Republicans call for open meetings for supercommittee on budget cuts

A group of Senate Republicans wants the Congressional supercommittee formed to make $1.5 trillion in cuts to the budget open to the public. The Republicans not only favor admitting the press and public but also live streaming of the proceedings. In its first meeting, the subcommittee voted to allow some closed meetings but pledged to [...]

Global decline in press freedom with ‘war on terror’

Since 9/11 the free press has been under attack in the U.S., providing inspiration and cover for governments around the world  to limit press freedom in the name of the “war on terror,” writes Joel Simon in a commentary for CNN. Among the most repressive countries are Pakistan, Ethiopia, Columbia, Mexico, Yemen, Syria and Sri [...]

Council of Europe criticizes U.S. ‘cult of secrecy’

The inter-parliamentary  Council of Europe has issued a draft resolution blasting the U.S. for its “cult of secrecy” and said whistleblowers played a vital tole in challenging government secrecy. The resolution pointed up the ill effects of secrecy, “In some countries, in particular the United States, the notion of state secrecy is used to shield [...]

Guradian denies it caused leak of U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks website

The Guardian said it had no role in the release of thousands of unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks claimed that the newspaper had caused the security breach. A Guardian News & Media spokeswoman said their story about WikiLeaks in February contained a password but nothing about the location of the files and that WikiLeaks had [...]

New book: Secret security bureaucracy burgeons after 9/11

Since 9/11, “Top Secret America” has grown to gargantuan proportions according to a new book by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, writes Steven Aftergood in a review of the book for Secrecy News. Office buildings devoted to secret intelligence have grown to the equivalence of almost three Pentagons with more than 250,000 contractors working [...]

Editorial: Feds drag heels on releasing records going back as far as World War II

While the Obama administration is making some progress in breaking the backlog of Freedom of Information Act requests, the National Security Archive says that there are still requests that go back over a decade and even to World War II. There are reasons for the slow pace but none that make much sense or could [...]

CIA wants to censor book by former FBI agent about 9/11 and terrorism

The Central Intelligence Agency is demanding that a memoir of a former FBI agent be heavily cut before publication. The agent was at the forefront of the fight against Al Qaeda and terrorism and makes some pointed criticisms of CIA errors including the harsh interrogation of the first important captive after 9/11. People close to [...]

Justice Department refuses to declassify opinion on legality of warrantless surveillance

The Justice Department has refused to declassify a 2001 opinion written by John C. Yoo on the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. Critics of the program want to obtain the entire 21-page opinion to make sure misguided legal opinions do not live on to guide government policy. -db From Secrecy News, August 26, 2011. by [...]

Texas Gov. Perry’s penchant for privacy

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose campaign for president has faulted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for purported failure to open the workings of the Fed to public view, has “adopted policies that shroud his own office in a purposeful opaqueness that confounds prying reporters – or any member of the public questioning his policies,” the [...]

Policy makers for California courts make changes to improve transparency

The administrative body for California’s courts has taken steps to improve accountability and transparency by opening key meetings and increasing the time for public comment. The changes came after judges and others criticized the courts for not being open to dissent and for its secretiveness. California Newspaper Publishers Association’s Jim Ewert said, “I think it’s [...]

Bid to open debt reduction committee proceedings

Some members of Congress are worried that the recently appointed debt reduction committee will make its decisions behind closed doors. In the agreement establishing the committee, there were no provisions for public meetings, hearings or lobbying disclosures. Other open government advocates are calling for the proceedings to be telecast or webcast. -db From CNNMoney, August [...]

Federal secrecy: Complaint to fight gratuitous classification

The former head of the Security Oversight Office, J.William Leonard, has filed a complaint against two federal agencies for classifying a document that has no secrets. The complaint asked that officials be punished for overclassification. Leonard said in his 34 years in government, he often saw documents unnecessarily classified as secret, and no one was [...]

Florida judge in Casey Anthony trial orders names of jurors be kept secret until late October

The judge who presided over the trial of Casey Anthony, the Florida woman acquitted of murdering her two-tear-old daughter, blasted the media while ordering that the names of jurors be kept from the media until Oct. 25. Writing for Reuters, Barbara Liston paraphrased the judge, Belvin Perry, “Perry lamented what he said was the blurring [...]

