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Letter from the National Security Archive and Federation of American Scientists to the Senate Armed Services Committee
Proposed National Security Agency FOIA Exemption
Agency Justification For Proposed FOIA Exemption
National Security Archive Memorandum Analyzing Agency Justification
CIA Information Act of 1984

 


 

For Immediate Release:
May 5, 2003

For more information contact:
Tom Blanton 202/994-7000
Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000

PROPOSED FOIA EXEMPTION FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY FILES BURIED IN FY 2004 DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

Proposed FOIA Exemption Would Render Secret Many Valuable Records Regarding the Role of the NSA in Signals Intelligence and Cryptology History

Washington, D.C., May 5, 2003 - The proposed FY 2004 Defense Authorization Act would throw a cloak of secrecy over valuable National Security Agency ("NSA") records now released under the Freedom of Information Act, including important historical records on the use of signals intelligence and cryptology in U.S. defense history. There have been no public hearings on the proposed legislation, which is based on unsupported justifications. While much of the information in those files is classified, many valuable documents are routinely released from such files that no longer would be available to the public if the FOIA exemption is enacted into law. The bill is scheduled for markup on Tuesday May 6, 2003 by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The NSA has falsely claimed that these files are so highly classified that NSA "almost invariably withholds" the documents from release. But thousands of declassified documents from these same files testify to the contrary, including information relating to the use of signals intelligence in space, records concerning the U.S. Signals Intelligence effort to collect and decrypt the text of Soviet KGB and GRU messages known as the VENONA project, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and SIGSALY Secure Digital Voice Communications in World War II, and the Korean War.

The proposed FOIA exemption would stop all such releases in their tracks and deny the public important information about the role that the NSA, signals intelligence, and cryptology played in U.S. foreign policy and history.

The proposed section extends to the NSA the language of the CIA Information Act of 1984, which exempted certain files in the CIA's Directorates of Operations and Science and Technology from the Freedom of Information Act on the basis of an extensive public record, multiple hearings, and specificity as to exactly which files would be covered. Unlike the CIA Act, however, there were no public hearings on the proposed NSA exemption, no debate, no testimony, and no public record other than a misleading page and a half justification from the NSA.

At a minimum, the proposed exemption should not be enacted into law until the NSA has conducted a study examining the impact of and need for the exemption and until public hearings are held on the matter.

The National Security Archive won the prestigious George Polk Award in April 2000 for "piercing self-serving veils of government secrecy." The Archive's many FOIA litigation victories include the release of historic documentation ranging from the Kennedy-Khrushchev letters during the Cuban missile crisis to Oliver North's diaries during the Iran-contra scandal, and the landmark case that saved from destruction the White House e-mail of the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations.

 
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