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Two interesting articles for ARCHIVES



These two articles were recently distributed on a mailing list, FOIPA, and I
believe that they are also of interest to the members of this list.

Summary:

1 - CIA claims 50 year old budget data must be kept secret
2 - Two fascinating and important classification volumes by Arvin Quist
available online


FAS REQUESTS CIA INSPECTOR GENERAL INVESTIGATION

The Federation of American Scientists yesterday asked the CIA Inspector
General to initiate an investigation of classification policy and practice
at the Agency after CIA officials claimed that all historical intelligence
budget information from the earliest days of the cold war through 1970 is
properly classified today.

In 1997 and 1998, the CIA declassified the intelligence budget totals for
those years (under pressure of litigation). But last week CIA officials
said in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that the same
information from several decades earlier could cause damage to national
security and must remain classified.

The latest CIA claim "is so far outside the bounds of reasonable
disagreement over information disclosure policy that it appears to
constitute official misconduct," FAS wrote in a December 20 letter to CIA
Inspector General L. Britt Snider.

"If the CIA personnel involved here are not dishonest, then they actually
believe that 50 year old budget data could damage national security -- in
which case they are dangerously incompetent.=A0 No one who holds such an
opinion should be permitted to serve the nation in an official intelligence
capacity."

"When CIA uses transparently false claims to obstruct good faith requests
for information through established legal channels, it undermines the
legitimacy of the national security classification system," FAS wrote.

"Your office could do a great public service by helping to ground CIA
classification policy on a legitimate foundation of national security
requirements," FAS wrote. "The CIA's violation of the FOIA in this case
brings the larger problem of classification abuse into sharp relief and
would make an excellent starting point for investigation and remedial
action."

The FAS letter to the CIA Inspector General is posted here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2000/12/ciaig.html


PRINCIPLES FOR CLASSIFICATION OF INFORMATION

The principles underlying national security classification and
declassification policy were explored with unusual rigor and insight by
Arvin S. Quist in a book-length study that he authored in 1993 under
contract to the U.S. Department of Energy. It is now available online.

Quist posed the fundamental questions about classification and
declassification practice and answered them with surprising depth,
historical nuance and occasional dry humor. Under exactly what conditions
is classification justified? (Chapter 3) How does one evaluate the costs
and benefits of classification (Chapter 5) and balance one against the
other? (Chapter 6) Quist explored the underpinnings of the various
classification levels (Chapter 7), examined the duration of classification
(Chapter 8), and even provided mathematical models of how unauthorized
disclosures occur and propagate (Appendix G).

Though it does not encompass the upheavals in classification and
declassification that occurred in the 1990s, the Quist study provides an
unsurpassed account of the roots of classification theory that continue to
define secrecy policy today.

"Principles for Classification of Information," which is volume 2 of
Quist's opus entitled "Security Classification of Information," is now
posted here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/quist2/index.html

The preceding volume, "Security Classification of
Information: Introduction, History, and Adverse Impacts," is available here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/quist/index.html

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