"Secrecy would be such an issue, save that secrecy is secret."
"There are a lot of groups, a lot of institutions in this country that want to control your language. Tell you what you can say and what you can't say. Government wants to tell you some things you can't say because they are against the law, or you can't say this because it's against the regulation, or here's something you can't say because it's a SECRET. 'You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that.' Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in." -- George Carlin
The report states on p. xxii that this Commission is, "the first analysis authorized by statute of the workings of secrecy in the United States Government in 40 years, and only the second ever." I found that to be amazing. More amazing, "Some two million federal officials, civil and military, and another one million persons in industry, have the ability to classify information."1
Unbelievably, "Apart from aspects of nuclear energy subject to the Atomic Energy Act, secrets in the Federal Government are whatever anyone with a stamp decides to stamp secret. There is no statutory base and never has been; classification and declassification have been governed for nearly five decades by a series of executive orders, but none has created a stable and reliable system that ensures we protect well what needs protecting but nothing more."2
So, of course, the Commission recommends a statute to address these problems. This appears on p. xxiii. It is in 6 parts. They first want information classified only if there is "demonstrable need" to classify in the interests of national security. They are using the definition of "national security" as seen in Executive Order #12958 issued by President Clinton in April 1995. The second part is that the President shall "establish procedures and structures for classification of information." These "procedures and structures" are also to go to a parallel declassification program as well. However, they remain undefined, but, and this is part three, "consideration of the benefit from public disclosure of the information" should be included in establishing them. Fourth, "information shall remain classified for no more then ten years". Wow, what a difference that would be! An agency can specifically recertify that the information needs to still be classified based on "current risk assessments". All information shall be declassified after 30 years unless harm comes to an individual or ongoing government activities. Fifth, a very interesting provision, "this statute shall not be construed as authority to withhold information from the Congress." Finally, they propose a National Declassification Center to "coordinate, implement, and oversee the declassification policies and practices of the Federal Government."
This would be a radical and sweeping change, if enacted. The report states, "Secrecy exists to protect national security, not government officials and agencies."3 Such explicitly stated views might explain why the proposals of this Commission seem to be meeting resistance. To place into law why something has to be classified, and that reason has to be demonstrated, strips a lot of power from a lot of people. This would promote accountability, something anathema to Washington.
One of the proposals is to adopt the concept of lifecycles for secrets. Some information only needs to be kept secret for a day, or a week, or a year but is kept secret far, far longer. This lifecycle is not logically applied to declassification at all.
The report included successful Freedom of Information Act lawsuits as part of the declassification process. I would place these outside the normal declassification process as FOIA lawsuits are not initiated by the government agency that classified the material in the first place but rather, in most instances, by individuals, private citizens. These lawsuits involve huge investments of time and money and rarely produce any declassification of documents at all. Citing statistics from 1992 the report said in that year over $108 million was spent on FOIA lawsuits.
Part of the problem is seen as agencies have little to benefit from spending their resources declassifying records that can be decades old. There is no accountability in the way they do provide access to their records, and no procedure to gain the release of what no longer needs protecting.
This is where the National Declassification Center would come in. They would process the material that no longer needs protecting guided by the agencies of origin.
The report states that there are over 1.5 billion pages of government records over 25 years old in government vaults that are unavailable to the public because they are still classified. Despite this staggering figure and age of the information the Commission does feel that some of the information is still highly sensitive and should remain secret but states that much is at the end of its lifecycle and should be moved out of the classification cycle.
Now this Commission wants to be cost effective so they propose rather than creating a real new agency that the National Declassification Center be made a part of the National Archives and Records Administration. Arghhhh! This is the worst idea in the Commission report so far.
This center would, "streamline declassification, provide expertise, allocate resources, act as a clearinghouse for and establish pilot projects to develop new technologies to aid access, and avoid duplicative procurement and activities."4
I question this idea that the Archives would create new technologies to aid access. They never have. They have slowly used technologies already in existence. The JFK Assassination Records Collection database, for example, is finally online and available over the Internet through the World Wide Web but it has not been updated since November 1995, thus woefully behind the thousands of documents released by the Assassination Records Review Board. There is no clue when they will update it. And there is really no excuse why the database can't be updated with the new releases.
The center as proposed would have an advisory panel to provide regular public input and advice on agency declassification priorities.
Well, who would serve on this panel? Would they be part-time or full-time? Would they be from the agencies of origin or outsiders? Would Washington be in charge of declassifying Washington? Or would private citizens, historians, or archivists outside of the federal government oversee this process?
The Commission laments the lack of accountability and oversight on classification and declassification. The reports says there is confusion between existing Executive Branch agencies, including the Information Security Oversight Office and the Security Policy Board over their roles. This has reduced accountability and offered little incentive to reduce secrecy.
One of the incentives the Commission sees in reducing secrecy is the monetary savings. It costs money to maintain the billions of pages that are kept secret. Huge government vaults cost money to build, maintain, and guard.
The Commission proposes that the NDC be an independent Executive Branch agency that can demand compliance with other executive branch agencies and regulate classification and declassification. The Commission wants this new agency to treat the process of classification and declassification, and all the Executive branch agencies to also treat the process of classification and declassification as information management issues not just extensions of security policy. The Commission also wants improved oversight capabilities within individual agencies by creating positive incentives for individual agencies to improve their handling of classified materials.
The Commission wants agencies to rethink the costs and benefits of classification and to consider other factors in keeping material secret. The other factors being, "vulnerability of the information, the threat of damage of it's disclosure, the risk of its loss, its value to adversaries, and the cost of protecting it."5
"The initial decision to classify is crucial: it is the most important part of the lifecycle of secrets, and the place where the entire regulatory process begins. Classification means that resources will be spent throughout the information's lifecycle to protect, distribute, and limit access to it that would not be spent if the information were not classified. Classification means that those who need to use that information in the course of their work have to be investigated and the results of that investigation analyzed to determine whether access should be granted."6
Unfortunately, this Commission believes that "the initial decision to classify continues to be based solely on damage to the national security-to the exclusion of other important factors."7 This just plainly is not true, it should be true, maybe a good idea, if there was any legislation clearly defining the terms and the method or accountability about the process.
