New York Times Editorial - More secrecy, anyone?
More secrecy, anyone?
Copyright by The New York Times
TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2006
Within a U.S. administration besotted with secrecy, it is heartening to find the National Archives inviting critical notice of the way intelligence agencies have been secretly denying Americans access to thousands of previously declassified documents.
The archives director, Allen Weinstein, has heeded the complaints of historians and politely asked agencies to put their reclassification mania on hold while an audit is completed on the damage done thus far to the public's right to know.
The secretive review process, authorized in the Clinton administration to address mistakes made in declassification, has taken off like a fox hunt during the Bush administration. Each day, 30 intelligence reviewers work on the archives.
Historians discovered that the process was reaching ludicrous proportions. Why should a 1948 intelligence scheme to float propaganda balloons across the Iron Curtain be relabeled as secret in 2001, five years after it had finally been made public?
Some of the snatching back makes sense from a cynical point of view, like the secret estimate in 1950 - forever embarrassing to intelligence professionals - that China's intervention in Korea was "not probable." Historians concede that some documents - about explosives technology, for example - deserve reclassification. But the extent and fervor of the operation seem suspiciously in sync with the White House's obsession with secrecy at any cost.
Intelligence and archives officials agreed last week to cooperate in search of a better program. Weinstein set the only acceptable benchmark in a democracy when he emphasized that the public's trust "must be earned and cannot be finessed by protecting documents from release."
Copyright by The New York Times
TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2006
Within a U.S. administration besotted with secrecy, it is heartening to find the National Archives inviting critical notice of the way intelligence agencies have been secretly denying Americans access to thousands of previously declassified documents.
The archives director, Allen Weinstein, has heeded the complaints of historians and politely asked agencies to put their reclassification mania on hold while an audit is completed on the damage done thus far to the public's right to know.
The secretive review process, authorized in the Clinton administration to address mistakes made in declassification, has taken off like a fox hunt during the Bush administration. Each day, 30 intelligence reviewers work on the archives.
Historians discovered that the process was reaching ludicrous proportions. Why should a 1948 intelligence scheme to float propaganda balloons across the Iron Curtain be relabeled as secret in 2001, five years after it had finally been made public?
Some of the snatching back makes sense from a cynical point of view, like the secret estimate in 1950 - forever embarrassing to intelligence professionals - that China's intervention in Korea was "not probable." Historians concede that some documents - about explosives technology, for example - deserve reclassification. But the extent and fervor of the operation seem suspiciously in sync with the White House's obsession with secrecy at any cost.
Intelligence and archives officials agreed last week to cooperate in search of a better program. Weinstein set the only acceptable benchmark in a democracy when he emphasized that the public's trust "must be earned and cannot be finessed by protecting documents from release."
posted by Carlos T Mock at 3:59 PM
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