U.S. reclassification program

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The U.S. intelligence community's secret historical document reclassification program is a project to reclassify certain documents that have already been declassified and released to the public through the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Classified information Material that a government body claims is sensitive information that requires protection of confidentiality, integrity, or availability

Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, and intentional mishandling of the material can incur criminal penalties. A formal security clearance is required to view or handle classified documents or to access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation. Documents and other information must be properly marked "by the author" with one of several (hierarchical) levels of sensitivity—e.g. restricted, confidential, secret and top secret. The choice of level is based on an impact assessment; governments have their own criteria, which include how to determine the classification of an information asset, and rules on how to protect information classified at each level. This often includes security clearances for personnel handling the information. Although "classified information" refers to the formal categorization and marking of material by level of sensitivity, it has also developed a sense synonymous with "censored" in US English. A distinction is often made between formal security classification and privacy markings such as "commercial in confidence". Classifications can be used with additional keywords that give more detailed instructions on how data should be used or protected.

National Archives and Records Administration independent agency of the United States government which preserves and provides access to federal records

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives. NARA is officially responsible for maintaining and publishing the legally authentic and authoritative copies of acts of Congress, presidential directives, and federal regulations. The NARA also transmits votes of the Electoral College to Congress.

Contents

History

The previous declassification Executive Order 12958 signed in 1995, under the Clinton administration, was resisted by officials in the Defense Department and the U.S. intelligence community. The reclassification program was started in the fall of 1999 (Executive Order 13142). Security concerns were heightened by the Wen Ho Lee case, and "alleged" inadvertent release of nuclear secrets by the State Department. [1] 55 boxes of material were removed to the classified storage area on the sixth floor. [2]

Executive Order 12958 created new standards for the process of identifying and protecting classified information, and led to an unprecedented effort to declassify millions of pages from the U.S. diplomatic and national security history. In 1995, United States President Bill Clinton signed this Executive Order.

Bill Clinton 42nd president of the United States

William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the presidency, he was the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992, and the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideologically a New Democrat and many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy.

Wen Ho Lee is a Taiwanese-American scientist who worked for the University of California at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He created simulations of nuclear explosions for the purposes of scientific inquiry, as well as for improving the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. A federal grand jury indicted him on charges of stealing secrets about the U.S. nuclear arsenal for the People's Republic of China (PRC) in December 1999.

It sought to be covert for as long as possible, but was revealed by the National Security Archive in February 2006. [3] By that point over 55,000 pages had already been reclassified, many dating back more than 50 years.

National Security Archive American research and archival institution

The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center, open government advocate, international affairs research institute, and is the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. The National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 10 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), filing a total of more than 50,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its over 30 years of history.

During the George W. Bush administration the scope of the program widened (Executive Order 13292), and was scheduled to end in March 2007.

George W. Bush 43rd president of the United States

George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He had previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

Executive Order 13292

Executive Order 13292 was an executive order issued by United States President George W. Bush on March 25, 2003, entitled "Further Amendment to Executive Order 12958, as Amended, Classified National Security Information." The Executive Order modified the manner in which sensitive information was handled at the time as set out by President Bill Clinton's 1995 executive order.

The program has been criticized by experts, journalists and authors for reclassifying documents, which were in the public domain, where there is no reason to keep secret anymore. [4] An audit indicated that more than one third withdrawn since 1999, did not contain sensitive information. [5]

See also

Executive Order 13233 US presidential document

Executive Order 13233 limited access to the records of former United States Presidents to a higher degree than the previous Order 12667, which it superseded. It was drafted by then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and issued by George W. Bush on November 1, 2001. Section 13 of Order 13233 revoked Executive Order 12667 which was issued by Ronald Reagan on January 18, 1989.

Freedom of Information Act (United States) US statute

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and defines nine exemptions to the statute. President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his misgivings, signed the Freedom of Information Act into law on July 4, 1966, and it went into effect the following year.

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Operation Northwoods 1962 proposed US false flag operation against the Cuban government

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Presidents Daily Brief Daily intelligence briefing for the U.S. President

The President's Daily Brief (PDB), sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the President of the United States, and is also distributed to a small number of top-level US officials who are approved by the President, and includes highly classified intelligence analysis, information about covert operations of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and reports from the most sensitive US sources or those shared by allied intelligence agencies. The PDB is also provided to the President-elect of the United States, between election day and inauguration.

