[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 04/15/10

Thu Apr 15 13:07:05 EDT 2010

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2010, Issue No. 30
April 15, 2010

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

**      SECRECY SYSTEM CHURNED ALONG IN 2009
**      FORMER OFFICIAL INDICTED FOR MISHANDLING CLASSIFIED INFO
**      ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF PRISON GROWTH, AND MORE FROM CRS

SECRECY SYSTEM CHURNED ALONG IN 2009

The national security classification system hit some new highs as well as
some new lows over the last year, the Information Security Oversight
Office (ISOO) disclosed in its latest annual report to the President.

The total number of reported national security classification actions
skyrocketed to a record 54.8 million classifications last year, a
startling 135 percent increase over the year before, the ISOO report said.
 But this rise was largely due to a change in reporting practices to
include email and other electronic products that were excluded from
previous reports, ISOO said, and so it "does not reflect an increase in
classification activity."

In fact, wrote ISOO Director William J. Bosanko in his transmittal letter
to the President, "There were several positive developments this year" in
terms of limiting classification activity.

The actual number of wholly new secrets, or "original classification
actions," decreased by 10 percent to 183,224 classification decisions. 
(The large majority of classification actions are known as "derivative
classifications," which means that they incorporate or reproduce in a new
document information that has previously been classified.)

The number of "original classification authorities" -- the individuals who
are authorized to designate information as classified in the first place --
also decreased by 37% to 2,557, which is the lowest number of authorized
classifiers ever reported, since ISOO began keeping statistics 30 years
ago.

And agencies assigned a maximum duration for classification of ten years
or less to 67 percent of newly classified records, the highest fraction
ever.

Disappointingly from a public access point of view, however, the number of
pages that were declassified declined by 8 percent in 2009, to 28.8 million
pages, although the number of pages that were reviewed (52 million pages)
actually increased slightly.

See the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) Report to the
President for Fiscal Year 2009, transmitted March 31, 2010 and made public
today.

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/2009rpt.pdf

The ISOO annual report is a touchstone for assessing the state of national
security secrecy each year since it provides a unique public compilation of
agency data on classification activity. Unfortunately, the underlying data
are of questionable validity, and they may be completely unreliable.

So, for example, the latest report states that the CIA was responsible for
no more than four original classification actions last year, and the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence generated only two.  That seems
doubtful, to say the least.  At the other extreme, the Army reported over
75,000 original classifications in 2009.  Based on this disparity in the
numbers, it seems unlikely that agencies are using the standard
terminology in the same way.  Or as the ISOO report put it, "We question
whether many of these are truly original decisions."

In short, there is still plenty of room for improvement in collection
methodology and quality control in assessing classification activity.

Also, there are at least two categories of data that are not currently
available which could be usefully reported in the future.

ISOO reports the number of classification challenges that are filed by
authorized persons who dispute the classification of particular items of
information (of which there were 365 in FY2009).  But it does not indicate
the outcome of those challenges, i.e. whether they led to a change in
classification status or not.  This information would be helpful in
determining whether the official classification challenge procedure is a
meaningful one, or a pointless exercise.

Another significant category of information that could be reported by ISOO
in the future is the number of categories of classified information that
are removed from existing classification guides and declassified as a
consequence of the upcoming Fundamental Classification Guidance Review. 
This Review, which is supposed to take place over the next two years, is
the Obama Administration's most important and most systematic effort to
combat the problem of overclassification.  Although agencies are supposed
to generate their own public reports of the Review results, a consolidated
account and evaluation by ISOO would provide an early indication of whether
the President's plan to fight overclassification is working or not.

FORMER OFFICIAL INDICTED FOR MISHANDLING CLASSIFIED INFO

Thomas A. Drake, a former National Security Agency official, was indicted
yesterday after allegedly having disclosed classified information to a
reporter for a national newspaper "who wrote newspaper articles about the
NSA and its intelligence activities in 2006 and 2007."  The reporter and
the newspaper were not named.

Mr. Drake allegedly provided classified documents to the reporter and
assisted him or her with researching stories about the NSA that were
published between February 27, 2006 and November 28, 2007.  "Defendant
DRAKE served as a source for many of these newspaper articles, including
articles that contained SIGINT information," the April 14 indictment
stated.

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/04/drake-indict.pdf

"Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here --
violating the government's trust by illegally retaining and disclosing
classified information -- be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously," said
Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer in a Justice Department news
release.

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/04/doj041510.html

Interestingly, Mr. Drake was not specifically charged with unauthorized
disclosure of classified information, nor was he charged at all under the
"SIGINT" statute, 18 USC 798.  Instead, according to the indictment, he
was charged under 18 USC 793 with unlawful retention of classified
information, as well as with obstruction of justice and making false
statements.

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF PRISON GROWTH, AND MORE FROM CRS

"The historic, sustained rise in [the U.S. prison population] has broad
implications, not just for the criminal justice system, but for the larger
economy. About 770,000 people worked in the corrections sector in 2008 [and
this number is expected to grow].... By comparison, in 2008 there were
880,000 workers in the entire U.S. auto manufacturing sector."  See
"Economic Impacts of Prison Growth," April 13, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41177.pdf

Other noteworthy new CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News that Congress
has not made readily available to the public include the following.

"The Role of the Senate in Judicial Impeachment Proceedings: Procedure,
Practice, and Data," April 9, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41172.pdf

"Military Personnel and Freedom of Religious Expression: Selected Legal
Issues," April 8, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41171.pdf

"Multilateral Development Banks: Overview and Issues for Congress," April
9, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41170.pdf

"Foreign Aid Reform, National Strategy, and the Quadrennial Review," April
12, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41173.pdf

"Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President, Judiciary
Committee, and Senate," February 19, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31989.pdf

_______________________________________________
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