New guidance from the U.S. Air Force on the use of cyberspace weapons directs Air Force personnel to get a good night’s sleep prior to performing military cyberspace operations and to refrain from alcohol while on duty.

“Crew rest is compulsory for any crew member prior to performing any crew duty on any cyber weapon system,” the May 5 guidance says. “Each crew member is individually responsible to ensure he or she obtains sufficient rest during crew rest periods.”

Furthermore, “Crew members will not perform cyberspace mission duties within 12 hours of consuming alcohol or other intoxicating substances, or while impaired by its after effects,” the new Air Force guidance stated.

“This instruction prescribes operations procedures for cyberspace weapons systems under most circumstances, but it is not a substitute for sound judgment or common sense,” the Air Force said.

The document discusses the general conduct of Air Force cyber operations, including so-called “Real-Time Operations & Innovation” (RTOI) projects that enable the USAF “to generate tools and tactics in response to critical cyber needs at the fastest possible pace.”

See Cyberspace Operations and Procedures, Air Force Instruction 10-1703, volume 3, 5 May 2015.

With the growing normalization of defensive and (especially) offensive military operations in cyberspace, more and more U.S. military doctrine governing such activity is gradually being published on an unclassified basis. Some of the principal components of this emerging open literature include the following:

Cyberspace Operations, Joint Publication 3-12, 5 February 2013

Cyberspace Operations, Air Force Policy Directive 10-17, 31 July 2012

Command and Control for Cyberspace Operations, Air Force Instruction 10-1701, 5 March 2014

Legal Reviews of Weapons and Cyber Capabilities, Air Force Instruction 51-402, 27 July 2011

Information Assurance (IA) and Support to Computer Network Defense (CND), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 6510.01F, 9 February 2011

Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace, July 2011

The Department of Defense Cyber Strategy, April 2015

The average cost to the U.S. defense budget per individual troop member has increased sharply over the past few decades, a new analysis from the Congressional Research Service found, reflecting changes in the size and structure of the U.S. military.

“Since FY1980, the cost per troop–for all expenses ranging from pay to procurement–has almost doubled in real terms from $200,000 per troop in FY1980 to $390,000 per troop in [the] FY2016 request,” the CRS report noted.

The rising average troop cost figures were presented as part of a larger CRS analysis of Defense Spending and the Budget Control Act Limits, dated May 19, 2015.

Another new CRS report considers 16 alternate scenarios under which it might be possible for the U.S. to produce 80 plutonium “pits” for nuclear weapons each year by 2027, as mandated by Congress. See Nuclear Weapon ‘Pit’ Production: Options to Help Meet a Congressional Requirement, May 14, 2015.

Yet another new CRS report discusses the history and status of U.S. relations with Pakistan, including key points of contention and cooperation. See Pakistan-U.S. Relations: Issues for the 114th Congress, May 14, 2015.

A recent article in Secrecy News indicated that the classified annexes that accompany the annual intelligence authorization bills are legally binding and constitute “secret law” (A Growing Body of Secret Intelligence Law, May 4).

Robert S. Litt, the General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, wrote in last week to dispute that characterization:

I read your piece on secret law and the classified annex to the Intelligence
Authorization bills with interest.  I thought it was worth responding to let you know
that I believe you are incorrect in saying that the classified annex has the force of
law.  Each year’s Intelligence Authorization Act contains a provision — usually
Section 102 in recent years — that provides that the amounts authorized to be
appropriated are those set out in the schedule of authorizations in the classified
annex.  It is only that schedule of authorizations that has the force of law.  The
remainder of the annex is report language explaining the positions of the committee
on a variety of issues, and has no more force than any other committee report.  That
is to say, it expresses the views of the Congress, and it therefore would ordinarily be
followed as a matter of comity, but does not have the force of law.

In this regard, it is worth noting that the unclassified Joint Explanatory Statement
accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2015 states (160 Cong. Rec.
S6464, Dec. 9, 2014):

“This joint explanatory statement shall have the same effect with respect to the
implementation of this Act as if it were a joint explanatory statement of a
committee of conference.

