John W. Ficklin retired last month from his position as Senior Director for Records and Access Management at the National Security Council. In that capacity he was responsible for declassification of White House records, among other records management duties. He also chaired an interagency classification reform committee that met (and still meets) to consider improvements in classification practices.

Mr. Ficklin was the subject of a moving profile in the Washington Post yesterday. See “Long White House tradition nears end for a family descended from a slave” by Juliet Eilperin, February 7.

His successor at the National Security Council is John P. Fitzpatrick, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office. On the occasion of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s appointment, the title of the NSC position has been changed to reflect an expanded portfolio of security policy issues. He is now the Senior Director for Records Access and Information Security Management.

A new director of the Information Security Oversight Office has not yet been named.

The topic of “secret law” is probed at great length in a new law review paper, which substantiates the concept and suggests a set of principles for addressing it. See “Coming to Terms with Secret Law” by Dakota S. Rudesill, to be published in the Harvard National Security Journal.

Secret law is defined here as “legal authorities that require compliance [but] that are classified or otherwise withheld from the public.”

The paper provides extensive citations to relevant source material (including a few references to Secrecy News), thoughtful consideration of arguments for and against the status quo, and a novel compilation of congressional reports that include classified addenda. (h/t Lawfare)

John P. Fitzpatrick, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), left his position at the end of last week to join the National Security Council staff.

As ISOO director for the past four years or so, Mr. Fitzpatrick was responsible for oversight of national security classification and declassification activities government-wide.

“John led ISOO in carrying out the President’s programs to improve transparency, openness, and access to information while ensuring that classified national security information is properly protected,” wrote David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, in a January 8 notice to employees of the National Archives, where ISOO is housed.

While there remains much to criticize in classification and declassification policy, Mr. Fitzpatrick presided over a four-year decline in original classification activity, such that by 2014 the number of new national security secrets created annually had dropped to the lowest ever reported by ISOO in its 35 year history.

The change in ISOO leadership comes at a delicate moment, since the entire national security classification system is supposed to go through a systematic recalibration, known as the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review, over the next 18 months. This secrecy re-booting process needs to be closely guided and nurtured if it is to yield optimal results.

But Mr. Fitzpatrick is not going very far, geographically or topically.

“Beginning Monday, 11 January, I will join the National Security Council Staff, Executive Office of the President, as Senior Director for Records Access and Information Security Management,” he wrote in an email message. “There I will assist the NSC/EOP with a portfolio of federal information security policies for classified and controlled unclassified information (classification, declassification, safeguarding, etc.), the National Industrial Security Program and other related security efforts.  I will also direct the staff who preserve, safeguard, review and help release NSC records via FOIA, automatic declassification and the like.  It promises to be an exciting challenge.”

Updated below

The Government Accountability Office this week quietly published a list of titles of its restricted reports that have not been publicly released because they contain classified information or controlled unclassified information.  A new link to “Restricted Products” appears at the bottom of the GAO homepage (under Reports & Testimonies).

“This list is intended to keep Congress, federal agencies, and the public informed of the existence of these products. The list consists of all such classified or controlled products issued since September 30, 2014 and will be updated each time a new report is issued,” the GAO webpage says.

“We did not issue a statement or announcement” concerning the new listing, said Timothy L. Minelli of GAO Congressional Relations.

A congressional staffer said the move was prompted by concerns expressed by some Members of Congress and staff that they were unaware of the restricted reports, since they had not been indexed or archived by GAO.

Publication of the titles of restricted GAO reports “was not necessarily universally desired by everyone in Congress,” the staffer said, and “it took about a year” to resolve the issue. But “GAO deserves a lot of credit. They decided it was the right thing to do, and they did it.”

Although primarily aimed at congressional consumers, the new webpage also serves to inform the public. GAO is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but will usually entertain requests for records anyway. However, GAO is not authorized to release information that has been classified or controlled by an executive branch agency.

There are several limitations to the new disclosure policy. It does not reflect restricted GAO reports that were generated prior to 2014. It will not cite titles that are themselves classified. And it will not include reports that focus on an individual intelligence agency.

“We excluded titles of products primarily focused on an element of the intelligence community to be consistent with the general practices of the IG [Inspector General] Offices within that IC community, who generally don’t post these titles,” said Mr. Minelli of GAO. “Only titles of products that that are primarily focused on an element of the IC won’t be listed, which we believe will be a very small number, likely less than a handful per year.”

“More common are GAO products that address activities/operations of IC elements in the context of a broader set of questions we are answering, and the titles of these products are being posted,” he said.