The Commission notes that there has been progress in reducing the number of individuals authorized to create secrets, however, too "much information continues to be classified despite the lack of a national security reason to do so."8 In 1995 there were 3.6 million new actions, meaning 3.6 million decisions to classify. God only knows how many things or pieces of paper per decision. The reports notes that just under 400,000 were at the Top Secret level.
The Commission recommends that the "Director of Central Intelligence issue a directive concerning the appropriate scope of sources and methods protection as a rationale for secrecy"9 . This would be, I believe, a first.
The report states a false premise when it states, "the public and historians generally do not care how the information was collected; they want to know how it was used and what decisions it informed"10 .
Dr. Anna Nelson, member of the Assassination Records Review Board disagrees. She spoke to a group of historians at the ARRB's presentation to the Organization of American Historians on Thursday March 28, 1996. Dr. Nelson spoke of the intelligence agencies desire to protect sources and methods. "The agencies primarily want to protect sources...both people...and technical sources which would indicate a method that they use. But historians must have some knowledge of the source in order to judge the validity of the document, or the validity of that source. It's an inherent conflict that we have come across over and over again."11
We have seen games played many times with information supposedly withheld because of "protecting" "sources and methods". But we have also seen a game wherein the withholding of the source of the information affects the understanding of the information and is used to strengthen the value of the information. A big example of this is Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. The source and method allegedly used to collect this information were secret programs of surveillance used by the CIA through, what we now know through recently released documents, the Mexican secret police, the FDS. These secret programs were photographic surveillance and wire tapping of the phone lines going into the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City. Now documents telling American officials that Oswald was in these embassies and allegedly threatening the life of President Kennedy is withheld from some people, thus strengthening the idea that that Oswald was seen and heard by a h uman being, an agent, and his/her life needs to be protected so that's why the source is asked to be withheld and classified and kept secret. When in actual fact that is not the case at all but a supposition made by some when they are led to believe it is a person who physically observed and overheard Oswald in these embassies threatening the life of JFK.
The protected sources and methods have since been revealed, yet, they do not support the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was there at all at either embassy. There is no photograph of him. Despite at least ten times when cameras could have and should have taken his photo, as there was more than one camera from more than one position. Transcripts exist of tape recordings that would place Oswald there but the CIA claimed they, the actual tapes, were destroyed prior to November 22, 1963. This is a lie. Many people listened to the voice on the tape after the assassination, including two FBI agents, Fain and Hosty, who both said the voice on the tape is not Oswald's. J. Edgar Hoover told President Johnson on the morning of November 23, 1963 that it appears as if Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City. This is all exquisitely and brilliantly detailed in John Newman's "Oswald and the CIA". The ARRB is looking for a copy of the tapes which might exist in Mexico.
The bottom line is "sources and methods" are extremely important, not only to validate the worth of information but the withholding of those sources and methods is also, sometimes, used to deceptively alter the truthfulness of the information.
The Commission does hammer the nail on the head when it states that far too often the sources and methods language in the National Security Act of 1947 is abused to "classify virtually anything that is collected by an intelligence agency-including information that is collected from open sources." We see this when some of the recently declassified documents on the JFK assassination turn out to be newspaper clippings.
The Commission feels that a directive from the Director of Central Intelligence clarifying the scope of "sources and methods" and their protection would prevent the automatic protection of all information that might relate in any manner, however indirectly to a source or method. Such a directive would also properly protect that which does need protection.
The Commission also wants to standardize the security clearance procedures. It's amazing that they aren't. They state that clearance procedures are still based on fear of Communism, and of subversion by Communist agents. "This remains the case even though few people join the government with the intent to commit espionage and, as experience repeatedly has shown, the main threat today comes from trusted "insiders" who already hold clearances and only later in their careers decide to commit espionage, typically motivated by some combination of personal difficulties and greed."12
Well, I'm sure many in the government would like to think that divulgers of secret information are so motivated but what of people of conscience who divulge information? What of whistle blowers? How would this Commission describe Daniel Ellsberg? Or the FBI agent who helped reveal the deplorable conditions of the FBI lab?
The Commission reports that "currently most resources are directed at the initial clearance costs, such as requiring in every instance interviews with neighbors who may barely know the individual under scrutiny"13 . Every instance? My God! What if you're new to a neighborhood? What if the neighborhood you grew up in doesn't exist anymore? Where's the relevance of neighborhood gossip?
The Commission feels that such neighbor interviews, as shown in studies and in experience, do not yield helpful information and should no longer be required as a matter of course in every investigation. The Commission feels that more resources should be spent on those who already have clearances as these people are seen of as more of a threat than someone actually joining Federal Government employment with the beginning purpose of espionage. Also, the Commission believes that when a person has a certain level of clearance and is moving to another program or another agency to a comparable level of clearance they should not be reinvestigated from scratch as if they never had any clearance. Acceptance of security clearances by other agencies should be the norm.
These two ideas would be an enormous savings of money and manpower.
Another problem encountered by the Commission was the redundancy and cost of "special access programs". These involve security practices of industrial contractors. "Special access programs can concern research, development, and acquisition activities; intelligence (including covert action); or military operations."14 The programs can range from lists of who can have access to the classified information to entire facilities being equipped with security measures or elaborate and expensive concealment. These programs are justified as the only way to provide the necessary security. However, the Commission found that the costs of these programs often does not mean increased security. The Commission believes that there is a need for greater standardization of security practices in special access programs.
The Commission then addressed the computer revolution. There is no standard to protecting automated information systems. The Commission wants greater cooperation between Executive Branch agencies, Congress and industry to address and develop effective computer security measures.
The report's summary concludes that the recommended changes to the classification system are long overdue, being 80 years after the Espionage Act and 50 since the National Security Act.
Chairman Moynihan in his foreword describes a world no longer facing the perils it once did and while there are concerns the world is largely at peace. He thinks, and rightly so, it is time to address the culture of secrecy that seems not to acknowledge the end of the Cold War.
