Spy Law Could Be Government Tool to Prosecute Press

A century-old spy law could be used to prosecute reporters who possess leaked information, sources told Bloomberg BNA.

No reporter has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act, but “there’s a danger that a sufficiently overzealous Justice Department could try to use the Espionage Act” in the future, Stephen I. Vladeck told Bloomberg BNA.

The 1917 Espionage Act, 18 U.S.C. §793-799, was passed when the U.S. entered World War I. Simply put, it aimed to prohibit spying.

The statute’s language is “open-ended” and “easily susceptible to broad theories of inchoate liability,” Vladeck, a constitutional law scholar and professor at University of Texas at Austin, wrote ...