Project on Government Secrecy Background and Plan of Action

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Current Background and Plan of Action

The Cold War secrecy system remains deeply entrenched in American government. Billions of pages of classified documents from the Cold War era remain inaccessible to the public, and millions of new official secrets are generated each year. The cost of the implementing the secrecy system runs to billions of dollars annually.

Since 1991, the FAS Project on Government Secrecy has been working to illuminate the extent of government secrecy, challenging the political abuse of national security classification authority throughout the executive branch and identifying remedial measures.

Today, reform of government secrecy is at least nominally on the action agenda. In 1993, President Clinton issued Presidential Review Directive 29 that initiated a review of classification policy, and called for preparation of an executive order to lay the foundation for a new classification system. In April 1995, the President signed executive order 12958 which is intended to provide that foundation. But the full implementation of such a new classification system will take years, if indeed it can be accomplished at all.

Another potentially important forum for policy development is the newly established Security Policy Board, an official interagency group that will oversee the formulation of security policies government-wide. The controversial Security Policy Board was established in September 1994 by Presidential Decision Directive 29.

The Commission on Reducing and Protecting Government Secrecy (the "Moynihan Commission") will shortly conclude a two year review of "all matters" related to national security classification policy as well as personnel security. And the Department of Energy has recently completed its own Fundamental Classification Policy Review, a comprehensive review of the classification of all defense-related nuclear information.

The FAS Project on Government Secrecy seeks to contribute an independent perspective and to articulate a public interest viewpoint in these and other forums.

Establish a Compelling Set of Expectations.

A climate must be created to define certain expectations that the secrecy reform process cannot not fulfill. The proposals previously articulated mainly by activists must become the conventional wisdom that will set the minimum criteria for success-- or failure-- of the secrecy reform effort.

The specific ingredients of a revised secrecy policy, we believe, must include a dramatic reduction in the volume of new classified material; bulk declassification of all classified materials older than perhaps twenty years (not including statutorily-protected material such as nuclear weapons design data); and an automatic declassification schedule for all other classified information.

Our efforts to create the expectation of greater openness can be accomplished in large part through the mainstream media. FAS is among the most frequently cited non-governmental sources of public information on government secrecy. In particular, the majority of press coverage on secrecy reform and related issues has utilized background information provided by our project.

Improve Public Access

The FAS Project on Government Secrecy provides unique and often exclusive public access to secrecy policy documents and other related information. For example: The Project was the sole recipient of "leaked" copies of all major internal drafts of the new executive order on classification;

The Project obtained and released an Atomic Energy Commission memorandum indicating that human radiation experiments should be classified because of anticipated public opposition;

The Project discovered and disclosed that the secret budget for intelligence activities had been accidentally published in a Congressional hearing.

Such disclosures are regularly reported in our Secrecy & Government Bulletin, and the underlying documentation is made available upon request.