Recently, the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate investigated why President Clinton did not object to the shipment of arms to Bosnia by way of Croatia. The decision not to object was never put into writing. The Deputy Secretary of State explained to the Committee:
"Another reason that diplomatic transactions and internal deliberations do not end up on paper is because of the extreme sensitivity of the subject matter. What goes down on paper is more likely to come out in public, in inappropriate and harmful ways, harmful to the national interest."15
Interesting to note that Chairman Moynihan deleted the reference to Iran as the source of the arms. It's in the source for the footnote but not on p. xxxi.
Moynihan referred to this episode as the privilege of those within the privileged system. I, however, would have said something about how damaging that is to history.
Moynihan cited another example, this time of too much secrecy on an abundance of documents. On June 29, 1963 Senator John F. Kerry remarked that when he was reviewing documents relating to POW/MIA issues that only about a hundred, or a couple hundred pages of the thousands of documents had any current classification importance. Moynihan saw both episodes as a reason for the Commission to exist. There is definitely a need to overhaul the classification system.
But I am quite concerned about this justification of not committing policy decisions and the process by which policy is created to paper because of a fear of disclosure. The desire to classify and the fear of disclosure might be lessened not merely by implementing some of the recommendations of this Commission but by complying with the laws of the United States of America and international laws so that disclosure does not reveal criminal conduct. We have repeatedly seen documents that reveal officials of the United States government planning and carrying out criminal activities both at home and abroad. However, they are usually classified and not declassified until it is far too late to do anything, often not released until the guilty are dead.
Domestically, a recent examples of this is the discovery of the withholding of treatment for syphilis to Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama. Other examples include, subjecting U.S. soldiers to LSD without their knowledge or consent; radiation experiments on American citizens without their knowledge or consent; the FBI's COINTELPRO program; and many illegal acts against Vietnam War protesters and Civil Rights activists.
Internationally, officials of the American government have been involved in assassinations. In Guatemala in the 1954 coup, a coup where America overthrew a democratically elected government, a CIA manual on assassinations has recently been declassified. These documents were only saved from destruction by the CIA because they were involved in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Moynihan cites the Wright Commission, named after Lloyd Wright, a former President of the American Bar Association, which was the first statutory study of governmental secrecy and comments on their work and their recommendations. This Commission was established in 1955. The report did separate loyalty problems from those of security which was remarkable given the Communist "Red Scare" of the time. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee did not make such a distinction. The Wright Commission proposed penalizing unlawful disclosure of information with knowledge of their classified character by persons inside as well as outside the government. This was restraint of the press, for any reporter, editor and publisher could be arrested, tried and convicted for publishing classified information they discovered or was provided to them via "a source". The second proposal for new legislation was to make admissible in court evidence gathered by wiretapping. Such wiretapping was permissible only by specific authority of the Attorney General.
Moynihan comments that the importance of the Wright Commission was not its proposals but that its proposals were never seriously considered. Such a fate may well befall Moynihan's own Commission, as H.R. 1546 and S. 712 lie buried in committee with no action planned on either. More on these House and Senate proposals later.
Moynihan notes that then as now, "A national security system was in place, and would thereafter be on the defensive more than otherwise. It became easy to argue that the Government was hiding something."16 Well, they were and are but Moynihan does not acknowledge any of it. Instead he lumps critic, researcher and historian with declassified documents that do indeed prove the government was hiding its criminal acts and criminals behind the shield of national security, with critic, researchers and historians who don't have access to material that is still classified as conspiracy theorists. "Conspiracy theories emerged to explain misfortune or predict disaster. There is nothing novel in the appearance of conspiratorial fantasies, but it could be argued that it is something new for large portions of the American public to believe that agencies designed to protect them are, in fact endangering them."17
Well, there is a well documented history of that. These dismissals depress me. Why bother with all this declassification if intelligent people like Senator Moynihan can't be bothered to read and understand the stories they tell?
There have been several recent studies of the intelligence community, The Vice President's National Performance Review, The Joint Security Commission, The Intelligence Community Revolution Task Force, and the Intelligence Community Task Force on Personnel Reform. Like the Moynihan Commission none of these have made big headlines.
The intelligence community did not implement any of the recommendations of The Vice President's National Performance Review. The classification recommendation of The Joint Security Commission was enacted in a Presidential Executive Order in April 1995, some aspects of personal security were addressed by an Executive Order in July 1995 and a permanent Controlled Access Program Oversight Committee was established in August 1995. The Intelligence Community Revolution Task Force strongly recommended adopting common management procedures and processes throughout the Community. It wanted to create a single personnel system. These recommendations are under review. The Intelligence Community Task Force on Personnel Reform, also known as the Jehn study, identified four principal areas: a largely dysfunctional system of performance appraisal and management; a lack of systemic career planning and professional development across the Community; the variety and complexity of the various personnel systems; and the inadequate promotion of a sense of community among the agencies. The report was briefed to then DCI Deutch in August 1995 and the Community is reviewing its recommendations.
The Moynihan Commission noted that the 92 lines of the National Security Act establishing a "central intelligence agency" has bred a vast bureaucratic system. The Commission produced a chart which found that since 1980 Intelligence spending has grown considerably more than Defense. By mid-decade Defense spending had risen 40% but Intelligence 120%!18 Both spending levels have since declined but Intelligence spending remains well above Cold War levels.
The Moynihan Commission wants the public to think of secrecy as "a mode of regulation", regulating what the public may know. In the 1930's public regulation needed to be made more accessible to the public so in 1935 The Federal Register was born. All public regulations were now published and accessible. In 1946 the Administrative Procedure Act established procedures by which citizens can question and even litigate regulation. In 1966 the Freedom of Information Act provided citizens with more access to government files.
The Commission knows it is not going to put an end to secrecy but it does hope that the current culture of secrecy can become a competing culture of openness which could demonstrate greater efficiency at protecting that which needs to be protected.