“This explanatory statement is accompanied by a classified annex that contains
a classified Schedule of Authorizations.  The classified Schedule of
Authorizations is incorporated by reference in the Act and has the legal status of
public law.”

Bob Litt

In short: The schedule of authorized amounts that is contained within the classified annex does have the force of law, but the rest of the classified annex does not.

We accept the correction.

A congressional intelligence committee staff member concurred.

“The majority of the classified annexes are distinct from the schedules of authorization and are where the Committees opine on and direct various things,” the staff member said. “As a technical point, I believe that Bob is correct — they don’t have the force of law as they are not incorporated in the same way as the schedules.”

“That said, we very much expect that the Executive Branch will follow them, which in fact it does. I don’t know that this matters much, though.  While it may not be secret law, it is secret text that the Congress approves and is presented to the President at the time of his signature and that we believe is binding in practical terms,” the staff member added.

Thus, even if they do not entirely qualify as “secret law,” the classified annexes still have normative force, helping to shape the direction and execution of intelligence policy.

They therefore retain their significance for government accountability, including congressional accountability. And yet as a category of documents, the annexes are completely withheld from the public even decades after they are produced. Unfortunately, that remains undisputed.

*    *    *

Its specific content aside, Mr. Litt’s message is noteworthy as an uncommon act of official participation in public dialog.

In an open society, government officials ought to be reasonably accessible to the members of the public whom they ostensibly serve. But with some exceptions, they are not. Either they are insulated by layers of security, or they are isolated by hierarchical bureaucratic structures that make them unreachable. The secrecy-intensive culture of intelligence only aggravates the problem. Even an open government law like the Freedom of Information Act creates a procedural buffer that often impedes any kind of direct dialog.

Unlike most of his colleagues, Mr. Litt has been willing to engage with members of the public with some frequency. You can ask him a question. You can argue with him. He will argue with you. The point is that he is available to non-governmental interlocutors in a way that should be ordinary but is in fact unusual and exemplary. (See, for example, here, here and here.)

Mr. Litt’s attentiveness to the nuances of an article in Secrecy News brings to mind a passage from Robert M. Gates’ 1996 CIA memoir From the Shadows that is dear to the heart of small newsletter writers. The author was recalling Director of Central Intelligence Bill Casey whom he described as an omnivorous consumer of information from even the most obscure sources.

“Bill Casey was one of the smartest people I have ever known and certainly one of the most intellectually lively,” Gates wrote (p. 217). “He subscribed to newsletters and information sheets that I sometimes thought couldn’t have more than five readers in the world, and then he would ask if I had seen one or another item in them.”

Last month, the U.S. Army issued a new doctrinal publication entitled Cultural and Situational Understanding. This month, the publication was officially withdrawn by the Army after numerous instances of plagiarism were identified throughout the document.

Prof. Roberto J. Gonzalez authored a blistering critique of the publication (The US Army’s Serial Plagiarists, Counterpunch, May 1), providing one example after another of pilfered text that had been incorporated without acknowledgment or attribution to the source.

“As I began reading, I found the sections to be oddly disjointed; grammatical structures varied wildly. Perhaps my teaching experience made me suspicious,” wrote Prof. Gonzalez, who teaches at San Jose State University. “I decided to investigate.”

“Within half an hour I discovered four plagiarized passages. Soon after, I found ten more instances in which sentences or entire paragraphs were snatched from books, articles, or online sources without quotation marks or citations.”

Upon inspection of the document, it is not hard to confirm and extend Gonzalez’s analysis by doing an online search for some of the distinctive phrases or formulations that appear in the text.

So, for example, paragraph 1-57 of Cultural and Situational Understanding begins: “When cultures evolve into civilizations, one of the systems of social organization that typically develops and grows in complexity is government.”

A search for this sentence yields a nearly identical source in an online publication from 1997 called noted that Cultural and Situational Understanding — designated as report number ATP 3-24.3, and formerly posted here — had been taken offline.

This week, an Army spokesman confirmed that it had been formally withdrawn.

“After taking a closer look at the content in ATP 3-24.3, we have pulled the ATP from circulation and it is no longer an approved doctrine publication,” said Bill Ackerly, a public affairs officer for the US Army Combined Arms Center.

