It's no surprise the Bush Administration loves secrecy. That's been the CW for quite some time. But the extent to which information can be arbitrarily withheld from the public by minor bureaucratic lackeys is truly shocking.
The Boston Globe has the details in this article published today. Of particular alarm:
[T]erms such as ''For Official Use Only" have vague criteria that vary from agency to agency. In some departments, any employee, even a clerk, may stamp a document as off-limits. All 180,000 employees of the Homeland Security Department may decide a document is ''For Official Use Only."
There is no system for tracking who stamped it, for what reason, and how long it should stay secret. There is no process for appealing a secrecy decision.
Read on, oh seeker of knowledge...
The move toward withholding unclassified information from the public occurs as the administration's use of the classified secrets system is soaring. It classified 16 million documents in 2004, the highest number recorded since the government began keeping track of them in 1980. That number is up from 14 million in 2003, 11 million in 2002, and 8 million in 2001.
And the number of old documents being declassified dropped from an average of 150 million a year during Bill Clinton's second term to an average of 54 million in Bush's first term. Last year, there were only 25 million declassifications.
The justification for this level of secrecy is, of course, the GWOT, but more and more, the use of some 50-60 ill-defined security classifications has been used by corporate interests against advocates for the public's right to know-
Last month, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, asked the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to examine whether the agency was using security threats as a ''pretext to prevent the public from accessing documents that do not pose a security risk." The inspector general agreed last week to launch an investigation.
Markey contended that the commission had blocked the public from viewing unclassified nuclear information, so that only members of the industry were able to discuss regulatory changes with the government. For example, the NRC recently withheld a National Academy of Sciences report challenging the idea that the industry-preferred way of storing spent nuclear fuel rods was safe from terrorism, prompting Markey to accuse the agency of suppressing information ''based on the fact that it disagrees with the conclusions, not on any legitimate security" fears.
Meanwhile, Wenonah Hauter of Public Citizen has also raised concerns about the NRC's proposal to prevent outside groups from viewing unclassified safety plans. Public-interest groups have used such information to pressure the agency to adopt higher standards for nuclear security, including protecting power plants from truck bombs. If the proposed changes go through, the public would be left ''in the dark about the competency of the nuclear industry," Hauter said...
... or by administration hacks to prevent the release of politically sensitive information-
Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, identified a series of incidents in which he said security controls were invoked improperly to prevent political embarrassment.
For example, in the midst of the 2004 presidential campaign, the State Department released a report showing that during the Bush administration terrorist attacks around the world had dropped to their lowest levels since 1969. But after critics challenged the numbers, the department recalibrated and found that attacks were, in fact, at a 20-year high.
That September, just weeks before the election, the department's inspector general completed a report blaming CIA analysts for producing faulty numbers. The administration withheld the report from the public as ''Sensitive But Unclassified."
Now, the State Department has decided not to tabulate attacks in the annual terrorism report. Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA and State Department terrorism specialist, contended that the decision occurred after early results showed that attacks jumped again, undercutting Bush's claim to be winning the war on terrorism.
Said Waxman: ''It is indefensible to conceal the terrorism numbers from Congress and the public."
According the the
Globe, there are very strict rules governing how documents receive the "Confidential," "Secret," or "Top Secret" classifications, and
precisely 4007 government officials have that power (I'd like to shake the hand of the person who dug up that little nugget of information!). On the other hand, it looks like any schmoe at the Department of Transportation with a "For Official Use Only" stamp can keep a public full of potential terrorists from gaining access to the demolition plans for the new highway interchange (I made that one up).
The silver lining...
- Information that is classified as "sensitive but unclassified" is still subject to the FOIA.
- The Bushies' penchant for wrapping anything typewritten in a shroud of secrecy has also garnered attention (albeit modest attention) from the right:
Such secrecy moves have been criticized across the political spectrum. A recent report coauthored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, attacked ''overzealous" decisions to dismantle entire websites over security fears.
It also said that the Bush administration has not conducted a systematic review of formerly public information that has been made secret, by weighing the likelihood that it could help terrorists against the ''countervailing public safety and other benefits of providing" the information.
Republican legislators have also taken notice:Some Republicans also worry that the government is being too secretive. Two Texas Republicans, Senator John Cornyn and Representative Lamar Smith, have sponsored a bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act by closing loopholes, speeding up responses to FOIA requests, and establishing an FOIA hotline service, among other things. ''Achieving the true consent of the governed requires informed consent, and such consent is possible only with an open and accessible government," Cornyn said in February.
Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general, said the federal government often places documents beyond public view ''without real justification." He called for a system that ''strikes the right balance between the need to classify documents in our national interest and security, and our national values of open government."
Of course, I do have to wonder what else is hidden in a bill to strengthen the FOIA if Cornyn introduces it, but absent any real information about ulterior motives, I'll let that dog sleep.