“Finally, in a number of cases and pending the classification and sensitivity reviews conducted by the appropriate agencies, GAO will follow its usual practice of trying to issue public versions of classified and sensitive-but-unclassified  products that have had classified and SBU material removed.  These reports are posted on our website and publicly available,” he said.

Update: A listing of GAO restricted report titles from 1971-2011 was obtained and published by GovernmentAttic.org, which also obtained copies of the first page of each GAO report issued prior to 1972 that remains classified.

The Central Intelligence Agency has improperly classified and withheld from release at least five categories of information related to its post-9/11 rendition, detention and interrogation program, according to a detailed complaint filed by Openthegovernment.org with the Information Security Oversight Office.

Classification of this information has impeded government accountability for the controversial CIA programs and derailed a full public reckoning over abuses that occurred, the complaint said.

“Secrecy regarding ‘black sites’ and torture has played a major role in ensuring that no CIA personnel could be prosecuted for torture, war crimes, destruction of evidence, or other relevant federal crimes. It has ensured that civil courts were closed to victims of torture, indefinitely delayed trials of the accused perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, and put the United States in breach of its obligations under the Convention Against Torture,” wrote Katherine Hawkins, National Security Fellow at Openthegovernment.org, who authored the complaint.

She specified five categories of information that she said had been classified in violation of the executive order governing classification policy and redacted from the summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on interrogation:

*     The pseudonyms and titles, and in some cases the names, of CIA officials and contractors implicated in the torture program.

*     The names of countries that hosted black sites (i.e. unacknowledged locations of CIA detention centers abroad).

*     Former CIA detainees’ descriptions of the details of their own torture.

*     The CIA’s involvement in the torture of prisoners in Iraq.

*     The CIA’s rendition of prisoners to torture in foreign custody.

The 38-page complaint presents extensive arguments that certain particular information in each of these categories was improperly classified by the CIA.

“There is strong evidence that classification of evidence regarding the torture program violated the Executive Order, in some cases willfully so,” Ms. Hawkins wrote. “It is important that there be consequences for this abuse of the classification power to deter similar violations in the future. But it is even more important that the cover-up end, and that ISOO act to oversee ongoing CIA classification decisions regarding the rendition, detention and interrogation program.”

John P. Fitzpatrick, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), which oversees the classification system, said his office has already begun “digging into the complaint in detail…. I don’t yet know what level of effort this will require.”

Under Executive Order 13526 (section 5.2(6)), the ISOO director is authorized and required to “consider and take action on complaints and suggestions from persons within or outside the Government with respect to the administration of the [classification] program established under this order.”

As a practical matter, ISOO’s capacity to investigate classification errors is limited by the Office’s size and budget.

Nevertheless, Mr. Fitzpatrick said, “handling complaints like this is part of our mission, so we will have to see what can be done.”

The immediate next steps, he said, include identifying the specific claims advanced by the complaint and the parts of the executive order they may relate to; gathering relevant facts that would support or refute the claims; and performing analysis to reach a conclusion. Considering the length and detail of the complaint, reviewing it “will take time.”

*    *    *

If there is a systemic solution to the problem of overclassification, it is likely to involve the kind of independent review that has been urged on ISOO by Openthegovernment.org in this case.

Government agencies that are left to their own devices will almost always classify more information than is necessary or appropriate. Without assuming any malign intent on their part, it is simply the path of least resistance.

However, when an agency is required to justify its classification activity to an impartial reviewer, even on a non-adversarial basis, a reduction in the scope of classification results more often than not. This has been confirmed repeatedly.

*    Between 1996 and 2014, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel directed the declassification of information in 71 percent of the documents presented to it by members of the public whose direct requests to agencies had been denied, ISOO reported in 2014.

*    Documents concerning covert actions that the CIA had refused to acknowledge on its own were approved for declassification and publication in the Foreign Relations of the United States series after deliberation by the so-called High-Level Panel composed of representatives of the National Security Council, State Department and CIA.

*    CIA classification of many records related to the JFK assassination could not withstand review by the independent Assassination Records Review Board. The Board ordered declassification of tens of thousands of assassination-related records including millions of pages.

*    Even within individual agencies, the process of challenging classification decisions has borne fruit to a surprising extent. Government employees challenged the classification status of various items of information in 813 cases in FY2014, the Information Security Oversight Office reported. Their classification was overturned in whole or in part in 453 of those cases.

