The Obama Administration has instructed government agencies that classify national security information to review and update all of their classification guides — which specify what information is classified and at what level — and to gather input on classification policy from “the broadest possible range of perspectives,” according to a new official directive.

“To the extent practicable, input should also be obtained from external subject matter experts and external users of the reviewing agency’s classification guidance and decisions,” wrote Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) director William J. Bosanko in the new directive (pdf).

The ISOO directive, to be published in the Federal Register on Monday June 28, informs government agencies how they are supposed to implement President Obama’s December 2009 Executive Order 13526 on classification and declassification policy, which formally takes effect on June 27.

Among that executive order’s several interesting features is what is called the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review, which requires a complete reexamination of all agency classification practices to validate their contents and to cancel obsolete secrecy requirements.  This Review is the Obama Administration’s primary response to the pervasive problem of overclassification.

The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review is “the most important effort to address this problem [of overclassification],” said William H. Leary of the National Security Council last January.

“[It] is a totally new requirement that agencies conduct fundamental reviews of their classification guides and other guidance to ensure that they eliminate outdated and unnecessary classification requirements.  The first of these fundamental reviews has to be completed within two years, and agencies are required to make public the results so that people… can hold us responsible for the results,” said Mr. Leary, who spoke at a January 20 program at American University’s Collaboration on Government Secrecy. “These reviews can be extremely important in changing the habits and the practices of classifiers throughout government,” he said.

Opening the classification reviews to “the broadest possible range of perspectives,” as required by the new ISOO directive, has the potential to minimize the frivolous, self-serving or unnecessary use of classification authority.  At least, that’s the theory.

“We cannot simply throw open the doors today and make all information public, but we should rigorously push-back on current notions of what needs to be secret,” wrote Suzanne E. Spaulding in the Huffington Post yesterday.  See “No More Secrets: Then What?”

The financial costs of national security classification-related activities continued to rise in 2009, reaching a record high of $9.93 billion for the combined costs of protecting classified information in government and industry, the Information Security Oversight Office reported today (pdf).

Classification-related costs include not simply the act of classification, but also everything that follows from it:  physical security for classified materials, computer security for classified information systems, personnel security, and so forth. “The agencies also reported a modest, but welcome increase in spending on declassification programs,” wrote ISOO Director William J. Bosanko in his transmittal letter to the President.

The newly reported cost data do not include classification-related costs for CIA or the large Pentagon intelligence agencies — since those costs are themselves considered to be classified.  This means that the costs incurred by the most classification-intensive agencies are outside the scope of the published report, which significantly limits its value.  See “Report on Cost Estimates for Security Classification Activities for Fiscal Year 2009,” Information Security Oversight Office, June 25, 2010.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to strengthen congressional oversight of intelligence agencies would be to task cleared staffers from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is the investigative arm of Congress, to undertake specific audits or investigations of intelligence programs.  Perhaps the clearest indication of the power of this approach is the fact that the intelligence agencies hate the idea and the White House has threatened a veto if it is adopted by congress.

Senate intelligence committee leaders have already yielded to executive branch opposition on this point, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insisting that the GAO has a role to play in intelligence oversight, and she says she is trying to ensure that Congress does not willingly surrender one of its most sophisticated oversight tools.  See “Pelosi Faces Off with Obama on CIA Oversight” by Massimo Calabresi, Time, June 25 and “Acting Spy Chief Plans Departure” by Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal, June 25.

An unreleased opinion from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel reportedly holds that intelligence programs are outside the purview of the Government Accountability Office and that intelligence agencies should therefore not cooperate with the GAO.

Although the GAO previously reviewed FBI counterterrorism programs prior to the 2004 intelligence reform legislation, “GAO has been essentially blocked from conducting its current work,” complained Sen. Charles Grassley (R-ID).  “The DoJ Office of Legal Counsel is arguing that GAO does not have the authority to evaluate the majority of FBI counterterrorism positions, as these positions are scored through the National Intelligence Program (NIP) Budget.”

The FBI confirmed that the GAO’s access to some previously auditable programs has been denied.  “With the post-2004 inclusion of FBI counterterrorism positions in the Intelligence Community, aspects of the review GAO proposed in 2009 would have constituted intelligence oversight,” the FBI told Sen. Grassley (at pdf pp. 67-68).  “It is the longstanding position of the Intelligence Community to decline to participate in GAO reviews that evaluate intelligence activities, programs, capabilities, and operational functions.”

I recently discussed the question of GAO oversight of intelligence with colleagues from the Project on Government Oversight, which published the conversation as a podcast here.

The term “overclassification” is used in two distinct senses:  The classification of information that should not be classified at all, and the classification of information at a higher level than is justified.  Both are problematic, though in different ways.  The second form of overclassification, which unnecessarily limits the sharing of information by cleared persons, is addressed in a new Senate Committee report on “The Reducing Over-Classification Act.”

