Public Intelligence Blog

Steven Aftergood

Steven Aftergood is a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. He directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, which works to reduce the scope of government secrecy and to promote reform of official secrecy practices.

He writes Secrecy News, an email newsletter (and blog) which reports on new developments in secrecy policy and provides direct public access to official records of policy value that have been suppressed, withdrawn or that are simply hard to find.

In 1997, Mr. Aftergood was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency which led to the declassification and publication of the total intelligence budget ($26.6 billion in 1997) for the first time in fifty years. In 2006, he won a FOIA lawsuit against the National Reconnaissance Office for release of unclassified budget records.

Mr. Aftergood is an electrical engineer by training (B.Sc., UCLA, 1977) and has published research in solid state physics. He joined the FAS staff in 1989.

He has authored or co-authored papers and essays in Scientific American, Science, New Scientist, Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, and Issues in Science and Technology, on topics including space nuclear power, atmospheric effects of launch vehicles, and government information policy.

For his work on confronting government secrecy, Mr. Aftergood has received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award (2010), the James Madison Award from the American Library Association (2006), the Public Access to Government Information Award from the American Association of Law Libraries (2006), the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award from the Playboy Foundation (2004), and the Golden Candle Award from Open Source Solutions (1997).

The Federation of American Scientists, founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists, is a non-profit national organization of scientists and engineers concerned with issues of science and national security policy.

CORRECTION RE: INTELLIGENCE REFORM

I mistakenly wrote that a 2009 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the development of the 2004 intelligence reform legislation had not been published on the ODNI web site (“A Look Back at Intelligence Reform,” Secrecy News, June 1).  In fact, it was posted by ODNI last year.

The report is not mentioned on the ODNI list of reports and publications.  Nor can it be located through a google search (since the document is not text-based) and the title is not indexed anywhere on the site.  So I inferred that it wasn’t there.  But it turns out that it can be found through the ODNI home page (in a somewhat attenuated 12.5 MB file) by looking under “About the IC” and clicking “IRTPA & IC Reform,” which takes you here (large pdf).

Not a correction but a late addition:  Josh Gerstein of Politico has a first look at the summary of a new report from the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board on the role of the Director of National Intelligence.  See “Panel found ‘distracted’ DNI,” Politico, June 2.
A LOOK BACK AT SECRECY REFORM

In 1992, the Department of Energy performed what may have been the most thoughtful and self-critical assessment of classification policy that any government agency has ever carried out.  It is now available online.

“This study represents the first fundamental review of classification policy for nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related information since the Atomic Energy Act became law [in 1946],” wrote George L. McFadden, then-director of the DOE Office of Security Affairs, in a transmittal letter (pdf).  It laid the foundation for the subsequent revision of specific classification practices in the 1995 Fundamental Classification Policy Review and other reforms.

The study asked basic questions — What is the purpose of classification (specifically, of nuclear weapons information)?  What is wrong with the status quo?  How can it be improved? — and then it considered various answers to these questions.  Many of the questions, and a few of the answers, are still valid today.  And the study as a whole remains impressive as a model for taking a “fresh look” at classification activity, especially at a time when the National Security Advisor is gathering recommendations for “a more fundamental transformation of the security classification system.”

The 1992 DOE study predated the world wide web, and as far as I know it has not previously been published online.  A copy is now posted on the Federation of American Scientists web site.  See “Classification Policy Study,” U.S. Department of Energy, July 4, 1992.

Secrecy News Home

Full Secrecy News Online

Defying a previous veto threat from the White House, the House of Representatives will consider an amendment to bolster intelligence oversight by requiring intelligence agencies to cooperate with the Government Accountability Office when it performs audits that are requested by a congressional committee with jurisdiction over intelligence.

In general, the amendment (pdf) states, “the Director of National Intelligence shall ensure that personnel of the Government Accountability Office designated by the Comptroller General are provided with access to all information in the possession of an element of the intelligence community that the Comptroller General determines is necessary for such personnel to conduct an analysis, evaluation, or investigation of a program or activity of an element of the intelligence community that is requested by one of the congressional intelligence committees.”

The amendment to the FY2011 Defense Authorization Act (HR 5136) was sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and several colleagues.

When a similar amendment was included in the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, which is still pending, it prompted a veto threat from the Obama White House.  But the White House opposition was based on an erroneous interpretation of the law, the Acting Comptroller of the GAO told Congress.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the likelihood of a renewed veto threat, the House Democratic leadership ruled that the Eshoo amendment was “in order,” and it will therefore be considered on the House floor, perhaps today or tomorrow.

Back when he was a Congressman in 1987, CIA Director Leon Panetta introduced a bill called the “CIA Accountability Act” (pdf) that would have reinforced GAO oversight over the Central Intelligence Agency.

Can't Fix Stupid

Phi Beta Iota:   Tip of the hat to Secrecy News for the above lead story.  The secret world is long overdue for GAO oversight, and we have stated in writing before that the first decision by any Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with even a modicum of ethics (we’re not holding our breath) should be to create an integrated IG/GAO office and put the entire secret intelligence world under a GAO microscope.  It is our judgement that 90% of the contract positions should be eliminated, and at least 50% of the so-called government employee positions, most of which are very highly paid clerical positions, nothing more.  The budget should be cut back to $25 billion a year, with the proviso that the other $50 billion remains under the DNI’s purview for redirection toward education, research, and a global multinational multiagency multidisciplinary multidomain information sharing and sensemaking (M4IS2) grid focused on creating a prosperous world at peace.  Budget intelligence, and the eradication of corruption at all levels by combining true cost intelligence with the exposure of blatantly stupid acquisition decisions, some but not all also corrupt acquisition decisions (most just uninformed), is the single best thing intelligence can do for the government; creating a Smart Nation is the ONLY thing that should be on the next DNI’s mind.  If Obama is dumb enough to keep John Brennan at the White House, he is assuredly dumb enough to move Jim Clapper or Leon Panetta to the DNI position and lose all hope of ever getting anything serious out of the secret world in the little time he has remaining.  No one now serving is capable of serving the public interest–Panetta had a shot, but if he cannot handle CIA he assuredly cannot handle Jim Clapper and the Clapper Harem.

With a tip of the hat to authors Patrice McDermott and Army Fuller Bennett as well as Steven Aftergood and the other founders and leaders of Open the Government, here is their Secrecy Report Card for 2009.  Their motto is “Less Secrecy, More Democracy.  Amen!

PDF 2009

Hill Round-Table on Secrecy

We must “recognize that 80% of what we consider intelligence–decision-support–is now either erroneously classified or not done at all, and this is the fundamental weakness of our national intelligence community.

The three references:

1996 Testimony to Moynihan Commisson

1993 TESTIMONY on National Security Information

1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, & intelligence (An Alternative Paradigm)