The threat of German submarines laying explosive mines off the east coast of the United States was a source of alarm during World War I, but the residual hazards had diminished within a few years of the war’s end, according to a comprehensive survey (large pdf) published by the U.S. Navy in 1920.

“The reports of the sightings of submarines have been without number,” the Navy said, “and great care has been exercised to try to corroborate or validate the reports, and all have been rejected which do not answer such conditions as to accuracy.”

“The information received as to the number of mines in each area and the reports of their destruction leave little or no doubt that the Atlantic coast is free from any danger as to mines,” according to the 1920 Navy report, which was digitized by the Combined Arms Research Library at Fort Leavenworth.  See “German Submarine Activities on the Atlantic Coast of the United States and Canada,” Department of the Navy, 1920.

“The problem we face,” said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last week, “is that the current system, which has not been significantly altered since the end of the Cold War, originated and evolved in a very different era with a very different array of concerns in mind.”  He was talking about the U.S. export control process, but with minor differences he might just as well have been speaking about the national security classification system, since an increasingly obsolete model of security underlies both policy regimes.

“America’s decades-old, bureaucratically labyrinthine system does not serve our 21st century security needs or our economic interests,” Secretary Gates said April 20 at an event hosted by Business Executives for National Security.  “Our security interests would be far better served by a more agile, transparent, predictable and efficient regime.  Tinkering around the edges of the current system will not do.”

The White House expressed a similar view in an April 20 fact sheet. The current U.S. export control system, it said, “is overly complicated, contains too many redundancies, and tries to protect too much.”  The scope of export controls is so broad that it “dilutes our ability to adequately control and protect those key items and technologies that must be protected for our national security.  The goal of the reform effort is ‘to build high walls around a smaller yard’ by focusing our enforcement efforts on our ‘crown jewels’,” the White House said.

In fact, the export control system is so messed up, senior defense officials told reporters at an April 19 press briefing, that “the system itself poses a threat to national security.”

The Administration’s proposed solution for export control policy is based on principles of simplification, consolidation and a focus on the highest value items to be controlled.  This translates into a single export control list, a single licensing agency, a single enforcement agency, and a single information technology system for the entire export control program.

A similar approach could be applied to classification policy, perhaps in the following way.

A single classification system:  Currently there are two parallel classification systems, one for general national security information, based on executive order, and one for nuclear weapons-related information, based on the Atomic Energy Act.  In many areas of defense and foreign policy, the two systems overlap, generating unnecessary complexity and confusion.  The dual classification systems also significantly complicate the declassification process.  Moving to a single classification system would simplify the classification process, facilitate training of personnel, and increase declassification productivity.  A useful interim step would be to transfer the nuclear weapons classification category known as “Formerly Restricted Data” (FRD) into the general national security classification system so that FRD records — on topics such as stockpile size and weapon storage locations abroad — could be handled and declassified just like other records containing national security information.

A consolidated set of classification guides:  Currently there are nearly three thousand classification guides in government that prescribe what information is to be classified and at what level.  Instead there could be maybe three– one for defense operations and technology, one for intelligence, and one for foreign policy (and perhaps one more for nuclear weapons information if the two classification systems are combined).  This kind of consolidation would help promote standardization across agencies, including ease of correction and change of classification policies.  It would also facilitate oversight and enforcement of proper classification practices.

An enhanced oversight mechanism:  If there is going to be increased uniformity and consistency in classification across the government, then a strong oversight mechanism will be needed to adjudicate and resolve the inevitable conflicts that will arise among individual agencies, and the deviations between policy and practice.  The existing Information Security Oversight Office could help fulfill this role if the President grants it the power and the responsibility to overrule erroneous or unwise classification decisions.

A drastic reduction in scope of classification:  Just as the export control system “tries to protect too much,” the same is true in spades of the classification system.  (Random example: The total dollar cost of the CIA’s CORONA satellite program, which ended in 1972, is still considered classified information.)  “Frederick the Great’s famous maxim that he who defends everything defends nothing certainly applies to export control,” Secretary Gates said last week.  The corresponding view in classification policy is Justice Potter Stewart’s familiar statement that “when everything is classified, then nothing is classified….”  The forthcoming Fundamental Classification Guidance Review that was required by executive order 13526 should help to reverse the growth of the classification system over the next two years.  But other targeted measures may also be needed to achieve the optimum classification state of “high walls around narrow areas.”

