[FPSPACE] Folks I though this might be of interest

[Charles Vick]

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2009, Issue No. 78
October 1, 2009

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

**      THE CASE FOR A NATIONAL DECLASSIFICATION CENTER

THE CASE FOR A NATIONAL DECLASSIFICATION CENTER

"Without reform in [declassification] policy and process, agencies will
continue to spend millions of dollars each year perpetuating an ineffective
and inefficient declassification system, while the backlog of records
waiting to be processed for the open shelves continues to grow," according
to a newly obtained National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
white paper.

The best way to fix the current system, said NARA, is to establish a
National Declassification Center that will facilitate and expedite the
declassification process.  The failings of the present system as well as the
proposed solution were detailed in
<http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/ndc-coo.pdf> "A Concept of Operations for a
National Declassification Center" (pdf), dated July 8, 2009.  A copy of the
draft document was obtained by Secrecy News.

The present declassification system is not a train wreck waiting to happen;
the train wreck has already occurred.  Scarce resources are currently being
wasted on a dysfunctional process.  "The Federal Government is paying to
protect records that, at 25 or more years after creation and original
classification, no longer contain sensitive national security information,"
the <http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/ndc-coo.pdf>  NARA study stated.

Quality control is poor.  Non-sensitive information is needlessly forwarded
for review from agency to agency, "clogging the system with unnecessary
referrals."  Completed record reviews (including mandatory Kyl/Lott reviews
to search for nuclear weapons-related information) are "not accurately
tracked, and as a result records are sometimes reviewed multiple times."

In short, "declassified records are not publicly available as intended," the
NARA <http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/ndc-coo.pdf>  study reported.

And things are poised to get worse.  "Over the next 25 years Federal
agencies are facing a massive volume (1.7 billion pages) of classified
textual records that, based on 2008 review statistics, will take over 33
years to complete initial review, and many more to complete referral reviews
and process all the records for public access.  These figures will continue
to grow each year as more records become 25 years old."

The solution, says NARA, is not simply a new policy but a new institution
and a new facility -- a National Declassification Center.

"Based on the volume of classified records, the need to standardize
disparate declassification processes and guidelines, the lack of suitable
secure space for agency reviewers and NARA Staff, and the need to replace
the aging, substandard classified storage at the NARA records center located
at Suitland,... a new facility dedicated to declassification should be
constructed."

The proposed new facility, at a location yet to be determined, would have
state of the art security that meets military and intelligence
specifications.  It would house approximately 240 people and, for security
reasons, would have "minimal public interaction."

"This facility should include storage for classified temporary,
pre-archival, and archival records, space for declassification review and
processing, staff and resources to perform archival work on the records, and
the Information Technology infrastructure necessary to support these
functions," the NDC <http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/ndc-coo.pdf>  Concept
of Operations stated.

At first glance, the construction of an expensive new building for
declassification seems like an Industrial Age solution to an Information Age
problem.  At second glance, too.  But NARA argues that this is the best
course available for navigating the conflicting security and disclosure
imperatives that are already at work.

The Concept of Operations <http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/ndc-coo.pdf>
document did not address the potential favorable impact of a proposed 50
year expiration date for all classified records that do not implicate human
intelligence sources, though this should help to ease the declassification
review burden considerably.  And the Concept specifically excluded the
possibility of declassification performed by anyone other than the
originating agency, which would have relieved much of the complexity of the
declassification process.

A National Declassification Center is a principal element of the
<http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/09/draft_exec_order.html>  pending
draft Obama Administration executive order on classified national security
information.


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

See also "Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works" by Steven
Aftergood, Yale Law and Policy Review, vol. 27, no. 2, Spring 2009:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/aftergood.pdf

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

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

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