A new U.S. Navy Instruction (pdf) updates Navy policy on the use of marine mammals for national security missions.

It seems that by law (10 USC 7524), the Secretary of Defense is authorized to “take” (or acquire) up to 25 wild marine mammals each year “for national defense purposes.”  These mammals — including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions — are used for military missions such as locating and marking underwater mines, and providing force protection against unauthorized swimmers or vehicles, among other things.

The new Secretary of the Navy Instruction 3900.41F, dated 13 November 2009 and published this week, provides guidance on “Acquisition, Transport, Care and Maintenance of Marine Mammals.”

The U.S. military marine mammal program has labored under a cloud of public suspicion, the Navy admits, and such suspicion has only been aggravated by the secrecy that surrounded the program for many years.

“Several decades of classification of the program’s true missions of mine-hunting and swimmer defense, led to media speculation and animal activist charges of dolphins used as offensive weapons, speculation and charges that could not be countered with facts due to that classification,” according to a Navy fact sheet.

“With declassification of the missions of the program in the early 1990s, the Navy has repeatedly and openly discussed those missions, but rumors are not easily forgotten, and there are those who continue to actively promote them.”

In a remarkable sign of how the ground is shifting in government information policy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has invited the public to suggest categories of NRC information that should be published on its web site, and to recommend other measures the Commission might take to improve transparency, public participation and collaboration.

A December 8, 2009 Open Government Directive (pdf) issued by the Obama Administration ordered federal agencies to “identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets” within 45 days (i.e. by January 22), and to take other steps “toward the goal of creating a more open government.”

In a Federal Register notice published today, the NRC asked for public assistance to meet the requirements of the Open Government Directive.

“To aid the NRC’s efforts to determine what data sets might be appropriate to publish and what transparency, public participation, and collaboration improvements it might include in its Open Government Plan, the NRC is soliciting public comments. Comments regarding publication of data sets are requested as soon as possible in light of the January 22, 2010, target date for publication of data sets,” the NRC notice said.

In fact, anyone can propose high value data sets belonging to any agency for publication online, through a public comment page on the Obama Administration’s data.gov web site.

We have suggested publication of the CIA’s CREST database of declassified historical records, and of a broad selection of Open Source Center products that are not classified or copyrighted.  Matt Schroeder of the FAS Arms Sales Project recommended improved online publication of government data on U.S. arms exports.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of Col. Morris D. Davis, a former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, alleging that he was unlawfully fired from the Congressional Research Service because he made statements as a private individual that were critical of Obama Administration policy on military commissions.  (“CRS Fires A Division Chief,” Secrecy News, December 4, 2009.)

“Col. Davis has a constitutional right to speak about issues of which he has expert knowledge, and the public has a right to hear from him,” said ACLU attorney Aden Fine.

The lawsuit names as defendants James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, as well as CRS Director Daniel P. Mulhollan, who is sued in his personal capacity.

At the root of the matter, ACLU argues, are ambiguous Library regulations and a problematic 2004 CRS policy (pdf) on “outside activities” by CRS employees.

“Neither the Library’s regulations nor CRS’s policy establishes a standard for determining which outside speaking and writing is permissible and which is not. The regulations and policy afford the Library and CRS unfettered discretion to determine which speech to punish,” according to the ACLU lawsuit (pdf).

“We maintain that the removal of Mr. Davis is justified,” wrote Library of Congress General Counsel Elizabeth Pugh on December 14, 2009 (pdf).

The case was assigned to Judge Reggie Walton of the DC District Court. A job vacancy notice for Mr. Davis’s position was posted on USAJobs on January 8, 2010.

“The World Bank Unveiled” tells the story of an attempt by World Bank researcher David Shaman and some of his colleagues to introduce greater transparency into the deliberations of the World Bank.

In 1999, at a time when the Bank was subject to intense controversy and public demonstrations, Shaman co-created the internet-based B-SPAN, which offered unedited videos of internal Bank discussions and debates.  “We began B-SPAN as a way to increase the Bank’s transparency.  We believed by doing so we would increase people’s understanding of what the Bank did, increase opportunities for the Bank to be more accountable to its critics, and thereby mute tensions on all sides.”

The 688-page book details the development of this transparency initiative from the author’s perspective, and describes its early success as well as the opposition that it quickly engendered.