“The proposition that a more focused and streamlined system actually helps our national security can go against conventional wisdom,” Secretary Gates said.  Nevertheless, “I believe it is the right approach, and it is urgently needed, given the harmful effects of continuing with the existing set of outdated processes, institutions and assumptions.”

The Obama Administration is just beginning to consider the possible outlines of a future classification system that is “fundamentally transformed.”

“I … look forward to reviewing recommendations from the study that the National Security Advisor will undertake in cooperation with the Public Interest Declassification Board to design a more fundamental transformation of the security classification system,” President Obama wrote when the latest executive order on classification policy was issued on December 29.

China’s interest in the use of airships — balloons, blimps and various other lighter-than-air aircraft — was discussed in a new report (pdf) from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC).

Airships have been used in China for disaster relief, since they were able to reach distant areas when ordinary transportation was impaired, and for construction in mountainous or unstable areas, the report said.  High altitude airships may also be considered for wide area surveillance, early warning detection, or other military applications.

See “Current and Potential Applications of Chinese Aerostats (Airships),” NASIC OSINT Topic Report, March 23, 2010 (For Official Use Only).

The U.S. has deployed airships along the border with Mexico to aid in drug interdiction, and in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  See “Potential Military Use of Airships and Aerostats” (pdf) by the late Christopher Bolkcom, Congressional Research Service, September 1, 2006.

The U.S. State Department is inviting members of the public to present their concerns about human rights in the United States as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, in which the human rights records of all UN Member States are to be reviewed.

“In the pursuit of a transparent and effective UPR process, the Department of State is encouraging the American public, including non-governmental organizations and civil society more broadly, to provide input regarding human rights in the United States directly to the Department of State.”

“Your feedback is vital for us to better gauge the U.S. human rights situation now, and how protection of human rights can be improved in our country and around the world,” the State Department website said. “We look forward to receiving your comments.”

The Federation of American Scientists asked the State Department to turn its attention to those cases where a resolution of alleged human rights violations has been barred by the government’s use of the state secrets privilege.

“There are innocent individuals who have been swept up in U.S. Government counterterrorism operations, wrongly detained, ‘rendered’ surreptitiously to foreign countries, subjected to extreme physical and mental stress, or otherwise wronged,” we wrote.  “In some cases, like those of persons such as Maher Arar and Khaled el-Masri, efforts to seek legal remedies have been blocked by the Government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege. As a result, the alleged abuses committed in such cases remain unresolved, and there is no way for the affected individuals to be made whole.”

“If the judicial process in such cases is foreclosed by the state secrets privilege, then an alternate procedure should be created to rectify the wrongs that may have been committed,” we suggested.

New technologies could be used to improve internet security but the impact of those technologies on personal privacy is classified information, the director of the National Security Agency told Congress last week.

“How could the Internet be designed differently to provide much greater inherent security?” the Senate Armed Services Committee asked Lt. General Keith Alexander, who has been nominated to lead the new U.S. Cyber Command.

“The design of the Internet is – and will continue to evolve – based on technological advancements. These new technologies will enhance mobility and, if properly implemented, security,” replied Gen. Alexander in his written answers (pdf) in advance of an April 15 Committee hearing.

“What would the impact be on privacy, both pro and con?” the Committee continued.

The answer to that question was “provided in the classified supplement” to the General’s response, and was not made public (see question 27).

“It is astounding that Lt. Gen. Alexander’s remarks on the impact on privacy of future modifications to the Internet under his command should be withheld from the public,” wrote Jared Kaprove and John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), especially given the President’s declared commitment to upholding privacy protection in the nation’s cybersecurity policy.

Consequently, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking disclosure of the classified supplement to General Alexander’s answers.  “There is a clear public interest in making known the Director’s views on this critical topic,” EPIC wrote in its request (pdf).

The Senate Intelligence Committee has posted a collection of its biennial public reports on the Committee’s activities, from the first report in 1976 to the latest in 2009, providing a retrospective survey of intelligence controversies past and present.

