Opinion ID: 425935
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the constitutional standard applied to the cia scheme

Text: FOR SECRET INFORMATIONON 30 The CIA classified portions of McGehee's articles as secret, believing that disclosure reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security. Exec. Order No. 12,065 Sec. 1-103, 3 C.F.R. 190, 191 (1979). We hold that the CIA censorship of secret information contained in former agents' writings and obtained by former agents during the course of CIA employment does not violate the first amendment. 31 The censorship of secret information protect[s] a substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression. Brown v. Glines, 444 U.S. at 354, 100 S.Ct. at 599. Indeed, the government has a compelling interest in protecting ... the secrecy of information important to our national security .... Snepp v. United States, 444 U.S. at 509 n. 3, 100 S.Ct. at 765 n. 3 (emphasis added). Information properly classified as secret does possess such importance by virtue of its potential for causing serious damage to the national security. 32 Further, the classification criteria for secret information reasonably confine the resulting censorship to cases in which a substantial governmental interest is served. The criteria do not sweep too broadly because they impede disclosure only when it poses a reasonable probability of serious harm. In addition, as the following discussion explains, the classification criteria are not excessively vague. 33 The term national security is defined for classification purposes as the national defense and foreign relations of the United States. So defined, the term is inherently vague. See Halperin v. Kissinger, 606 F.2d 1192, 1200 (D.C.Cir.1979), aff'd by an equally divided Court, 452 U.S. 713, 101 S.Ct. 3132, 69 L.Ed.2d 367 (1981); cf. United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 314, 320, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 2135, 2138, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972) (noting the inherent vagueness of the domestic security concept); Zweibon v. Mitchell, 516 F.2d 594, 653-54 (D.C.Cir.1975) (en banc) (the concept affecting foreign relations vague and subject to abuse). In this case, however, the governing Executive Order adds specificity to the definition by enumerating the types of information that may be considered for classification: 34 Information may not be considered for classification unless it concerns: 35 (a) military plans, weapons, or operations; 36 (b) foreign government information; 37 (c) intelligence activities, sources or methods; 38 (d) foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States; 39 (e) scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to the national security; 40 (f) United States Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities; or 41 (g) other categories of information which are related to national security and which require protection against unauthorized disclosure as determined by the President, by a person designated by the President ..., or by an agency head. 12 42 Exec. Order No. 12,065 Sec. 1-301, 3 C.F.R. 190, 193 (1979). 43 To be sure, this attempt to limit the classification of documents has its shortcomings. In particular, item (e) refers back to the concept of national security itself, thereby undermining the attempt to eliminate vagueness, and item (g) grants roving classification authority to specified individuals. The CIA, however, did not invoke items (e) or (g) in this case. 13 We therefore need not consider today whether classification decisions that place great reliance upon items (e) or (g) would be defective due to the asserted vagueness of the Executive Order. 14 44 Item (d) also refers broadly to foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States. Standing alone, such a classification standard might be excessively vague. See Zweibon v. Mitchell, 516 F.2d at 653-55. The CIA, however, has articulated narrower standards to guide classification decisions under item (d). See Agency Information Security Program Handbook: Classifying, Declassifying, Marking and Safeguarding National Security Information, HHB No. 70-2 p 9d (Nov. 28, 1978). The guidelines pertinent to this case 15 are sufficiently precise to withstand a challenge for unconstitutional vagueness. 45 Moreover, one of the principal dangers of imprecise standards is that they may deter legitimate expression. When an administrative scheme is designed to avoid the deterrence of legitimate speech, however, that danger is alleviated in part. Thus in Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, the Supreme Court rejected a vagueness challenge to the Hatch Act, in part because: 46 the Commission ha[d] established a procedure by which an employee in doubt about the validity of a proposed course of conduct may seek and obtain advice from the Commission and thereby remove any doubt there may be as to the meaning of the law .... 47 413 U.S. at 580, 93 S.Ct. at 2897-98. Similarly, in this case the Executive Order, by establishing a preclearance procedure for determining whether intended publications contain classified material, engenders less of a chilling effect on free speech. This is not to say, of course, that imprecise standards would not still present an intolerable burden by allowing the censor unwarranted discretion in vetoing material, but, as we have said, we do not find the standards for classifying material as secret unconstitutionally vague. And we note that the agent may seek judicial review of the CIA's classification decision. 