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Subject: Secrecy News -- 04/27/06
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:09:26 -0400
From: "Aftergood, Steven" <saftergood@fas.org>
To: <secrecy_news@lists.fas.org>



SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 51
April 27, 2006

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

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** ARCHIVE AUDIT SUGGESTS OVERCLASSIFICATION IS RAMPANT
** "SECRET" 1970 INTELLIGENCE BUDGET FIGURE REVEALED
** HOUSE LIMITS DEBATE ON LARGEST INTELLIGENCE BUDGET EVER
** FEINSTEIN BILL SEEKS CONGRESSIONAL NOTICE OF DECLASSIFICATION
** SELECTED CRS REPORTS


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A large fraction of the documents that were withdrawn from public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While focused on historical documents at the National Archives, the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.


"SECRET" 1970 INTELLIGENCE BUDGET REVEALED

In 1970, the U.S. spent $6 billion on intelligence, according to a
newly published account of a meeting that President Richard M. Nixon
held with his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in July 1970.

"The President stated that the US is spending $6 billion per year on
intelligence and deserves to receive a lot more for its money than it
has been getting," stated the record of the meeting, which was
published in the latest volume of the State Department's Foreign
Relations of the United States series.

What makes this observation startling rather than banal is that the
Central Intelligence Agency has gone to great lengths to try to keep
such historical intelligence budget data out of the public domain.

In response to a 2001 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for
aggregate and individual intelligence agency budget figures from 1947
through 1970, the CIA fought for five years to block disclosure of
such information. Last year, D.C. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina
ruled in favor of the CIA (Aftergood v. CIA, Case No. 01-2524).

John E. McLaughlin, then-Acting Director of Central Intelligence,
swore under oath that such disclosures could not be tolerated.

"Disclosure of [historical] intelligence budget information could
assist in finding the locations of secret intelligence appropriations
and thus defeat... congressionally approved clandestine funding
mechanisms," argued Mr. McLaughlin in a September 14, 2004 declaration.

Now some of the historical intelligence budget information that the CIA
refused to disclose has been published by the U.S. State Department.

See "Record of President's Meeting with the Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board," July 18, 1970:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/intel/pfiab1970.html

President Nixon "could not put up with people lying to him about
intelligence or giving warped evaluations," the 1970 document
continued.

"He believed that those responsible for deliberate slanting of reports
should be fired. The time may be coming when he would have to read
the riot act to the entire intelligence community."


HOUSE LIMITS DEBATE ON LARGEST INTELLIGENCE BUDGET EVER

House Republicans foreclosed Democratic efforts to offer amendments on
warrantless domestic surveillance and other controversial intelligence
topics when the FY 2007 Intelligence Authorization Act was brought to
the floor yesterday.

Instead, the House approved by a vote of 327-96 what Rep. Leonard
Boswell (R-Iowa) described as "the largest intelligence budget in our
history."

Democratic amendments, such as a proposal that domestic surveillance be
conducted consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,
were blocked in the Rules Committee so they could not be debated.

"We are not even going to be allowed to vote on an amendment that would
deal with this central constitutional question," complained Rep.
Barney Frank (D-MA).

"We are now in the process of instructing the people of Iraq about how
to ruin parliamentary democracy," he said. "If anybody from the Iraqi
Parliament is watching our procedures, please do not try this at
home."

See the April 26 House floor debate here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s042606.html

The House Rules Committee report which identifies the Democratic
amendments that were ruled out of order is House Report 109-438,
available here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_rpt/hrpt109-438.html


FEINSTEIN BILL SEEKS CONGRESSIONAL NOTICE OF DECLASSIFICATION

In the Senate, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) yesterday introduced a bill
to require the White House to notify Congress when it declassifies
intelligence information.

The bill was prompted by recent reports that the President selectively
authorized certain disclosures by Vice Presidential aide Scooter Libby
without informing the originating agency or other interested persons
that the disclosed information was declassified.

"If the President declassifies information so that his subordinates can
discuss intelligence with reporters, Congress should be alerted so
that the intelligence committees can ensure that national secrets are
not being used for political purposes," said Sen. Feinstein. See the
introduction of her bill (S. 2660) here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s2660.html


SELECTED CRS REPORTS

Some recent reports of the Congressional Research Service obtained by
Secrecy News include the following:

"Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on Torture," updated April 5,
2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32890.pdf

"Treatment of 'Battlefield Detainees' in the War on Terrorism," updated
March 27, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL31367.pdf

"Polygraph Use by the Department of Energy: Issues for Congress,"
updated April 7, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL31988.pdf

"Oversight of Dual-Use Biological Research: The National Science
Advisory Board for Biosecurity," March 28, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33342.pdf

"Nuclear Weapons: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program," updated
March 9, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32929.pdf




_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691