10 U.S.C. § 904
Section 904 · Art. 104. Aiding the enemy
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)
Most recently applied in Ali Hamza Ahmad al Bahlul v. United States (July 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any person subject to this chapter who, willfully and unlawfully—
(1) alters, conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys a public record; or
(2) takes a public record with the intent to alter, conceal, remove, mutilate, obliterate, or destroy the public record;
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Prior Provisions
A prior section 904 was renumbered section 903b of this title.
Effective Date
Section effective on Jan. 1, 2019, as designated by the President, with implementing regulations and provisions relating to applicability to various situations, see section 5542 of Pub. L. 114–328 and Ex. Ord. No. 13825, set out as notes under section 801 of this title.