In the case of former NSA official Thomas Drake, who is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act for retention (not disclosure) of allegedly classified information, the government now asserts that under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), the government should be able to provide "substitutions" for unclassified information.
The through-the-looking glass nature of this case just gets more bizarre as it speeds along.
Normally, the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) allows the Court to create "substitution" for classified information--such as redacted versions or summaries--so that both sides can use the information.
But now in a huge leap, the government is arguing that CIPA substitutions should be applicable to "protected" information, which includes "information relating to the activities of NSA" and unclassified information available on the Internet.
This is absurd.
It is no surprise that the government provides no authority on point. Instead, it states:
It is precisely because this type of information that may not make sense to a district court or member of the public, but "would make all too much sense to a foreign counter-intelligence specialist who could learn much about this nation's intelligence-gathering capabilities from what these documents revealed about sources and methods.
Doc. 110, p.5.
Really? The information at issue could reveal sources and methods? THEN WHY ISN'T IT CLASSIFIED?
As its name implies, the Classified Information Procedures Act is meant to protect classified information, not unclassified information that anyone (except for Mr. Drake, in his own defense, if the government gets its way) can access with one Google search. Weren't the 164 hybrid secrecy categories that were invented during the Bush years enough?