SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2002, Issue No. 51
June 12, 2002

FAS SUES FOR DISCLOSURE OF 2002 INTELLIGENCE BUDGET

The Federation of American Scientists filed suit today against the Central Intelligence Agency, seeking declassification and disclosure of the intelligence budget total for 2002.

"Arbitrary and obsolete restrictions on the flow of information have degraded the performance of U.S. intelligence, to the detriment of American security," according to the FAS lawsuit. "Independent review and adjudication of such restrictions can help to correct deficiencies in U.S. intelligence."

In 1997 and 1998, in response to Freedom of Information Act challenges, the CIA disclosed the budget totals for those years ($26.6 billion and $26.7 billion respectively). But the Agency has refused since then to declassify any additional budget information.

Today, CIA officials even make the obviously false claim that disclosure of the intelligence budget totals from 1947 and 1948 would cause damage to national security and compromise intelligence sources and methods. This purely historical data is the subject of a separate lawsuit, filed last December.

Both Rep. Porter Goss and Sen. Bob Graham, the chairmen of the congressional intelligence committees, have expressed verbal support for annual disclosure of the intelligence budget totals. But since assuming the chairmanship, neither they nor their committees have acted on this professed support.

The text of the new lawsuit, brought under the Freedom of Information Act and filed on June 12, is posted here:

CRS REPORTS

The Congressional Research Service has released or updated a number of noteworthy reports lately, including the following:

"Military Transformation: Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance," by Judy G. Chizek, updated May 31, 2002:

"Fair Use on the Internet," by Christopher Alan Jennings, dated May 21, 2002:

"Terrorism, the Future, and U.S. Foreign Policy," by Rensselaer Leer and Raphael Perl, updated May 30, 2002:

SECRECY IN THE NEWS

"As the Pentagon boosts spending and intensifies development of a national antimissile system, it is also taking steps to shield the program from Congress and the public as well as traditional oversight measures within the Defense Department." See "Secrecy on Missile Defense Grows," by Bradley Graham in the June 12 Washington Post:

"Secret FBI files show how the Bureau's covert 1960s campaign to disrupt the Free Speech Movement and topple UC President Clark Kerr helped launch the political career of an actor named Ronald Reagan." See "Reagan, Hoover, and the UC Red Scare," by Seth Rosenfeld in the June 9 San Francisco Chronicle:

The potentially conflicting interests in combating terrorism and upholding constitutional values, highlighted by the treatment of suspected "dirty bomber" Abdullah al Muhajir, were neatly captured in a June 11 Washington Post editorial entitled "Detaining Americans":

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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

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