Secrecy News -- 01/14/08
 
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:45:20 -0600 (CST)


SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2008, Issue No. 6
January 14, 2008

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

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**	AN INSIDE VIEW OF "DYSFUNCTIONAL" INFORMATION RESTRICTIONS
**	CONFRONTING THE STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE
**	EMERGING TRENDS IN ASIAN SECURITY, AND MORE FROM CRS

AN INSIDE VIEW OF "DYSFUNCTIONAL" INFORMATION RESTRICTIONS

Much of the criticism directed at government secrecy is predicated on
the idea that secrecy impedes government accountability and degrades
public participation in the deliberative process.

But the secrecy system is also subject to growing internal criticism on
altogether different grounds: namely, that it "has become dysfunctional
in the face of current needs of national security."

"The philosophy behind the policies for secrecy needs to move into the
21st Century and away from the WWII model which was deny to the enemy,
grant to as few as possible," said M.E. Bowman, a former FBI
intelligence official who returned to government last year in a senior
counterintelligence capacity.

"Today, in an information sharing environment USG [U.S. Government]
personnel are just about always going to be in violation of one
executive order (classification or access) or another (sharing).  I
truly believe that the USG would be better served with a different
philosophy behind classification and access," he told Secrecy News.

"I have never lost a court case on protecting secrecy, but that is
because the criteria permitted me to win.  In fact, a lot of the
seminal FOIA law is argument that I developed in litigation. [But] I
think the time is long past when we need to amend the criteria."

Mr. Bowman elaborated his critique of the existing information security
regime in an article that appeared last year in Intelligencer, the
journal of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

See "Dysfunctional Information Restrictions" by M.E. Bowman,
Intelligencer, Fall/Winter 2006-2007, posted with the permission of the
Association of Former Intelligence Officers (www.afio.com):

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/bowman.pdf

"Despite the obvious difficulties, the need is real and of such a
magnitude that changes to our heritage of information restrictions
simply cannot be placed in the 'too hard' box," he wrote.  "We must
update our philosophies of access and control, [and] change the
guidelines that proceed from those philosophies."

CONFRONTING THE STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE

The growing use of the state secrets privilege could threaten basic
constitutional rights, according to one recent critical analysis.

If current trends in government reliance on the state secrets privilege
are allowed to continue, "it is questionable whether any constitutional
complaint against the government involving classified information will
ever be allowed to be adjudicated," concluded Carrie Newton Lyons in a
review published last year.

Ms. Lyons, a former CIA operations officer, presented her assessment in
"The State Secrets Privilege: Expanding Its Scope Through Government
Misuse," Lewis & Clark Law Review, Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 2007:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/statesec/lyons.pdf

Potential reforms to the state secrets privilege will be explored by
Louis Fisher of the Law Library of Congress and other experts in a
January 24 panel discussion sponsored by the Constitution Project.

    http://www.constitutionproject.org/article.cfm?messageID=449

EMERGING TRENDS IN ASIAN SECURITY, AND MORE FROM CRS

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service obtained
by Secrecy News include the following.

"Emerging Trends in the Security Architecture in Asia: Bilateral and
Multilateral Ties Among the United States, Japan, Australia, and
India," January 7, 2008:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34312.pdf

"Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress," January
10, 2008:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34317.pdf

"Perjury Under Federal Law: A Brief Overview," updated December 27,
2007:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-808.pdf

"Kosovo's Future Status and U.S. Policy," updated December 28, 2007:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21721.pdf

"China's Holdings of U.S. Securities: Implications for the U.S.
Economy," January 9, 2008:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34314.pdf

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

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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood@fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691