Senator Moynihan uses the example of a little known study that was open and available, but wonders if it were classified secret would it have been taken more seriously? In the spring of 1960, Lloyd A. Free of the Institute for International Social Research at Princeton carried out a public opinion survey in Cuba19 . The Cubans were asked to rank their well being at that time, five years before, and project it five years hence. Cubans were very optimistic about their future and most dreaded the return of Batista. Moynihan opines, "they would learn better, as peoples the world over would do as the earlier excitements or revolution gave way to Leninist terror and intimidation. But they had not learned yet ." 20 Free's report concluded that Cubans "are unlikely to shift their present overwhelming allegiance to Fidel Castro."21
Free's associate Hadley Cantril recalled, "This study on Cuba showed unequivocally not only that the great majority of Cubans supported Castro, but that any hope of stimulating action against him or exploiting a powerful opposition in connection with the United States invasion of 1961 was completely chimerical, no matter what Cuban exiles said or felt about the situation, and that the fiasco and its aftermath, in which the United States became involved, was predictable."22
Moynihan points out that the data was public and provided to United States Government agencies. The Cuban Embassy asked for ten copies. Moynihan thinks the information might have had greater impact if it had been classified. He writes, "In a culture of secrecy, that which is not secret is easily disregarded or dismissed."23 Moynihan continues, "A culture of openness will never develop within government until the present culture of secrecy is restrained by statute. A statute defining and limiting secrecy will not put an end to overclassification and needless classification, but it will help."24
Moynihan wrote, "The Commission, accordingly, judges that the first priority is to give a firm statutory base to the secrecy system. Classification should proceed according to law. Classifiers should know that they are acting lawfully and properly. We need to balance the possibility of harm to national security against the public's right to know what the government is doing, or not doing. We should establish by statute that secrecy is the realm of national security and foreign policy. It is not a badge of office or a status symbol." I agree wholeheartedly and would add that it should not be a shield against prosecution for criminal acts or protection against accountability.
Moynihan states that the declassification center will only work if agencies are willing to cede some control over their records, what Moynihan refers to as "their horde of hoary testaments". He feels the government will only moderate if there is a change in the thinking, that secrecy is not the starting place. He thinks the main focus of the government will not be information but analysis.
Moynihan contrasts secrecy in the technological arena with that of the political one. He writes that the great discovery of Western science was in the 17th century, it was the principle of openness. A scientist who thought he had discovered something would publish it, which would lead to controversy, rejection, acceptance, modification, whatever, which is to say, knowledge. In that setting, according to Moynihan, science developed as never before or since. Today, there are some scientific discoveries that can be kept secret, at least for awhile, especially with weapons technology, but they do not stay secret long as someone else figures it out or produces something better.
In the political realm secrecy is a completely different matter. Moynihan feels some things should never be made secret, some things should be made secret but revealed in a timely fashion, some things should be made secret and kept that way.
Moynihan cites the results, he calls them "the aftermath", of Executive Order 12958 issued by President Clinton in 1995. That order gave twenty officials, including the President himself, the authority to classify information "Top Secret". This power has been delegated to 1,336 "original classifiers". This does not include the two million government officials, and another one million industrial contractors who have "derivative classification" authority. According to the Information Security Oversight Office, in 1995 there were 21,871 "original" Top Secret designations and 374,244 "derivative" designations. Now, can there really be some 400,000 secrets created in 1995, the disclosure of any one of which would cause "exceptionally grave damage to the national security?"
Moynihan goes on to emphasize that the lack of access to classified information throughout the government can cause damage in its own right. An organization with a secret will hold onto it unless there is some exchange or gain in releasing it.
Moynihan then goes into the episode of the VENONA project, but before discussing that consider that the failure of information to get to the right people in time was a major cause of the disaster of Pearl Harbor, yet now it is deliberately done. I find it ironic, the intelligence community's growth can be dated from the failure of Pearl Harbor yet it seems to have learned the wrong lesson.
In the case of the VENONA project which was our breaking of the code by which the Soviet government communicated with its espionage agents in the United States, information gathered from this project was not shared with other intelligence agencies. The Army gave the information to the FBI. Hoover kept it in his personal vault. The program was begun in 1943 but the first message was not broken until December 20, 1946. It was shared with the FBI in 1948. The CIA did not learn of it until 1952. And there is no evidence that President Truman ever learned of it.
Information in the cables told the Army and the FBI that the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) was thoroughly infiltrated by Communists. The OSS was the precursor of the CIA and the Army and the FBI was just not going to trust the CIA with this information.
In the recently published 450 page report, Moynihan calls it "official history", VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1937-1957, Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner write, "Truman's repeated denunciations of the charges against [Alger] Hiss, [Harry Dexter] White, and others-all of whom appear under cover names in decrypted messages translated before he left office in January 1953-suggest that Truman was either never briefed on the VENONA program or did not grasp its significance. Although it seems odd that Truman might not have been told, no definitive evidence has emerged to show he was."25
Moynihan describes President Truman as being "almost willfully obtuse as regards American Communists" and adds that at the time there was also a cultural context that made it difficult to believe America was heavily infiltrated by Communists. TV and Airlines were in their infancy than and had not yet produced a more homogeneous populace as we have today. There were no Communists in Kansas city politics, but in larger American cities, such as New York there were.
This kind of analysis portrays President Truman in an unfavorable light. It also appears to vindicate the outrageous and criminal persecution of anyone labeled a Communist.
Moynihan does not seem to comment critically on the withholding of, not only information from VENONA but the existence of the entire program from the President of the United States!
Moynihan does mention that heightened concerns about the country's security were usually, and unfortunately, accompanied by an ethnic component. In WWI the loyalty of German Americans were questioned and many German Americans, especially in Wisconsin and Indiana found themselves under suspicion. The same occurred with Japanese Americans in WWII, to the point where they lost their property and were relocated to prison camps (Moynihan does not mention this). German Americans, though under suspicion again, did not suffer this treatment. In the Cold War Communists were seen as people of Eastern European ancestry. Moynihan says "Central Europe" which I think is rather inaccurate.
Now added to this mixture were the right-wing, often very far right-wing seeing Communists everywhere and using the label of Communist to attack everyone everywhere to gain political power for themselves, as was the case of Senator Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and a host of other politicians and bureaucrats, to say nothing of many in the media.
