Federal archivist calls for reform on declassification policy and procedure

According to Michael J. Kurtz, Assistant Archivist at the National Archives, the backlog of records awaiting declassification will continue to grow until classification policies are changed. -db
Secrecy News
American Federation of Scientists
Opinion
February 22, 2010
By Steven Aftergood

Executive branch agencies have spent more than a billion dollars on declassification of government records in recent years, but [...]

FBI agent fired after sending unclassified documents to pro-Israel lobby

A Jewish-American FBI agent is suing for the right to defend himself against unspecified charges that resulted in his termination and the revocation of his security clearance. The agent had sent unclassified articles by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and unclassified State Department documents to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. -DB

Secrecy News
Federation of American [...]

Domestic partnership law: Supreme Court takes case on privacy for petition signers

The Supreme Court agreed last week to consider whether the First Amendment guarantees the right of privacy to those signing ballot-initiative petitions. -DB

The New York Times
January 16, 2010
By Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether the First Amendment requires that the names of people who sign ballot-initiative petitions be [...]

Judge grants limited press access to jury selection in key Kansas murder trial

The Associated Press and other media outlets gained a partial victory in contesting a judge’s decision to close jury selection for the trial of a man who allegedly murdered a late-term abortion provider in Kansas. The Kansas Supreme Court asked the judge to reconsider his decision and in a subsequent ruling granted courtroom access only after the [...]

Federal Reserve strives to avoid disclosure on bailouts

The Federal Reserve is gearing up for two legal battles over suits seeking documents relating to the $2 trillion loan program to keep banks from collapsing in 2008. -DB
Daily Finance
Commentary
January 11, 2010
By Lita Epstein

The Federal Reserve is trying to ensure that what happens at the Fed, stays at the Fed.

In the first of two brewing [...]

Congressional leaders want secrecy for health care talks

Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi oppose allowing C-SPAN to televise the health care negotiations ending Obama’s efforts to include the public in the endgame talks. -DB

The Heartland Institute
Commentar
January 11, 2010
By Ben Domenech
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi work behind closed doors to mash together 4,765 pages to form [...]

Editorial: Public has right to access police disciplinary hearings

A San Francisco Chronicle editorial argues that as a matter of great public concern, police misconduct hearings should be open. Maintaining secrecy erodes public trust of the police. -DB

San Francisco Chronicle
Editorial
January 11, 2010

Our system of government is based on the idea that an open government is a smarter, safer and more effective government. That’s why [...]

Federal court upholds secrecy on surveillance records

A federal appeals court ruled that the government could refuse to confirm or deny the existence of electronic surveillance records as an exception under the Freedom of Information Act. Former Guantanamo Bay detainees had requested records of the warrantless surveillance. -DB

JURIST
January 01, 2010
By Christian Ehret
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official [...]

President issues declassification order curbing secrecy

President Barack Obama issued a long anticipated order on declassification with the statement that no information should remain classified indefinitely. He eliminated a Bush order that allowed the intelligence community a veto over declassification decisions. -DB
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
December 30, 2009
By Amanda Becker
President Obama on Monday issued an anticipated declassification order and [...]

Federal judge orders release of government evidence pertaining to ‘no-fly list’

A federal judge in San Francisco ordered the Transportation Security Administration to disclose evidence showing that a Malaysian Muslim studying at Stanford University belonged on the federal government’s no-fly list. She was denied entry to the U.S. and lost her student visa. -DB

Courthouse News Service
December 21, 2009
By Annie Youderian

A federal judge in San Francisco ordered [...]

Government lawyer argues torture suit too sensitive for public court

Citing national security and state secrets, a Justice Department lawyer argued that the suit involving the CIA and a San Jose company over extraordinary rendition and torture of suspected terrorists cannot proceed in open court. -DB
San Francisco Chronicle
December 16, 2009
By Bob Egelko
SAN FRANCISCO — A lawsuit accusing a Bay Area flight-planning company of aiding [...]

CIA fears new open government initiative could allow anyone to glean classified information from unclassified documents

Faced with the new open government directive, the Central Intelligence Agency is trying to decide to release online declassified documents and noncopyrighted analyses of foreign news. They fear that information online could be extracted more easily and combined to reveal classified information. -DB
NextGov

December 11, 2009
By Alicia Sternstein
The release of the open government directive could change intelligence [...]

Government watchdog asks Senate to investigate use of ‘Secret Holds’

Citizens for Responsiblity and Ethics in Washington has asked the Senate ethics committee to look into the practice of stalling or halting laws or nominations without public announcement given a 2007 law barring the practice. -DB
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Press Release
December 2, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today [...]