“I decided to write The World Bank Unveiled because I believe it will provide an opportunity for those who want a more open and accountable institution to overcome an internal culture wedded to secrecy and a bureaucracy married to the status quo,” said Mr. Shaman. “If this should occur, the ultimate winners will be those millions who currently live in poverty because they will then have a more effective advocate on their behalf.”

See “The World Bank Unveiled: Inside the Revolutionary Struggle for Transparency” by David Ian Shaman, Parkhurst Brothers Inc. Publishers, 2009.

In a December 29 Order published in the Federal Register yesterday, President Obama designated more than two dozen officials as “original classification authorities” (OCAs) who have the power to classify information as Top Secret or Secret, and (in most cases) to delegate such authority to their subordinates.

The new list of authorized classifiers contains only a few changes from past practice, but the Executive Order on classification policy that was also issued on December 29 imposes several new conditions on original classifiers that should help limit excessive secrecy.

A prior list of classifiers issued in 1995 by President Clinton had granted Top Secret classification authority to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  That authority was rescinded by President Obama.  Also newly rescinded are the classification authorities of the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (Secret), the President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Confidential), and the President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Confidential).  These officials lost their classification authority primarily because they were not using it very much.  “An analysis of OCA activity since 1995 was part of the process [of identifying which OCAs were needed]” said William J. Bosanko, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, who himself was newly granted Top Secret classification authority in the Obama Order.

Other changes in the new list of officials reflect the establishment of new organizations (DHS, ODNI), and the absorption or elimination of others (FEMA, USIA, ACDA).  Since 2003, the Vice President has been named as a classification authority in the body of the executive order on classification, and that remains the case today, so his designation is not included in the list of authorized officials (as it had been in the 1995 Clinton Order).  Bush Administration grants of classification authority to HHS, Agriculture, EPA, and OSTP are preserved in the Obama list.

Beyond that, a web of new requirements in the latest presidential orders seems likely to discourage freewheeling classification activity.  In a December 29 memo on implementation, the President directed all agency heads to review their existing delegations of classification authority, to limit them “to the minimum necessary,” and to report on the results of the review within 120 days.  In order to eliminate phantom or unidentified classifiers, any delegations of classification authority also must now be reported by name or position to the ISOO Director, the new Obama Executive Order states (sect. 1.3c5).

Most significant of all, new language in the Obama Executive Order 13526 directs that “All original classification authorities must receive training in proper classification (including the avoidance of over-classification)… at least once a calendar year.”  And should they fail to receive such training in a given year, they “shall have their classification authority suspended….” (section 1.3d).

Could it really be true that “all” original classifiers will have to receive annual classification training, or have their ability to classify suspended?  Will the President get such training?  The Director of National Intelligence?  The Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), who is the one responsible for developing such training?

The President is a special case, said Mr. Bosanko, the ISOO Director.  But otherwise, “all means all.”

“Leadership at agencies starts at the top,” he said.  He pointed to section 5.4(a) of the new order which provides that agency heads “shall demonstrate personal commitment and commit senior management to the successful implementation of the program….”  “How can that be done,” Mr. Bosanko said, “if the rules do not apply to them?”

And “Yes,” he added, “[the classification training requirement] applies to me.  My staff has already reminded me.  I will be sitting down with them for a briefing at least annually.”

At the end of FY2008, there were a total of 4,109 original classification authorities in the executive branch, according to the most recent annual report (pdf) of the Information Security Oversight Office.

A bill introduced last month by Senators Russ Feingold and Sheldon Whitehouse would require the President to publish a notice in the Federal Register whenever he modifies or revokes a published Executive Order.  The bill, previously introduced in 2008, is intended to help “reverse the growth of secret law in the executive branch.”  It responds to the previous Administration’s claim that the President is not bound by Executive Orders and can depart from their terms at will, and without public or congressional notification.

Noteworthy new Congressional Research Service reports obtained by Secrecy News include the following (all pdf).

“Military Service Records and Unit Histories: A Guide to Locating Sources,” December 16, 2009.

“California Drought: Hydrological and Regulatory Water Supply Issues,” December 7, 2009.

“Government Collection of Private Information: Background and Issues Related to the USA PATRTIOT Act Reauthorization,” December 9, 2009.

“Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Set to Expire February 28, 2010,” December 23, 2009.

“Homeland Security Department: FY2010 Appropriations,” December 14, 2009.

“Private Security Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Legal Issues,” December 22, 2009.