Declassification is the process of documents that used to be classified as secret ceasing to be so restricted, often under the principle of freedom of information. Procedures for declassification vary by country. Papers may be withheld without being classified as secret, and eventually made available.

The Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 is the official name of the inquiry conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence into the activities of the U.S. Intelligence Community in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks. The investigation began in February 2002 and the final report was released in December 2002.

<i>The Puzzle Palace</i> book by James Bamford

The Puzzle Palace is a book written by James Bamford and published in 1982. It is the first major, popular work devoted entirely to the history and workings of the National Security Agency (NSA), a United States intelligence organization. The title refers to a nickname for the NSA, which is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. In addition to describing the role of the NSA and explaining how it was organized, the book exposed details of a massive eavesdropping operation called Operation Shamrock. According to security expert Bruce Schneier, the book was popular within the NSA itself, as "the agency's secrecy prevents its employees from knowing much about their own history".

Black operation covert operation by a government, a government agency, or a military organization

A black operation is a covert or clandestine operation by a government agency, a military unit or a paramilitary organization. This can include activities by private companies or groups. Key features of a black operation are that it is secret and it is not attributable to the organization carrying it out. The main difference between a black operation and one that is merely secret is that a black operation involves a significant degree of deception, to conceal who is behind it or to make it appear that some other entity is responsible.

Church Committee Committee investigating governmental abuses in the U.S. intelligence community

The Church Committee,, a U.S. Senate select committee chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. The committee investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its House counterpart, the Pike Committee, and the presidential Rockefeller Commission. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

James Bamford American historian and writer

James Bamford is an American bestselling author, journalist and documentary producer widely noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). The New York Times has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and in a lengthy profile The New Yorker named him "the NSA's chief chronicler." Bamford has taught at the University of California, Berkeley as a distinguished visiting professor and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Harper's, and many other publications. In 2006, he won the National Magazine Award for Reporting, the highest award in the magazine industry, for his writing on the war in Iraq published in Rolling Stone. He is also an Emmy nominated documentary producer for PBS and spent a decade as the Washington investigative producer for ABC's World News Tonight. In 2015 he became the national security columnist for Foreign Policy Magazine and he also writes for The New Republic. His most recent book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, became a New York Times bestseller and was named by The Washington Post as one of "The Best Books of the Year." It is the third in a trilogy by Bamford on the NSA, following The Puzzle Palace (1982) and Body of Secrets (2001), also New York Times bestsellers.

The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, also called the Moynihan Commission, after its chairman, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was a bipartisan statutory commission in the United States. It was created under Title IX of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 to conduct "an investigation into all matters in any way related to any legislation, executive order, regulation, practice, or procedure relating to classified information or granting security clearances" and to submit a final report with recommendations. The Commission's investigation of government secrecy was the first authorized by statute since the Wright Commission on Government Security issued its report in 1957.

The United States government classification system is established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.

The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, or "ISCAP", provides the public and users of the classification system with a forum for further review of classification decisions. ISCAP states in order to foster a well-informed public while simultaneously protecting national security interests, checks and balances are needed over the classification system. This requires that some of the work of the U.S. Government be done outside the purview of its citizenry.

The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) is an advisory committee established by the United States Congress with the official mandate of promoting the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities. The Board is composed of nine individuals: five appointed by the President of the United States and one each appointed by the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader. Appointees must be U.S. citizens preeminent in the fields of history, national security, foreign policy, intelligence policy, social science, law, or archives.

J. William Leonard was appointed the new Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) effective on Monday, June 3, 2002.

Executive Order 13526 was issued on December 29, 2009 by United States President Barack Obama. It is one of a series of executive orders from US Presidents outlining how classified information should be handled. It revokes and replaces the previous Executive Orders in effect for this, which were EO 12958 (text) and EO 13292 (text).

References

  1. https://fas.org/sgp/news/2001/05/wp051901.html
  2. "The Secret Reclassification Program", Organization of American Historians
  3. "Declassification in Reverse", National security Archive, George Washington University
  4. Scott Shane (February 21, 2006). "U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review". The New York Times.
  5. Scott Shane (April 27, 2006). "National Archives Says Records Were Wrongly Classified". The New York Times.