When I said I Googled it, I meant I’d try and find some way to determine its authenticity. Any fool can slap “Top Seekrit” on a page. And yeah, I’d be very curious to read it. Current events might actually make it more believable that I hadn’t, which is amusing. “Who wants to get in that much trouble?”
Immediately call the FBI. Try not to look at it, but if you do, tell them honestly. Don’t tell anyone else. I’ve been working with classified documents for 20 years, and this is not a terribly uncommon occurrence - I’ve never heard of charges or anything more than minor inconvenience if someone is honest with them and cooperates.
For reference, I found this link providing guidance on the classification of documents.
First of all, if the documents have been sitting in the attic or wherever long enough, they might actually no longer be classified.
The site says the following:
“Officers and employees of the United States Government, and its contractors, licensees, and grantees shall be subject to appropriate sanctions if they knowingly, willfully, or negligently disclose to unauthorized persons information properly classified under this Order or predecessor orders …Sanctions may include reprimand, suspension without pay, removal, termination of classification authority, loss or denial of access to classified information, or other sanctions in accordance with applicable law and agency regulation.”
Regardless of the morality of what you should do with the documents, it seems to me that legally the burden of keeping the top secret documents secret falls on the government and its affiliates. Once it’s out there, is there legally any difference between reading the original dusty old file, reading it in the New York Times, or reading it on Wikileaks?
There’s a declass date on them. But documents can stay classified for a very long time. Typically more than 30 years, many 50 or 75. And some can never be declassified, despite what a certain person in the news claims.
Here’s another branch of the hypothetical: Suppose that I find these documents, and I dutifully look up the phone number of the local FBI office, and call them and tell them. Unfortunately, the agent I get on the phone is an idiot, and blows me off as some random crank, and any follow-up I try just gets rerouted back to that same idiot since he’s the one who took the original call, and so I’m not able to turn in the documents.
What then happens if it later comes to the attention of the Powers that Be that I really do have Top Secret documents? Will I get credit for having attempted to turn them in?
Not in any way an expert, but I’d hope if you have some record of the call it would help.
Finding a Top Secret document in the wild should be a significant cause for concern. Stuff does not get classified just for the fun of it. Moreover, the reason something is classified may not be self evident. Aggregation is one of the critical problems in intelligence. Putting together a picture from lots of small bits of information to reveal a whole is a bit aspect of intelligence work, and stopping others from doing so to you just as important.
Even finding a classified document with apparently public knowledge in it can still be bad. When was the information known? Just revealing that certain knowledge about an adversary was known at a given time in the past - even if it is public knowledge now - can be extremely damaging. Moreover, it may provide clues as to how it was obtained - compromising ongoing work.
Top secret means the document contains information that could lead to catastrophic consequences if leaked.
Governments take this stuff very seriously.
Really, there isn’t any discussion possible. You find documents like the OP suggests, you take immediate steps to get them securely back. And no, you don’t get to read them or check with Google or second guess what they are or contain.
It does continue to surprise me just how poorly the US government and its agencies are regarded by US citizens. The above commentaries seem to assume that there is always ethical room to weasel out of responsibilities. There isn’t. The agencies are not stupid, and they know how to handle the OP’s scenario.
To be clear, I do not work for the military, but that does not mean that my reaction to that filing cabinet full of top-secret nuclear data would be to immediately scan it and post it on the Internet just for fun.
I have no done a quick search on this question. It confirms my initial hunch. It is illegal to disseminate classified information, but I could find no law saying I am committing a crime by reading what someone else leaked (intentionally or negligently).
What do you mean by “illegal to disseminate classified information”? That sounds vague. In principle they could prosecute people under the Espionage Act. The newspaper itself still published parts of the Pentagon Papers, for instance.
I’m not sure.
We should put this to music. “What do you do with a secret document?”
What will we do with a secret document?
What will we do with a secret document?
What will we do with a secret document?
Early in the morning!
Way hay and up she classifies!
Way hay and up she classifies!
Way hay and up she classifies!
Early in the morning!
Put it in a bathroom with Trump’s Toilet!
Put it in a bathroom with Trump’s Toilet!
Put it in a bathroom with Trump’s Toilet!
Early in the morning!
Put it on stage with a wedding party!
Put it on stage with a wedding party!
Put it on stage with a wedding party!
Early in the morning!
Put it where the Chinese can find it!
Put it where the Chinese can find it!
Put it where the Chinese can find it!
Early in the morning!
That sounds a lot like the next step the authorities would do is make you disappear!! I strongly suspect that this would not be their default action, but rather asking you to sign something that agrees that you will not disclose anything you have learned. And I suspect there would be some background investigation going on, with or without your knowledge, with an aim to damage control. Both of you, and of the deceased relative.
