Classified Information Procedures Act

Citation
Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), Pub. L. No. 96-456, 94 Stat. 2025 (Oct. 15, 1980), through S. 1482, is codified as the third appendix to Title 18 of the U.S. Code, the title concerning crimes and criminal procedures (18 U.S.C. App. III, §§1-16.

Overview
The primary purpose of the CIPA was to limit the practice of graymail by criminal defendants in possession of sensitive government secrets. "Gray mail" refers to the threat by a criminal defendant to disclose classified information during the course of a trial. 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 procedure[citation needed], 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.[citation needed] Courts therefore did not radically alter their practices with the passage of CIPA; instead, the Act simply made it clear that the measures courts already were taking under their inherent case-management powers were permissible.