Moynihan refers to a letter J. Edgar Hoover wrote to George E. Allen, a confidant of President Truman on May 29, 1946.26 The letter citing an unnamed source, some of the information might be coming from VENONA, lists several individuals whom Hoover calls Communists who are engaged in an espionage network on behalf of the Soviet Union. They are:
State Department - Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Assistant to the Under Secretary of State Herbert Marks
Former Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy
War Department- Assistant Secretary of War Howard C. Petersen
Commerce Department- Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace
Bureau of the Budget- Paul H. Appleby
George Schwartzwalder
Bureau of Standards - Dr. Edward U. Condon
United Nations Organization - Alger Hiss
Abe Feller
Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion - James R. Newman
Advisors to the Congressional Committee
on Atomic energy - James R. Newman
Dr. Edward U. Condon
Moynihan notes that to have known any of these men automatically discredits Hoover's accusation's, which Moynihan feels were on target with Hiss and Silvermaster, though neither of whom at that time was in a sensitive government position.
Very Oddly, Moynihan refers to Hoover's paranoia as "Pearl Harbor Syndrome", Hoover apparently defensive that no one would be able to say that his organization did not give timely warning to the President. Yet, a reality check is sorely needed here as withholding information, in this case the source, as well as withholding the existence of VENONA, is exactly the same problem that led to the disaster of Pearl Harbor. "A warning", even if given in a timely fashion, is not sufficient. ALL of the information, what the warning is, how a threat was discovered, what is threatened should be and must be given to the President of the United States. It should be a matter of law, it should be routine. The failure to do so is worse than treason in my book. Who or what do these agencies think they are that they can handle information and the President of the United States cannot? Is this a Democracy?
Moynihan cites a passage from Benson and Warner's book on the damage caused to the country in keeping the translated documents secret. "The tacit decision to keep the translated messages secret carried a political and social price for the country. Debates over the extent of Soviet espionage in the United States were polarized in the dearth of reliable information then in the public domain. Anti-Communists suspected that some spies-perhaps including a few who were known to the U.S. Government-remained at large. Those who criticized the government's loyalty campaign as an over-reaction, on the other hand, wondered if some defendants were being scapegoated; they seemed to sense that the public was not being told the whole truth about the investigations of such suspects as Julius Rosenberg and Judith Coplon. Given the dangerous international situation and what was known by the government at that time, however, continued secrecy was not illogical. With the Korean war raging and the prospect of war with the Soviet Union a real possibility, military and intelligence leaders almost certainly believed that any cryptological edge that America gained over the Soviets was too valuable to concede-even if it was already known to the Soviets."27
This is insane! U.S. intelligence agencies are keeping a secret, that they have broken a Soviet code, from the President, even when the Soviets know their code has been broken. William Weisband, the American cipher clerk who had learned that America broke the code and passed that information on to the Soviets in 1948, although he was not discovered until 1950 was never prosecuted because 'sources and methods" had to be protected. In 1949 Kim Philby, a Soviet spy who had joined the British mission in Washington, received summaries of VENONA translations. He told the Soviets who quickly changed their codes..
Moynihan justifies some of the secrecy saying, "what if, say in 1949 Washington, busy testing new weapons, had told the American public to expect that the Soviets would get their own bomb, and sooner rather than later-that they had gotten ahold of many of our plans. (Their first device was almost an exact copy of ours.) suppose further that the U.S. Government had told the public that even without our secrets, the Soviets scientists were plenty good enough to figure it out in time.
"Of course, we did no such thing."
I think this is another matter entirely. Preventing the kind of panic and knee jerk reaction that might be demanded was prudent but this does not address the issue of withholding information from the Commander in Chief, nor of the abuses to the Constitution and law abiding citizens in the name of fighting Communism.
Moynihan states another proposition I disagree with. In comparing then with now he writes that "the public today is not the least concerned about the infiltration of the government by ideological enemies of the United States." I think we are, maybe not to the same degree, and not with the emphasis on Communists.
Moynihan does feel that the ethnic issue is rising its head again with Islamic and Muslim American citizens as America has had adversarial relations with these nations lately.
Moynihan feels a great way to combat closed societies is with openness.
Finally, Moynihan feel that the culture of secrecy has robbed American historians to the records of American history. He calls it absurd to rely on Soviet archives to tell us what was happening in America at mid-century. I agree. Moynihan continues this train of thought parenthetically adding, "And if you are a secrecy buff, hazardous; suppose some commisar, sensing the end was nigh, placed forged KGB documents in the files implicating people he didn't like on both sides of the Iron Curtain? Or perhaps some disgruntled American slipped misinformation to the KGB, knowing it would one day reveal the fictitious but damning treachery of a one time colleague who had risen above him."
Well didn't the same occur here with the Hoover letter Moynihan reproduces? And isn't it equally absurd to rely on these Soviet documents to "confirm" Alger Hiss as a Communist spy?
One thing Moynihan is proud of is that this Commission encouraged the National Security Council to release documents from the VENONA project. I too welcome such releases. We do have a right to know the work performed by our government employees and the people who broke the codes should be recognized and celebrated.
Chairman Moynihan finishes with a salute to Vice Chairman Larry Combest, a Republican Congressman from Texas for his attention to detail and bipartisan support.
I find it surprising then that he seems to be opposed to Chairman Moynihan's goals. "I unequivocally endorse the public's right of access to much government-held information, and I concur with the Commission findings that too much information is classified and kept too long in secret. But I also believe this report may genuflect too far toward the "culture of openness." If the government's information security and classification system must lean one way or the other, it should err on the side of secrecy."28
Combest cites the Constitution and the clauses charging the federal government with providing for the common defense and securing the blessings of liberty as reasons for keeping secrets because the government has to do this in a volatile and uncertain world, what he calls, "this Age of Chaos."
Combest writes that we should "dispense with the false notion that protecting the secrecy of sensitive national security information is exclusively a result of the Cold war; in effect, that the impulse to secrecy is an aberration, a practice that can be safely dispensed with now that the Soviet threat is gone." He makes a good point. It clearly is not but it did reach extraordinary new heights during the period.
Combest makes more good points arguing that espionage directed against the United States has not ended, nor have threats to our country, citizens and soldiers, at home and abroad. Combest applauds Chairman Moynihan for pointing out that the government secrecy system did not start with the Cold War but rather the Espionage Act of 1917.
