Courts can review government's decision to classify information
By The Associated Press
06.11.02
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration lost a round in its fight to censor a book about China's nuclear weapons program when a federal judge yesterday said the court has the authority to review its decision.
The government is trying to delete 20% of a manuscript written by Danny Stillman, retired chief intelligence officer at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Stillman sued the Defense Department and the CIA, claiming they violated his First Amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan yesterday rejected the government's argument that the court doesn't have jurisdiction to review executive branch decisions about classifying information.
"The government has asked this Court to take the extraordinary step of insulating its actions from judicial review and from constitutional challenge," Sullivan wrote in his 106-page opinion. "This court will not allow the government to cloak its violations of plaintiff's First Amendment rights in a blanket of national security."
Sullivan also said Stillman's lawyer has a right to review the censored parts of the book. He ordered the government to conclude a background check on the lawyer, Mark Zaid, by June 21.
"From a First Amendment standpoint, this decision is up there among the most prominent decisions ever issued in this field," Zaid said.
Government lawyers said the Constitution gives the executive branch total authority to control access to classified information, an argument Sullivan rejected.
"The implications of the arguments put forth by the government are stunning," he wrote, noting the Freedom of Information Act would be unconstitutional and the Pentagon Papers would never have been published if those arguments were the law.
Stillman spent 28 years working at Los Alamos, including 14 as head of the intelligence division. Between 1990 and 1999, he made nine trips to China, visiting a nuclear test site and a nuclear lab, meeting with scientists and attending lectures. Stillman agreed to be debriefed by government security officials after each trip, even though none was made in his official capacity.
Based on those trips, Stillman wrote a 500-page manuscript titled Inside China's Nuclear Weapons Program. He submitted it for government review in January 2000, a requirement for employees with security clearance.
The government blocked publication for 19 months while it reviewed the information, a process that's supposed to take 30 days, Zaid said. Within days of Stillman's lawsuit, the government cleared part of the book.
A telephone call seeking comment from the government's lawyer was not immediately returned.