It follows that new venues and new procedures for independently evaluating disputed classification decisions would help to reduce or eliminate spurious classification.

China’s military research and development program is organized around 16 “national megaprojects” that are intended to advance and transform that country’s capabilities in core technology areas including electronics, aerospace, clean energy, and so on. Three of the 16 national projects are classified and have not been officially acknowledged.

But in a recently published US Army War College volume, China specialists Richard A. Bitzinger and Michael Raska identified “three prime candidates” for the classified Chinese programs: 1) a laser fusion program; 2) a navigational satellite system; and 3) a hypersonic vehicle technology project.

The Shenguang (Divine Light) laser is an experiment in inertial confinement fusion. The project reportedly aims to achieve ignition and plasma burning by 2020. “Shenguang has two strategic implications: it may accelerate China’s next-generation thermonuclear weapons development, and advance China’s directed-energy laser weapons programs,” wrote Bitzinger and Raska, who are based at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

The Beidou 2 satellite system is a network of hardened navigational satellites, which potentially “eliminates China’s dependency on the U.S. GPS and Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation systems that could be deactivated in select areas in times of conflict,” they wrote.

Finally, “there are signs that China is developing conceptual and experimental hypersonic flight vehicle technologies such as hypersonic cruise vehicles (HCV) capable of maneuvering at Mach 5.”

See Capacity for Innovation: Technological Drivers of China’s Future Military Modernization by Ricard A. Bitzinger and Michael Raska, in The Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 2025 (Roy Kamphausen and David Lai, eds.), published July 2015 by the Strategic Studies Institute and the US Army War College Press.

“Although China’s military innovation lagged behind that of Western powers, China’s ‘latecomer advantage’ has enabled it to skip various phases of development,” the volume editors wrote. “As a latecomer, the PLA has been able to identify and absorb key foreign civil and military technologies.”

A recently updated report from the Congressional Research Service discusses China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States, September 11, 2015.

The number of newly created national security secrets dropped to a record low level last year, but the financial costs of protecting classified information increased sharply, according to the latest data from the Information Security Oversight Office.

Original classification activity — meaning the designation of new classified information — declined by 20 percent in 2014 to a historic low of 46,800 original classification decisions, ISOO said in its new annual report for Fiscal Year 2014.

It was the fourth consecutive year of reductions in original classifications. ISOO has never reported a smaller number of original classification decisions. Ten years earlier (FY 2004), for example, original classification activity was reported at 351,150 original classification decisions.

What accounts for the continuing drop-off in the creation of new secrets? The answer is not entirely clear. It is in part a reflection of changes in the national security environment, as well as the vagaries of how agencies report their classification practices. ISOO director John P. Fitzpatrick said it was also likely to be a consequence of the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review that was performed under the Obama executive order in 2010-2012 in an effort to improve the quality of agency classification guides.

In the course of that Review, all existing guides were “scrubbed” to ensure that they provided current classification guidance and in some cases they were also refined to improve their clarity. One result, Mr. Fitzpatrick said yesterday, was that some agency classification decisions that might have otherwise been counted as new secrets were instead deemed to be “derivative” classification decisions that were based on the improved classification guidance.

Significantly, however, the volume of derivative classification decisions also declined for the past two years. Therefore, even if some reported classification actions were displaced from the original classification category to the derivative classification category, the overall result is still a net reduction in new national security classification activity, a significant policy achievement in itself.

While the number of new secrets dropped to a record low last year, however, the cost of protecting those secrets reached a record high.

“The total security classification cost estimate within Government for FY 2014 is $14.98 billion,” the ISOO report said, up from $11.63 billion in FY 2013.

The increase was primarily due to Department of Defense expenditures on information systems security, which increased by a reported $3.2 billion in FY 2014.

While some of the reported increase can be explained by improved accounting methods, much of it “was attributable to the many new initiatives underway in the aftermath of the serious security breaches that have occurred in recent years,” the ISOO report said. The breaches were not specified in the report, but major changes in security policy were prompted by the WikiLeaks disclosures of 2010.

These new DOD initiatives include measures to “improve network security by reducing anonymity, enhancing access controls and user monitoring, establishing enterprise auditing, restricting the removal of media, and developing insider threat programs.”

“None of these improvements come without considerable cost,” the ISOO report said.

The new ISOO report included several other notable observations, such as these:

*     In FY 2014 there were 813 formal classification challenges filed by authorized holders of classified information — government employees or contractors — who believed the information was wrongly classified. In response to the challenges, agencies overturned the classification status of the information in whole or in part in 453 of the cases (56 percent). In FY 2013, by comparison, there were only 68 such challenges and only 12 of them led to changes in classification.