The latest volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series documents U.S. policy toward Vietnam during January to October 1972, including events surrounding the so-called Easter Offensive of the war in Vietnam.  The 1100-page FRUS volume includes a large collection of transcripts of tapes from the Nixon White House.

The National Security Agency and the UK’s GCHQ have both published declassified documents regarding the 1946 UKUSA Agreement on cooperation between the United States and Great Britain in signals intelligence.

On May 26, two days before his final day as Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair signed a new Intelligence Community Directive, ICD-705 (pdf), on “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities” or SCIFs.  It mostly says that all SCIFs must comply with technical security standards that are to be issued in the near future.

The Congressional Research Service has an opening for an analyst with expertise in one or more of the following areas:  presidential powers, emergency powers, information policy, privacy, and/or transparency, among others.

China recently opened to the public a massive underground former nuclear weapons facility known as Project 816 in Chongqing, and video footage of the site was featured in a recent report (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center.

The Chongqing facility, which began construction in 1967 (some say 1966), was originally intended to house plutonium production reactors.  But construction ceased in 1984, and the site was apparently never operational.  Its existence was declassified by the Chinese government in 2003 (some say 2002), and it was opened to public tours in April of this year.

Two Chinese television news reports on the facility were translated by the Open Source Center.

“Project 816 is a gigantic system hidden in an inconspicuous mountain,” the TV narrator said in the OSC translation.  “According to experts, Project 816 is the world’s biggest artificial cave.”  It consists of a massive chamber “with multiple stories and caves within the caves, making it like a maze.”  There are “over 130 roads, tunnels, and passages, totaling 21 kilometers in length.”

“Nuclear bombs are a great mystery to many,” said Hu Lindan, an official at the site, in one of the news clips.  “The place to make nuclear bombs must be an even bigger mystery.  Plus, ours is an underground one.  It is so immense that we call it the Underground Great Wall.”

A copy of the OSC report with links to the translated video clips was obtained by Secrecy News and posted on the Federation of American Scientists website.  See “Subtitled Clips of China’s Declassified Underground Nuclear Facility in Chongqing,” Open Source Center, April 22-23, 2010.  The facility was also described in “Project 816 – Unfinished plutonium production complex in China” by Hui Zhang in the International Panel on Fissile Materials blog, June 5.

“Visitors can now pay 40 yuan for a tour of this once top-secret facility,” China Daily reported yesterday. “However, staff at the entrance warned that, due to ‘confidential matters’, both foreigners and the use of cameras are prohibited.”

“It is so sad,” said one former worker. “The base was supposed to be the largest nuclear facility in China, not a tourist attraction.”  See “Nuclear Reaction to Tourist Attraction” by Peng Yining, China Daily, June 22, 2010.

“Underground facilities are being used to conceal and protect critical activities that pose a threat to the United States,” according to a 1999 report from the JASON defense advisory panel. “The proliferation of such facilities is a legacy from the [first] Gulf War: a lesson from this war was that almost any above-ground facility is vulnerable to attack and destruction by precision guided weapons.  To counter this vulnerability, many countries have moved their assets underground.”

“Hundreds of underground installations have been constructed worldwide,” the JASONs observed at that time, “and many more are under construction.”  See “Characterization of Underground Facilities” (pdf), April 1999.

One thing that is even more impressive than China’s nuclear history is its emerging green energy future.  “China has set ambitious targets for developing its… renewable energy resources with a major push of laws, policies and incentives in the last few years,” according to a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

“The wind power sector is illustrative of China’s accomplishments, as installed wind power capacity has gone from 0.567 GW in 2003 to 12.2 GW in 2008.  Plans already exist to grow China’s wind power capacity to 100 GW by 2020. A similar goal exists for the solar photovoltaic power sector which China intends to increase from 140 MW as of 2009 to over 1.8 GW by 2020.”

“Renewable energy is subsidized by a fee charged to all electricity users in China of about 0.029 cents per kilowatt-hour,” the CRS report noted.

A copy of the report was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “China and the United States — A Comparison of Green Energy Programs and Policies,” June 14, 2010.

Other new CRS products that have not been made publicly available online include the following (both pdf).

“Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Acquisition: Issues for Congress,” June 15, 2010.

“Securing America’s Borders: The Role of the Military,” June 16, 2010.

The role of scientific research in weapon development was explored through four case studies written in 1984 by arms control scholar Milton Leitenberg. The case studies examine the development of anti-satellite weapons;  weather modification;  Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs); and biological weapons research.

Military research does not cause arms races, Leitenberg argued, nor is it autonomous or self-sustaining.  Rather, military R&D is driven by a deliberate political process.  Weapons systems are “produced by an enormous enterprise consciously established by political decision to produce them.”

