Secrecy and FOIA

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about the Freedom of Information Act and the necessary reforms that would be enacted by the OPEN Government Act of 2005. I wish to commend the co-sponsors of the OPEN Government Act of 2005, Senators Cornyn and Leahy - each of whom has an established record as a defender of open government - for their efforts to ensure that our federal government is accountable and responsive to its citizens. I have extensive experience with the Freedom of Information Act.

March 10, 2005 TO: Members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations, Government Affairs, and Government Reform We are writing to request that Congress suspend the proposed transfer of the Nixon Presidential Materials from their present location at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, to the Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California.

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.

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., 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., November 17, 2004 - Fifteen years ago today, a modest, officially sanctioned student demonstration in Prague spontaneously grew into a major outburst of popular revulsion toward the ruling Communist regime. At that point the largest protest in 20 years, the demonstrations helped to spark the Velvet Revolution that brought down communism in Czechoslovakia and put dissident playwright Vбclav Havel in the Presidential Palace.

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.