*     The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel maintained its record of granting public appeals of Mandatory Declassification Review requests that had been denied by executive branch agencies in the majority of cases presented to it, in whole or in part. Out of 451 documents considered by the Panel on appeal, 181 were declassified in their entirety, and 157 were declassified in part. The continued classification of 113 documents was affirmed by the Panel.

The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review that apparently led to the recent reduction in national security classification must be performed every five years. The next such Review will soon begin and is due to be completed in 2017.

The explosive yield of the B-53 thermonuclear bomb, once the highest-yield nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, was 9 Megatons. “Effective 20 November, 2014, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy jointly declassified the fact that the yield of the B53/W53 Y1 was 9 megatons,” according to a notice posted on a DoD website last week.

This is less of a breakthrough in declassification policy than might be supposed, since the 9 Megaton yield for the B-53 bomb has been publicly reported for decades, including on this 1997 web page.

But it seems that this information had not been officially disclosed before. Now that it has been, it can be publicly acknowledged by government employees without penalty and it no longer need be painstakingly redacted from historical documents as they are processed for declassification.

The problem of nuclear weapons information that is both formally classified and readily available to the public has long been a challenge for the Department of Energy.

Last September, DOE updated its longstanding “GEN 16” policy which dictates a “no comment” response to classified information in public settings.

The newly revised no-comment policy “recognizes that it is possible to have incidental contact online” with a classified document and that “merely reading the document online does not constitute a comment.” See Classification Bulletin GEN-16, Revision 2, No Comment Policy on Classified Information in the Open Literature, September 23, 2014.

A DOE training package gives guidance on how to respond, and how not to respond, to public references to information that is classified, in accordance with the GEN-16 policy. The following exchange is offered as an example of what NOT to say:

Joe: “Can you believe there were weapons in X country?” [when that fact is classified]

DOE: “I thought everyone knew that”

Instead, suggested alternative DOE responses are: “I never really thought about it,” or “DOE doesn’t confirm or deny the presence of weapons in most countries.”

Another example of what NOT to say:

Joe: “Is it true you’re holding up publication of Jim’s book on his work in nuclear weapons development because of classification concerns?”

DOE: “It’s taking a long time to review, not just because there is a lot of classified information about thermonuclear weapons, but also because it’s boring.”

One should also not disconfirm the status or validity of published nuclear-related information, DOE advises. Thus, one should not say, “I hope terrorists read that article, because the [nuclear weapon] design was a joke.”

See DOE briefing on Classification Bulletin GEN-16, Revision 2, Classification Training Institute, October 2014.

Updated (twice) below

U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan have partially rescinded their effort to classify previously public oversight information concerning the status of coalition operations in that country after the move drew sharp criticism.

The sudden reversal was reported in the New York Times (U.S. Declassifies Some Information on Afghan Forces by Matthew Rosenberg, February 2).

In a report issued last week, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) had called the classification action “unprecedented” and said that it left SIGAR “for the first time in six years unable to publicly report on most of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded efforts to build, train, equip, and sustain the ANSF.”

Some officials in the Department of Defense were said to be unhappy with this unexpected development, especially after its negative impact was magnified in editorials in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and in critical assessments in the Washington Post and elsewhere. And so a modification was made.

The specifics and the extent of the change in classification policy were not immediately clear.

Update (2/4/15): Here is a statement on the matter from Col. Brian Tribus, United States Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) Director of Public Affairs:

“General Campbell [Commander, USFOR-A] has not changed his position in regard to the importance of protecting Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) readiness data, which remains classified.

The ANSF took the lead for providing security in June 2013 and have since assumed full responsibility for securing the Afghan people. As the ANSF have become more capable, we have transitioned to our new, non-combat role. With this transition, the ANSF are now playing a critical role in providing security for coalition forces. In August 2014, General Campbell made the decision to classify Afghan National Security Forces’ readiness data in order to prevent potential adversaries from gaining critical information that could be exploited — endangering the lives of our Afghan partners and coalition forces serving alongside them. Just as we classify our own armed forces readiness reports, it is prudent for us as a reliable partner to do the same for the ANSF — especially considering that ANSF commands are now our primary source for that data and it is provided to us in a classified format. The prudence of General Campbell’s decision was underscored when President Ghani assumed office and, in his role as Commander in Chief of the ANSF, he reiterated the importance of keeping ANSF readiness data classified. The Afghan Chief of General Staff, General Karimi, reinforced this request.

