Declassification Board Tasked to Review Senate Reports
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) has endorsed a proposal to task the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) to review the recent Intelligence Committee reports on pre-war intelligence to determine if they were properly declassified.
He acted in response to harsh criticism from Senate Democrats alleging that the Bush Administration had abused its classification authority to conceal embarrassing or offensive information in the reports that was unrelated to national security.
Instead of pursuing legislative action to compel declassification, as urged by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Roberts said that the PIDB should be asked to render a judgment, as originally proposed last week by Sen. Ron Wyden.
“Let’s let the Public Interest Declassification Board take a look at these reports,” said Sen. Roberts in the course of a heated debate on the Senate floor September 14.
“That was the suggestion by Senator Wyden, picked up by Senator Bond, endorsed by myself and I think by the Senator from West Virginia [Sen. Rockefeller]. That is the proper way to go about it,” Sen. Roberts said.
The endorsement by Intelligence Committee Chairman Roberts is crucial to the activation of the Declassification Board, since the PIDB, under the terms of its enabling legislation, accepts congressional requests for declassification review only when they are “made by the committee of jurisdiction,” not by individual members.
The review of the contested Intelligence Committee reports will be the first such action to be undertaken by the Board, and it is likely to set a precedent, whether favorable or unfavorable, for similar reviews in the future.
The Public Interest Declassification Board, established by statute in 2000 and modified by the intelligence reform legislation of 2004, is composed of nine non-governmental persons appointed by the President and congressional leaders. Eight of the nine members have been named so far. A ninth member, who is to be designated by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, has still not been appointed.
With summer 2025 in the rearview mirror, we’re taking a look back to see how federal actions impacted heat preparedness and response on the ground, what’s still changing, and what the road ahead looks like for heat resilience.
Satellite imagery of RAF Lakenheath reveals new construction of a security perimeter around ten protective aircraft shelters in the designated nuclear area, the latest measure in a series of upgrades as the base prepares for the ability to store U.S. nuclear weapons.
It will take consistent leadership and action to navigate the complex dangers in the region and to avoid what many analysts considered to be an increasingly possible outcome, a nuclear conflict in East Asia.
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.