“The ATP will not be re-released until the content issue has been resolved,” he said via email yesterday.

An archived copy of the original, now-disavowed text of Cultural and Situational Understanding, ATP 3-24.3, remains available on the Federation of American Scientists website.

Update: See also U.S. Army Withdraws Flawed And Plagiarized Manual About “Cultural Understanding” by Dan Vergano, Buzzfeed, May 12.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) will continue to be barred from releasing its reports to the public, the House Appropriations Committee said yesterday in its report on legislative branch appropriations for the coming year.

“The bill contains language which provides that no funds in the Congressional Research Service can be used to publish or prepare material to be issued by the Library of Congress unless approved by the appropriate committees,” the House report said.

Because Congress prohibits CRS from publishing its own reports, most CRS reports are only available to the public from non-governmental organizations that take the initiative to gather and publish them. Many such reports can be found in a collection that is maintained and regularly updated on the Federation of American Scientists website.

In the new spending bill, the House Committee ominously rejected a CRS request for a $5 million budget increase in 2016, and allocated $107 million, the same as the 2015 level.

“The Legislative Branch must set itself as an example for fiscal restraint while continuing to serve the Nation. This bill will require strict fiscal discipline on the part of all congressional offices and all agency heads in the Legislative Branch,” the report said.

But from another perspective, “this bill falls short in providing Congress with the resources needed to fulfill its constitutional duties,” said Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nita M. Lowey in minority views. “The Legislative Branch bill provides another year of flat funding, the third in a row.”

In a move that is perhaps even more worrisome for CRS, “The Committee directs the Library of Congress to commission an independent survey of all Members and committees of the House of Representatives to ascertain their fundamental and optimal requirements for services and support from the Library of Congress and especially the Congressional Research Service.”

The problem here is that the CRS services that congressional offices are likely to find most “useful” are not necessarily those that are most “valuable.”

What is often deemed most useful is having CRS analysts assist congressional staff in responding to constituent mail, including eccentric or demented requests for information.

Why is the US Postal Service “stockpiling ammunition”? That sort of question helped lead CRS analyst Kevin Kosar to leave his job, he explained in an article in the Washington Monthly earlier this year (“Why I Quit the Congressional Research Service,” Jan/Feb 2015).

What is most valuable, by contrast, is not necessarily of immediate use to individual Members and Committees. That is the kind of in-depth policy analysis that can only be helpful to those whose policy preferences are not predetermined by ideology or affiliation. CRS reports are now cited ever more frequently by reporters and others trying to come to grips with complicated policy issues that entail both costs and benefits.

This particular policy analysis function, however, may not be considered a “fundamental and optimal requirement” by every member of the House.

“Even when we did find time and space to do serious research, lawmakers ignored our work or trashed us if our findings ran contrary to their beliefs,” wrote former CRS analyst Kosar.

After years of preparation, the executive branch is poised to adopt a government-wide system for designating and safeguarding unclassified information that is to be withheld from public disclosure.

The new system of “controlled unclassified information” (CUI) will replace the dozens of improvised control markings used by various agencies that have created confusion and impeded information sharing inside and outside of government. A proposed rule on CUI was published for public comment on May 8 in the Federal Register.

While CUI is by definition unclassified, it is nevertheless understood to require protection against public disclosure on the basis of statute, regulation, or agency policy. In many or most cases, the categories of information that qualify as CUI are non-controversial, and include sensitive information related to law enforcement, nuclear security, grand jury proceedings, and so on.

Until lately, “more than 100 different markings for such information existed across the executive branch. This ad hoc, agency-specific approach created inefficiency and confusion, led to a patchwork system that failed to adequately safeguard information requiring protection, and unnecessarily restricted information sharing,” the proposed rule said.

One of the striking features of the new CUI program is that it limits the prevailing autonomy of individual agencies and obliges them to conform to a consistent government-wide standard.

“CUI categories and subcategories are the exclusive means of designating CUI throughout the executive branch,” the proposed rule states. “Agencies may not control any unclassified information outside of the CUI Program.”