“Military R&D is guided and directed: questions are put;  particular materials, effects, and performance capabilities are sought;  and research funding is allocated accordingly.”

It follows that a reallocation of research funding is also a political possibility.  “Particularly in the area of weapons development and procurement decisions, there seems to be extremely little, if any, ‘technological imperative’ [that would somehow compel certain technology choices],” Leitenberg wrote.

The studies were originally prepared in support of a United Nations report.  That UN report was never released, the author explains, due to objections from a Soviet official who wanted references to the USSR excised.  But the supporting studies have now been published on the Federation of American Scientists website.  See “Studies on Military R&D and Weapons Development” by Milton Leitenberg, 1984.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified 14 suspected “leakers” of classified U.S. intelligence information during the past five years, according to newly disclosed statistics (pdf).

Between 2005 and 2009, U.S. intelligence agencies submitted 183 “referrals” to the Department of Justice reporting unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence.  Based on those referrals or on its own initiative, the FBI opened 26 leak investigations, and the investigations led to the identification of 14 suspects.

“While DOJ and the FBI receive numerous media leak referrals each year, the FBI opens only a limited number of investigations based on these referrals,” the FBI explained in a written response to a question from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

“In most cases, the information included in the referral is not adequate to initiate an investigation. The most typical information gap is a failure to identify all those with authorized access to the information, which is the necessary starting point for any leak investigation. When this information is sufficient to open an investigation, the FBI has been able to identify suspects in approximately 50% of these cases over the past 5 years.  Even when a suspect is identified, though, prosecution is extremely rare (none of the 14 suspects identified in the past 5 years has been prosecuted),” the FBI said.

The FBI report to Congress predated the indictment of suspected NSA leaker Thomas A. Drake, who was presumably one of the 14 suspects that the FBI identified.  The case of Shamai Leibowitz, the FBI contract linguist who pled guilty to unauthorized disclosures in December 2009, is not reflected in the new report and may be outside the scope of intelligence agency leaks that were the subject of the congressional inquiry.

The FBI recommended that agencies continue to report unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the Department of Justice for possible criminal investigation, but it said they should also consider imposing their own administrative penalties.  “Because indictments in media leak cases are so difficult to obtain, administrative action may be more suitable and may provide a better deterrent to leaks of classified information,” the FBI said.

The previously unreported statistical information on unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence information was transmitted to Congress on April 8, 2010 and was published this month in the record of a September 16, 2009 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing (pdf).

“As a matter of national security and employment discipline, it is important that leakers face repercussions for improper disclosure of classified information,” Sen. Whitehouse said.  This formulation notably implies that a leaker should be subject to punishment even if no damage to national security results from the unauthorized disclosure, so as to bolster an agency’s authority over its employees.

The Obama Administration has adopted an increasingly hard line toward leaks of classified information with multiple prosecutions pending or underway, as noted recently in Politico (May 25) and the New York Times (June 11).  A recent memorandum from the Director of National Intelligence will “streamline” the processing of leak investigations, Newsweek reported June 11.

As a matter of law and policy, the Congressional Research Service does not make its products directly available to the public.  The following CRS reports were obtained by Secrecy News (all pdf).

“Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan: Presidential Authority and the Separation of Powers,” June 4, 2010.

“Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan: Defamation and the First Amendment,” June 10, 2010.

“The Jurisprudence of Justice John Paul Stevens: Selected Opinions on the Jury’s Role in Criminal Sentencing,” June 7, 2010 (see related materials here).

“Israel’s Blockade of Gaza and the Mavi Marmara Incident,” June 5, 2010.

The ongoing failure to establish a robust, reliable and productive declassification program is steadily eroding the study of intelligence history and may lead to the collapse of the entire field, one intelligence historian told the National Security Agency last month.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we’re at a crisis point in the study of intelligence history in general, and signals intelligence history in particular;  because there is a very real question of whether any serious historians outside of the intelligence community are going to continue trying to research and understand and write about this subject at all,” said author Stephen Budiansky in an invited lecture at the National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade on May 24.

“The critical mass of scholars willing to invest the considerable energy required to master the technicalities of a complex and often difficult-to-understand subject is dwindling in the face of the impossibility of making a career in a field where the primary sources — notably nearly all documents relating to the post-World War II period — are locked away and no longer forthcoming.”

“As my fellow intelligence historian David Alvarez recently remarked to me, Dave Kahn [author of the pioneering book ‘The Codebreakers’] may have the unique distinction of having created an entire new field of study, watched it blossom, and lived to see its demise,” Mr. Budiansky said.

“Alvarez said with only slight exaggeration that almost no one is working in the field of intelligence history any more. ‘Even the crazies seem to have lost energy,’ he said.  He was recently on a panel to award a prominent prize for the best paper in any aspect of cryptologic history.  Well past the deadline, they had received no entries at all.”

