Top Secret

Book excerpt: Since September 11, 2001, the United States has investigated and prosecuted public employees, journalists, and the press for the dissemination of classified information relating to the national security. What is the cause of the recent tension between the government and the press? Perhaps the media are pressing more aggressively to pierce the government's shield of secrecy. Perhaps the government is pressing more aggressively to expand its shield of secrecy. Perhaps both factors are at work. Top Secret explores not why this is happening, but whether the measures taken and suggested by the executive branch to prevent and punish the public disclosure of classified information are consistent with the First Amendment. This book, the first in the Free Expression in America series, addresses four critical issues: a public employee's right to disclose classified information to a journalist, the government's right to punish the press for publishing classified information, the government's right to punish a journalist for soliciting such information, and a journalist's right to keep his sources anonymous.