United States and Canada

Statement by Thomas S. Blanton, National Security Archive, George Washington University March 2, 2005 Hearing on "Emerging Threats: Overclassification and Pseudo-classification" 2154 Rayburn House Office Building Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations Committee on Government Reform U.S. House of Representatives Click here to download this statement as a PDF file Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about the growing problem of government secrecy and the danger it poses to our security.

Washington, D.C., February 10, 2005 - February 10, 2005 - As a result of a Freedom of Information Act appeal filed by the National Security Archive, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) corrected its October 2004 blunder of withholding the names and numbers of aviation warnings known as Information Circulars that were widely cited and quoted in the best-selling 9/11 Commission Report.

"A Comprehensive Strategy to Fight Al-Qaeda"? Rice versus Clinton on January 2001 Clarke Memo Washington, D.C., September 27, 2006 - In a series of recent public statements, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has again denied that the Clinton administration presented the incoming administration of President George W. Bush with a "comprehensive strategy" against al-Qaeda.

Washington D.C., January 21, 2005 - The National Security Archive this week submitted comments on the Central Intelligence Agency's decennial review of the record categories that the CIA has designated as exempt from search and review under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In 1984 the CIA was granted limited protection from FOIA for operational records that are considered so sensitive that it is not productive to search them in response to FOIA requests.

Washington, D.C.: Today, the National Security Archive posts an updated collection of reports, studies, commentaries, and other material concerning the issue of exactly how much authority should be vested with the nation's chief intelligence officer. The Archive's previous posting in December 2004 provided historical context for the congressional and public debate over intelligence reform proposals that included establishing an intelligence czar. In February 2005 President Bush nominated John D. Negroponte, the U.S.

Washington, D.C., December 14: Front page stories in The Washington Post ("New Spy Satellite Debated on Hill," Dec. 11, 2004) and The New York Times ("New Spy Plan Said to Involve Satellite System," Dec. 12, 2004) describe a secret satellite program that the Senate intelligence committee has voted to cancel but survives in the current intelligence budget due to strong support from the House and Senate appropriations committees and the House intelligence committee. Senator John D.

Washington, D.C., 30 November 2004 - The National Security Archive along with concerned library, journalist, and public interest organizations today filed an amici curiae brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit supporting public access to information about the energy task force convened by Vice President Cheney in 2001. The case is vital to preserving public access to government information under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

Washington, D.C., November 23, 2004 - President Gerald R. Ford wanted to sign the Freedom of Information Act strengthening amendments passed by Congress 30 years ago, but concern about leaks (shared by his chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld and deputy Richard Cheney) and legal arguments that the bill was unconstitutional (marshaled by government lawyer Antonin Scalia, among others) persuaded Ford to veto the bill, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive to mark the 30th anniversary of the veto override.

Washington, D.C. October 29, 2004 - The Department of Defense has refused to release the names of military officers in the chain of command over the soldiers charged with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to an analysis of the documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. DOD also refused to release the names of the officers who reviewed the so-called "Taguba Report," which recommended disciplinary and administrative actions for the abuses perpetrated at Abu Ghraib.

Washington, D.C., 27 October 2004 - The recent passing of Paul Nitze at the age of 97 has brought forth the expected array of obituaries, retrospectives and assessments of his lengthy and often controversial career, in the process turning people's minds back to an era when superpower rivalry and the threat of nuclear annihilation hung over the world as the United States and Russia engaged in what John F. Kennedy termed the long, twilight struggle.