16 48 Finally, McGehee argues that the classification standard for confidential information--information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause identifiable damage to the national security--should be invalidated because it is too broad and vague to satisfy the First Amendment. 17 Because, as explained below, McGehee lacks standing to assert overbreadth and vagueness challenges to the confidential standard, we need not consider them in this case. 49 The censored portions of McGehee's writings were classified secret, not confidential. 18 Thus he attempts to challenge the Executive Order on the ground that it may conceivably be unconstitutionally applied to others, in situations other than his own. Generally, litigants may not properly raise such claims. See, e.g., Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 610, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2915, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973); United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 22, 80 S.Ct. 519, 523, 4 L.Ed.2d 524 (1960). When the litigant asserts a first amendment challenge, however, courts sometimes make an exception and hear attacks on overly broad [rules] with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a [rule] drawn with the requisite narrow specificity. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 486, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 1121, 14 L.Ed.2d 22 (1965). 50 This exception, however, does not extend automatically to all first amendment challenges. Courts devised the exception because of a judicial prediction or assumption that the [rule]'s very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. at 612, 93 S.Ct. at 2916. Accordingly, overbreadth analysis should not be deployed when a limiting construction could save the rule from its constitutional defects, see, e.g., Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. at 491, 85 S.Ct. at 1123; Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569, 61 S.Ct. 762, 85 L.Ed. 1049 (1941), or when its deterrent effect is neither real nor substantial, see, e.g., Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U.S. 50, 96 S.Ct. 2440, 49 L.Ed.2d 310 (1976); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. at 615, 93 S.Ct. at 2917. 51 In this case, the Executive Order does, under some constructions, touch constitutionally protected speech. As McGehee observes, identifiable damage might include a minimal amount of harm which may not be sufficient in all cases to justify suppression of speech. 19 Yet future construction of the order 20 could reasonably delimit the scope of the order. The CIA or a reviewing court might formulate standards for confidential information that require damage to important ... national security interests. Snepp v. United States, 444 U.S. at 509 n. 3, 100 S.Ct. at 765 n. 3. Alternatively, the classification scheme might be narrowed to exclude much of what falls under the rubric of confidential materials. To paraphrase the Supreme Court, [e]ven if the ['confidential' standard] were to be considered in some respects unconstitutionally overbroad, we would not invalidate the entire [classification scheme]. The remainder of the [scheme] ... covers a whole range of ... constitutionally proscribable ... conduct. Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. at 580-81, 93 S.Ct. at 2897-98. 52 We also conclude that the classification scheme, taken as a whole, does not result in real or substantial deterrence of protected speech. The secret and top secret classifications place constitutional burdens on the speech of former CIA agents. We are not prepared to hold today that the burdens placed on such speech by the confidential classification are sufficiently heavy or widespread to render the entire classification scheme substantially overbroad and therefore invalid on its face. Cf. id. at 581, 93 S.Ct. at 2898 (same conclusion regarding an overbreadth challenge to the Hatch Act on the grounds that a prohibition against political endorsements, not applied to the plaintiff, rendered the entire statute void). In addition, as we noted above, the CIA classification and censorship scheme reduces deterrence, because prepublication review alleviates a former agent's fear that his disclosure of non-sensitive information might result in liability. Thus the CIA's scheme reduces any disfavored chilling effect. 53 McGehee also lacks standing to challenge the confidential standard for vagueness. A litigant cannot properly challenge a rule for vagueness when it clearly applies to him. See Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 756, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974) (One to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness.). 54 Accordingly, we uphold against first amendment challenge the CIA classification and censorship scheme for secret information. We decline to rule whether the confidential standard passes constitutional muster because McGehee lacks standing to mount such a challenge. We now turn to the question whether the CIA properly classified portions of McGehee's article as secret. 55