Agencies Removed Declassified Papers From Public Access

[Annie]

Obviously, Op Northwoods was a gaffe.

Annie


Archives Kept a Secrecy Secret
Agencies Removed Declassified Papers From Public Access

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A06



The National Archives helped keep secret a multi-year effort by the Air Force, the CIA and other federal agencies to withdraw thousands of historical documents from public access on Archives shelves, even though the records had been declassified.

In a 2002 memorandum, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and released yesterday by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research library housed at George Washington University, Archives officials agreed to help pull the materials for possible reclassification and conceal the identities of anyone participating in the effort. The Associated Press reported yesterday that it had requested a copy of the memo three years ago.

"[I]t is in the interest of both [redacted agency name] and the National Archives and Records Administration to avoid the attention and researcher complaints that may arise from removing material that has already been available publicly from the open shelves for extended periods of time," the Archives memo read, in part.

Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said the memo "shows that the National Archives basically aided and abetted a covert operation that whited out the nation's history by reclassifying previously released documents."

Independent historian Matthew M. Aid uncovered the reclassification program last summer when his requests for documents formerly available at the Archives were delayed or denied. In February, the Archives acknowledged that about 9,500 records totaling more than 55,000 pages had been withdrawn and reclassified since 1999. The memo released yesterday says some records "may have been improperly marked as declassified" and their release "would harm the national security interests of the United States by revealing sensitive sources and methods of intelligence collection."

But historians who previously obtained copies of records have said many date to the 1940s and 1950s and pose no conceivable security risk.

The program dates to the Clinton administration, when the CIA and other agencies began recalling documents they believed were improperly released under a 1995 executive order requiring declassification of many historical records 25 years old and older. The pace of the removal picked up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Although the Archives will not name the agencies involved, historians with the National Security Archive have said the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department and the Justice Department also have participated.

Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the United States, suspended the program last month pending an audit of the removed material by the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office. Results are expected this month.

J. William Leonard, director of oversight office, said that part of the Archives' mission is to ensure that information that may damage national security is properly protected. Still, "there is a need for increased transparency in this," he said.

Leonard said auditors will recommend that the Archives and federal agencies develop a protocol for informing the public of such reclassification efforts.

"The more transparent we can be," Leonard said, "we will not feed perceptions that somehow this is being done for some sort of nefarious reason such as trying to cover up agency embarrassments."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Annie]

NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 12, #18; 14 APRIL 2006)
by Bruce Craig (editor)
NATIONAL COALITION FOR HISTORY (NCH)
Website at http://www.h_net.org/~nch/
********************************************************************** *

1. NARA RELEASES REDACTED VERSION OF "CLASSIFIED OR SENSITIVE" RECORDS MEMO

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has released a
heavily redacted copy of a 2002 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between
NARA and various federal agencies involved in a secret program in which
some 10,000 NARA documents already in the public domain were pulled from
open shelves pending re-review (see "House Subcommittee Conducts Oversight
Hearing on Government Secrecy" NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 12 # 12; 16
March 2006).

The memo, released to the National Security Archives through a FOIA
request, documents a disturbing role that NARA played in the multi-year
effort by federal agencies to remove thousands of historical documents from
public access, even though the records had previously been declassified.

The agreement is marked "Secret" and is signed by an Air Force official
(one of three agencies party to the MOU -- the other two being the CIA and
Defense Intelligence Agency) and by Michael J. Kurtz, Assistant Archivist
for NARA. The memo states that the re-review seeks to identify records
that "have been improperly marked as classified" that "would harm the
national security interests of the United States by revealing sensitive
sources and methods of intelligence collection." Furthermore, the
agreement states, "It is in the interest of both (unnamed agency) and the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to avoid the attention
and researcher complaints that may arise from removing material that has
already been available publicly from the open shelves for extended periods
of time," the agreement said.

Other sections of the memo are equally troubling: "NARA will not disclose
the true reason for the presence of -- [redacted word] -- personnel at
the Archives, to include disclosure to person within NARA who does not have
a validated need-to-know." Withdrawal sheets would conceal any reference
to the program and "any reason for the withholding of documents". If
queried by the press or public, NARA is to respond that the reviewers are
present at the Archives "to ensure appropriate implementation of
Presidential Order 12958 historical records declassification review
responsibilities."

Even though the agreement clearly is an embarrassment to NARA, Archivist of
the United States Allen Weinstein, who did not head NARA when the agreement
was signed, applauded the release of the document. He said, that its
release is "an important first step in finding the balance between
continuing to protect national security and protecting the right to know by
the American public." J. William Leonard, director of the Information
Security Oversight Office (ISSO) stated, "there is a need for increased
transparency in this...the more transparent we can be we will not feed
perceptions that somehow this is being done for some sort of nefarious
reason such as trying to cover up agency embarrassments." Weinstein
pledged that NARA's findings on the matter will be issued by the end of
April when the audit that is being conducted by ISSO is released.

