The measure, which is part of a spending bill to finance the U.S. spy agencies, calls for criminal penalties for anyone who "knowingly and willfully discloses or attempts to disclose any classified information." Government employees convicted of disclosing such information would face a three-year prison sentence.

This so-called antileak measure was requested by the Central Intelligence Agency and drafted with assistance from the U.S. Justice Department, which supervises the FBI. It was inserted into the Intelligence Authorization Act by the Senate Intelligence Committee after closed hearings. The House Intelligence Committee also approved the provision. A plethora of political police agencies operate under the "national security classification system" that would be covered by the legislation, in cluding the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, FBI, and Drug Enforcement Agency.

The proposal has evoked strong objections by civil liberties and media groups, and has even opened a debate about it within ruling-class circles.

In an October 27 editorial entitled "A Pernicious Secrecy Bill," the editors of the New York Times warned that the bill "would freeze public discussion of government policies and actions that require open debate."

" 'Properly classified' information... includes hundreds of thousands of documents that should never have been classified in the first place," the editorial states. "The standard could be interpreted as covering information that is not stamped classified but is effectively the same as information classified elsewhere in the government. Officials could be prosecuted for releasing material even if they had good reason to believe it was public information."

The executive branch has unilateral authority to define what information should be classified.

The government currently classifies about 8 million documents each year. This includes nearly all cables from U.S. embassies, even when they contain just summaries of the local newspapers.

According to Lucy Dalgish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, this new regulation will lead to many more subpoenas to journalists demanding they identify their sources.

The Reporters Committee and eight other media organizations, including the American Society of Newspaper Editors and National Newspaper Association sent a letter to Congress in July opposing this bill, warning it will lead to "over-classification of information."

At the end of October two leading members of the House Judiciary Committee --liberal Democrat John Conyers and conservative Republican Henry Hyde--called for hearings on this bill by their committee, and asked that the effective date of the measure be delayed for one year.

Some defenders of the bill state that they "would have preferred" that the bill have a less sweeping scope but that they support it anyway as in the interests of "national security" and argue that it can be "fixed" after passage.

Liberal opponents of the bill do not challenge the measure's premise that the U.S. government has the prerogative to spy on individuals and organizations and to hide its actions under the cover of "legitimate secrets," as the Times editors put it. They are mostly concerned about giving Washington and its spy agencies the appearance of an "open, democratic society" as they pursue their attacks on working people.

Clinton has until November 4 to act on the bill.