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Schneier on Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers
Security expert Bruce Schneier makes a strong case, with lots of links to background material:
- Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers by Bruce Schneier Crypto-Gram Newsletter (June 15, 2013). The U.S. government is on a secrecy binge. It overclassifies more information than ever. And we learn, again and again, that our government regularly classifies things not because they need to be secret, but because their release would be embarrassing. Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal -- or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law -- but because we have a right to know. Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. That means knowing that the government is operating within the constraints of the law. Otherwise, we're living in a police state.
Wikileaks opens Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD) with large cache of 1970s US diplomatic and intel documents
Wikileaks today announced the launch of the Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), a searchable database with the release of Special Project K: the Kissinger cables -- ostensibly, PlusD will include other records in the future. WikiLeaks has published more than 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic records -- including cables from previously released Cablegate cables, intelligence reports, and congressional correspondence -- from January 1, 1973 to December 31, 1976, the period during which Henry Kissinger was secretary of state and national security advisor. The documents were formerly confidential, classified, or labeled "NODIS" ("no distribution") or "Eyes Only". The database can be accessed at http://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/. According to Wikileaks:
...Most of the records were reviewed by the United States Department of State's systematic 25-year declassification process. At review, the records were assessed and either declassified or kept classified with some or all of the metadata records declassified. Both sets of records were then subject to an additional review by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Once believed to be releasable, they were placed as individual PDFs at the National Archives as part of their Central Foreign Policy Files collection. Despite the review process supposedly assessing documents after 25 years there are no diplomatic records later than 1976. The formal declassification and review process of these extremely valuable historical documents is therefore currently running 12 years late.According to the Guardian:
The data, which has not been leaked, comprises diplomatic records from the beginning of 1973 to the end of 1976, covering a variety of diplomatic traffic including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence. Julian Assange said WikiLeaks had been working for the past year to analyse and assess a vast amount of data held at the US national archives before releasing it in a searchable form. WikiLeaks has called the collection the Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), describing it as the world's largest searchable collection of US confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications. Assange told Press Association the information showed the vast range and scope of US diplomatic and intelligence activity around the world. Henry Kissinger was US secretary of state and national security adviser during the period covered by the collection, and many of the reports were written by him or were sent to him. Thousands of the documents are marked NODIS (no distribution) or Eyes Only, as well as cables originally classed as secret or confidential. Assange said WikiLeaks had undertaken a detailed analysis of the communications, adding that the information eclipsed Cablegate, a set of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks from November 2010 and over the following year. He said WikiLeaks had developed sophisticated technical systems to deal with complex and voluminous data. Top secret documents were not available, while some others were lost or irreversibly corrupted for periods including December 1975 and March and June 1976, said Assange.Continue reading
The Senate Report on CIA Interrogations You May Never See
ProPublica has a short report with good links about the massive (roughly 6,000-page) Senate committee report on the CIA's detention, interrogation and rendition of terror suspects.
- The Senate Report on CIA Interrogations You May Never See, by Cora Currier, ProPublica (Dec. 7, 2012). ... it's unclear how much, if any, of the review you might get to read. The committee first needs to vote to endorse the report. Republicans, who are a minority on the committee, have been boycotting the investigation since the summer of 2009. Even if the report is approved next week, it won’t be made public then, if at all. Decisions on declassification will come at "a later time"... ...the Obama administration has argued in courts that details about the CIA program [including some of the Guantanamo detainees' own accounts of their imprisonment] are still classified.
Restrictions on WikiLeaks Documents Challenged in Court
Restrictions on WikiLeaks Documents Challenged in Court, by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (May 22, 2012).
The publication of leaked classified documents by WikiLeaks continues to confound government officials and to generate some unusual legal tangles. Last month, attorneys for a Guantanamo prisoner asked a federal court to nullify the restrictions that the government has imposed on access to and dissemination of the leaked records, so that the prisoner can prepare a response to the disclosures contained in them.Also see A librarian reacts to "A librarian reacts to wikileaks", by James R. Jacobs. (Feb 13, 2011). Continue reading
Court Says Agency Classification Decision is Not “Logical”
"In an opinion published this week, DC District Judge Richard W. Roberts did an astonishing thing that federal courts almost never do: He probed into the decision to classify a government document and concluded that it was not well-founded. He ordered the agency to release the document under the Freedom of Information Act." (Aftergood)
- Court Says Agency Classification Decision is Not "Logical". by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (March 2nd, 2012)
- Judge issues rare order to release classified document. By Josh Gerstein, Politico (2/29/12).
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