[NYTr] FAS Secrecy News - 12/18/2007
All the News That Doesn't Fit
nytr at blythe-systems.com
Tue Dec 18 15:49:32 EST 2007
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 124
December 18, 2007
Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
Support Secrecy News: http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp
** INTEL AGENCIES TO WITHHOLD CONTRACT INFO FROM PUBLIC DATABASE
** U.S. INTELLIGENCE SEEN "RETREATING INTO GREATER SECRECY"
** NARA SEEKS TO SPEED PROCESSING OF PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS
** SUPPORT SECRECY NEWS
INTEL AGENCIES TO WITHHOLD CONTRACT INFO FROM PUBLIC DATABASE
Several defense intelligence agencies will withhold unclassified
information about their contracts from a new public database of
government spending.
The new database at USAspending.gov is intended to provide increased
transparency regarding most government contracts (Secrecy News,
12/14/07).
But when it comes to intelligence spending, there will actually be a
net loss of public information because categories of intelligence
contracting data that were previously disclosed will now be withheld.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Counterintelligence Field
Activity (CIFA) argued that online disclosure of their unclassified
contracts could present an operational security vulnerability.
"I appreciate your concerns that reporting these actions to the
publicly accessible website could provide unacceptable risk of insight
to your individual missions and budgets," wrote Shay D. Assad of the
Under Secretary of Defense in a December 7 memorandum.
"As such, I concur with your waiver requests to not report your
unclassified actions to FPDS-NG [Federal Procurement Data System - Next
Generation] at this time," he wrote.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/dod120707.pdf
The new waiver, which was first reported by Daniel G. Dupont in
InsideDefense.com, applies to unclassified contract data for FY 2007
and 2008, and must be renewed each year thereafter.
But it does not apply retroactively, so it is possible to examine
detailed contracting information for thousands of intelligence
contracts with DIA and NGA from FY2005-2006, ranging in amounts from
tens of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. (Prior contract
information for CIFA is not currently available.)
Those intelligence agencies' past contracts can be examined using the
drop-down menu for contracting agency on this page:
http://www.usaspending.gov/fpds/agency.php
The sharp growth in intelligence agency contracting has prompted new
concern in Congress and elsewhere. The latest intelligence
authorization act (section 307) requires a "comprehensive report on
intelligence community contractors."
But while intelligence contracting is going up, public accountability
is going down.
U.S. INTELLIGENCE SEEN "RETREATING INTO GREATER SECRECY"
The U.S. intelligence community is reverting to old patterns of cold
war secrecy, warned the former Chairman of the National Intelligence
Council (NIC), to the detriment of U.S. intelligence.
"The reality that I see is an Intelligence Community that is retreating
into greater secrecy and old cultural habits, even in the short time
since I left the NIC in early 2005," said Amb. Robert L. Hutchings in
recent testimony.
"Try to get a CIA analyst to go on the record at an academic
conference, or participate in an interactive website or blog with
experts from outside government or other countries, and you will see
how deeply ingrained are the old Cold War cultural habits and
mind-sets," he said.
"What this means, additionally, is that the Intelligence Community is
not attracting the 'best and brightest' into their ranks. They go
elsewhere."
See his prepared testimony from a December 6 hearing of the House
Intelligence Committee here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/120607hutchings.pdf
One of the aspects of the trend towards increasing secrecy is what
appears to be a newly restrictive approach to pre-publication review of
writings by current or former intelligence employees.
Earlier this year, the Central Intelligence Agency refused to permit
former intelligence officer and author Valerie Plame Wilson to publish
certain information about her career that had already been disclosed in
the Congressional Record.
The publishers of Ms. Wilson's memoir devised a novel and effective
solution: They hired journalist Laura Rozen to write an afterword,
based entirely on information gathered in the public domain, filling in
many of the missing details of Ms. Wilson's account. Laura Rozen, who
writes for Mother Jones and for the War and Piece blog, tells the story
here:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/12/after-fair-game-story-valerie-plame-could-not-tell.html
NARA SEEKS TO SPEED PROCESSING OF PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS
The National Archives says it is exploring new methods to accelerate
the disclosure of records at Presidential libraries.
Archivists "decided to undertake an in-house study in the spring of
2007 to review ways to achieve faster processing of Presidential
records," stated Emily Robison, acting director of the Clinton
Presidential Library, in an October 2 declaration that was filed in a
lawsuit brought against NARA by Judicial Watch.
"As a result of this study, a one-year pilot project was initiated to
implement the most promising proposals," she said. The pilot project
was first reported by Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun on October 4.
In response to a request for further information about the project,
NARA released a list of procedural changes it is using or considering
to expedite processing of records. These include "cease routine
referral of classified items... for classification review" and "halt
printing e-mail attachments that do not easily open." See:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/nara-nlstudy.pdf
An extensive interview with Sharon Fawcett, assistant archivist for
presidential libraries, explores the role of President Clinton and
Senator Clinton in the processing of records at the Clinton Library,
the genesis of President Bush's executive order on presidential
records, and the procedural and resource constraints under which the
Presidential records review process operates.
See "Inside the Clinton Archives" by Alexis Simendinger, National
Journal, December 17:
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/071217nj1.htm
The Department of the Navy has updated its "Records Management Manual"
with considerable detail on the various categories of Navy records and
how they are to be handled. See SECNAV Manual 5210.1, November 2007
(473 pages, 5 MB PDF file):
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/secnavinst/m5210_1.pdf
SUPPORT SECRECY NEWS
If Secrecy News is providing you with valuable information that you
don't find elsewhere, and if you have not already responded to our
earlier appeals, won't you consider supporting our work with a
financial contribution?
Secure online donations can be made here:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp
Or you can mail a check payable to Federation of American Scientists,
earmarked for Secrecy News, here:
Federation of American Scientists
Attn: Secrecy News
1725 DeSales Street NW, Sixth floor
Washington, DC 20036
Thanks.
_______________________________________________
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:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html
To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html
OR email your request to saftergood at fas.org
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
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
More information about the NYTr
mailing list