Combest notes that the cold war of struggle and competition between nations is never over. Intelligence gathering and the need to protect that information, and the need to ensure the reliability of those who have access to that information will not cease. But we should remember what Samuel Johnson wrote, "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" when national security is invoked as a reason to perpetuate government excess or abuse.
A very welcomed attitude.
Mr. Combest contrasts the falling levels of trust in government for having too much secrets and keeping them too long with the government's main job of providing for the common defense. If the government fails at that then they will undermine the legitimacy of the government far more quickly.
Mr. Combest address an issue that Chairman Moynihan did not and that is that the government has a moral duty to protect those who supply sensitive information to the United States often at a cost of endangering their own lives. This extends to the source as well so nothing points back to the agent
I agree wholeheartedly. However, I do feel there should be limits on even this. I think there are heroes and villains in this mix. Can murderers who supply information be so eternally protected? Murderers of American citizens? Drug dealers? Terrorists?
Mr.Combest sees the potential for such agents or assets of the Untied States to be exposed in the bulk releases of government documents. John Newman warned of this as a possibility as well. Combest writes, "Some things that might not be apparent to the U.S. government in the act of bulk declassification could become clear to a hostile intelligence service shifting through a mass of documents; for example the modus operandi of U.S. intelligence, the matters of greatest interest to the government, and perhaps even the compromise of "sources and methods" are inevitable in a hasty, bulk declassification."29
I feel those engaged in such risky intelligence gathering should have their unique perspectives added to the historical record at some point, preferably while they are alive. Eternal protection robs history of acknowledging their work. At some point the information they acquired will become less valuable. At some point they should be in no danger. As Chairman Moynihan pointed out with the VENONA project we should celebrate our intelligence heroes.
Combest sees the trend to open up government as flowing from a commendable effort to restore faith in government. He is concerned that a violent shaking of the security and classification system could compromise vital information in the future and make it harder for informants and allies abroad to confide in U.S. intelligence. He writes, "a government that remains within its proper Constitutional limits, that focuses on its proper Constitutional priorities and that does not attempt to meddle in the daily lives and routine affairs of its citizens, should not be feared."30
But have we really had that?
Combest cites the rise in fear of the government with the rise in the government's power and intrusiveness. He believes that that implication is clear, except, "to those not already biased in favor of big government."31
So much for bipartisanship.
Aside from his fears of too much information being released in bulk declassification Combest doesn't like the cost and sees little benefit to the taxpayer as a whole. "It will cost many millions to declassify rapidly and release the huge store of currently classified material. Every government expenditure ought to have a cost-benefit. But it is difficult to justify an extraordinary expenditure that goes beyond the costs of routine declassification as a benefit to the taxpayer. Ramping up costs for bulk declassification might benefit special interests; for example, historians, academic researchers, archivists, and policy groups who believe it is the government's duty to radically alter its handling of classified material. But I am hard pressed to see how such an expenditure will benefit taxpayers as a whole."32
Is it any wonder that the recommendations of this Commission flounder and are probably dead in committee?
Finally, the real importance of Executive Order 12958 is given, "automatic declassification of all documents over 25 years old by the year 2000." AHA! This explains all the Intelligence Community Revolution Task Force, and the other recent studies of the intelligence community. Wow, would this be a huge amount of records.
Combest feels this would be too big of a burden on the intelligence communities, draining away personnel and resources from other intelligence functions too vital to the nation. Combest would prefer an "issue driven" declassification rather than a broad bulk declassification.
Combest also is wary of a statute as a solution, foreseeing where it could be watered down in the consensus building process and seeming to prefer good management from one assumes the agencies themselves.
Surely, this would give the power of dealing with this mess right back with the people who created it.
Combest does agree that the United States is very vulnerable to computer hackers. This was seen recently when the FBI's hompage was rewritten by individuals opposed to the Communications Indeceny Act. Combest writes that attacks on America's automated systems could wreck more havoc than a conventional military attack. Legislation may not be too helpful here either as a statute could be too broad, thus useless, or too specific and thus useless here too as a new system emerges and the system targeted by law becomes obsolete. He does feel something must be done and the issue visited by Congress annually.
The body of the report dealt with all of these issues but here are some interesting things that caught my eye. There is information termed "unclassified sensitive information" which is information which falls outside the national security classification system. It falls outside information requiring protection but the government wants to protect it anyway. In 1971 a House subcommittee found 62 different control markers being used to restrict the distribution of "unclassified sensitive information". The problem is there is no statute or Executive Order authorizing this.
The Office of Management and Budget tried to quantify the costs of secrecy in a survey. In 1994 was estimated at 2.27 billion, in April of 1996, 2.7 billion. In neither case did the CIA provide its cost data in unclassified form. In industry it was 5.6 billion in 1995. There is controversy over exactly what was measured and how but the Commission is happy with the progress made in trying to quantify the costs of secrecy and note it is improving. Only by knowing the cost and what is kept secret can the cost of secrecy be reduced.
The Commission noted the Executive Orders which have been written lately were written as competing political parties came to power and generally countermanded the order of the previous party in power. Carter's order replaced Nixon's. Carter's was replaced by Reagan's. Reagan's was replaced by Clinton's. There has been great frustration in the intelligence community with each new order. The NSA, aware of the high cost of making these changes and expecting more, delayed implementing Clinton's order by postponing updating their systems so that all changes could be made simultaneously at a lower cost. The result was that a year after the order the NSA documents reviewed by the Commission were still being issued with the marking "OADR" (Originating Agency's Determination Required), even though that marking had been abolished by the order.
"Aware that classification orders are regularly replaced, some officials opposed to the specifics of a given order have resisted complying with and enforcing, essentially waiting out an administration in the hope that the order will be replaced. The declassification provisions of President Carter's executive order 12065 were never fully implemented before being scaled back under E.O. 12356.
In an effort to justify how the Congress can enact a statue to regulate the classification and declassification the Commission cited the Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. the Commission found that that act did not infringe on the ability of the executive branch to administer the classification system nor did it compromise agency ability to protect sensitive information.