“International Terrorism and Transnational Crime: Security Threats, U.S. Policy, and Considerations for Congress,” January 5, 2010.

“U.S. Public Diplomacy: Background and Current Issues,” December 18, 2009.

“Prospects for Democracy in Hong Kong: The 2012 Election Reforms,” December 10, 2009.

Iran’s state-run television organization known as the IRIB is profiled in a new report (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center.

The rather massive IRIB employs an estimated 46,000 persons, according to the OSC report, and has a reported budget of $900 million.  It offers a vast network of internal and external channels, which collectively seek to “strengthen the country’s cultural solidarity,” to promote “the majesty and supremacy of Islam,” and to support “the fulfillment of the Supreme Leader’s point of view.”

The unclassified OSC report has not been approved for public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “Structure of Iran’s State-Run TV IRIB,” Open Source Center, December 16, 2009.

For the first time, each executive branch agency that classifies information will be required to perform “a comprehensive review” of its internal classification guides to validate them and “to identify classified information that no longer requires protection and can be declassified.”  The new requirement is one of the most potentially significant features of an Executive Order on national security classification policy that was signed by President Obama last week.

There are more than two thousand agency classification guides currently in use and they constitute the detailed operating instructions of the classification system.  If the so-called Fundamental Classification Guidance Review (set forth in section 1.9 of the new Order) is faithfully implemented by the agencies, it should eliminate numerous obsolete classification requirements and effectively rewrite the “software” of government secrecy.

Other outstanding features of the new Executive Order 13526 include the establishment of a National Declassification Center to coordinate and streamline the declassification process (section 3.7);  the adoption of the principle that “No information may remain classified indefinitely” (section 1.5d);  and the elimination of an intelligence community veto of declassification decisions made by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel. This veto authority had been granted by the Bush Administration in 2003.

But the Order contains many dozens of other changes in language that are subtle but important.  So, for example, section 3.1g states that “no information may be excluded from declassification… based solely on the type of document or record in which it is found.”  What this simple formulation does (or is expected to do) is to eliminate the permanent classification of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), the daily intelligence compilation that is delivered to the President each morning.  The CIA has long argued that by virtue of being presented to the President, the information contained in PDBs is inherently and permanently classified.  Now it’s not.

Not all of the changes are in the direction of increased disclosure.  Section 4.3 authorizes the Attorney General, as well as the Secretary of Homeland Security, to establish highly secured Special Access Programs, an authority reserved in the previous Executive Order to the Secretaries of Defense, State, Energy and the then-Director of Central Intelligence.  Sections 1.8c and 3.5g exclude material submitted for prepublication review from classification challenges and mandatory declassification review.

Some of the changes suggest previously unsuspected problems or issues.  Section 4.1c states curiously that “An official or employee leaving agency service may not … direct that information be declassified in order to remove it from agency control.”  There may be a story behind that new provision, but I don’t know what it is.  Section 3.1h states for the first time that classified “artifacts” and other classified materials that are not in the form of records shall be declassified in the same way as classified records.

The detailed changes in the new Executive Order can best be discerned in a “red line” version of the Order which highlights the deletions and additions that have been made in the text.

The promise of transparency can easily backfire and engender cynicism if it turns out to be a mere pretense.  But in the development of the new Executive Order, the Obama Administration successfully avoided that pitfall, and then some.  To a degree previously unsurpassed not only in classification policy but in most other policy areas as well, the Administration both solicited and acted upon suggestions and recommendations from members of the public and public interest groups.

Members of the White House staff, the National Security Council staff, and the Information Security Oversight Office did more than go through the motions of receiving public input.  They sought it out and, in a surprising number of cases, incorporated it in the final Order.  The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review, the elimination of the intelligence community veto on declassification decisions, the establishment of a date certain for eliminating the backlog of 400 million pages of records awaiting declassification, a “drop dead” date to set a period of time after which classification must expire — all of these and several other provisions in the new Order are traceable to recommendations from the public.  (The National Declassification Center was originally proposed by the 1997 Moynihan Commission report.)

Naturally, not all of the public recommendations were accepted.  A proposal that the Declassification Center be given its own authority to declassify historical records without the concurrence of the originating agencies was rejected as “a bridge too far,” said one official.  So was a recommendation to strengthen internal oversight by granting the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office the unilateral authority to declassify erroneously classified records government-wide.  A proposal for a series of pilot projects to help develop further innovations in information security and disclosure was not acted on.  And quite a few other suggestions from the public were set aside.

