[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 06/29/09

Mon Jun 29 12:15:41 EDT 2009

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2009, Issue No. 56
June 29, 2009

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

**      REDUCING GOVERNMENT SECRECY: FINDING WHAT WORKS
**      HOUSE REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION 2010
**      OTHER RESOURCES

REDUCING GOVERNMENT SECRECY: FINDING WHAT WORKS

Although people have been complaining about abuse of the national security
classification system for decades, such complaints have rarely been
translated into real policy changes.

More than half a century ago, a Defense Department advisory committee
warned that "Overclassification has reached serious proportions."  But
despite innumerable attempts at corrective action over the years by
official commissions, legislators, public interest groups and others,
similar or identical complaints echo today.  What is even more interesting
and instructive, however, is that a few of those attempts did not fail. 
Instead, they led to specific, identifiable reductions in official
secrecy, at least on a limited scale.

For example, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP)
that was created in 1995 has consistently overturned the classification of
information in the majority of documents presented for its review.  And
the Fundamental Classification Policy Review that was performed by the
Department of Energy in 1995 eliminated dozens of obsolete classification
categories following a detailed review of agency classification guides. 
These and just a few other exceptional efforts demonstrate that even
deeply entrenched secrecy practices can be overcome under certain
conditions.

In an effort to identify some of those conditions, I wrote a paper
entitled "Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works."  It has just
been published in the Yale Law and Policy Review, volume 27, no. 2, Spring
2009, and is available here:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/aftergood.pdf

Among other things, the experience of the ISCAP underscores the importance
of extending declassification authority beyond the agency that imposed the
classification in the first place.  It would be useless to restore "the
presumption against classification" in cases of "significant doubt," as
President Obama suggested on May 29, if that presumption applied only when
such doubt arose in the mind of the classifier.  But if classification were
to be overruled by doubt in the minds of other persons -- ISOO overseers,
Inspector General auditors, judges in FOIA proceedings, and others --
significant changes would be enabled.

However, systemic classification reform simply will not happen without
careful independent review of agency classification guides, which specify
exactly what information is to be classified.  The DoE Fundamental
Classification Policy Review proves that such a review, including public
participation and input, is both possible and highly effective. It needs
to be replicated at other classifying agencies.

The White House has announced an online process for receiving public
comments and recommendations for changes to classification and
declassification policies.  Discussion of declassification policy begins
today here:

       http://blog.ostp.gov/category/declass/

HOUSE REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION 2010

The House Intelligence Committee last week filed its report on the FY 2010
intelligence authorization act, including many interesting and potentially
important intelligence policy provisions.

Perhaps the most significant measure is the proposed creation of a
statutory inspector general for the intelligence community.  Other steps
include a requirement to report on the number of Federal Government
employees who hold security clearances (remarkably, a number that is not
readily available today, even within the government); cautious endorsement
of a limited role for the Government Accountability Office in intelligence
oversight (a move favored by FAS); expanded review and notification
requirements concerning covert action; a proposed study on the possibility
of revoking the pensions of persons who commit unauthorized disclosures of
classified information; and quite a bit more.

See "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010," House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, H.Rept. 111-186, June 26, 2009:

	http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2009_rpt/hrpt111-186.html

OTHER RESOURCES

Bill Leonard, the esteemed former director of the Information Security
Oversight Office and the principal overseer of the government secrecy
system, now has his own blog where readers may look for his views and his
insights on secrecy policy as the process of classification reform gets
underway in earnest.  

	http://www.secgov.info/

The House Judiciary Committee rebuffed a Republican proposal for a
"resolution of inquiry" to require the Administration to produce documents
concerning the use of Miranda warnings given to detainees captured in
Afghanistan.  The Committee's adverse report, dated June 26, is available
here:

	http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2009_rpt/hrpt111-189.html

The Defense Department has issued a newly updated policy statement on
reporting "questionable" intelligence activities.  "It is DoD policy that
senior leaders and policymakers within the Government be made aware of
events that may erode the public trust in the conduct of DoD intelligence
operations," the June 17, 2009 memorandum states.

	http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/dtm-08-052.pdf

Some such questionable activities are to be reported to the Intelligence
Oversight Board, a component of the President's Intelligence Advisory
Board. However, the efficacy of any such reporting is limited by the fact
that that Board currently has no sitting members. ("White House Intel
Advisory Board Has No Members," Secrecy News, June 15, 2009).  

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691