SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2018, Issue No. 59
October 1, 2018

Secrecy News Blog: https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/

REMEMBERING STEVE GARFINKEL

We were very sad to learn that Steve Garfinkel, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), passed away on September 24.

Appointed by President Carter in 1980, Mr. Garfinkel served as the second ISOO director for two decades until his retirement in January 2002. In that position, he played an influential role in the evolution of the national security classification system during its rapid expansion in the Reagan years and through the ambitious declassification initiatives of the Clinton era.

The ISOO director's job of supervising the operation of the government's classification system is an all but impossible one, since ISOO's resources and authorities are not commensurate with its assigned responsibilities.

But Garfinkel made the whole system better than it had been with the tools that were available. He instituted training programs for classifiers, he restrained some of the excesses of agency officials, and he cultivated a rational approach to the diverse challenges that the late cold war classification system produced.

He made "many contributions to the well-being of our nation," said J. William Leonard, his successor. "While I had the honor to follow in Steve's footsteps as ISOO Director, from the very beginning I recognized that I would never be able to fill his shoes," wrote Mr. Leonard, whose own shoes are quite large.

"He was a monumental man, a man of great honor and integrity," wrote Roger Denk, the former director of the Defense Personnel and Security Research Center. "His sense of humor, combined with his brilliance, made him a joy to be around."

During his years at ISOO, Mr. Garfinkel welcomed with some surprise the growing attention of public interest groups to classification policy. ("Notwithstanding you, very few people give a tinker's damn about the security classification system," he had told me in a 1993 interview.) The mounting volume of public complaints seemed to give him greater leverage in his own internal policy debates.

Yet he typically resisted the specific prescriptions offered by critics. After Tom Blanton and I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times 25 years ago criticizing a Clinton draft executive order on classification and comparing it unfavorably to President Nixon's policy, Garfinkel lamented that we had been "too effective": the final Clinton order did shorten the duration of classification for most documents, as we had urged, but it also included "a lot more exceptions than I would have wanted," he said. "Aftergood and Blanton hoisted themselves on their own petard." Years later, Garfinkel continued to believe that we had made a fateful error.

Garfinkel brought a deep humanity to what was essentially a bureaucratic role. He was warm, kind, funny and not afraid of an argument or an opposing view.

When he "retired" from ISOO in 2002, he took on what might have been an even more challenging task -- teaching high school students in suburban Maryland.

"I have no desire whatsoever to return to the government in any capacity, save public high school teacher, which is doing everything necessary to leave me ragged," he told me. As for secrecy policy, "I hope we never get to the point where we quit trying [to do better], although I have personally quit worrying about it and I think you will inevitably reach that point also."

Many of the qualities that made him a great public servant also made him a beloved teacher of a generation of students, some of whom remembered him on Twitter last week.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR ACCOUNTABILITY, & MORE FROM CRS

Noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Selected Legal Tools for Maintaining Government Contractor Accountability, September 26, 2018:

Federalism-Based Limitations on Congressional Power: An Overview, September 27, 2018:

EPA Proposes the Affordable Clean Energy Rule to Replace the Clean Power Plan, CRS Legal Sidebar, September 26, 2018:

EPA Proposes New Permitting Test for Power Plant Modifications, CRS Legal Sidebar, September 25, 2018:

Government Contract Bid Protests: Analysis of Legal Processes and Recent Developments, updated September 26, 2018:

Electronic Filing of Senate Campaign Finance Reports, CRS Insight, September 21, 2018:

Global Trade Imbalances, CRS Insight, September 27, 2018:

Escalating Tariffs: Potential Impacts, CRS Insight, updated September 24, 2018:

Canada's Dairy Supply Management System, CRS Insight, updated September 27, 2018:

Burma's Political Prisoners and U.S. Policy: In Brief, updated September 24, 2018:

South Sudan's Civil War: Nearly 400,000 Estimated Dead, CRS Insight, updated September 28, 2018:

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

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