Nor was the Administration’s interaction with members of the public perfectly frictionless.  A request by public interest groups for access to an interim draft of the Executive Order was specifically rejected by the National Security Advisor in a September 2 letter (pdf).  But after the draft leaked into the public domain later that month, an NSC official said, the resulting public comments “proved to be tremendously useful in defending and refining” the provisions of the Order.

Beyond the unparalleled degree of public participation in its development, the new Executive Order is the only such Order to be issued in the first year of a Presidential Administration.  (The last two Presidents issued their classification Orders in their third year in office).  And it is the first to be completed in a comparatively brief seven months.  It is also the first Order to be accompanied by a personal Memorandum from the President affirming the terms of the Order, and going beyond them to impose several additional requirements.  Not only that, but the President affirmed his instruction to the National Security Advisor to pursue “a more fundamental transformation of the security classification system” that goes well beyond the latest adjustments.

There are still many ways that the implementation of the new Executive Order can be frustrated, defeated or undermined, although public reporting requirements and public vigilance should help to keep it on track.  But it is clear that this Administration is now invested in the process of secrecy reform.  “There’s a real potential for us to be criticized if the reforms we’re advocating don’t pan out,” one White House official told Secrecy News.

There has been almost no criticism of the new Obama Executive Order on national security classification, which itself is kind of troubling.

For a full-throated denunciation, one has to turn to the outer periphery of Newsmax.com, which argues that declassification of historical editions of the President’s Daily Brief “will render impotent one of the intelligence community’s most vital tools.” (“Obama Imperils Intel Briefings,” by Theodore Kettle, Newsmax.com, January 3.)

A more cogent complaint, put forward by PRI’s show The Takeaway on December 22, is that creation of a National Declassification Center “will actually delay the declassification of 400 million pages of Cold War-era documents,” because these were already subject to a December 31, 2009 deadline, which has now been eliminated.

As previously reported (“New Executive Order Aims to Avoid Declass Deadline,” Secrecy News, November 23, 2009, and by the Boston Globe, Nov. 29, and the Associated Press, Dec. 20), there was a December 31 deadline for automatic declassification of historical records that required referral to more than one agency, and this deadline created some urgency for completion of the new Executive Order, which superseded it.

But even if the deadline had come into effect, officials told Secrecy News, the affected pages would still not have been released to the public.  They said this was so for several reasons.

First, no one knows where those pages are.  There are perhaps as many as 100 million pages (not 400 million) that have been referred from one agency to another for declassification review, but they are not systematically tracked and so they could not be systematically released.

Second, Congress has effectively barred bulk declassification and disclosure by means of the 1999 Kyl-Lott Amendment, which required the painstaking review or certification of all declassified records to ensure that they do not contain any inadvertently released nuclear weapons-related information.  (If Congress wanted to facilitate declassification of historical records, repeal of the Kyl-Lott Amendment would be a good place to start.)

Third, the National Archives lacks the capacity to process large volumes of declassified records for public release.  Even if fully declassified, the affected records would take years to process for disclosure to the public.

In short, the declassification program is seriously messed up, and it has been for many years.  The new National Declassification Center may help to straighten it out.  Significantly, the President ordered that the present backlog of 400 million pages shall not only be declassified over the next four years but also “shall be addressed in a manner that will permit public access to all declassified records.”

To make good on this commitment, the Obama Administration is said to be considering a significant increase in its request for declassification funding for FY 2011.

A five-month long investigation by the Government Accountability Office determined that the inadvertent publication of a 267 page document describing U.S. civilian nuclear research facilities caused no damage to national security and did not require any remedial security measures at the cited facilities.  Yet surprisingly, even though its publication had no adverse consequences at all, GAO endorsed the claim that the document was “sensitive” and recommended that rigorous new procedures be adopted to prevent public disclosure of such information in the future.

See “Managing Sensitive Information: Actions Needed to Prevent Unintended Public Disclosures of U.S. Nuclear Sites and Activities,” Government Accountability Office report GAO-10-251, December 2009.

