Former ISOO Director Files Complaint on Overclassification
J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) has filed a complaint with the current ISOO director alleging that the National Security Agency wrongly classified a document, which was then used as a basis for the Espionage Act indictment of Thomas Drake, the New York Times reported. See “Complaint Seeks Punishment for Classification of Documents” by Scott Shane, August 2.
“If you’re talking about throwing someone in jail for years, there absolutely has to be responsibility for decisions about what gets classified,” Mr. Leonard told the Times.
Mr. Leonard had been a volunteer expert witness for the defense in the recently concluded prosecution of Thomas Drake, the former NSA official. The document that is the subject of his complaint is no longer classified, but it is still subject to a protective order. Mr. Leonard requested and received permission from the court to pursue his complaint last Friday.
“A surprising war on leaks under Obama,” an op-ed by Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack, was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 1.
Investing in interventions behind the walls is not just a matter of improving conditions for incarcerated individuals—it is a public safety and economic imperative. By reducing recidivism through education and family contact, we can improve reentry outcomes and save billions in taxpayer dollars.
The U.S. government should establish a public-private National Exposome Project (NEP) to generate benchmark human exposure levels for the ~80,000 chemicals to which Americans are regularly exposed.
The federal government spends billions every year on wildfire suppression and recovery. Despite this, the size and intensity of fires continues to grow, increasing costs to human health, property, and the economy as a whole.
To respond and maintain U.S. global leadership, USAID should transition to heavily favor a Fixed-Price model to enhance the United States’ ability to compete globally and deliver impact at scale.