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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: November 2004

October 2004

• Pentagon Statement on Overclassification, Responses to FAS Query from Mr. Robert Rogalski, Director of Security, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Counterintelligence and Security), October 29. "We agree that there are issues related to excessive classification and that’s why we have processes in place to ensure classified data can be reviewed and declassified."
• Letter from ISOO Director Leonard on the Classification of the Taguba Report, October 29. "This is to advise you that I have been informed by DoD that they have declassified the majority of the classified information in the above referenced report to include the information originally referenced in your letter."
• Groups raise concerns about increased classification of documents by Gregg Sangillo, National Journal, October 23. "Since the September 11 attacks, much of the media attention on secrecy has focused on the Justice Department's detainee policy and the murky legal issues involving the administration's labeling of terrorism suspects as 'enemy combatants.' But some observers believe that the issues surrounding the classification of documents, Freedom of Information requests, and access to basic, everyday information will, in the long run, turn out to be more significant."
• NRC Suspends Access to Online Document Library, news release (PDF), October 25. "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today initiated an additional security review, by agency experts, of publicly available documents to ensure that potentially sensitive information is removed from the agency Web site."
• Intelligence secrecy ability may expand by Eunice Moscoso, Palm Beach Post, October 23. "Civil liberties groups and advocates of open government are alarmed at a provision moving rapidly in Congress that would give a new national intelligence director power to keep information secret to protect intelligence 'sources and methods'."
• Intelligence officials prepare for new data-sharing policies by Frank Tiboni, Federal Computer Week, October 11. "Intelligence officials say that if they can safeguard information about how spies and information systems collect data, they can share that data with almost anyone in intelligence and Defense Department agencies or in the three military services."
• America: Closed for new scientific business? by Philip Cohen, New Scientist, October 9. "Once America welcomed scientific talent wherever it came from and we all benefited. Now visitors are greeted with suspicion."
• Military base blocks anti-secrecy website, United Press International, October 7. "A U.S. Air Force base has blocked Internet access to an anti-secrecy in government Web site, the Project on Secrecy in Government reported."
• In Alexandria, Grand Juries Behind Curtain -- and Key by Jerry Markon, Washington Post, October 4. " Federal grand juries in Alexandria meet in a virtual bunker, with nearly the entire grand jury area on the first floor at U.S. District Court sealed off from the rest of the building. The process is far more secretive than that at most courthouses across the country."
• GAO policy reflects security concerns by Aliya Sternstein, Federal Computer Week, October 4. "After U.S.-led military forces discovered a report from the Government Accountability Office in a cave in Afghanistan in November 2001, GAO officials instituted a new policy of not publishing certain reports on the Internet for national security reasons."
• Speeding security clearances: House, Senate bills offer different ways to fix system, by Eileen Sullivan, Federal Times (editorial), October 1. "The main point of dispute is whether to assign one agency to do all clearances, as the 9/11 Commission recommended in its final report, or have one person oversee the process across government but leave agencies to do their own clearances."

Older News: September 2004

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