Lexicon · Concept

National Defense Information

National Defense Information is a key concept of the U.S. Espionage Act: information related to the national defense and closely held by the government, the unauthorized obtaining or transmission of which is punishable under the law.

National Defense Information (NDI for short) is the central concept of the U.S. Espionage Act, enacted in 1917. Section 793 of the law (18 U.S.C. § 793) punishes, among other things, the unauthorized obtaining and transmission of such information, as well as its unauthorized possession and failure to return it. The penalty can be up to 10 years in prison.

What the term means

The law does not define precisely what falls under it. In the 1941 Gorin case, the U.S. Supreme Court called "national defense" a general concept with a broad meaning. According to court practice, the information must be related to the national defense, and the government must keep it closely guarded (closely held). Whether a piece of information relates to the national defense is decided by the jury.

The term is not the same as classified information: applying the law does not require that the information be classified as secret, but classification counts as strong evidence. According to the courts, the government must also prove that the disclosure could at least potentially cause harm, so the law cannot be used against whistleblowers who merely embarrass officials.

For the unauthorized transmission of information, under subsections (d) and (e), an additional condition is that the offender must have reason to believe that the information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation. This condition applies only to information communicated orally, not to the handing over of documents and objects.

Why it comes up in the UFO/UAP topic

The question of what can be made public also arises in the case of UAP whistleblowers. The public statements of former intelligence officer David Grusch were approved in April 2023 by the Pentagon's Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, and he provided the classified information to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community and to Congress.

Criticism

The law has been challenged on several occasions for vagueness and overly broad wording, but the Supreme Court upheld it as constitutional in the Gorin case, because the requirements concerning the offender's intent sufficiently delimit it. In a 1973 study, legal scholars described it as poorly written and vague. According to law professor Stephen Vladeck, it lacks the hallmarks of a precisely delimited restriction on free speech.

Sources

  1. Criminal Prohibitions on Leaks and Other Disclosures of Classified Defense Information (Congressional Research Service, R41404, 2017)
  2. Espionage Act of 1917 (Wikipédia)
  3. U.S. Recovered ‘Intact And Partially Intact Vehicles’ Of Non-Human Origin: Whistleblower (Jalopnik, 2023. június 5.)

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