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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: May 2003

April 2003

• Trading Liberties, On the Media, WNYC/National Public Radio, April 29. "A basic principle of democracy is that transparency, not opaqueness, is the public's first safeguard against scoundrels and fools, but from its earliest days, Aftergood says, the Bush administration started drawing the blackout curtains."
• Work that gave Bob Graham expertise muzzles him by Bill Adair, St. Petersburg Times, April 28. "This administration has practiced pervasive secrecy and put millions of documents under seal," Graham told trial lawyers in Los Angeles two weeks ago. In a Senate speech, he warned that "excessive secrecy will undermine the public's confidence in our government and its essential institutions."
• The secret society by Tim Grieve, Salon.com, April 18. "Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, America is becoming an Orwellian state where people are locked up and no one can find out why -- least of all a compliant Congress."
• Bush's Fetish for Secrecy by Jim Hightower, Austin Chronicle, April 18. "Even in the midst of his invasion of Iraq, George W. took time to deal with one domestic matter that is dear to his heart: creating more secrecy in the executive branch of government."
• National Archives Prohibits Threatening Behavior, proposed rule, Federal Register, April 18. "We are proposing to add threats as a prohibited behavior because of the risk to persons and property potentially posed by threats, and because of the increased number of email and telephone threats received in NARA facilities."
• FERC Amendments on Critical Energy Infrastructure Information, Federal Register, April 16. "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is proposing to revise its regulations requiring that companies make information directly available to the public under certain circumstances."
• Agency proposes continued use of lie detectors though study details inaccuracies by Pete Yost, Associated Press, April 15. "The Energy Department decided Monday to continue using lie detector tests to protect the nation's nuclear arms stockpile, despite a scientific study that found severe shortcomings in the tests' accuracy."
• Homeland Security: Procedures for Handling Critical Infrastructure Information, proposed rule, Federal Register, April 15. "The protection of critical infrastructure reduces the vulnerability of the United States to acts of terrorism."
• DOE Issues Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking On Polygraph Use, DOE press release, April 14. "We will continue to use counterintelligence scope polygraph examinations as one of several tools to screen personnel requiring access to a high-risk information."
• Vice President Cheney Comments on Secrecy and Openness, remarks to the American Society of News Editors, April 9. "I don't accept the criticism, or I disagree with it, anyway."
• CIA openness report to be classified? by Peg Brickley, The Scientist, April 7. "A flurry of e-mails and a possible about-face followed the US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) announcement last week that it would issue a classified report on an unclassified brainstorming session about scientific openness."

Older News: March 2003

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