Chapter 2 tells us the 29 individuals who have the authority to classify originally.
1.) The Vice President
2.) Chief of Staff to the President
3.) Director of OMB
4.) National Security Advisor
5.) Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
6.) Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
7.) Secretary of State
8.) Secretary of the Treasury
9.) Secretary of Defense 10.) Secretary of the Army 11.) Secretary of the Navy 12.) Secretary of the Air Force 13.) Secretary of Energy 14.) Secretary of Commerce 15.) Secretary of Transportation 16.) Attorney General 17.) Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18.) Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 19.) Director of Central Intelligence 20.) Administrator of NASA 21.) Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency 22.) U.S. Trade Representative 23.) Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors 24.) Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy 25.) Administrator of the Agency for International Development 26.) Director of the U.S. Information Agency 27.) President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States 28.) President of Overseas Private Investment Corporation 29.) Information Security Oversight Office
Concerns of protecting classified information has switched from trying to protect all of the information to concentrating on protecting information the loss of which would cause the most harm. Today there are fewer individuals authorized to classify information than ever before. The number of special access programs has been reduced.
I thought I'd tell you what some of the initials mean with regards to "sources and methods" acquired information.
SIGINT= Signal Intelligence
IMINT=Imagery Intelligence
MASINT=Measurement and signature intelligence
HUMINT=Human-source intelligence
The Commission proposes thresholds for classification. In the context of foreign relations for information to be considered for classification must demonstrate that release of the information would impair foreign relations.
The Commission pointed out that neither the National Security Act of 1947 nor any of the subsequent executive orders has defined what a "source" or what a "method" is. This is an obvious problem as protection of these ambiguous "sources and methods" is used to classify everything, even "open sources" from newspapers, books, TV, and radio. Open sources can account for up to 95% of the information collected by the Intelligence Community.33
Executive Order 12958 preserves the three classification levels of Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. The definitions have changed a little over time E.O. 12958 is the first to require classifiers to be able to "identify and describe" the damage to national security, previously they have remained based on the concept of "damage" from 1950's. "If the unauthorized disclosure of the information could potentially cause damage, it may be classified Confidential; Secret if "serious damage;" or Top Secret if "exceptionally grave damage." Most classifiers choose the middle option: 71 percent of all classified information is Secret; only 20 percent and 9 percent of all classified information is confidential and Top Secret, respectively."34
There is a section in chapter 2 where they discuss that a security clearance level should not entitle a person to access to all classified information at that level. They are worried that with computer stored information that someone could do this. I was surprised to see them talk of Intelink-the Intelligence Community's version of the Internet. I thought Intelink was fictitious as it is used in the computer CD-ROM game "Spycraft", a very, very interesting game. The Commission notes that computers, the Internet and electronically stored data are making it hard to enforce "Need-to Know" rules. There are 13 categories, known as Sigmas that limit access to Restricted Data and the control marker ORCON prohibits further dissemination without the specific approval of the originator of the information.
They briefly talk about what you and I call "black" programs. Interestingly, within even these programs are "waived" programs, "considered to be so sensitive that they are exempt from standard reporting requirements to the Congress. The Chairperson, ranking member, and, on occasion, other members and staff of relevant Congressional committees are notified only orally of the existence of these programs."35
Do they get around to trying to protect unclassified information? Hell, yes! It's even defined. The Computer Secrecy Act of 1987 defined it as "information, the loss, misuse, or unauthorized access to or modification of which could adversely affect the national interest or the conduct of Federal programs." There are 52 different markings used on unclassified information, some of which are, "Sensitive But Unclassified", "Limmited Official Use," "Official Use Only," and "For Official Use Only."
By far the Department of Defense classifies the most information, estimated at 53% for the years 1990-1996. The CIA was second with 30%. Having the ability to classify was a measure of status. Until Executive Order 12958 original classifier did not really have to explain why they are classifying information. Now they do, by completing a classified "why line". The Commission wants to expand the "why line" to give more information on why information is being classified. Both the CIA and the DOE already have these more detailed explanation requirements.
Another concern of the Commission were those who can classify "derivatively" by extracting or paraphrasing information in already classified materials. People with this authority are almost never designated in writing. Almost every employee of the NSA and the CIA can classify "derivatively". The Commission wants to account for these people by better training them and including in their evaluations how they choose to classify information.
Executive order 12958 requires "original classifiers" to receive training. Derivative classifier are not so required.
There are many guide books that classifier are supposed to consult but there are thousands throughout the government, many hundreds of pages long and many them selves classified. Many are out of date and need to be updated. Some contradict each other. And many fail to consider information already in the public domain. Many guides for industry fail to have any input from industry.
The Commission applauds the efforts of some agencies who have training programs on their own. The NSA has a "Policy On Line" internal computer service which encourages communication between employee and management.
The Commission recommends expanding the requirements of Executive Order 12958 to include derivative classifiers and requiring attendance at agency training programs. Original classifiers should have to give a detailed explanation for each decision. Derivative classifiers should have to identify themselves on the documents they classify. Classification guides should be better developed. Training should be expanded. And proper classification should be an important element of performance evaluations.
The first thing to consider in making better classification decisions is the initial decision to classify. This decision remains largely a subjective one. The NRO has a decision tool, which is a guide that helps classifiers by taking them through a step-by-step process permitting a computer generated document to be classified only if the preparer has gone through all the steps. The NSC has applied this approach to its email as well. Personnel cannot print or send email without establishing if classification is needed.
The Commission wants to enhance oversight. There is virtually no congressional oversight on how agencies implement classification policies pursuant to Executive Orders. The Commission wants periodic oversight hearings and to use confirmation hearings to question senior agency officials on classification and declassification policies.
The Commission points out the failures of the Security Policy Board. This board was established by the National Security Council by Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 29 in September 1994. They were to develop security policies that the intelligence community would follow. The Information Security Oversight Office was already doing this since 1978 and was to fall under the SPB. Confusion over the roles of each has resulted in little oversight at all. The SPB has representatives from 35 agencies. It is a multi-tiered structure with five permanent committees. It was tasked with defining "risk management" which was to be a new guidline for considering information for classification. they have yet to come up with a definition. Less than a year after it's creation the SBP was at loggerheads with the ISOO which was charged by Executive Order 12958 with leading "interagency meetings" on classification policy.
