Steven Aftergood
SECRECY NEWS - January 16, 2004
Fri Jan 16 14:44:33 2004
64.140.158.52

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2004, Issue No. 5
January 16, 2004


** WESLEY CLARK ON SECRECY AND OPENNESS
** DISCLOSURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND NATIONAL SECURITY
** AN ISLAMIST CRITIQUE OF AL QAIDA
** CIA PARAMILITARY OPS AND SPECIAL FORCES
** MORE HISTORICAL INTELLIGENCE BUDGET DATA DISCLOSED


WESLEY CLARK ON SECRECY AND OPENNESS

Democratic presidential contender Gen. Wesley Clark today
announced his intention "to reverse Mr. Bush's secrecy
policies" and "to create the most open and honest government in
American history."

He cited the now-familiar litany of Bush Administration excesses
and declared that "On day one of my Administration, I'll sign
an Executive Order reversing George Bush's FOIA rollbacks, and
restoring the public's right to know."

"We're the party of accessibility and accountability," he said.
"They're the party of secrecy and special interests. This is
just another way to draw the line between us."

See the text of his January 16 remarks here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2004/01/clark011604.html


DISCLOSURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Does the disclosure of data regarding environmental hazards at
chemical facilities threaten national security by providing
terrorists with information about potential targets?

While the first impulse of officials at many levels of
government has been to clamp down on information regarding the
locations and quantities of toxic material inventories and the
consequences of their accidental release, there is reason to
believe that this approach is counterproductive.

In fact, national security might be strengthened through greater
disclosure.

In a recent Master's Thesis, one U.S. Air Force student author
investigated the impact of government controls on such
information and considered whether environmental secrecy could
effectively discourage terrorism.

Air Force Maj. Joseph D. Jacobson conducted his own research "to
explore the question of whether reasonably accurate targeting
data is obtainable through means other than government-provided
environmental information."

"The answer is a disturbing yes.... Even without a computer,
telephone books, newspapers, and trade journals could be
effectively used as [terrorist] planning tools. Unless our
society is ready to completely suspend several amendments to
the U.S. Constitution, we must assume that those planning
attacks on chemical facilities have the research tools they
need for adequate targeting."

Moreover, there is a "down side" to efforts to restrict
environmental information. Official controls may impede the
public's ability to contend with chemical hazards, thereby
reducing safety and security, the author wrote.

"The road that restricts access to information leads us to a
destination where the public is blissfully unaware of the
dangers surrounding them while terrorists carefully research
targets for maximum potential impact. The other road allows an
informed public to prepare for potential attacks, plan
responses, and put pressure on industry to change practices and
processes in a meaningful way, thus reducing the likelihood of
attacks."

See "Safeguarding National Security Through Public Release of
Environmental Information: Moving the Debate to the Next
Level" by Joseph D. Jacobson, a master's thesis submitted to
the George Washington University School of Law, August 31,
2002, 97 pages (in a very large 3.9 MB PDF file):

http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/jacobson.pdf


AN ISLAMIST CRITIQUE OF AL QAIDA

The actions of al Qaida in its jihad against the United States
have measurably retarded the objectives that the organization
claims to pursue, as evidenced by the defeat of the Taliban
regime and continued U.S. military action in the region.

This assertion would be unremarkable, except that it is now
being advanced by leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Group,
al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, which itself is designated by the U.S.
State Department as a terrorist organization.

The Islamist critique of al Qaida appears in a new book,
reviewed and excerpted this week in the London Arabic newspaper
Asharq al Awsat.

See "Egyptian Islamist Leaders Fault Al Qaida's Strategy,"
Asharq al Awsat, January 11-12, 2004, translated by the CIA's
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ig_bk.htm


CIA PARAMILITARY OPS AND SPECIAL FORCES

The use of CIA paramilitary forces post-September 11 alongside
U.S. military Special Operations Forces (SOF) poses some new
operational, legal, policy and oversight challenges, according
to a recent Army student research paper.

Much of the difficulty stems from the fact that SOF are regular
military personnel subject to the laws of war while CIA
paramilitary forces operate outside of an accepted legal
framework.

"In a combat operation where CIA and SOF forces are tightly
integrated, the result could be that, if captured, the SOF
soldiers are afforded Geneva Convention protections while the
CIA operatives are not; further, CIA operatives might even be
considered by the enemy to be unlawful combatants," writes Army
Col. Kathryn Stone.

"Close cooperation and intermingling between the CIA and SOF is
fraught with danger given their respective cultures,
operational modes, sources of information, and oversight
structures."

See "'All Necessary Means' -- Employing CIA Operatives in a
Warfighting Role Alongside Special Operations Forces" by Col.
Kathryn Stone, U.S. Army War College, April 2003:

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/stone.pdf


MORE HISTORICAL INTELLIGENCE BUDGET DATA DISCLOSED

Historical intelligence budget appropriation figures for the
Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency
for Fiscal Year 1972 have turned up in publicly accessible
archives even though they are considered "classified" by the
U.S. government.

The FY 1972 appropriations and the FY 1973 requests for DIA and
NSA were detailed in the papers of Rep. George Mahon, a former
member of the House Appropriations Committee.

They were located by Villanova University scholar Prof. David
Barrett, who is preparing a book on congressional oversight of
intelligence in the early cold war.

The U.S. Constitution singles out budget expenditures as the one
category of executive branch information that must be published
from time to time (Article I, section 9). Yet in seeming
defiance of this obligation, the Central Intelligence Agency
refuses to disclose even fifty year old budget information, the
subject of a pending FOIA lawsuit. The CIA claims that to do
so would damage the national security of the United States and
jeopardize intelligence methods.

Even some CIA officials privately concede that this claim is
ridiculous, and it is hard to find a responsible person outside
of CIA who will defend it.

Prof. Barrett generously provided a copy of the Mahon documents
containing the historical DIA and NSA budget figures, which are
posted here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dia-nsa1972.pdf
========================================================

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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691