Nor do agencies get to decide on their own what qualifies as CUI. That status must be approved by the CUI Executive Agent (who is the director of the Information Security Oversight Office) based on an existing statutory or regulatory requirement, or on a legitimate agency policy. And it must be published in the online CUI Registry. There are to be no “secret” CUI categories.

Importantly, the CUI Program offers a way of validating agency information control practices pertaining to unclassified information. (A comparable procedure for externally validating agency classification practices does not exist.) But CUI status itself is not intended to become an additional barrier to disclosure.

“The mere fact that information is designated as CUI has no bearing on determinations pursuant to any law requiring the disclosure of information or permitting disclosure as a matter of discretion,” the new proposed rule said. The possibility that CUI information could or should be publicly disclosed on an authorized basis is not precluded.

More specifically, a CUI marking in itself does not constitute an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, the rule said. However, a statutory restriction that justifies designating information as CUI would also likely make it exempt from release under FOIA.

One complication arises from the fact that simply removing CUI controls does not equate to or imply public release.

“Decontrolling CUI relieves authorized holders from requirements to handle the information under the CUI Program, but does not constitute authorization for public release,” the rule said. Instead, disclosure is only permitted “in accordance with existing agency policies on the public release of information.”

The upshot is that while there can be “controlled unclassified information” that is publicly releasable, there can also be non-CUI (or former CUI) information that is not releasable. The latter category might include unclassified deliberative materials, for example, that are not controlled as CUI but are still exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

More subtly, noted John P. Fitzpatrick, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office, there is a large mass of material that is neither CUI nor non-CUI– until someone looks at it and makes an assessment. In all such cases (other than voluntary disclosure by an agency), public access would be governed by the provisions and exemptions of the FOIA.

The genealogy of the CUI Program dates back at least to a December 16, 2005 memorandum in which President George W. Bush directed that procedures for handling what was called “sensitive but unclassified” information “must be standardized across the Federal Government.”

At that time, the impetus for standardization (which never came to fruition) was based on the need for improved sharing of homeland security and terrorism-related information. The initiative was broadened and developed in the 2010 Obama executive order 13556, which eventually led to the current proposed rule. Public comments are due by July 7.

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from public distribution include the following.

The Future of Internet Governance: Should the U.S. Relinquish Its Authority Over ICANN?, May 5, 2015

Iran’s Foreign Policy, May 5, 2015

Money for Something: Music Licensing in the 21st Century, May 7, 2015

Current Debates over Exchange Rates: Overview and Issues for Congress, May 7, 2015

U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: the Mérida Initiative and Beyond, May 7, 2015

Franking Privilege: Mass Mailings and Mass Communications in the House, 1997-2014, May 6, 2015

Obama Library Likely Headed to Chicago’s South Side, CRS Insights, May 1, 2015

Tesla’s Home Battery–An Electricity Storage Breakthrough?, CRS Insights, May 4, 2015

The House Armed Services Committee is asking the Secretary of Defense to identify “specific inefficiencies with regard to the process for the declassification of documents” pertaining to prisoners of war and missing in action personnel, and ways to expedite the release of such documents. The directive was included in the new Committee report on the FY 2016 defense authorization act.

Declassification of POW/MIA records is a niche issue of intense personal interest to some, and of no particular interest to others. But because such niche issues embody systemic problems, they have the potential to drive changes in policy that can have ripple effects throughout the national security classification process, as disputes over release of JFK assassination records have done in the past.

Thus, the Committee asked the Secretary to report on “challenges in current declassification procedures; recommendations to expedite procedures for interagency declassification; recommendations for procedures to declassify redacted portions of previously released documents;…” and so forth.

In a separate provision, the House Committee responded to a Department of Energy Inspector General finding this year that information had sometimes been misclassified and/or improperly disclosed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Committee instructed the National Nuclear Security Administration to report on “the measures taken to improve the effectiveness of the classification process and related oversight.”

The Department of Defense spends more money on contractors than all other federal agencies combined, a new report from the Congressional Research Service explains.

“This report examines (1) how much money DOD obligates on contracts, (2) what DOD is buying, and (3) where that money is being spent.” See Defense Acquisitions: How and Where DOD Spends Its Contracting Dollars, April 30, 2015.

