In the wake of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the emperor of Japan created a radio recording: the Gyokuon-hōsō, the Jewel Voice broadcast. His subjects -- never having heard his voice and barely understanding his archaic, courtesan Japanese -- learned that: "the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."
Surrender to the Japanese is dishonor, and dishonor is worse than death. Accordingly, nearly 1,000 officers conspired in the Kyūjō Incident to destroy the recording and prevent dishonor from falling over the empire. As the rebels wandered the imperial palace in search of the recording, they found themselves unable to read the archaically-written Japanese words throughout the palace. The rebels held the imperial palace for a night, but by the next morning had begun to commit ritual suicide. The emperor's unprecedented actions told the entire world that now humans had the knowledge to destroy the world, and were it not because of hidden knowledge, the recording that saved countless lives would have been destroyed.
Understanding the power that had been unleashed upon the world, Senator Brien McMahon introduced the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. By the time the Act made it to President Truman's desk, it was worded in such a way that any information related to atomic energy that had not been declassified was restricted. The use of the term "all data" in regards to unclassified information gave birth to the term "born secret." The born secret doctrine means that information that has not been evaluated, if related to atomic energy, is secret, even if that information does not come from a government agency.
In 1951, Congress also passed the Invention Secrecy Act, which allows any Federal agency to prevent the release of an invention if it is deemed a threat to national security. Though the Invention Secrecy Act mandates that an order to suppress an invention be reviewed every year, this provision inter arma inem silent leges. We are currently at war against Al-Qaeda, a war that will last another decade or two according to the Pentagon; thus, theoretically speaking, an invention that was classified on the night of September the 11th, could still be classified until the 2030s without the need to review the order.
It appears of late that the Obama administration is using the born secret doctrine and the Invention Secrecy Act to go after what he terms "insider threats." The Obama administration is so concerned about its ability to effectively monitor Federal employees that anyone who teaches polygraph countermeasures is potentially committing a laundry list of felonies.
Yesterday, McClatchy reported on Chad Dixon: "During the investigation, his house went into foreclosure.
'My wife and I are terrified,' he said. 'I stumbled into this. I’m a Little League coach in Indiana. I don’t have any law enforcement background.'
Prosecutors plan to ask for prison time even though Dixon has agreed to cooperate, has no criminal record and has four young children. The maximum sentence for the two charges is 25 years in prison. 'The emotional and financial burden has been staggering,' Dixon said. 'Never in my wildest dreams did I somehow imagine I was committing a crime.'
Though the Obama administration has so far only zealously gone after teachers of what is essentially junk science, it may be the case that he begins to go after individuals who try to learn that junk science. There's no scientific evidence from any reliable body indicating that polygraph tests are reliable, nor is there reliable evidence that beating an unreliable test is a taught skill. In fact, polygraph tests are rarely admissible in court. In light of a secret technology with no proven scientific basis, Dixon was charged with "misprision of felony."
This is troubling because misprision of felony means that an individual failed to report a felony.
The felony? "Several people familiar with the investigation said Dixon and Williams had agreed to meet with undercover agents and teach them how to pass polygraph tests for a fee. The agents then posed as people connected to a drug trafficker and as a correctional officer who’d smuggled drugs into a jail and had received a sexual favor from an underage girl."
At no point in time did the officers tell Dixon that they were going to use his techniques to commit crimes, but they confessed to fictional crimes so it was up to Dixon to know that teaching pretend-criminals is a crime. If you don't think this is worrying, you should know that misprision of felony did not in the past apply if reporting the felony meant self-incrimination. Dixon was placed in a catch-22 by the agents, for if he did not report the undercover agents as potential-future-insider-threats, then misprision of felony; however, reporting the two undercover officers would mean revealing that he was teaching information that was potentially born secret, or information that involves technology classified under the Invention Secrecy Act. Yesterday, the Obama administration declared that the 5th amendment is dead, that our times of war mandate that all threats must be reported even if it means entrapment and self-incrimination.
