November 29, 2000

The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

As an organization representing scientists and engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we wish to sincerely thank you for vetoing the Official Secrets Act. Had you not done so, many of our members would have found themselves further constrained from addressing valid concerns within our workplace.

As we understood it, the legislation not only would have severely restricted free speech, but would have also undercut the already tenuous rights of government whistle-blowers who disclose wrongdoing. The legislation removed current requirements that to be classified, information must be clearly marked "secret" or bear some other warning. Individuals could have been prosecuted for unauthorized disclosures whenever they have "reason to believe" information was classified, even if it wasn't. There were no safeguards for those whose actions defend national security against corruption or bureaucratic abuse of power shielded by secrecy.

Before disclosing most forms of official misconduct, whistle-blowers would have had to seek advance permission and expose themselves to career-ending retaliation, or risk criminal liability. The new definition in the Act of what was termed "classifiable," together with the criminal liability, would have amounted to a virtual gag order under which just about anything could have been turned into an official secret after the fact permitting wrongdoers to seal cover-ups or destroy evidence.

Without a doubt, had the Official Secrets Act become law, nothing short of bringing back the rack and public floggings would have better cowed national security whistle-blowers into silent observers of fraud, waste, abuse and unsafe activities.

Again, thank you for vetoing this legislation.

Sincerely,



Patrick Weidhaas
SPSE President

cc: Tauscher, Stark, Miller, Feinstein, Boxer

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