Now get this, in order to deal with this overlap of jurisdiction the director of the ISOO serves as chair of the SPB's Classification Management Committee, a group which also serves as an advisory committee to the ISOO.
Here we go 'round in circles.
"Several monthly meetings of the SPB ahve been canceled because there were insufficient number of agenda items or no substantive issues ready for decisionmaking."36 The SPB has held meetings isolated from outside observers. Meetings at all levels are usually held in secure facilities requiring attendees to posses security clearances because classified mateers are usually the topic of discussion. This flies in the face of the reason for creating the SPB which was to "provide a focal point for Congressional and public inquireies regarding security policy or its applications."37
Another group that was also to consider security polcy and be an avenue for public input is a complete failure. The Security Policy Advisory Board. it was established by the same derictive that created the SPB. It was to be a 5 member board. 2 years after that derictive only 3 poistions have been filled and there appears to be no active effort to fill the other two. The three selected all come from intelligence backgrounds. The advisory board only deal with issue given to it by the SPB.
Another total failure is the Information Security Policy Advisory Council. This was created under Executive order 19258. This was to be a seven member group. None have been appointed, no meetings ahve been held, and none are planned.
Chapter 3 deals with declassification. Now we get into an area of more interest to the research community. There have been some remarkable declassification recently, the aforementioned VENONA documents being one.
The existence of the National Reconnaisance Office has been declassified in 1992.
Under executive Order 12951 imagery collected from satelites are being released. This will result in the release of over 886,000 images.
"In recent years, agency task forces have searched for, reviewed, and declassified large volumes of records on issues involving past government actions about which there is great public interest. After passage of the Presidnet John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and the establishment of a Review Board to monitor implementation of the law, agencies undertook intensive searches for and reviews of relevant records. the result ahs been to make publicly available over three million pages of previously secret records related to that key event."38
Recently, the Department of Defense established a Central Documentation Office that began broad searches for documents for public release. That was largely in response to Senator Kerry's inquiry into the fate of American POW's and MIA's. In 1993 a task force was created in DOD to assit in documents relating to veterans suffering from Gulf War Illness. There is criticism that neither group has released all relevant records. The Gulf War project put information on a web site to explain the illness but some of those documents were removed from the web site only to be restored after a public outcry. Nevertheless, the commission sees this as a start and that both groups have released classifed information to the public that would not otherwise have happened.
I see no reason for cheering. Only after years of public outrage and cynicism and distrust, only after years of suffering and deaths, only after the media joined the chorus and politicians felt the heat were records released. And still the truth of these matters is not revealed.
The Commission applauds the work of the State Department and their published Foreign Relations of the United States series.
The Department of Energy has recently released records on human radiation experiments. In 1995 a report was issued along with 1.6 million records.
The Commission's report notes the many problems with the Freedom of Information Act., and internal agency resistence to mandated declassification.
Declassification has been addressed in every execuitve order since Eisenhower's 10501. There have been certain requirements imposed trying to get records declassified. These include:
1.) Identifying and marking declassification dates or events when classifying.
2.) Portion marking to indicate varying degrees of sensivity within records.
3.) A balancing test directing that information be declassified if the public interest outweighs the need to protect it.
4.) Establishing appeals processes and oversight structures.
5.) Establishing schedules (of time tables ranging from ten to thirty years) for systematically requiring a record's declassification review or release based on the type of information it contains
6.) Providing mandatory review procedures under which agencies or the public can request declassification of individual records.
The problem is agencies see the above as largely optional so providing more effective declassification is not happening at all.
Executive order 12958 instructed that rather that create a date for declassifying when classifying a record a new marking "Originating Agency's Determination Required" OADR could be used. When OADR was applied to a record no scheduled deadline for declassification review applied. As a result OADR was very commonly used. By 1992, 95% of all documents classified were marked OADR.39
Executive Order 12958's main goal was to declassify records 25 years old or older by the year 2000. An agency can act to keep some of these records classified given exemptions in the order. Agencies were given 5 years to review these records. And in the first year they were to complete the review of 15 % of the records subject to the order.
Footnotes
2.) IBID p.xxii
3.) IBID p.xxiii
4.) IBID p. xxv
5.) p.xxvi
6.) IBID
7.) IBID
8.) IBID p. xxvii
9.) IBID p. xxvii
10.) IBID
11.) From an audiotape made of the Assassination Records Review Board's presentation to the Organization of American Historians on March 28, 1996 in Chicago, Illinois.
12.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, -p. xxvii
13.) IBID
14.) IBID p. xxviii
15.) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Actions Regarding Iranian and Other Arms Transfers to the Bosnian Army, 1994-1995, 103 Congress., 1st sess., 7 November 1996, 27.
16.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p. xxxiv
17.) IBID
18.) Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996) p.131
19.) Lloyd A Free, "Attitudes of the Cuban People Toward the Castro Regime," Institute for International Social Research (Princeton: July 1960).
20.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p. xxxvii
21.) Lloyd A Free, "Attitudes of the Cuban People Toward the Castro Regime," Institute for International Social Research (Princeton: July 1960). p.26
22.) Hadley Cantril, The Human Dimension: Experiences in Policy Research (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1967), p.5
23.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p. xxxvii
24.) IBID
25.) Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939-1957 (Washington, D.C. National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 1966), p. xxiv.
26.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p.XLII-XLII
27.) Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939-1957 (Washington, D.C. National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 1966),p.xxix
28.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p.XLVII
29.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - pXLVIII
30.) IBID p. XLIX
31.) IBID
32.) IBID
33.) Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996)p. 88
34.) Averages for years 1990-1995, as reported by the Information Security Oversight Office.
35.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p26
36.) Report of the The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Washington, D. C., U.S. Government Printing Office 1997, - p41
37.) IBID
38.) IBID p. 51
39.) General Accounting Office, Classified Information: Volume Could Be Reduced by Changing Retention Policy, GOA/NSIAD-(#-127 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1993, p. 16-17.
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