Former ISOO Director Seeks to Challenge Secrecy of Drake Document
Although the indictment of Thomas Drake on charges of mishandling classified information has been dismissed, the case continues to generate significant new ripples.
Today, the Drake defense team filed a motion (pdf) to remove the court-imposed restrictions on one of the documents that Mr. Drake was accused of unlawfully possessing so that the purported classification of the document could be formally challenged by one of the defense’s expert witnesses — who is none other than the former head of the organization that oversees the entire classification system.
“The defense respectfully requests an Order of the Court that permits defense expert witness, J. William Leonard, the former Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), to file a formal letter of complaint to the current Director of ISOO, John P. Fitzpatrick, regarding the government’s decision to classify and its reasons for classification of the document charged in Count One of the Indictment, entitled ‘What a Success’.”
Subsequent to the April 2010 indictment of Mr. Drake, the document was declassified (but not disclosed) in July 2010. But the defense position is that it was never properly classified.
“If this case had gone to trial, Mr. Leonard was prepared to testify that the ‘What a Success’ document did not contain classified information and never should have been classified,” the defense motion said.
Therefore, “the defense is seeking an Order of the Court allowing him to disclose the unclassified information for the purpose of filing a complaint with ISOO and to discuss the issues raised in his complaint with any investigating authorities.”
None of this can really help or hurt Mr. Drake, whose case is concluded. But the latest defense motion could lead to the correction of an error in the classification system. It might even help to catalyze a broader reconsideration of classification policy at the NSA and elsewhere in government.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.