ACLU calls for limits to government secrecy practices

In a report released on July 28, the American Civil Liberties Union says that since 9/11, the government has created secret agencies, committees, court and laws to keep their activities from public scrutiny. Michael German, ACLU national security policy counsel and former FBI agent warns of the damage too much secrecy can do, “By undermining [...]

Open government: Senators propose bill on secret expansion of Patriot Act powers

A bill proposed by Senators Roy Wyden and Mark Udall would require the U.S. intelligence chief to admit to interpreting the Patriot Act to give the government massive domestic surveillance powers not granted by Congress. In a letter last week to Wyden and Udall, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted to the secret legal [...]

New York: Group seeks to overturn same-sex marriage law with open meetings suit

New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms has filed suit in New York claiming the state’s Open Meetings Law was violated in passing the law giving gays the right to marry. Among other things the group claims the Republicans met in secret to discuss the law. The challenge is not expected to succeed at least on one [...]

Government secrets: How many and for how long?

In a memorandum just made public this week, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in 2005 tht the government secrecy system was a failure, that the government was incapable of keeping a secret and policies need to be crafted to deal with that reality. One current government official said Rumsfeld’s initial premise was wrong. The [...]

Obama administration restricting access to unclassified information

The Pentagon is making it more difficult for the public to obtain unclassified information with a new policy imposing safeguard requirements on “prior designations indicating controlled access and dissemination (e.g., For Official Use Only, Sensitive But Unclassified, Limited Distribution, Proprietary, Originator Controlled, Law Enforcement Sensitive).” The policy also orders secrecy for any unclassified information not [...]

California: Developers in La Jolla sue over alleged open meeting violations

Developers of a controversial three-story project in La Jolla are suing the La Jolla Community Planning Association (LJCPA), a nonprofit advisory group for the city of San Diego, for violating the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. The suit brought by Bob and Kim Whitney claims the LJCPA deliberated and voted in private over the [...]

The secret’s out: transit system needs to come clean

The Bay Area Rapid Transit District, in response to charges of “secrecy and bureaucracy run amok,” has promised to reverse a years-long practice of holding closed meetings about the public’s business. After a blistering editorial by the Contra Costa Times, the district’s board of directors acknowledged that as many as 20 committees have met privately [...]

Defense Department puts heat on employees to report suspicious information flows

A new directive requires Department of Defense personnel to report suspicious activities and behavior. Personnel could be punished for failing to report the specified activities. Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News writes, “The directive lists numerous actions that are subject to mandatory reporting including ‘attempts to obtain classified or sensitive information by an individual not authorized [...]

WikiLeaks protects its information with threat of huge monetary penalty

To make sure that none of its treasure of leaked information is leaked, WikiLeaks is asking its associates to sign a nondisclosure agreement that the leaked information is solely the property of WikiLeaks, and should anyone leak this commercial property, they would be subject to a penalty of 12 million pounds or almost $20 million. [...]

WikiLeaks investigation part of broader campaign against leakers

As a federal grand jury is preparing to look into the WikiLeaks release of classified U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan war documents, the Justice Department is aggressively pursuing others accused of leaking government secrets. Says Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News, “For people who are concerned about freedom of the press, access [...]

Parts of report on Afghanistan bank corruption classified and withdrawn from web

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) took a report on corruption by officials of the Afghan Central Bank off line after deciding to classify some of its content. The report, released in March, centered on fraudulent loans which led to the diversion of $850 million and the near collapse of the bank, a [...]

Court rejects national security exemption in FOIA requests

In a rare show of skepticism, a federal district judge found the argument of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) unpersuasive in claiming a national security reason for refusing to disclose records. The judge said the USTR “has not shown it likely that disclosing document 1 would discourage foreign officials from providing [...]

Opinion: Classification reform of national security information stalls

Writing in Secrecy News, Steven Aftergood says that an initiative to reduce overclassification of national security information has produced no significant results. Obama announced the initiative in December of 2009. The Department of Defense (DOD) with the greatest portfolio of classified documents did not met its December 31, 2010 deadline for producing regulations for implementing [...]

Freedom of information: Public ignorant of cyberspace attacks

A U.S. senator concerned that the American public has not been adequately informed about the dangers of cyberspace attacks is seeking to poke a hole in the classification system to raise awareness. Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News quoted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about the effects of the attacks, “Every year, cyber attacks inflict vast damage [...]

