FAS | Secrecy | 2004 News || Search | Join FAS

Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: January 2005

December 2004

• CIA makes no disclosures on abuse by Charlie Savage, The Boston Globe, December 27. "The CIA is refusing to disclose any information about abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, invoking a legal precedent that involved a secret project by the billionaire Howard Hughes to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the 1970s."
• Bush Administration's Homeland 'Insecurity' by William Fisher, Inter Press Service News Agency, December 27. "The Bush administration appears set to maintain the secrecy that has characterized its workings since 2000. The latest evidence is a directive from the department of homeland security instructing its employees and contractors to share sensitive but unclassified information only with those having a need to know it."
• CIA Announces Decennial Review of Operational Files Designations, Federal Register, December 21. "The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA or Agency) is soliciting comments regarding the historical value of, or other public interest in, the CIA files designated by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) pursuant to the CIA Information Act of 1984."
• National Archives Opens Additional JFK Assassination Materials, NARA news release, December 20. "The records being released are documents recently re-reviewed and processed by the Central Intelligence Agency."
• Cold War-Era CIA Documents Missing by Libby Lewis, National Public Radio Weekend Edition, December 18. "The National Archives says records of how much money the CIA received from Congress from 1946 to 1970 are missing. Researchers are annoyed, fearing a loss of important historical information."
• ISOO Letter on Status of Automatic Declassification Planning, from ISOO director William Leonard. "Several agencies have indicated their intent to delay for an additional 5 years the automatic declassification of information contained in special media such as microforms, motion pictures, and audiotapes."
• NGA Extends Comment Period on Withdrawal of Aeronautical Information, Federal Register, December 17. "NGA is inviting public comment on the proposed action to withdraw aeronautical data and products from public distribution."
• Report: Govt secrecy hurting warfighters by Shaun Waterman, United Press International, December 15. "The current system for protecting government information is outdated, almost unworkable and makes the 'information flow to the war fighter ... excessively constricted,' according to a report prepared for the Department of Defense by a secretive scientific advisory panel."
• Homeland security regulations cloaked in secrecy by Lance Gay, Scripps Howard News Service, December 9. "Want to see the federal government's regulation authorizing airport security personnel to pat you down before boarding a plane? You can't. It's a secret rule."
• Berger Investigation Stretches Into Second Year: Former Security Adviser Took Top-Secret Files From National Archives by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, December 8. "More than a year after President Clinton’s top national security adviser, Samuel Berger, walked out of the National Archives with top-secret documents, a criminal investigation into the matter remains open with no sign of any imminent action."
• Report: Army, Navy Could Miss Declassification Deadline by John Liang, Inside the Pentagon, December 6. "The Army and Navy may be unable to meet a December 2006 deadline for the automatic declassification of secret documents that are more than 25 years old, according to a report released last week by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office.
• Searches and gag orders: Homeland Security’s unprecedented campaign cloaks unclassified info by Eileen Sullivan, Federal Times, December 6. "The Homeland Security Department is taking unprecedented steps to keep its unclassified information under wraps. The department has issued a directive that employees and contractors share sensitive but unclassified information only with those having a need to know it."
• NGA Plans Limited Access to Aeronautical Data Beginning in FY 06 by Cynthia Di Pasquale, Inside the Air Force, December 3. "The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has announced it plans to remove its entire class of aeronautical data from public access by Oct. 1, 2005, citing the need to uphold data-sharing agreements with foreign governments and protect the integrity of electronic data."
• Homeland Secrecy (Editorial), Washington Post (free reg. req'd), December 3. "The government keeps too many secrets. It classifies information that would do no harm if published; this impedes information-sharing within the government and erodes public confidence. Now the Department of Homeland Security is adding a new twist: aggressive secrecy concerning information that isn't even classified."
• Dangerous government secrecy oaths by Nick Schwellenbach and Peter Brand, San Diego Union-Tribune, December 2. "In an unprecedented and unwise expansion of government secrecy, the Department of Homeland Security has begun swearing its employees to silence, criminalizing the disclosure of information to the public – even if it is not classified."

Older News: November 2004

FAS | Secrecy | 2004 News || Search | Join FAS

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2004/12/index.html
Maintained by Steven Aftergood