ACLU argues hiding torture photos weakens democracy

ACLU Blog Manager Suzanne Ito says that in keeping the torture photos secret, the Obama administration is setting a dangerous precedent by preventing public scrutiny of government misconduct and stifling ideas that could make government operations more just and effective. -DB

American Civil Liberties Union
Opinion
December 1, 2009
By Suzanne Ito

Yesterday, the Supreme Court sent back to an [...]

U.S. translations of Jihad literature not made public

U.S. government intelligence agencies are translating Jihad literature but, claiming national security concerns, are not sharing it with the public. A window into the literature opened recently when the DNI Open Source Center translated stories from an Indonesian Jihadist anthology. -DB
Secrecy News

Federation of American Scientists
Commentary
November 30, 2009
By Steven Aftergood

“The only ones who are spending the money and [...]

Supreme Court supports move to withhold photos of abused detainees

The U.S. Supreme Court vacated a decision of a federal appeals court to require the Pentagon to release photos of showing torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. -DB

Jurist
November 30, 2009
By Jay Carmella

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated and remanded a decision  by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that required [...]

Obama administration working to derail declassification order

The Obama administration wants to delay an order to declassify historical records at least 25 years old to allow government agencies time to review the records. -DB
Secrecy News
Federation of American Scientists
Commentary
November 23, 2009
By Steven Aftergood

Development of a new executive order on classification of national security information is now proceeding at an accelerated pace in order to [...]

Foundation provides records of secret negotiations for telecom immunity in illegal government surveillance

Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained the records of secret negotiations between government agencies and Congress that provided immunity for telecoms cooperating with the government in warrantless surveillance of American citizens. -DB

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Press Release
November 12, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posted thousands of pages of [...]

Government orders decade-high number of secrecy orders for new patents

The U.S. government has ordered 5,081 invention secrecy orders so far this year, according to stats released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under a Freedom of Information Act request by Secrecy News. -DB

Secrecy News
Federation of American Scientists
October 22, 2009
By Steven Aftergood
The total number of invention secrecy orders that the U.S. government imposed on [...]

London: Barrage from Twitter, Goggle, Wikipedia forces disclosure of analysis of toxic dump in Ivory Coast

The New York Times
October 19, 2009
By Noam Cohen
A British court issued an injunction prohibiting the publication of an analysis of toxic waste dumped in the Ivory Coast by a contractor hired by Trifigura, a shipping company. Trafigura claimed the analysis confidential communication meant for their lawyers. But as one media law expert pointed out, any [...]

Federal judge rules some records of Guantanamo interrogations may be kept secret

A federal judge agreed with the government that the C.I.A. was within the law in classifying parts of Guantanamo detainee statements. The government had maintained that no violations of laws were being concealed and that the exemption to the Freedom of Information Act was necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods. -DB
Breaking News 24/7
October [...]

C.I.A. secrecy on Osward files fuels speculation

The C.I.A. released some documents about the connections between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, a C.I.A. operative and anti- Castro Cubans under a Freedom of Information Act request but has refused to release other documents from the 1960s and 1970s  citing national security issues. -DB

The New York Times

October 16, 2009
By Scott Shane
WASHINGTON. D.C. — Is the [...]

Environmental Protection Agency releases 2007 global warming report Bush kept secret

After receiving requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the EPA released a report this week that said six gases were linked to global warming and endangered public health. The Bush administration kept the report buried as they stalled action on environmental challenges. -DB

SolveClimate
October 14, 2009
By SolveClimate Staff
In December 2007, while George W. Bush was president, [...]

Chances fading of reining in government secrecy granted under Patriot Act

Civil libertarians may be losing the battle to curb  government excess as the Obama administration is loathe to relinquish the power to operate in secrecy without the checks provided by judicial oversight. -DB
Center for Internet and Society
Stanford Law School
Commentary
October 7, 2009
By Larry Downes
“Patriotism,” as Samuel Johnson famously said, “is the last refuge of a [...]

Police review board findings kept secret

An opinion piece in the Redding Record Searchlight suggests that a state law opening the reports of police review boards to the public would
actually reduce suspicion and distrust of police departments and enhance their reputations. -DB
Redding Record Searchlight
Opinion
October 1, 2009

The greatest benefit of such a panel: It would open a window onto the rarely [...]

National security classification may find reasonable term limits

For the first time, a presidential administration has said that no information may remain classified indefinitely, raising hopes that after no more than 50 years government records would be automatically declassified and intelligence records no more than 75 years from date or origin. -DB
Secrecy News
Federation of American Scientists
CommentarySeptember 29, 2009
By Steven Aftergood
“No information may remain [...]

