[WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia

Thu Apr 7 04:54:51 UTC 2005

My take on this (as someone who has spent some time studying the
history of nuclear secrecy, but who is not a lawyer):

1. The US federal gov. could probably request that Wikipedia delete
certain types of information posted to it. It could likely obtain an
injuction against Wikipedia to keep it offline until the full issue
was wrangled out in court, if Wikipedia objected. In the end, it would
probably depend on the nature of the information in question whether
Wikipedia would win or not. I have no idea how this would apply
internationally, though, but if Wikipedia is 100% out of the US then
the country it is in probably has its own technology transfer laws in
agreement with the US which would be relevant.

2. The main person the government would go after, though, is the
person who leaked it. They are the one who has likely violated their
security clearance which let them see the information in the first
place.

3. The US government generally does not admit when information has
been leaked or not (to admit that something is leaked is to confirm
that the data is legitimate).

4. An interesting case to look at in thinking about this would be U.S.
vs. The Progressive, Inc. (1979). I've been meaning to writing an
article about it here for some time, actually. Basically, an activist
named Howard Morland came up with what he thought was the "H-bomb
secret" -- how a hydrogen bomb works, the secret Teller-Ulam
configuration (I've done a graphic of Morland's theory at [[Nuclear
weapons design]] for those who are curious what the "secret"
supposedly is). A left-wing magazine, The Progressive, agreed to
publish it. Through a long series of events, the U.S. Department of
Energy told The Progressive not to publish it, and obtained a
temporary injunction against it claiming that it was going to publish
restricted data which had a clear and present danger. In the appeals
stage, though, the magazine argued that Morland had compiled the idea
out of public domain material. The government argued that he couldn't
have done so, but even if he could, then that particular arrangement
of public domain material, since it constituted secret information,
was thus a secret (under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, any
information on "atomic energy" was technically "born secret" until
officially declassified). The Progressive (and then the ACLU)
challenged the "born secret" doctrine on first admendment grounds. The
government bungled a few other secrecy-related scandals in the
meantime (and the Three Mile Island accident happened, which didn't
help), and eventually the government lawyers dropped the case and let
the Progressive publish (most commentators speculate it was because
they were afraid of the Atomic Energy Act getting completely shut down
and things were going quite poorly). So, the general legal
interpretation has been that this means that nothing obtained from
public domain (that is, not obtained from anything marked "secret" or
from someone with a secrecy clearance) can actually be considered
"secret." However, it didn't fully resolve itself, so that isn't
completely part of precedent. (the above is a very basic version of
the whole story, which has many more twists and turns)

So... part of it would depend on the source of the information. If it
was unknown or anonymous or questionable (as one could easily imagine
a Wikipedia contribution to be), then it would perhaps be a problem:
it would probably lie upon WP to prove that it wasn't from a "secret"
source. If it was, say, me (who has no access to secret information),
and I was willing to defend myself and show all of my sources, WP
could probably win it in court.

The two legal complexities which make it hard for me to really think
this through are: 1. Is Wikipedia subject to US classification laws
(Espionage Act, Atomic Energy Act)? I don't know where Wikipedia is
located or how the courts view "location" in terms of the internet,
but if it is in any NATO country I'm betting it is subject to them in
some way (just a hunch). 2. Is Wikipedia any different from any other
"publication"? Does its dynamic editing make it take on the
responsibilities of its users? I suspect that a court would hold Jimbo
accountable for anything written on Wikipedia, whatever his official
disclaimer statement says. But I don't really know that for sure.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but this is my take on it based on the
research I've done on the history of nuclear secrecy (which is a fair
amount). Which may or may not be applicable. If the question is just,
can the US government request that publications not publish US
secrets? Yes, and it probably applies to many countries outside the US
due to mutual agreements. But part of the question lies on the
definition of "US secrets" which is what has historically been most
contested.

FF

On Apr 1, 2005 4:02 AM, Robert Merkel <robert.merkel at benambra.org> wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> Here's a hypothetical for you.  Say somebody posts a piece of
> information about, say, an American-designed weapon, to the Wikipedia.
> A piece of information that the US government would prefer to be kept
> secret and thus is classified.  Now, the person that originally leaked
> the information could certainly be punished under US law, but is the
> Wikipedia under any *legal* obligation to delete the information,
> assuming it's relevant?
> 
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>                                            Robert Merkel
>                                      robert.merkel at benambra.org
>                                         http://benambra.org
> 
> The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire.
>   -- Sir Charles Kingsford Smith
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>