TS documents should be pretty clearly marked on a cover page, as well as on each individual page. Arguably, as soon as you see that marking, you should stop reading; any chance at plausible deniability goes away. Note that would even be the case if you happened to have a clearance yourself - there’s the whole “need to know” thing, and chances are you are not working on something where Uncle Benedict’s documents are relevant to your job.
Presumably, someone working in an environment where such documents might be handled is told “call your office’s security supervisor” - which obviously does not apply to the hypothetical. My gut reaction would be to call the FBI, or the nearest military facility, as the local police department does not have the training or authority to handle such situations.
When the whole Wikileaks thing came out, publishing classified info, there were memos sent out to everyone in my firm, reminding us that “even if you DO have a clearance, you are NOT supposed to access or download those materials” (remember, “need to know”). Kinda like shutting the barn door after the horse has vacated the premises, but it might keep a few people from reading stuff (I never did, anyway).
The age of the documents also matters. There are rules for declassifying stuff after a certain period of time, unless a case can be made for its continuing to pose severe harm to the US’s interests. If great grandpa was pushing a broom around Los Alamos in the 1940s, I suspect anything in his attic is long past being of any concern. I’d likely still turn such documents in to the FBI, simply for completeness and in case it answered any outstanding questions from old investigations.
Well…they did lose the documents being described in the OP!
The US government and its agencies suffer from the same bureaucracy, politics, and institutional idiocy as any large organization. Which is not to say they can’t effectively mobilize at times to enact their particular mandate or take steps to protect themselves.
I think what is surprising to me is how poorly US government and its agencies in the sense that people here feel justified in doing anything other than contacting whatever “In the even these documents are found…” number is prominently displayed on the cover page.
For Top Secret there is some truth to this. The controls in place should have meant that they know where every copy is. But they could be illicit copies, or diverted from destruction. The mere fact that they were where they were means someone has broken the law at some point. You can’t blame the government for that.
Someone who was trusted broke the law and took the documents. That doesn’t provide the finder with an argument that it was the governments fault and thus there is a lessened responsibility falling to the finder. In the extreme this is just victim blaming.
There is a balance to be struck between heavy handed policing and trusting people. In free societies we lean towards trust.
I think it was Popular Photography in the mid-1970’s had a bit where to demonstrate cluelessness on the part of the security services, a photographer took a big zoom lens into the press box at a summit (in Finland, I think?). Nobody thought to stop him. He took a few photos looking down over Kissinger’s shoulder of the document he was reading, and it was quite readable in the photo. It was marked “CLASSIFIED” and was apparently a news briefing summary off the wire service.
(Similarly, way back when, the finance minister in Canada was holding a press briefing Q&A on TV the day before a budget release. Premature release of budget details is a big no-no in the parliamentary system. The minister flipped quickly through the budget book to show it off, and apparenly with freeze frame some of the budget details were readable. The department was up all night changing that section of the budget and reprinting the books so as to avoid th eminister resigning for breaching security.)
Classified doesn’t mean secret or top secret. It is a broad term that means exactly what it says. The document has been classified into one or another security classification. If it were Secret or Top Secret it would say so, at the top and bottom of every page. 'Classified" may simply mean in more modern parlance that the document is “Official”. Basically anything that is official business. A briefing would absolutely be so classified. Doesn’t mean there is anything secret about it. Where it may become sensitive is that what press briefings were of interest to Kissinger can itself be of value. This is the aggregation issue again. Just the fact that someone important is taking an interest is itself potentially more valuable than the information itself.
Budget papers, that is a whole different kettle of fish. For instance, where I am, cabinet papers are classified essentially one step higher than top secret. Leaking cabinet discussions is as close to a hanging offence as we have left. Pre handing down of a budget, and you are a razor’s width away from very deep do-do letting that information leak.
Also there is absolutely zero incentive for the government to prosecute someone for doing so. Unless you happen to be in a blockbuster spy thriller there is nothing secret enough that they are going to dissappear a US citizen just for seeing it. Which means that they are going to have to have a public trial to prosecute you which is going to increase the exposure of the security breach which is something they don’t want. Secondly if they do come down hard on you, the message that the public will receive is “if you find a classified document don’t tel the feds or they will put you in prison.” Which is the opposite of the message they should be sending.
What they will probably do, is thank you for coming forward, collect the document, and then sit you interrogate you about what you saw, what you know about how the deceased relative might have gotten the document, who you told about it, finishing up by laying out in extremely graphic detail what will happen to you if you tell anyone else about it.
So is there ever a circumstances where someone who has never been officially entrusted with secret documents and has never signed any of the associated paperwork, could be prosecuted for reading a document they come across carrying out there usual legal business? (Like the example in the OP)
I’m not aware of any such instance. I seriously doubt an accidental peek could or would be prosecuted.