[NYTr] FAS ecrecy News -- 11/05/07

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 10:23:17 -0600 (CST)
From: "Steven Aftergood" <saftergood at fas.org>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Secrecy News -- 11/05/07


SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 110
November 5, 2007

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Support Secrecy News:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp

**	SUPPORT SECRECY NEWS

SUPPORT SECRECY NEWS

If you find Secrecy News useful and informative, please consider
supporting our work with a financial donation.

The value of a publication like this can sometimes be hard to define,
and its impact difficult to trace.  Yet we believe that Secrecy News
has made an identifiable contribution, particularly by introducing
significant government information and documents into the public
domain.

So, for example, the Washington Post reported on October 16 that a
controversial internal U.S. government report on Iraqi corruption had
been made "widely available on the Internet."  In fact, a Google search
indicates that the report was made available only on the Federation of
American Scientists web site, where it was published by Secrecy News.

The New York Times reported on October 30 that "several advocacy
groups" had filed legal challenges seeking disclosure of the
intelligence budget total after September 11, 2001.  But there is no
record of such a legal challenge brought by anyone other than the FAS
Project on Government Secrecy, Secrecy News' publisher.

A widely-noted New Yorker article (February 19) on torture and U.S.
government policy stated that the Intelligence Science Board had
"released a report" criticizing coercive interrogation.  In private
correspondence, however, author Jane Mayer courteously acknowledged
that she merely assumed the Board had released the report and that she
had actually read it on the FAS web site after it was posted there by
Secrecy News.  (It has since been published elsewhere.)

What these stories indirectly confirm, even without crediting Secrecy
News, is that we have succeeded in creating an effective conduit for
transmitting restricted or inaccessible government information to the
public.

With almost every issue of Secrecy News, we publish government records
that members of the general public cannot readily locate elsewhere--
unique resources on foreign affairs and domestic surveillance,
psychological operations and special operations, and much more.  And we
make them available on demand and without charge to a large audience. 
(Less than a day after we published a U.S. Army Field Manual on
"Survival" last week, it had already been downloaded more than 35,000
times.)

We were fortunate to have had support for this work over the past year
from several philanthropic foundations-- including the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation, the HKH Foundation, the Open Society
Institute, and the Stewart S. Mott Charitable Trust.  But their
assistance does not cover all of our costs.

So if you count yourself among those who have benefitted from Secrecy
News, we invite you to help sustain our work for another year.

A secure online contribution to the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
can be made by credit card here:

     http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp

Checks payable to the Federation of American Scientists and earmarked
for Secrecy News can also be mailed to us here:

     Federation of American Scientists
     Attn: Secrecy News
     1725 DeSales St NW, Sixth floor
     Washington, DC   20036

Help us get the job done.

     --Steven Aftergood

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

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
     http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
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To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
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Secrecy News is archived at:
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SUPPORT Secrecy News with a donation here:
     http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp

_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
1725 DeSales St NW, 6th floor
Washington, DC  20036

web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202)454-4691