The Nation - News from April 5, 1988

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., affirmed the theft and espionage conviction of former Navy intelligence analyst Samuel Loring Morison. The panel rejected the argument that Congress never intended that the espionage or theft-of-government-property laws be applied to leaks to the press. Morison, 43, was convicted in Baltimore in 1985 of sending Jane’s Defence Weekly secret U.S. satellite photos of the Soviets’ first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. He was also found guilty of espionage and theft for taking parts of two secret Navy documents.