[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 09/16/08

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2008, Issue No. 90
September 16, 2008

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

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**   OVERCOMING OVERCLASSIFICATION


OVERCOMING OVERCLASSIFICATION

The next President could achieve a systematic reduction in government
secrecy by directing each agency that classifies information to conduct a
detailed public review of its classification policies with the objective of
reducing secrecy to the essential minimum and declassifying everything that
does not meet the standard for classification.

Modeled on the Fundamental Classification Policy Review that was performed
by the Department of Energy in 1995, this approach may be the best way to
eliminate obsolete secrecy policies and to galvanize disclosure of
improperly classified material.

I discussed this proposal in a statement submitted to a Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee hearing today on "Restoring the Rule of Law" chaired by
Senator Russ Feingold (feingold.senate.gov/ruleoflaw/):

     http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_hr/091608aftergood.pdf

Complaints about overclassification are about as old as the classification
system itself.  But policy responses that effectively mitigated the problem
have been few and far between.

Numerous Commissions and advisory groups have urged various kinds of
reforms over the years, but none of them has made a serious dent in
classification policy.  While President Clinton's 1995 executive order
12958 triggered an avalanche of declassification of historical records, it
left the scope of original classification activity unchanged.  Statutory
declassification programs like that established by the 1992 JFK
Assassination Records Review Act relaxed controls on records concerning
particular historical topics but did not translate into systematic
classification reform.

By contrast, the DoE Fundamental Classification Policy Review permanently
altered the Department of Energy's classification policies in favor of
greater openness.

The Review, undertaken as part of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary's
Openness Initiative, was performed by 50 technical and subject matter
experts with the benefit of significant public input.  Thousands of
classification guides were reviewed and modified.  Hundreds of specific
changes in classification policy were recommended and, with some
exceptions, were adopted in practice.

The 1995 Review had several essential features that help to explain its
comparative success.

First, it was focused at the agency level where most classification
decisions are actually made.  Although a presidential executive order
defines the basic terms of the classification system for the executive
branch as a whole, its practical implementation is decided at the agency
level.  It is the agencies that create the classification guides that
specify exactly what information is to be classified at what level.  It is
therefore the agencies that must adopt and execute changes to those
classification decisions.

Second, the 1995 Review enlisted the Department of Energy bureaucracy
itself as an agent of classification reform, and not merely its object. 
Given a directive to modernize and curtail classification activity, this
rule-based organization effectively revised its own classification policies
beyond what any outside critic could have hoped to achieve or had been able
to achieve in the past.

Third, the Review actively solicited public input on needed classification
reforms, and invited public review of the resulting recommendations prior
to completion.  The process sought to incorporate public perspectives and
to embody the transparency that it was intended to serve.  In so doing, the
Review successfully fostered public confidence and support for its work.

In the next Administration, the same principles could be brought to bear
on each one of the major producers of classified information, including the
defense agencies, the intelligence agencies, the Justice Department and the
State Department.

Although there is widespread recognition within the government today that
classification activity has exceeded all reasonable bounds, the leadership
needed to correct the problem has been lacking.  But the next
Administration could supply it, with a directive to each classifying agency
to perform a top to bottom review of every classification policy and guide.

A review of this sort would not solve all classification problems.  It
would not prevent deliberate abuse of classification authority.  It would
not even resolve all good faith classification disputes, many of which
involve an irreducible subjective element.  It would also not address the
growing controls on unclassified information.

But in a policy field prone to rhetorical thunderbolts that turn out to
have no real world consequences, the fundamental classification policy
review is a proven method for reducing the enormous classification
overgrowth that has built up over decades.



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

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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