[net-gold] Secrecy News -- 08/02/11
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 16:52:46 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 11:20:21 -0400
From: Steven Aftergood <saftergood@xxxxxxx>
To: Steven Aftergood <saftergood@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Secrecy News -- 08/02/11
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SECRECY NEWS
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from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2011, Issue No. 74
August 2, 2011
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Secrecy News Blog:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
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** SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE BLOCKS REPORT ON "SECRET LAW"
** FORMER ISOO DIRECTOR FILES COMPLAINT ON OVERCLASSIFICATION
** FASTER FOIA BILL PASSED IN SENATE AGAIN
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SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE BLOCKS REPORT ON "SECRET LAW"
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The Senate Intelligence Committee rejected an amendment that would have
required the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to
confront the problem of "secret law," by which government agencies rely on
legal authorities that are unknown or misunderstood by the public.
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The amendment, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall, was rejected
by the Committee on a voice vote, according to the new Committee report on
the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization Act.
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http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2011_rpt/srpt112-43.pdf
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"We remain very concerned that the U.S. government's official interpretation
of the Patriot Act is inconsistent with the public's understanding of the
law," Senators Wyden and Udall wrote. "We believe that most members of the
American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance
law is being interpreted in secret."
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The Senators included dissenting remarks, along with the text of their
rejected amendment, in the Committee report.
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Sen. Wyden and Sen. Udall also offered another amendment that would have
required the Justice Department Inspector General to estimate the number of
Americans who have had the contents of their communications reviewed in
violation of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. That amendment too was
rejected, by a vote of 7-8. All Committee Republicans, plus Democrat Bill
Nelson (D-FL), opposed the amendment.
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"It is a matter of public record that there have been incidents in which
intelligence agencies have failed to comply with the FISA Amendments Act,
and that certain types of compliance violations have continued to recur,"
Senators Wyden and Udall wrote. "We believe it is particularly important to
gain an understanding of how many Americans may have had their
communications reviewed as a result of these violations."
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"We understand that some of our colleagues are concerned that our amendment
did not explicitly state that the final report of the Inspector General's
investigation should be classified. We respectfully disagree that this is
necessary," they said. "In any event, we are confident that the executive
branch will seek to classify any information that it believes needs to be
secret, and that it is not necessary for Congress to direct that particular
reports be classified."
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The Senate Intelligence Committee report was silent on the status of the
Committee's investigation of the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation
program, which has been underway for over two years.
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The Obama Administration is invoking the state secrets privilege to seek
partial dismissal of a lawsuit alleging unlawful surveillance of Southern
California mosques, reported Josh Gerstein in Politico on August 1.
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http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/
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FORMER ISOO DIRECTOR FILES COMPLAINT ON OVERCLASSIFICATION
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J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security
Oversight Office (ISOO) has filed a complaint with the current ISOO director
alleging that the National Security Agency wrongly classified a document,
which was then used as a basis for the Espionage Act indictment of Thomas
Drake, the New York Times reported. See "Complaint Seeks Punishment for
Classification of Documents" by Scott Shane, August 2:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/us/02secret.html
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"If you're talking about throwing someone in jail for years, there
absolutely has to be responsibility for decisions about what gets
classified," Mr. Leonard told the Times.
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Mr. Leonard had been a volunteer expert witness for the defense in the
recently concluded prosecution of Thomas Drake, the former NSA official. The
document that is the subject of his complaint is no longer classified, but
it is still subject to a protective order. Mr. Leonard requested and
received permission from the court to pursue his complaint last Friday.
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http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/drake/072911-order.pdf
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"A surprising war on leaks under Obama," an op-ed by Thomas Drake and
Jesselyn Radack, was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 1.
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FASTER FOIA BILL PASSED IN SENATE AGAIN
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The Faster FOIA Act, a modest bit of legislation to establish a commission
"to examine the root causes of FOIA delays," was introduced and passed in
the Senate yesterday.
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It was previously passed in May, but the resulting bill was amended by the
House in order to serve as a vehicle for its debt ceiling maneuver,
stripping out the FOIA-related content. To reactivate the original Faster
FOIA Act bill, it needed to be reintroduced. The new bill, S. 1466, passed
on a voice vote on August 1, and will move once again to the house.
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http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2011/leahy-foia2.html
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The Department of Defense has updated its Freedom of Information Act
directive. In mostly new language added last week, the directive said "It
is DoD policy to promote transparency and accountability by adopting a
presumption in favor of disclosure in all decisions involving the FOIA;
responding promptly to requests in a spirit of cooperation; and by taking
affirmative steps to make the maximum amount of information available to the
public, consistent with the DoD responsibility to protect national security
and other sensitive DoD information."
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http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/d5400_07.pdf
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Also new is a report from the Congressional Research Service on "Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA): Background and Policy Options for the 112th
Congress," July 26, 2011:
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http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R41933.pdf
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_______________________________________________
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation
of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
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To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
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OR email your request to saftergood@xxxxxxx
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation:
http://www.fas.org/member/donate_today.html
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_______________________
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Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@xxxxxxx
voice: (202) 454-4691
twitter: @saftergood
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