Federal court administration justifies banning smart phones from courts

Smartphones could be used to provide instantaneous online updates of court proceedings but the federal court administration sees dangers in allowing smartphones in court buildings. The Administrative Office of the Courts want to ban smartphones not just because they could conceal non-metallic bombs but also for the potential harm to court proceedings through secret recording. [...]

Judge halts attempt to stop movie critical of Mexican courts

In a test of free expression, a Mexican court has reversed a judge’s order to halt screening of a movie that exposed injustices in the country’s criminal court system. The documentary — “Presumed Guilty” — recounted the case of a man convicted twice of murder, even though there was little evidence to support the prosecution. [...]

U.S. Supreme Court rules for transparency in Navy records case

The Supreme Court gave open government a significant victory by reversing decades of practice in discrediting a prominent interpretation used by government agencies to reject Freedom of Information Act requests. The Navy had tried to use an FOIA exemption for records “related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency” to reject [...]

Federal Judicial Center releases guide on sealed courts

The Federal Judicial Center released a guide for federal judges deciding whether to seal court records and proceedings. The 22-page booklet includes a history of case law on secret proceedings and a list of First and Sixth Amendment issues. -db From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, February 25, 2011, by Lyndsey Wajert. [...]

Declassification Center making slow progress on releasing historical records

Under order from Obama to process more than 400 million pages of records by 2013, the National Declassification Center has so far released 12 million pages to the National Archives. -db Secrecy News Commentary January 26, 2011 By Steven Aftergood The new National Declassification Center (NDC) reviewed 83 million pages of classified historical records in [...]

New York Times distances itself from WikiLeaks

The New York Times Magazine Commentary January 26, 2011 By Bill Keller The New York Times’ editor-in-chief writes that while he opposes the U.S. government’s initiatives to prosecute WikiLeak’s founder Julian Assange and pass new laws to punish those disseminating classified information, WikiLeaks was a news source and not a partner or collaborator.

Some justices skeptical about government’s use of state secrets doctrine

Business Week January 18, 2011 By Greg Stohr Some U.S. Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical today about the government’s use of the state secrets doctrine.  The case stems from a dispute between the Pentagon and Boeing and General Dynamics over the cancellation of a stealth fighter.  When the two contractors sued to recover about $1 [...]

Security tightening under WikiLeaks pressure

In response to recent breaches in security and WikiLeak’s release of classified documents, the Obama administration has issued a memorandum calling for government agencies to assess their information policies and tighten security. -db Secrecy News Commentary January 4, 2011 By Steven Aftergood The Obama Administration is moving to increase the security of classified information in [...]

Election of Novato mayor raises charges of open meeting violation

A divided Novato council elected a mayor bypassing a long standing tradition of elevating the pro tem mayor prompting her to challenge the election through accusations that the decision was made behind closed doors violating California’s Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. -db Marin Independent Journal December 8, 2010 By Rob Rogers Under ordinary [...]

Secrecy News says WikiLeaks may hurt transparency in the long run

Secrecy News’ Steven Aftergood argues that the WikiLeaks may cause a tightening down of information sharing rather than greater transparency as the governments passes more restrictions. -db Secrecy News Opinion December 6, 2010 By Steven Aftergood On December 3, I participated in an interesting, somewhat testy discussion about Wikileaks on the show Democracy Now along [...]

Federal government tells employees not to look at classified WikiLeak documents

The general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget issued a reminder to government employees and contractor that they had an obligation to maintain the secrecy of the classified information that WikiLeaks posted and should refrain from reading it. -db NextGov December 6, 2010 By Brian Kalish The White House and federal agencies reminded [...]

Wired editor says WikiLeaks should receive First Amendment protection

Wired Editor-in-chief Evan Hansen argues that while WikiLeaks’ performance is far from perfect, the organization will strengthen rather than weaken democracy. -db Wired Commentary December 6, 2010 By Evan Hansen A truly free press — one unfettered by concerns of nationalism — is apparently a terrifying problem for elected governments and tyrannies alike. It shouldn’t [...]

Opinion: Online freedom threatened by Amazon decision to drop WikiLeaks

The Electronic Freedom Foundation argues that in denying WikiLeaks access to its site, Amazon is doing what the government cannot legally do, engage in censorship. -db Electronic Freedom Foundation Commentary December 2, 2010 By Rainey Reitman and Marcia Hofmann The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression against government encroachment – but that [...]

« Previous Page — Next Page »