“The committee has unintentionally produced a profoundly biased political document,” complained the late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan in a statement appended to the very first report (pdf) in 1976.  “The committee reports on a world in which very simply, the values which the United States hopefully stands for do not seem to be threatened by any activity save the activities of the U.S. Government…. Nowhere is the Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union (the KGB) even alluded to. There is a pattern of avoidance of the reality of totalitarian threat throughout this document.”

“I believe that my colleague misses the point,” replied Sen. Joseph Biden in the same 1976 report.  “At the heart of what is wrong with the intelligence community and what indeed has caused many of the abuses we have seen is the fact that most officials of the intelligence community do not know what they should and should not be doing…. We will not solve that problem by restating the obvious, that the Soviets operate a very effective intelligence service, unfettered by the restrictions of a vibrant constitution.”

The law does not authorize the Department of Homeland Security to regulate or penalize the publication of sensitive transportation security-related information on private websites, the Department advised Congress (pdf) recently.

Last December, the Transportation Security Administration inadvertently posted a manual marked “sensitive security information” that described procedures for screening of airline passengers.  Following its discovery, the manual was removed from government websites, but it had already been mirrored on non-governmental websites that continue to host the document.

What is DHS going to do about that?, several members of Congress wanted to know.  The answer is this: nothing.

“How has the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration addressed the repeated reposting of this security manual to other websites and what legal action, if any, can be taken to compel its removal?” wrote Reps. Peter T. King (R-NY), Charles W. Dent (R-PA) and Gus M. Bilirakis (R-FL) on December 9 (pdf).

“No action has been initiated by the agency to address reposting on other web sites,” DHS replied in a February 7 response that was released this month under the Freedom of Information Act.  Existing “statutes do not provide specific authority to remedy the dissemination of SSI [sensitive security information] by noncovered persons [who are not subject to DHS jurisdiction].”

If Congress wanted to try to compel removal of such material from public websites, DHS said, “specific new statutory authority… would be necessary to provide enhanced legal support to pursue the full range of civil and criminal remedies against unauthorized dissemination of SSI by persons who are not covered persons as defined by 49 C.F.R. §1520.7.”

By authorizing extreme interrogation methods and defining them as legally permissible, the Bush Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel enabled “our country’s descent into torture,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) last year at a contentious hearing of a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that he chaired.  The hearing presented contrasting views on a range of related issues, including whether or not the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation” program constituted torture under international law.  The 695 page record of the hearing was published late last month, with voluminous attachments and submissions for the record. See “What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration,” May 13, 2009.

Other noteworthy new congressional hearing volumes include the following (both pdf).

“The Proposed U.S.-UAE Agreement on Civilian Nuclear Cooperation,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 7, 2009 (published March 2010).

“The Impact of U.S. Export Controls on National Security, Science and Technological Leadership,” House Foreign Affairs Committee, January 15, 2010 (published March 2010).

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it does not practice data mining in the narrow sense of searching databases to find anomalous patterns that could be indicative of terrorist activity.  So the latest ODNI annual report to Congress (pdf) on data mining programs (the third such report) has little new information to offer.

Instead of data mining, narrowly defined, the ODNI and other intelligence agencies use “link analysis,” which involves searches that begin with a known or suspected terrorist or intelligence target and work backwards and forwards from there.  But such “link analysis” is outside the strict definition of “data mining,” ODNI says, and so it is not discussed further in the new annual report.

The national security classification system hit some new highs as well as some new lows over the last year, the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) disclosed in its latest annual report to the President (pdf).

The total number of reported national security classification actions skyrocketed to a record 54.8 million classifications last year, a startling 135 percent increase over the year before, the ISOO report said.  But this rise was largely due to a change in reporting practices to include email and other electronic products that were excluded from previous reports, ISOO said, and so it “does not reflect an increase in classification activity.”

In fact, wrote ISOO Director William J. Bosanko in his transmittal letter to the President, “There were several positive developments this year” in terms of limiting classification activity.

The actual number of wholly new secrets, or “original classification actions,” decreased by 10 percent to 183,224 classification decisions.  (The large majority of classification actions are known as “derivative classifications,” which means that they incorporate or reproduce in a new document information that has previously been classified.)

