on super taxing the 40% left to make up for having to feed and house the rest of us on spy prison...wtf lol

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