Federal judge orders disclosure of data breach in bank Gmail

The Rocky Mountain Bank from Wyoming failed to convince a judge to close the courtroom to hear their case against a Gmail user who inadvertently received confidential bank information, according to a September 21 report by Thomas Claburn in Information Week. -DB

Supreme Court to hear detainee photo case after Obama change of course

President Barack Obama reversed a decision not to appeal a ruling for disclosure of photos showing U.S. troops abusing detainees. The Justice Department faces steep challenges in finding sufficient legal footing to prevail. -DB
The New York Times
Analysis
September 15, 2009
By Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This spring, the Justice Department decided it would not ask the Supreme [...]

Federal judge grants access to classified information

In a jolting decision, a federal judge has ruled that a court can determine that an individual has the right to know certain classified information even if the executive branch opposes revealing that information. -DB
Secrecy News
Federation of American Scientists
September 8, 2009
By Steven Aftergood
Ordinarily, decisions about granting security clearances and determining whether an individual has a “need [...]

Obama administration agrees to make White House visitor logs public

To end four lawsuits by a watchdog group, the Obama White House has reversed a policy keeping visitor logs secret now allowing news organizations and others a chance to see who is influencing administration policy on vital issues. -DB
USA TODAY
September 4, 2009
By Richard Wolf
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration plans to change White House policy by [...]

Reporters Committee urges 5th Circuit to uphold Texas Open Meetings Act

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has joined with 23 other news media groups to urge the entire 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision by a three judge panel to allow elected officials to talk about public business in secret. The Reporters Committee is arguing that open meeting laws allow [...]

C.I.A. refuses to release details of interrogations

Besides interrogation methods, the C.I.A is trying to keep secret former President Bush’s authorization to begin secretly holding terrorist suspects; cables between the C.I.A. from secret prisons to headquarters; and memos of lawyers assessing the legality of the detention program. -DB
The New York Times
September 2, 2009
By Mark Mazetti
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Central Intelligence Agency is [...]

Fillmore City Council admits to Brown Act violation

The Fillmore city mayor conceded to a Brown Act violation but said since there was no consequences from the violation, the matter was closed. -DB
Ventura County Star
August 27, 2009
By Mike Harris
Responding to an accusation from Fillmore City Councilman Steve Conaway, Mayor Patti Walker has conceded that members of the council unintentionally violated California’s Brown Act earlier [...]

Gilroy struggles with provisions of open government laws

Centering on a controversial raise for the city administrator, the Gilroy City Council is trying to balance the need for confidentiality in personnel matters and the public’s right to know. -DB
The Gilroy Dispatch
Aug 24, 2009
By Chris Bone
Many councilmembers have renewed their interest in secrecy regarding closed sessions, in part because information about proposed raises for two [...]

Reporters call for end to off-the-record public speeches

Reporters and national media outlets are asking the Obama administration to stop the practice of public officials speaking only off the record while giving public speeches. They say it is not practical in an era in which the speeches instantly appear in blogs and on Twitter regardless of the stipulations. -DB
The Sunshine in Government Initiative
Press [...]

Landlord company sues East Palo Alto over alleged violations of state law

Alleging that East Palo Alto violated the state’s open government and environmental laws, Page Mill Properties is suing to set aside a rent stabilization law. -DB
Palo Alto Daily News
August 17, 2009
By Jessica Bernstein-Wax
Attorneys for East Palo Alto’s biggest landlord are trying to get San Mateo County officials to take the city’s new rent control ordinance off [...]

Federal government: New ’sharing’ agency no guarantee to transparency

Secrecy News’ Steven Atergood says that the newly appointed Senior Director for Information Sharing Policy does not have a mandate for transparency. Rather, Aftergood asserts, “information sharing” does not include the public. -DB
Secrecy News
Federation of American Scientists
Analysis
August 17, 2009
By Steven Aftergood
The Obama Administration is giving increased attention to the continuing post-9/11 challenge of information sharing, [...]

California personnel rules block reasonable public disclosure of police misconduct

An editorial in The Monterey County Herald argues that laws restricting access to records about police misconduct do not permit scrutiny of police officials in administrative positions who should not be able to hide behind secrecy provisions. -DB
The Monterey County Herald
Editorial
August 14, 2009
Before it’s over, don’t be surprised if the apparent suspension of Seaside’s police chief, [...]

Reporters Committee objects to exclusion of public from jury selection in Georgia

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme court to review a decision in Georgia that allows a judge to bar the public from courtrooms during jury selection.  The decision runs counter to U.S. Supreme Court precedent. -DB
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Press Release
August 13, 2009
By [...]

CIA retains information declassified for Libby prosecution

The CIA has refused to release information from the President’s Daily Brief that was declassified for the prosecution of former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby in 2006. -DB
Secrecy News
Federation of American Scientists
Commentary
July 29, 2009
By Steven Aftergood
Even though certain information concerning the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) was redacted and declassified for use in the prosecution of [...]

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