The inadvertently disclosed document, a draft U.S. government declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was transmitted from the White House to Congress in May 2009.  Though it was identified in a cover letter as “sensitive but unclassified,” it was forwarded to the Government Printing Office for publication and was incorporated in an online GPO document database.  Secrecy News identified the document and republished it on June 1.  The New York Times, the Washington Post and other publications reported on it on June 3.  Concluding that a mistake had been made, the GPO removed the document from its public database and recalled the hardcopy editions.  But by that time, tens of thousands of copies had been downloaded around the world.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asked the GAO to investigate who was at fault, and what damage had been done.

Almost everyone involved was at fault, the GAO concluded.  But what is more remarkable is that the disclosure of the ostensibly “sensitive” document was found to have caused no damage to security at all.

GAO said that the agencies that prepared the unclassified compilation had carefully reviewed it prior to transmitting to Congress “to ensure that information of direct national security significance was not included.”  In cases where site-specific details were described in the draft declaration, such information “was publicly available on agency Web sites or other publicly available documents.”  Department of Energy officials told GAO that “no information detrimental to national security was included in the document.”

After the unintended disclosure of the draft declaration occurred, agencies once again reviewed facility security in light of the document’s public availability.  “Based on these assessments, DOE officials told us they did not increase security at any site,” the GAO said.  Operators of an NRC facility likewise “determined the procedures they had in place were sufficient, even with the release of the draft declaration.”

Unfortunately, instead of critically questioning the “sensitivity” of such a demonstrably innocuous document, the GAO report took for granted that it should never have been published.  Worse, GAO proposed strict new procedures to limit any future disclosures of this kind.

But if a document produces no detrimental effects when disclosed, then it is not sensitive in any meaningful sense of the word.  More rigorous procedures are needed to prevent the unnecessary protection of such material, not to enforce it.  Having missed that central point, the GAO report represents a lost opportunity to advance a more sensible information security policy.

*     *     *

The public disclosure of the draft declaration generated an unusual volume of confusion and misinformation.

“It is probably not that dangerous,” said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security in the Washington Post (6/3/09), “but it is a violation of the law.”  But that is not correct.  There is no law prohibiting disclosure of the information in the draft declaration, and so there was no violation of the law.

The document is “a one-stop shop for information on U.S. nuclear programs,” I found myself saying in the New York Times (6/3/09).  Besides being glib, that wasn’t correct either.  The draft declaration dealt only with civilian research programs and excluded U.S. military nuclear programs.

Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO) said it was all FAS’s fault.  “There’s a group called the Federation of American Scientists – a far Left-wing fringe group that wants to disclose all our vulnerabilities,” he explained to reporters.  “I don’t know what their motives are but I think they are very dangerous to our security.” (“Senator Bond concerned by online posting of civilian nuke sites” by Steve Walsh, Missouri News, June 3, 2009.)

In fact, it is now clear from the GAO investigation that no vulnerabilities were disclosed, no damage to security resulted, and no corrective security measures were required.

*     *     *

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency said in response to an inquiry from FAS that it had no objection to publication of the draft declaration (a fact not noted by the GAO), officials from several U.S. agencies months later remained adamantly opposed to continued public access to the document.

At an August meeting at the State Department, an NRC official told FAS’s Ivan Oelrich and me that the document contained information on the uranium enrichment capacity of certain U.S. companies, the disclosure of which could somehow put them at a commercial disadvantage with foreign uranium producers.  But there are no known indications that anything like that has come to pass.

Another official with the rank of Ambassador made the astonishing claim that if other countries saw just how cursory the U.S.’s reporting of its nuclear activities was, they would soon reduce their own cooperation with the IAEA to a similar, minimal level.

A senior State Department official therefore urged FAS to remove the draft declaration from our website.  The official acknowledged that the document had already been widely disseminated internationally, that it was still posted on several other websites, and that removing it from the FAS website would not make any practical difference of any kind.  But the official courteously requested that we do so, as a “favor.”  We agreed.

Some day, and that day may never come, we will call upon the State Department to do a favor for us.

A new draft executive order on national security classification and declassification policy is expected to be presented to President Obama this week for his personal resolution of issues which remain in dispute among policymakers and affected agencies, especially intelligence agencies.

This marks the first time since the first Bush Administration, nearly two decades ago, that a President has needed to make a final determination on the contents of an executive order because staffers and agencies were unable to reach a consensus view. (Correction: There is a more recent precedent for such presidential involvement. According to Morton Halperin, President Clinton was presented with a “split memo” in 1995 on the question of whether to include a public interest balancing test for declassification in executive order 12958. President Clinton decided against it.)

