Congressional Record: October 27, 1999 (Senate)
Page S13258-S13287
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. MOYNIHAN:
S. 1801. A bill to provide for the identification, collection, and
review for declassification of records and materials that are of
extraordinary public interest to the people of the United States, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs.
[[Page S13262]]
public interest declassification act of 1999
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the
Public Information Disclosure Act, a bill that seeks to add to our
citizens' knowledge of how and why our country made many of its key
national security decisions since the end of World War II. This bill
creates a mechanism for comprehensively reviewing and declassifying,
whenever possible, records of extraordinary public interest that
demonstrate and record this country's most significant and important
national security policies, actions, and decisions.
As James Madison once wrote, "A people who mean to be their own
governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
Acquiring this knowledge has become increasingly difficult since World
War II's end, when we witnessed the rise of a vast national security
apparatus that encompasses thousands of employees and over 1.5 billion
classified documents that are 25 years or older. Secrecy, in the end,
is a form of regulation. And I concede that regulation of state secrets
is often necessary to protect national security. But how much needs to
be regulated after having aged 25 years or more?
The warehousing and withholding of these documents and materials not
only impoverish our country's historical record but retard our
collective understanding of how and why the United States acted as it
did. This means that we have less chance to learn from what has gone
before; both mistakes and triumphs fall through the cracks of our
collective history, making it much harder to resolve key questions
about our past and to chart our future actions.
On the other hand, greater openness makes it more possible for the
government to explain itself and to defend its actions, a not so
unimportant thing when one recalls Richard Hofstader's warning in his
classic 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics: "The
distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents
see conspiracies here and there in history, but they regard a 'vast' or
'gigantic' conspiracy, set in motion by demonic forces of almost
transcendent power as the motive force in historical events." A poll
taken in 1993 found that three-quarters of those surveyed believed that
President Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy involving the CIA,
renegade elements of our military, and organized crime. The Grassy
Knoll continues to cut a wide path across our national consciousness.
The classified materials withheld from the Warren Commission, several
of our actions in Vietnam, and Watergate have only added to the
American people's distrust of the Federal government.
Occasionally, though, the government has drawn back its cloak of
secrecy and made substantial contributions to our national
understanding. In 1995, the CIA and the NSA agreed to declassify the
Venona intercepts, our highly secretive effort that ranged over four
decades to decode the Soviet Union's diplomatic traffic. Much of this
traffic centered on identifying Soviet spies, one of the cardinal
preoccupations of that hateful era we call "McCarthyism." These
releases made at least one thing crystal clear: Their timely release
decades ago would have dimmed the klieg lights on many who were
innocent and shown them more brightly on those who truly were guilty.
It would have been an important contribution during a time when the
innocent and the guilty were ensnared in the same net.
Today, Congress plays a pivotal role in declassification through so-
called "special searches." Generally, these involve a member of
Congress or the White House asking the intelligence community to search
its records on specific subjects. These have ranged from Pinochet to
murdered American church women to President Kennedy's assassination.
However, these good intentions often produce neither good results nor
good history. Sadly, most of these searches have been done poorly,
costing millions of dollars and consuming untold hours of labor.
Several have been performed repeatedly. Special searches on murdered
American church women, for example, have been done nine separate times.
Yet there are still several important questions that have yet to be
answered. The CIA alone has been asked to do 33 "special searches"
since 1998.
Part of the problem is that Congress lacks a centralized, rational
way of addressing these requests. This bill establishes a nine-member
board composed of outside experts who can filter and steer these
searches, all the while seeking maximum efficiency and disclosure.
The other part of the problem lies in how the intelligence community
has conducted these searches. It is imperative that searches are
carried out in a comprehensive manner. This is not only cheaper in the
long run but produces a much more accurate record of our history. One
cannot do Pinochet, for example, and not do Chile under his rule at the
same time. To do otherwise skews history too much and creates too many
blind spots, all leading to more questions and more searches. This does
a disservice not only to those asking for these searches but to the
American people who have to pay for ad hoc, poorly done
declassification. If we do it right the first time, then we can forgo
much inefficiency.
Many of these special searches ask vital questions about this
nation's role in many disturbing events. We must see, therefore, that
they are done correctly and responsibly. This legislation, if passed,
would improve Congress' role in declassification, making it an
instrumental arm in the de-cloaking and re-democratization of our
national history. Indeed, anything less would cheat our citizens,
undermine their trust in our institutions, and erode our democratic
values.