National Security
Advisor's letter on the
implementation of the Commission's recommendations.
Hearing before the
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs on Government
Secrecy.
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In order to participate effectively in the political process, citizens need not only the rights to assemble, to speak, and to write guaranteed by the First Amendment; they also need the information that makes informed and effective participation possible.
Because much of that information is now in the possession of the federal government, Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966 and significantly strengthened it in 1974, creating for the first time a right of access to government information. Since that time, the Center for National Security Studies has maintained a project on secrecy and access to government information, which focuses not only on the FOIA, but also on reforming the classification system and lifting the excessive veil of secrecy that still surrounds many government functions.
The Center works in concert with the National Security Archive, the most prolific and successful non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and the world's largest non-governmental collection of declassified U.S. documents.
THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
CNSS is widely recognized as the key organization working to defend the FOIA from legislative or administration encroachment in the national security area while facilitating its use by other groups to gain information important to the debate on national security matters.
The Center's FOIA project is unique in that it combines active use of the Act with efforts to encourage and assist others who are using the Act. It is also unique in that it combines public education with litigation. CNSS has a regular and systematic program for using the FOIA to gain access to information relevant to national security issues. This program not only leads to the release of valuable information but also creates important precedents and permits the CNSS staff to develop expertise that can be shared with other groups.
When an agency improperly withholds documents, CNSS considers filing a lawsuit using staff counsel or volunteer cooperating attorneys. The many such cases filed in the past dozen years have resulted in the release of important documents and the establishment of important precedents.
Recently, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified the bottom-line aggregate intelligence budget for fiscal year 1997 in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the Center on behalf of the Federation of American Scientists, a D.C.-based advocacy group. Likewise, the Center and the National Security Archive are leading a campaign to open secret U.S. files on human rights abuses in Latin America and the Caribbean to public scrutiny. Throughout its history, the Center has engaged in many similarly successful campaigns to declassify improperly classified intelligence information. In addition to doing our own litigation, CNSS has sought to encourage others to use the FOIA in pursuit of information important to them. It engages in a wide variety of efforts, formal and informal, to encourage and assist other public interest groups and journalists in using the Act and in ensuring that they use it effectively.
The CNSS staff, with its expertise in litigation, administrative practice, the substance of released information, as well as on the implications of various alternative formulations of legislation, is able to provide quick and authoritative analyses of proposed amendments to the FOIA. When amendments are proposed, CNSS produces a careful analysis and alerts groups that are affected.
The most serious and direct threat to the Freedom of Information Act came in the early 1980s when the Executive branch, first in the Carter and then in the Reagan administration, launched a concerted effort to decimate the Act in general and, in particular, to reduce access to national security information. CNSS helped form an ad hoc coalition which beat back those efforts. Since then, the focus has been on specific changes in the law. The Center worked for some time to create a climate in which Congress would consider amendments to improve access under the FOIA.
CLASSIFICATION
This project also works to reform the system by which government information is classified for national security purposes.
Under the current classification system which is controlled by executive order, millions of government documents are needlessly classified. Accordingly, information that is essential for democratic decision making, particularly in the foreign policy arena, are withheld from the public domain. Government officials often keep information secret simply out of ignorance of the classification standard and sometimes out of an intentional desire to cover up embarrassing or even illegal conduct because they fear that Congress and the public would oppose their actions if they knew about them.
Drastically limiting the amount of classified information and the number of people who have access to it will help eliminate these problems as well as facilitate the protection of limited information that truly needs protection and will do so in a way that minimizes constitutional infringements.
A faulty legacy of the Cold War continues today: that fundamental democratic principles at home had to be sacrificed in order to combat the Soviet and other Communist threats from abroad. But now, with the Cold War over and those threats significantly diminished, there is no longer any justification for continuing to ignore this basic tenet of a free and open government. Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan commented on the subject: "[T]he secrecy system ... withholds information from the American people. It protects intelligence errors, it protects officials from criticism. Even with the best of intentions the lack of public information tends to produce errors; the natural correctives -- public debate and academic criticism -- are missing. We must begin to end this secrecy system ..."
The Center will continue to work actively to alert the public to the dangers of secrecy, to pass legislation, and to ensure that government information is not needlessly withheld or classified and that government activities are exposed to public scrutiny to the greatest degree possible.
Report
of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (1997)
Reports and Analysis from
Other Organizations:
Commission
on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community
The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995 (P.L.
103-359) created the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the
United States Intelligence Community. This bipartisan panel was charged
with reviewing "the efficacy and appropriateness" of U.S. intelligence
activities in the "post-cold war global environment" and with submitting a
report of its findings and recommendations to the President and the
Congress. The Commission's report, "Preparing for the 21st Century: An
Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence," was released on March 1, 1996. It
addresses such issues as the size and secrecy of the intelligence budget;
the organization of U.S. Intelligence Community; management of the CIA;
covert action; economic intelligence; intelligence support to policy
makers and military operations; space reconnaissance; "right-sizing"
intelligence agencies; and oversight of intelligence.
Johannesburg
Principles - These Principles were adopted on 1 October 1995 by a
group of experts in international law, national security, and human
rights. The Principles are based on international and regional law and
standards relating to the protection of human rights, evolving state
practice (as reflected, inter alia, in judgments of national
courts), and the general principles of law recognized by the community of
nations.
Information Security Oversight Office's 1996 Report to the President
Executive Order 12958 on National
Security Information
Executive Order 12968, Access to Classified
Information
Links:
Center for International
Policy, Intelligence Reform Program