Security News > 2020 > March > Proposed Bill Seeks to Protect Researchers Disclosing Classified Government Backdoors
Newly introduced legislation seeks to protect journalist who publish classified information, as well as security researchers who discover classified government backdoors.
The modification to the Espionage Act of 1917 would better protect journalists that have been increasingly targeted for disclosing government secrets.
Thus, the burden is placed on the government to hide their surveillance backdoors, and not on researchers who discover and report on those backdoors.
The new bill seeks to address that by ensuring that each member of Congress is equally able to receive classified information, including from whistleblowers.
The bill keeps in place criminal penalties for foreign spies, those who work for foreign governments, or those who violate another federal law, as well as for government employees and contractors who reveal classified information, such as former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.