While Archivist Weinstein is clearly not responsible for any of the
language in the agreement and was not aware of its contents until he was
recently briefed, concerns have been raised about the role of the then
Archivist of the United States Carlin and perhaps other key NARA staff who
according to Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security
Archive, "basically aided and abetted a covert operation that whited out
the nation's history by reclassifying previously released documents."

This raises the issue: why in the first place did the parties to the
agreement believe it a necessity to keep the re_review "secret." There
are other very public re-reviews being conducted by such agencies as the
Department of Energy that is carrying out the Congressionally mandated
Kyle-Lott review of inadvertent releases relating to nuclear energy and
weapons programs.

An answer to this question may seem baffling, especially to those not "of"
the national security establishment. Security agencies generally take the
stance that when they have a specific classified program to protect from
improper "incidental disclosure," typically they take a firm stance: they
insist that all such materials need to be protected under the cloak of
classification and secrecy. NARA, on the other hand, generally takes the
position that secrecy tends to focus attention on documents that otherwise
would not draw any particular attention by researchers, historians, or the
press. Often NARA advocates this position in discussions with agencies but
finds itself over-ruled by agencies wishing to take a firmer stance. This
very public disclosure of a secret re-review program that probably never
needed to be classified "secret" in the first place, serves only to raise
concerns by the public and Congress alike about excessive secrecy in
government.

[Annie]

More info about the US reclassification of documents - this time instigated shortly after 911.

Annie

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 46
April 17, 2006

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

Support Secrecy News:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp


** NARA RELEASES SECOND MEMO ON DOCUMENT RECLASSIFICATION
** DOE INTELLIGENCE EMBRACES DISCREDITED BUDGET SECRECY POLICY


NARA RELEASES SECOND MEMO ON DOCUMENT RECLASSIFICATION

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) today released
a second newly declassified Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the
withdrawal of government records from its public collections.

National Archivist Allen Weinstein said that he discovered the
existence of the second MOU, which was signed by the Central
Intelligence Agency and NARA in October 2001, only last Thursday and
that he immediately sought its declassification. Another MOU on
document withdrawal, signed by Air Force and NARA in March 2002, was
released in declassified form last week.

Until its recent discovery by researcher Matthew Aid, with the support
of the National Security Archive, the document withdrawal activity at
the National Archives had been conducted secretly, as if it were some
kind of covert action.

"It is in the interests of both the CIA and the National Archives and
Records Administration to avoid the kind of public notice and
researcher complaints that may arise from removing from the open
shelves for extended periods of time records that had been public
available," the 2001 MOU stated.

The resulting firestorm of criticism that has been directed at the
National Archives is "absolutely fair," said Archivist Weinstein in a
meeting with historians and public interest groups today.

He took responsibility for the affair (which originated prior to his
appointment as Archivist). More significantly, he repudiated the
underlying practice.

"There can never be a classified aspect to our mission," Weinstein
said. "Classified agreements are the antithesis of our reason for
being."

"If records must be removed for reasons of national security, the
American people will always, at the very least, know when it occurs
and how many records are affected."

An audit of the document withdrawal program by the Information Security
Oversight Office is expected to be released on April 26.

See this April 17 NARA news release, with links to the newly release
MOU and related background material:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2006/04/nara041706.html

Beyond the unwarranted secrecy of the document withdrawal program,
a deeper problem concerns official policy on classification of
historical records.

Since many of the withdrawn documents are publicly accessible
elsewhere, their withdrawal provides the public a rare opportunity to
evaluate current classification policy as practiced by executive
branch agencies. It is not a very satisfactory picture.

One publicly available document that was modified by the Central
Intelligence Agency in a revealingly obtuse way was featured in a New
York Times story yesterday.

See "Why the Secrecy? Only the Bureaucrats Know" by Scott Shane, New
York Times, April 16 (free reg. req'd.):

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/weekinreview/16shane.html


DOE INTELLIGENCE EMBRACES DISCREDITED BUDGET SECRECY POLICY

The Department of Energy Office of Intelligence has reverted to a
policy of budget secrecy that it rejected more than a decade ago.

For as long as anyone can remember, the small DOE intelligence unit
always had an unclassified budget (around $40 million in recent
years).

"The size of the DOE intelligence budget is not classified because it
does not reveal the size or the components of the Department's
National Foreign Intelligence Program," wrote John G. Keliher,
then-Director of the DOE Office of Nonproliferation and National
Security on June 24, 1994.

