Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980

Citation
Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980 (CIPA), Pub. L. No. 96-456, 94 Stat. 2025 (Oct. 15, 1980), codified as the third appendix to Title 18, U.S. Code, as amended, Pub. L. No. 100-690, Tit. VII, §7020(G), 102 Stat. 4396 (Nov. 18, 1988).

Overview
The primary purpose of the CIPA was to limit the practice of gray mail by criminal defendants in possession of sensitive government secrets. The gray mailing defendant essentially presented the government with a "Hobson's choice": either allowed disclosure of the classified information or dismiss the indictment. The procedural protections of CIPA protect unnecessary disclosure of classified information.

CIPA was not intended to infringe on a defendant's right to a fair trial or to change the existing rules of evidence in criminal cases, and largely codified the power of district courts to come to pragmatic accommodations of the government's secrecy interests with the traditional right of public access to criminal proceedings. Courts therefore have not radically altered their practices; instead, the Act simply made it clear that the measures courts already were taking under their inherent case-management powers were permissible.