USFOR-A is fully committed to working with the SIGAR. We recognize that SIGAR provides a vital function ensuring transparency and oversight of the expenditure of U.S taxpayer dollars. We have and will continue to implement many of the SIGAR’s recommendations that have helped make us more effective stewards of American funding.

With respect to the SIGAR’s January 2015 quarterly report, the SIGAR was given full access to all ANSF readiness information as well as every other piece of information that was requested. This enabled the SIGAR to share the information with Congress, consistent with its mandate. A large volume of the data requested by SIGAR, when viewed alone, is suitable for public release. However, releasable information was combined with related classified information, requiring it to be published in a classified annex.

USFOR-A has since gone back and separated data releasable to the public from classified ANSF readiness data based on the SIGAR’s request to release more information to the public. USFOR-A provided the separated, unclassified data to the SIGAR.

Again, General Campbell has not changed his position in regard to the importance of protecting ANSF readiness data, which remains classified.

For specifics regarding the unclassified data provided, please contact the SIGAR.

USFOR-A remains committed to working closely with the SIGAR in order to strike the right balance between maximum transparency and prudent protection of information regarding ANSF readiness.”

Update (3/3/2015): SIGAR has released a Supplement to the January 2015 quarterly report reflecting the newly declassified data.

Updated below

In a startlingly indiscriminate classification action that officials termed “unprecedented,” U.S. General John F. Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, ordered the classification of a broad range of previously public information concerning operations in that country.

How has the $25 million authorized by Congress for women in the Afghan army been used? What are the definitions of the terms “unavailable” and “present for duty”? What is the total amount of funding that the U.S. has expended on salaries for the Afghan National Police?

The answers to those questions, and more than a hundred others that had formerly been subject to public disclosure, are now considered classified information. The newly classified data was withheld from disclosure in the public version of the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that was released today.

“The classification of this volume of data for SIGAR’s quarterly report is unprecedented,” the new report stated. “The decision leaves SIGAR for the first time in six years unable to publicly report on most of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded efforts to build, train, equip, and sustain the [Afghan National Security Forces].”

General Campbell defended his action (which was first reported today in the New York Times) in a letter to the SIGAR appended to the report.

“While I cannot comment upon the precise reason why certain information was considered unclassified in the past, I can advise that given the risks that continue to exist to our forces and those of Afghanistan, I have directed that sensitive operational information or related materials, that could be used by those who threaten the force, or Afghan forces, be classified at an appropriate level,” General Campbell wrote. “With lives literally on the line, I am sure that you can join me in recognizing that we must be careful to avoid providing sensitive information to those that threaten our forces and Afghan forces, particularly information that can be used by such opposing forces to sharpen their attacks.”

The General did not explain how budget and contracting information, among other routine data, could be used to sharpen attacks against allied forces.

The new classification action highlights the inadequacy of existing mechanisms for correcting excessive, abusive or mistaken classification decisions.

In principle, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office has the authority under executive order to overrule or modify General Campbell’s sweeping classification decision. But that authority, which has never yet been exercised in the 35 years of ISOO’s existence, may have finally atrophied beyond recovery.

Congressional complaints about overclassification, as in the case of the summary of the Senate report on CIA interrogation, tend to underscore the view that classification is an executive branch prerogative, and paradoxically to strengthen it.

A 2013 Department of Defense Inspector General report noted that out of a small sample of 220 DoD documents, at least ten percent were misclassified or overclassified, including documents based on public information. At that time, the DoD Inspector General generously concluded that “we do not believe that those instances concealed violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevented embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency; restrained competition; or prevented or delayed the release of information that did not require protection in the interest of national security.”

That deferential judgment will need to be amended in light of the expansive classification of oversight information concerning Afghanistan.

As a result of General Campbell’s decision, the Special Inspector General wrote, “much of the information SIGAR has used for the past six years to report on the $65 billion U.S. investment in the ANSF is no longer releasable to the public.”

Update: On February 2, the move to classify the relevant Afghanistan oversight data was partially rescinded, the New York Times reported.

National security secrecy can be an impediment to veterans who are seeking treatment for traumas suffered during military service yet who are technically prohibited from disclosing classified information related to their experience to uncleared physicians or therapists.

The problem was epitomized by the case of U.S. Army Sgt. Daniel Somers, who participated in classified Special Operations missions in Iraq. He returned with significant physical, mental and psychological damage. He killed himself in June 2013.