"The DOE intelligence budget does not disclose any classified
information. National security is neither threatened nor damaged as a
result of the UNCLASSIFIED intelligence budget released to the
public," Mr. Keliher wrote. See his 1994 letter here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/2002/siebert.html#keliher

Interestingly, the other member of the U.S. intelligence community with
an unclassified budget is the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR).

It may be more than a coincidence that INR and DOE intelligence
analysts also distinguished themselves by dissenting from prevailing
government views on Iraq's supposed "reconstitution" of its nuclear
weapons program.

In 2004, the 9/11 Commission recommended that all U.S. intelligence
agencies should do what INR and DOE Intelligence had long done, and
disclose their annual budget totals.

"To combat the secrecy and complexity we have described, the overall
amounts of money being appropriated for national intelligence and to
its component agencies should no longer be kept secret," the
Commission wrote in its final report (p. 416).

Other agencies simply ignored the 9/11 Commission's recommendation.
But amazingly, DOE responded by doing the exact opposite of what the
9/11 Commission said was necessary.

Boldly striving for mediocrity, DOE began to classify its intelligence
budget figure in Fiscal Year 2005.

A longstanding request from Secrecy News for an explanation of DOE's
retreat into the budget secrecy that it previously disavowed has gone
unanswered.

Instead, DOE officials have sought to purge prior disclosures of
intelligence budget information from the agency website. This
material has been recovered here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doe/budget.html

It hardly comes as a surprise that DOE intelligence is now facing a
period of internal turmoil.

One possible outcome, "which the DOE Secretary reportedly has approved
but not yet initiated, would be to integrate the DOE's Office of
Intelligence... and DOE's CI [Counterintelligence] office under a
newly created DOE intelligence agency," according to a new
Congressional Research Service report.

A copy of the CRS report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Intelligence Reform at the Department of Energy: Policy Issues and
Organizational Alternatives," April 10, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33355.pdf

The DOE Office of Classification publishes a newsletter called
"CommuniQue," which presents instructional tips for classifiers and
declassifiers and provides notification of new and forthcoming
classification guides. The latest issue, dated February 2006, is
available here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/comm0206.pdf

The possible integration of DOE intelligence and counterintelligence
was first reported by Bill Gertz in The Washington Times on February
21.

The Director of the DOE Office of Intelligence is Rolf Mowatt-Larssen.



_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
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[Annie]

I know this thread looks a bit spoddy, but I think it's an indication that the US adminstration is frightened of 911 info coming out. Also the fact that they're trying to bring in more draconian anti-leaking legislation (although it's still not as draconian as our good old Official Secrets Act).

Annie


ARCHIVE AUDIT SUGGESTS OVERCLASSIFICATION IS RAMPANT

A large fraction of the documents that were withdrawn from public
access at the National Archives on purported national security grounds
over the past several years did not meet the standard for
classification and should not have been removed, according to an
official audit of the activity released yesterday.

"This audit identified a significant number of withdrawal actions for
classification purposes as inappropriate. Of the records sampled to
date, 24 percent were clearly inappropriate and 12 percent were
questionable." See:

http://www.archives.gov/isoo/reports/2006-audit-report.html

While focused on historical documents at the National Archives, the
audit serves in effect as a snapshot of classification activity
throughout the government, and it implies that a sizeable fraction of
agency classification actions have no legitimate national security
basis.

"To be effective, the classification process is a tool that must be
wielded with precision," said William Leonard, director of the
Information Security Oversight Office, which performed the audit at
the direction of Archivist Allen Weinstein.

"It is disappointing to note, as indicated by the sample contained in
this audit, that even trained classifiers, with ready access to the
latest classification and declassification guides, and trained in
their use, got it clearly right only 64% of the time in making
determinations as to the appropriateness of continued
classification," Mr. Leonard said.

"The damage such practices can inflict on the integrity of the
classification system cannot be denied," he said.

At a time when the Bush Administration is prosecuting even the receipt
of classified information, and Members of Congress are seeking new
measures to penalize leaks, the new data on overclassification tend to
undermine the very premise of such actions.

Archivist Weinstein and Mr. Leonard of ISOO announced a series of steps
to address the immediate issue of document withdrawal at the Archives
as well as the larger issue of overclassification and
misclassification.

"I am writing to all agency heads asking for their personal attention
in ensuring that all of us engaged in advancing our country's security
perform our duty to ensure the highest effectiveness of this critical
national security tool (i.e. classification)," Mr. Leonard said.

He said that several of the existing provisions in the executive order
and implementing directive on classification could help to mitigate
classification errors, including: challenges to classification,
sanctions for unwarranted classification, and audits of classified
collections.

"They just haven't been used," he said.