The currently disputed issues are believed to include the composition of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, including whether it should include representatives of ODNI or CIA or both, and whether the intelligence agencies should continue to have the veto over Panel declassification decisions that was granted by the George W. Bush Administration.

The final order, which is likely to be issued before the end of December, is expected among other things to direct agencies to conduct a Fundamental Classification Guidance Review in order to eliminate obsolete classification requirements, and to establish a National Declassification Center to coordinate and expedite declassification of historical records, as described in a previous draft dated August 4, 2009.

See “Obama Plan Could Limit Records Hidden From Public” by Pete Yost, Associated Press, December 20, 2009.

The U.S. State Department’s official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series had another disappointing year in 2009 with only two softcopy volumes published to date, including one released last week on “Global Issues, 1973-1976.”

The FRUS series is supposed to provide “comprehensive documentation of the major foreign policy decisions and actions of the United States Government” and it must must be “thorough, accurate, and reliable.”  As such, it is a potentially vital tool for advancing declassification of significant historical records and assuring government accountability, at least over the long run.

Publication of FRUS is not optional.  By statute, “The Secretary of State shall ensure that the FRUS series shall be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded.”  But that 30 year goal, which has rarely if ever been met, is now receding further and further from realization, leaving the Secretary of State in violation of the law.

State Department spokesman Ian C. Kelly did not respond to a request for comment on the Department’s continuing violation of the law on FRUS publication.

But William B. McAllister, the Acting General Editor of FRUS, expressed a hopeful view of the future despite recent turmoil, which included the last-minute withdrawal of person who was to become the new FRUS General Editor.  He said that a third FRUS volume on “Foreign Economic Policy, 1973-1976” would appear before the end of the year, and at least one other in January 2010.

Likewise, Dr. Robert McMahon, who chairs the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee, said “We continue to be optimistic about publication prospects for FRUS volumes in the near future despite the disappointing number of volumes that came out this year.  There are four Vietnam volumes alone that should be published in 2010.”

“We anticipate being able to fill all [employment] vacancies in 2010, many of them rather early in the year,” Dr. McAllister wrote in an email message. “The Office of the Historian is … well on its way to resolving the multiple infrastructure, document handling, and archival access issues that impact FRUS production…. The Office of the Historian has launched several initiatives to address systemic impediments that slow the declassification process.”  And over time, “we anticipate returning to a more typical production cycle.”  But a typical production cycle has never yet meant regular compliance with the mandatory 30 year FRUS publication requirement.

The latest FRUS volume on “Global Issues, 1973-1976” has a number of interesting features and a few peculiarities. Oddly, all of the documents were marked as declassified in December 2008, so this collection was apparently ready for publication online a year ago.  And unlike other contemporaneous FRUS volumes, audio tapes are not listed as a source and were apparently not used in the collection.  No explanation for this omission was offered.

Among the noteworthy records in the collection is a 1976 intelligence assessment (pdf) of the likelihood of terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons, which is deemed “unlikely” in the following year or two.  In most respects, the assessment is no longer current or relevant, but it still includes some remarkable observations.  Thus, it notes that “The locations of most U.S. [nuclear weapons] storage sites abroad are locally known and could be ascertained by any terrorist group with a moderately good intelligence potential.  Detailed intelligence about the site could be fairly readily acquired in many cases….”  Despite this apparent fact, which is even more likely to be true today, the Department of Defense still insists that such information is classified.  By doing so, it disrupts routine declassification activities, forcing reviewers to search for and remove non-sensitive but technically classified information.

See “The Likelihood of the Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons by Foreign Terrorist Groups for Use Against the United States,” United States Intelligence Board, Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, 8 January 1976.

Another 1976 document on Naming the Space Shuttle sought President Ford’s approval of a request from hundreds of thousands of “Star Trek” fans that the first NASA space shuttle be named “Enterprise.”  Most of the White House staff, including Brent Scowcroft and others, concurred.  But presidential counselor Robert T. Hartmann contended that Enterprise is “an especially hallowed Naval name… I think the Navy should keep it.”  Presidential counselor John O. Marsh approved the choice of the name, but said he was “not enthusiastic about the [Star Trek] rationale for the selection,” which he disdained as “appealing to a TV fad.”  President Ford initialed his approval of the proposal.

As it turns out, it seems that the Star Trek “fad” is going to outlast the space shuttle itself.