The main thrust of Mr. Budiansky’s lecture, entitled “What’s the Use of Cryptologic History?” (and not yet published), was not a plea for favoritism toward intelligence historians, but rather an argument for the importance of intelligence history — to the general understanding of history, and to the practice of intelligence itself.

As it happens, a new effort to expedite the declassification of historical records is now underway at the new National Declassification Center.  The Center has been tasked by President Obama with eliminating the backlog of more than 400 million pages of classified records that are more than 25 years old by the end of 2013.

Millions of newly declassified pages should be publicly available by the end of this month and each month thereafter, said Assistant Archivist Michael Kurtz on a conference call on June 4.

This is a well-intentioned effort that will almost certainly yield a significant increase in public access to declassified records.  But it also seems biased towards secrecy in two unfortunate ways.

First, the review of the backlog will be conducted on a Pass/Fail basis, Mr. Kurtz said.  That means that if a document contains any classified information at all, even a single word or number, the entire document will be withheld from release.  This approach may be necessary in order to gain some traction on the enormous backlog and to avoid getting bogged down in details.  But the regrettable consequence is that none of the unclassified contents of many partly classified documents will be disclosed through this process.  (The documents may be redacted for release at a later time through a Freedom of Information Act request or through a subsequent declassification review.)

Second, the documents that do pass the review and are declassified will be subjected to two quality control audits to ensure that no classified information has inadvertently passed through.  One audit will be performed by the Archives and a second audit will be done by the Department of Energy.  On the other hand, however, there will be no audit of withheld records to ensure that no unclassified record has been unnecessarily kept secret.  In effect, the process is tilted towards minimizing disclosures of classified information rather than maximizing disclosures of unclassified information.

The National Archives has prepared a draft prioritization plan to guide its declassification activities, and has invited public input on the plan.  A public forum on the subject will be held on June 23.

The House of Representatives yesterday passed the “Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act” which is intended to bolster that national electric grid against terrorist attacks, cyber threats, electromagnetic pulse weapons and solar storms. The Act authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue emergency orders to protect critical electric infrastructure, and to take other measures to address current and potential vulnerabilities.

“The electric grid’s vulnerability to cyber and to other attacks is one of the single greatest threats to our national security,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), who introduced the bill.

The floor debate on the bill was a somewhat jarring mix of prudent anticipation and extravagant doomsday warnings.

“Some of us read the book ‘The Road’ [a post-apocalyptic tale by Cormac McCarthy],” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).  “Lots of different scenarios are out there.  We need to be prepared.  This bill moves us down that road.”

“Scientists tell us that the likelihood of a severe naturally occurring geomagnetic event capable of crippling our electric grid is 100 percent,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).  “It will happen; it is just a question of when.”

“If you believe intelligence sources, our grid is already compromised,” advised Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY).

The Journal of National Security Law & Policy has just published a special issue dedicated to cybersecurity, with fifteen papers on various aspects of the issue.  From various perspectives, they address what is known about the nature of the threat, current vulnerabilities, the role of the federal government, and policy options that are under consideration.

Update: See, relatedly, this July 2009 congressional hearing volume on Securing the Modern Electric Grid from Physical and Cyber Attacks (pdf).

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released the unclassified portions of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for Fiscal Year 2008 (pdf), in response to a three year old Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists.

Most of the substance of the document and all of the budget figures have been withheld on asserted national security grounds.  But a few tidbits of interest remain.  For example:

• In 2008, ODNI planned to “deploy a working Library of National Intelligence” and to “ensure that all IC products are represented in the Library.”  It also planned to “use the Outside Experts Panel… to analyze and recommend opportunities to support democracy movements” and to “fund and support a research repository of materials related to democratic development managed by the Open Source Center.”  (See p. 107).
• The office of Oversight and Liaison within the DNI Special Security Center is “the ODNI focal point for the IC for reporting and coordination of unauthorized disclosures of intelligence information.”  (See p. 144).
• MIEs, or Multidisciplinary Intelligence Experiments, “serve to identify innovative methods for leveraging cross-agency systems and processes to address difficult, high priority intelligence problems.  The MIE Program is a collaborative effort by the CIA, DIA, NGA, NSA, NRO and FBI to develop, evaluate and analyze new concepts for operating in an integrated and synchronized manner.” (See p. 219).
• SHARP, the Summer Hard Problems Program, “is a four-week seminar sponsored by the ODNI Office of Analytic Technology and Transformation. It is comprised of intelligence community, other governmental, and non-government experts and focuses on a single intelligence analytic challenge.” (See p. 223).

A copy of the redacted ODNI Congressional Budget Justification Book for Fiscal Year 2008 is posted here.