Relatedly, a provision in the pending FY2016 defense authorization bill would require the Government Accountability Office to “carry out a comprehensive review of the processes and procedures for the integration of intelligence into the Department of Defense acquisition process.” (HR 1735, section 1630).

Other noteworthy new reports from CRS that Congress has withheld from regular public disclosure include the following.

Corporate Tax Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS): An Examination of the Data, April 30, 2015

Tax Expenditures: Overview and Analysis, April 30, 2015

An Introduction to Health Insurance: What Should a Consumer Know?, April 30, 2015

International Investment Agreements (IIAs): Frequently Asked Questions, April 30, 2015

International Air Service Controversies: Frequently Asked Questions, May 4, 2015

Saudi Arabia: Background and U.S. Relations, April 29, 2015

What’s the Difference? — Comparing U.S. and Chinese Trade Data, May 4, 2015

Major U.S. Arms Sales and Grants to Pakistan Since 2001, May 4, 2015

Updated below

After President Obama suggested in a 2013 speech that the CIA drone program could be transferred to the Department of Defense, Senator Dianne Feinstein inserted a classified amendment in a spending bill to discourage the move, Politico recalled in a story last month.

Classified legislative language has been generated by Congress and used to shape intelligence policy each year since the congressional intelligence committees prepared the first stand-alone intelligence authorization act in 1977 (for Fiscal Year 1978).

Though unpublished, those classified provisions have the force of law, the Senate Intelligence Committee declared in the FY 1978 intelligence authorization report (S.Rpt. 95-214, May 16, 1977):

“It is the intent of the committee that the classified report, although not available to the public, will nonetheless have the force of a Senate authorization bill; further that the Intelligence Community shall comply fully with the guidelines and limitations contained therein,” the intelligence authorization report said.

What were those guidelines and limitations that the Intelligence Community was obliged to comply with? That remains a secret almost four decades later, because that first classified committee report has never been made public. Neither has a single one of the subsequent classified annexes to the annual committee authorization bills. Though they may have the legal force of other authorizing legislation, their classified contents remain almost entirely inaccessible to the public.

“The idea of secret laws is repugnant,” a federal appeals court memorably said (Torres v. INS, 7th circuit, 1998). The court’s concern at the time was that “People cannot comply with laws the existence of which is concealed.” But compliance aside, secret laws are also problematic because people cannot challenge them or seek to amend them.

“Secret law” can take a variety of forms. The term is often invoked with respect to unreleased opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel that interpret the law for the executive branch in undisclosed ways. It can also apply to secret presidential directives that define national policies and to some other categories of government information.

The classified annexes to the annual intelligence bills appear to constitute secret law in a strict sense. They legislatively establish programs, allocate resources, impose requirements and prohibitions on executive agencies, and more– all without public notice or accountability.

As U.S. foreign intelligence agency activities have expanded into non-consensual domestic collection practices and unconventional “enhanced” techniques, the secret laws that govern them become more than an abstract concern.

Only sporadically do particular provisions of classified annexes to the intelligence bills ever come to public knowledge, whether through leaks or official disclosures.

The account of Sen. Feinstein’s secret intervention to maintain the CIA drone program was first reported by Greg Miller in the Washington Post (“Lawmakers seek to stymie plan to shift control of drone campaign from CIA to Pentagon,” January 15, 2014).

On other occasions, the Senate Intelligence Committee has voluntarily disclosed some of its own classified actions, if only in broad outline. Thus, the Committee revealed in a retrospective report this year:

*    “In the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 and associated classified annex, the Committee recommended additional resources to help assure the IC meets [its] counterintelligence and security goals as soon as possible.”

*    “The classified annex of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 required the DNI to provide an implementation plan for the Human Capital Vision.”

*    “The classified annex of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 directed the development of a specific GAO review to bolster intelligence oversight and reduce unnecessary fragmentation, overlap, and duplication.”

*    “The classified annex of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 required the DNI create a governance and oversight model to provide the DNI and the Congress with the insight required to ensure IC ITE [the IC Information Technology Enterprise] meets milestones for performance, cost, and schedule. The classified annex of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 required the CIA, DIA, NRO, NGA, and NSA to provide specific plans for adoption of IC ITE-compliant capabilities.”