The number of “original classification authorities” — the individuals who are authorized to designate information as classified in the first place — also decreased by 37% to 2,557, which is the lowest number of authorized classifiers ever reported, since ISOO began keeping statistics 30 years ago.

And agencies assigned a maximum duration for classification of ten years or less to 67 percent of newly classified records, the highest fraction ever.

Disappointingly from a public access point of view, however, the number of pages that were declassified declined by 8 percent in 2009, to 28.8 million pages, although the number of pages that were reviewed (52 million pages) actually increased slightly.

See the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) Report to the President for Fiscal Year 2009, transmitted March 31, 2010 and made public today.

The ISOO annual report is a touchstone for assessing the state of national security secrecy each year since it provides a unique public compilation of agency data on classification activity. Unfortunately, the underlying data are of questionable validity, and they may be completely unreliable.

So, for example, the latest report states that the CIA was responsible for no more than four original classification actions last year, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence generated only two.  That seems doubtful, to say the least.  At the other extreme, the Army reported over 75,000 original classifications in 2009.  Based on this disparity in the numbers, it seems unlikely that agencies are using the standard terminology in the same way.  Or as the ISOO report put it, “We question whether many of these are truly original decisions.”

In short, there is still plenty of room for improvement in collection methodology and quality control in assessing classification activity.

Also, there are at least two categories of data that are not currently available which could be usefully reported in the future.

ISOO reports the number of classification challenges that are filed by authorized persons who dispute the classification of particular items of information (of which there were 365 in FY2009).  But it does not indicate the outcome of those challenges, i.e. whether they led to a change in classification status or not.  This information would be helpful in determining whether the official classification challenge procedure is a meaningful one, or a pointless exercise.

Another significant category of information that could be reported by ISOO in the future is the number of categories of classified information that are removed from existing classification guides and declassified as a consequence of the upcoming Fundamental Classification Guidance Review.  This Review, which is supposed to take place over the next two years, is the Obama Administration’s most important and most systematic effort to combat the problem of overclassification.  Although agencies are supposed to generate their own public reports of the Review results, a consolidated account and evaluation by ISOO would provide an early indication of whether the President’s plan to fight overclassification is working or not.

Thomas A. Drake, a former National Security Agency official, was indicted yesterday after allegedly having disclosed classified information to a reporter for a national newspaper “who wrote newspaper articles about the NSA and its intelligence activities in 2006 and 2007.”  The reporter and the newspaper were not named.

Mr. Drake allegedly provided classified documents to the reporter and assisted him or her with researching stories about the NSA that were published between February 27, 2006 and November 28, 2007.  “Defendant DRAKE served as a source for many of these newspaper articles, including articles that contained SIGINT information,” the April 14 indictment (pdf) stated.

“Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here — violating the government’s trust by illegally retaining and disclosing classified information — be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer in a Justice Department news release.

Interestingly, Mr. Drake was not specifically charged with unauthorized disclosure of classified information, nor was he charged at all under the “SIGINT” statute, 18 USC 798.  Instead, according to the indictment, he was charged under 18 USC 793 with unlawful retention of classified information, as well as with obstruction of justice and making false statements.

“The historic, sustained rise in [the U.S. prison population] has broad implications, not just for the criminal justice system, but for the larger economy. About 770,000 people worked in the corrections sector in 2008 [and this number is expected to grow]…. By comparison, in 2008 there were 880,000 workers in the entire U.S. auto manufacturing sector.”  See “Economic Impacts of Prison Growth” (pdf), April 13, 2010.

Other noteworthy new CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News that Congress has not made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“The Role of the Senate in Judicial Impeachment Proceedings: Procedure, Practice, and Data,” April 9, 2010.

“Military Personnel and Freedom of Religious Expression: Selected Legal Issues,” April 8, 2010.

“Multilateral Development Banks: Overview and Issues for Congress,” April 9, 2010.

“Foreign Aid Reform, National Strategy, and the Quadrennial Review,” April 12, 2010.

“Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President, Judiciary Committee, and Senate,” February 19, 2010.