Earl Blumenauer: “They do have a special room where you can go and read it if you want, but you cannot talk about it, so I do not go and…”

“They do have a special room where you can go and read it if you want, but you cannot talk about it, so I do not go and read it. But they put in a clause which would establish an Official Secrets Act in the United States of America. Not even just for national defense purposes, but for anything that any government bureaucrat who is anywhere in the government who has a stamp that says, classified, they can stamp anything on their desk 'classified,' and anybody who discloses it or second- or third-hand prints it in the newspaper or talks about it, even a Member of Congress, would be subject to criminal penalties. Now, would we ever know about the problems created at the Department of Defense in acquisition or the problems in other parts of the government if all of the States could just be simply classified? So we are going to be turning to the next Supreme Court unless we can get this bill vetoed by the President and sent back down here to strip out the new Official Secrets Act.”