Secrecy, among other factors, appears to have exacerbated his condition, according to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).

“One of the struggles Daniel faced was as an individual who had served in classified service,” Rep. Sinema said at a hearing last July. “He was unable to participate in group therapy because he was not able to share [what] he experienced while in service.”

To address this problem, Rep. Sinema last week re-introduced the Classified Veterans Access to Care Act, HR 421.

“The Classified Veterans Access to Care Act ensures that veterans with classified experiences have appropriate access to mental health services from the Department of Veterans Affairs,” she said in a release.

The bill itself would require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs “to ensure that each covered veteran may access mental health care provided by the Secretary in a manner that fully accommodates the obligation of the veteran to not improperly disclose classified information.”

The Classified Veterans Access to Care Act was originally introduced in October 2013 (as HR 3387). But although it had, and has, bipartisan support, it was not acted on in the 113th Congress. Nor are its prospects for passage in the new Congress clear. Still, there is nothing to prevent the Department of Veterans Affairs from addressing the underlying issue, and fixing the problem, without awaiting the formal enactment of Rep. Sinema’s legislation.

“The V.A. welcomes criticism but also needs constructive ideas to succeed,” wrote Drs. Marsden McGuire and Paula Schnurr in a letter to the New York Times last week. “The V.A. is actively engaging community partners, academia, advocates, the private sector and, most important, veterans and their families, to improve services.”

The parents of Sgt. Daniel Somers described his experience, and theirs, in “On Losing a Veteran Son to a Broken System,” New York Times, November 11, 2013.

According to the latest Department of Defense annual report on suicide, “The suicide rate per 100,000 [military personnel] in 2013 was 18.7 for active component service members, 23.4 for reserve component and 28.9 for National Guard.”

That is a decline from the annual suicide rate year before. But the figures from the first quarters of 2014 indicate a further increase in suicide among active duty service members.

National security secrecy, which remains a source of conflict and consternation, inspires a steady flow of books and journal articles. As in other policy-related fields, much of this literature is tendentious, derivative or dull. Some of it is insightful, original or usefully provocative.

Most works naturally occupy a middle ground including both virtues and defects. Two highly original works on secrecy in recent years — Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Secrecy: The American Experience and Garry Wills’ Bomb Power — also have significant conceptual flaws and factual errors. That is to say, it is hard to write a good book about secrecy.

With that in mind, here are some notable recent additions to the literature.

**     Secrecy in the Sunshine Era: The Promise and Failure of U.S. Open Government Laws by Jason Ross Arnold (University Press of Kansas, 542 pages, 2014).

This is a study of the impact of laws such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act. It presents a survey of how these open government laws were implemented through successive administrations and how they were sometimes circumvented.

“The sunshine laws of the 1970s substantially revised the way information flowed through the American political system,” writes Arnold. “It is hard to deny that the new legal framework placed serious constraints on executive branch officials.”

Nevertheless, “excessive secrecy still reigned in the sunshine era,” he concludes. “All administrations did what they could… to twist around the statutes when they deemed it necessary. All diverged from their own pro-transparency rhetoric and rules.”

**     A Proposal to Reduce Government Overclassification of Information Related to National Security by Herbert Lin, Journal of National Security Law & Policy, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2014.

This article focuses on the perennial problem of overclassification and proposes a solution. It would seek to alter the incentives that currently favor (over)classification by establishing new incentives to reduce classification.

“Classification should not be a free good,” Lin writes. He defines a classification cost metric that would reflect the relative importance of different classified documents, and that would make it possible to “budget” for classification.

Through the application of appropriate incentives, “Those who actually make decisions about classification should benefit from reductions in the amount of classified information produced.”

The author anticipates several objections to his idea, and offers responses to them.

**     Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Warfare by Scott Horton (Nation Books, 272 pages, 2015).

Sometimes secrecy is not simply an annoying artifact of national security bureaucracy, but is itself a weapon in the struggle for power. The use of secrecy in this way is corrosive and has now become disabling to American democracy, according to author Scott Horton.

While most national security attention is focused on threats from abroad, Horton says “the more serious threats to American democracy are internal. They stem from a steady transfer of democratic decision making and authority away from the people and to unelected elites. This has occurred both with respect to the disproportionate grasp of power by wealthy super elites, and by the rise of national security elites who increasingly take the key decisions about national security matters without involving the people in any meaningfully democratic process.”

“More effectively than before, they use secrecy not only to cover up their past mistakes but also to wrest from the public decisions about the future that properly belong to the people.”