B is for Born Secret, Born Classified, Classified at Birth
B is for Born Secret, Born Classified, Classified at Birth
(From the A-Z of Secrecy and Ignorance Series)
Susan Maret, Lecturer, School of Information, SJSU & UC, Santa Cruz
Security categories such as ‘born secret’, also known as ‘born classified’ or ‘classified at birth’, reflect the ultimate concealment of atomic (fission) and nuclear (fission and fusion)-related information created by the US government. The history of born secret indicates that certain types of information is “born classified” whether “generated in an official government project, or in the mind of a private citizen working in his own home” (Hewlett, 1980, p. 173). A “writer or researcher working from unclassified sources could combine information in such a way as to produce concepts that are ‘classified at birth’” (De Volpi, Marsh, Postol, & Stanford, 1981, p. 12). The US government claimed the “classified at birth’ concept to be necessary to “ensure that sensitive information would not be divulged before the United States had an opportunity to assess its importance and take appropriate classification action” (De Volpi, Marsh, Postol, & Stanford 1981, p. 59).
According to Richard G. Hewlett, Chief Historian of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 1957 to 1980, throughout its existence from 1946-1975, the AEC consistently relied upon the ‘born’ classified category in administering its statutory authority to control the dissemination of atomic energy-related information. It is noteworthy that this security category is not defined in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 and 1954. However, the US Department of Energy (DOE) – the successor agency to the AEC – asserts that information that falls under Restricted Data (RD) under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 “comes into existence as classified” and requires a Q security clearance. As Oak Ridge National Lab engineer Donald Woodbridge (1971, 24) sociologically notes:
we were invaded, as it were, by a tribe of people peculiar in their possession of the fissioning atom. Peculiar, too, in that they could be trusted to keep that knowledge a tribal secret. And so, because man’s welfare – indeed man’s survival – was deemed to depend on it, the tribal knowledge was decreed to be Restricted Data, inaccessible to people outside the tribe except after a special initiation ceremony, known mysteriously as Q.
(Note the interesting and not unproblematic notion of the ‘tribe’ as important in his account in constituting an ‘outsider’’s view of an ‘insider’ community.)
In describing the integration of born classified within the atomic secret society, Oak Ridge National Lab engineer Donald Woodbridge (1971, p. 24) observed that “we were swept into the new age; and along with a flood of new knowledge, new hopes, and new perils we had to cope with a new concept in controlling information.”
The Progressive Case, 1979
In 1979, the DOE sued The Progressive magazine to prevent publication of the “The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It, Why We’re Telling It” written by journalist Howard Morland. DOE claimed that Morland’s article contained classified information that would reveal national secrets that could potentially be used to construct a hydrogen bomb. Importantly, according to the DOE, Morland’s research fell under the born secret clause of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Morland, who wrote the “H-Bomb Secret” from non-classified, public materials, found that “perhaps the [US] Government is genuinely unaware of the extent to which information classified ‘secret’ is publicly available.”
As legal scholar Mary M. Cheh (1979-1980, p.164-166) points out, “a question latent in the language” of the Atomic Energy Act concerns privately developed or generated atomic energy information. That is, information developed or generated without government funds and without access to classified government documents, falls nevertheless under the category of Restricted Data:
if it is, a scientist in a university laboratory, a researcher in a private industrial plant, or an enterprising journalist in the public libraries can independently compile, develop, or invent Restricted Data. Communication of this ‘secret’ information contrary to the provisions of the Act consequently may be enjoined or may lead to a fine or imprisonment.
In the end, the US government secured a temporary restraining order against The Progressive. While the appeal was pending, on September 16, 1979, the case was dismissed when The Daily Californian, the student newspaper of the University of California at Berkeley, published excerpts from the H-bomb secret containing similar information. The Progressive finally published Morland’s article in full in November 1979. After publication, the article was found to contain technical errors. Significant corrections were then published as a full-page errata in The Progressive.
United States v. Progressive, Inc. not only became a test of born secret’s reach in preemptively classifying categories of information. The case brought the debate on prior restraint and freedom of the press to public awareness and in doing so, tested the boundaries of national security secrecy and right to know.
References
Cheh, M. M. 1979-1980, “The Progressive case and the Atomic Energy Act: Waking to the dangers of government information controls,” George Washington Law Review, 48 no. 2, pp. 163-211.
De Volpi, A., Marsh, G.E., Postol, T.A., and Stanford, G. S. 1981, Born secret: The H-bomb, the Progressive case and national security. New York: Pergamon Press.
Grayson, W. C. Jr. 1987, A brief history of The Progressive case.Office of Classification, US Department of Energy. RDA-TR-138562-004R.1. https://www.governmentattic.org/45docs/DOEbhProgressiveCase_1987.pdf
Hewlett, R. G. 1980, “The ‘born-classified’ concept in the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission” December 22, 173-187. House Committee on Government Operations. The government’s classification of private ideas: Thirty-fourth report together with additional views. 96th Congress, 2d session, House of Representatives. Washington, DC: GPO. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-13382_00_00-057-1540-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-13382_00_00-057-1540-0000.pdf
McCloskey, Jr., Hon. P. N. 1980, “Additional views,” pp. 188-193. United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. The government’s classification of private ideas: Thirty-fourth report. 96th Congress, 2d session, House of Representatives; no. 96-1540. Washington, DC: GPO.
Morland, H. [1999] 2007, The Holocaust bomb: A question of time. FAS e-Prints http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/morland.html
Morland, H. 1979, “The bomb’s a secret?” New York Times, March 26.
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/26/archives/the-bombs-a-secret.html
Woodbridge, D. 1971, “Some thoughts on classification in the AEC,” National Classification Management Society Journal, Papers from the 6th National Seminar: VI no. 1, pp. 22-33.