Secret intelligence legislation is a subset of an even larger problem of secret congressional records that, once classified, remain that way indefinitely.

“The declassification procedures for classified records created by committees of Congress, particularly classified reports and closed hearing transcripts, are irregular and limited,” said the Public Interest Declassification Board in a 2007 report on Improving Declassification.

“The classified records created by the Congress often provide unique and significant insights into national security policy, decision making, and the budget and oversight process at a given point in time,” the PIDB report said. “Yet, because the records of the committees are classified and never subjected to declassification review, the public and historians are largely unaware of their existence.”

The PIDB recommended that “formal procedures should be established for the declassification review of classified committee reports and hearing transcripts.” But with few exceptions, that recommendation has not been acted upon, and the number of declassified congressional reports remains disappointingly small.

One example of a declassified committee report is the release last year of a redacted summary of the SSCI report on CIA detention and interrogation. Another is the redacted 2002 final report of the congressional joint inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Over the years, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has published declassified transcripts of the Committee’s executive sessions (closed hearings) in a series of twenty volumes covering 1947 through 1968.  But after the latest volumes were published in 2007 and 2010 (covering hearings in 1967 and 1968), no further releases have been forthcoming from the Committee.

Update: For a response from ODNI, see Annexes to Intelligence Bills are not “Secret Law.”

A new report from the Congressional Research Service looks at the use of mandatory minimum sentencing to punish certain types of crimes, and reviews current legislation to modify that controversial practice.

“A surprising number of federal crimes carry mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment,” CRS said. “That is, they are punishable by imprisonment for a term of not less than some number of years. During the 114th Congress, Members have introduced a number of related proposals. Some would expand the scope of existing mandatory minimum sentencing provisions; others would contract their reach.”  See Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Legislation in the 114th Congress, April 29, 2015.

Other noteworthy new CRS products that Congress has withheld from public distribution include the following.

European Fighters in Syria and Iraq: Assessments, Responses, and Issues for the United States, April 27, 2015

New U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines Deepen Alliance Cooperation, CRS Insights, April 28, 2015

Questions of the Privileges of the House: An Analysis, April 28, 2015

Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal, April 24, 2015

The United Kingdom Election, CRS Insights, April 29, 2015

What are the Department of Defense (DOD) Policies on Transgender Service?, CRS Insights, April 28, 2015

The first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton (D-GA), who was appointed in 1922 to replace a Senator who had died in office. At age 87, Senator Felton was the oldest person ever to begin a Senate career. She served for only one day. See Women in Congress: Historical Overview, Tables, and Discussion, April 29, 2015.

The CIA Information Act of 1984 authorizes the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to designate certain Agency records as “operational files.” Doing so makes them exempt not only from disclosure, but even from search and review under the Freedom of Information Act.

The 1984 Act also requires the Agency to perform a “decennial review” at least every ten years in order to determine whether any of the designated operational files exemptions can be rescinded, so that the affected files would become subject to a regular FOIA search and review.

The third such decennial review is now underway.

The CIA is soliciting public comments to help identify categories of Agency records that are of particular historical or public interest value and that have been exempted from normal processing under the FOIA as operational files. Comments are due on May 1, the CIA said in an April 20 Federal Register notice.

The first decennial review of the operational files exemption, completed in 1995, led to the opening of four file categories to FOIA search and review.  The second decennial review, completed in 2005, yielded no newly opened file series but did lead to the designation and exemption of 23 new operational file categories. This was an outcome not contemplated in the statute (50 USC 3141(g)), which says nothing about using the decennial review to create new exempted categories. (Secrecy News, April 19, 2006).

In comments submitted to the CIA today, the Federation of American Scientists offered several suggestions for consideration in the current decennial review, including these:

*    The operational files exemption should not be applied to any records that are 25 years old or older.

*    Clandestine service history records and records of imagery analysis should be removed from the operational files category.

*    Files pertaining to civilian casualties of CIA operations (including covert actions) should not be exempted from regular FOIA processing, nor should records of CIA interrogation and detention practices be considered exempted operational records.