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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: December 1999

November 1999

• New Additions to the FBI FOIA Web Site, FBI press release, November 30. Files on Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Joseph Kennedy, Charles Lindbergh, and others are newly available online.
• Cloak Over the CIA Budget, editorial, Washington Post, November 29. "It simply cannot be that the same figures can sensibly be unclassified one year and classified the next. For the CIA to claim they can is to invite public doubt about its other assessments of what does and does not need to be kept secret."
• Intelligence Budget Can Be Secret, Judge Rules by Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, November 23. "A federal judge has decided that CIA Director George J. Tenet can keep the intelligence community's budget secret, ruling that public disclosure could damage national security and reveal intelligence sources and methods."
• Judge OKs CIA Spending Secrecy by Tom Raum, Associated Press, November 23. "An advocacy group that sought to compel the CIA to reveal how much the nation's intelligence services spend is urging President Clinton to release the figures himself after a federal judge sided with the CIA."
• Judge Rules for CIA in Budget Lawsuit by Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, November 23. "A policy organization that filed suit seeking to force the CIA to disclose the size of its 1999 budget said on Monday it was up to the president to reveal the figures after a federal judge dismissed the case."
• Judge Dismisses Lawsuit To Force Disclosure Of Intel Budget Figures by Dan Dupont, Inside the Pentagon, November 22. "This door has closed, but I'm confident that another door will open, and one way or another, we will get this information."
• Court Rejects CIA Budget Disclosure Suit, United Press International, November 22.
• Court Dismisses Suit Seeking Intelligence Budget Declassification, FAS press release, November 22. "Reversing past trends towards greater openness, a federal judge has dismissed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking declassification of the 1999 intelligence budget total."
• American Legion Assails Declassification Delay, press release, November 23. "The leader of The American Legion said today the administration has 'no excuse' for delaying the declassification of documents that could hold clues to POW/MIA whereabouts."
• Clinton Extends Document Deadline, Associated Press, November 19. "President Clinton on Friday gave government agencies another 18 months, to October 2001, to complete declassifying classified records more than 25 years old."
• Release of Foreign Relations Volume on Iran, 1964-1968, November 18. "This volume, part of the ongoing official published record of American foreign policy, presents the documentary record of U.S. policy toward Iran during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson."
• Critics Questioning NSA Reading Habits, by Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, November 13. "Does the NSA listen in on US citizens, either on purpose or by accident?"
• Introduction of the Japanese Imperial Army Disclosure Act of 1999, floor statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein, November 10. "This legislation will require the disclosure under the FOIA of classified records and documents in the possession of the U.S. Government regarding chemical and biological experiments carried out by Japan during the course of the Second World War."
• Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2000: Excerpts on Classification and Declassification, conference bill, November 5. "It is the sense of Congress that the systematic declassification of records of permanent historical value is in the public interest..."
• Spooky Spending, Las Vegas Review-Journal (editorial), November 3. "The Justice Department argument against intelligence budget disclosure smacks more of a knee-jerk discomfort within the intelligence community over revealing anything at all, rather than a rational concern over jeopardizing U.S. security."
• Echelon 'Confirmation': Not, Wired News, November 3. "Spy and security experts yawned at reported comments by an Australian intelligence official that Project Echelon -- the name of a purported international surveillance network -- exists."
• The Osgood File: CIA Spending is Kept Under Wraps, by Charles Osgood, CBS Radio Network, November 2. "The CIA uses the taxpayers' money carrying out its task, but if we inquire how much it is spending, the answer is back to 'Don't ask.'"
• CIA Budget Disclosure Considered, Associated Press, November 2. A federal judge is weighing whether to require the Clinton administration to disclose how much it spends on intelligence activities. The CIA wants to keep the number secret.
• Implementation of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act: An Interim Report to Congress. An interagency working group describes progress on identifying and declassifying Nazi war crime records under the Act.
• Nazi War Criminal Interagency Working Group Issues Report, NARA press release, November 1. "The report discusses ... the status of the government's progress in the lengthy and complex process of identifying, declassifying and releasing records relating to Nazi war criminals, crimes, persecution and looted assets."
• FBI Whistleblower Protection Regulations, from the Federal Register, November 1. Establishes procedures under which FBI employees may make disclosures of information under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989.
• Inside Information by Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, October 31 (excerpt). The new Moynihan-Goss legislation on declassification is "woefully misconceived," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, and will actually reduce declassification government-wide by diverting resources to special initiatives.

Older News: October 1999

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