In an unclassified memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), entitled “The Consequences of Permissive Neglect”, a senior official on the agency’s Foreign Denial and Deception Committee, James B. Bruce, called for a targeting of the news media, making them legally accountable for leaked information that they publish. The memo begins by declaring that “secrecy is under assault” and that the press has become an “open vault of classified information on U.S. intelligence collection sources and methods,” which “pose a serious, seemingly intractable problem for U.S. national security.” The proposed response to this problem is to criminalize and prosecute reporters for reporting on classified information and even for possessing classified documents. Currently, the espionage statute requires that one must have intent to damage the nation in order to be charged. Bruce proposed expanding the statute to cover the mere intent to disclose information. While the issue of addressing leaks is certainly not a new undertaking for a government agency, this proposal is different in several ways. First, the memo comes from the CIA, which is not supposed to be involved in domestic politics. Second, instead of previous efforts to restrict information disclosure by confining access to a few within the government, it specifically proposes targeting and punishing the media. The memo also notes that current laws would be sufficient to prosecute those leaking such information, but these laws have simply not been enforced in the past. Interestingly, the memo acknowledges that the proponents of secrecy face “an important anomaly” in that nearly all the evidence supporting the argument that leaks are causing serious damage is itself classified. The memo does note a few examples as evidence, including stories that tipped the Soviets off to monitoring of their missile tests in 1958, eavesdropping on the Soviet Politburo in 1971, and leaks that informed the Chinese about investigations at Los Alamos. Despite a few incidents such as these, there is also plenty of public evidence that leaks and whistleblowing play an important role in halting abuses of authority. Leaks have helped reveal numerous cases of the government using secrecy laws to cover up covert wars, domestic espionage and other controversial and illegal acts. This includes the Iran-Contra affair, the Nixon administration’s use of the CIA to spy on enemies, and military tests that deliberately exposed soldiers and civilians to radiation during the 1950s. These examples, however, are not included in the memo. It is unclear where this CIA memo may lead or which federal agencies may use it. Given the Bush administration’s ongoing preference for secrecy, it seems unlikely to go ignored.