Steven Aftergood
SECRECY NEWS: ASHCROFT TELLS AGENCIES TO RESIST FOIA RELEASE
Wed Oct 17 16:45:52 2001


SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
October 17, 2001


** ASHCROFT TELLS AGENCIES TO RESIST FOIA RELEASES
** FRUS VOLUME ON GREECE DUE IN DECEMBER
** OCTOBER 17 COMES AND GOES


ASHCROFT TELLS AGENCIES TO RESIST FOIA RELEASES

Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued a new statement of policy that
encourages federal agencies to resist Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
requests whenever they have legal grounds to do so.

The new statement supersedes a 1993 memorandum from Attorney General
Janet Reno which promoted disclosure of government information through
the FOIA unless it was "reasonably foreseeable that disclosure would be
harmful."

The Ashcroft policy rejects this "foreseeable harm" standard.

Instead, the Justice Department instructs agencies to withhold
information whenever there is a "sound legal basis" for doing so.

"When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold
records, in whole or in part," the Attorney General advised, "you can be
assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless
they lack a sound legal basis...."

The new FOIA policy statement, issued October 12, is posted here:

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2001foiapost19.htm

For purposes of comparison, Attorney General Reno's 1993 memorandum may
be found here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/reno.html


As with many of the Bush Administration's new restrictions on public
information, the new policy is only peripherally related to the fight
against terrorism. Rather, it appears to exploit the current
circumstances to advance a predisposition toward official secrecy.


FRUS VOLUME ON GREECE DUE IN DECEMBER

The long-delayed publication of the official Foreign Relations of the
United States (FRUS) volume on US policy towards Greece, Cyprus and
Turkey in 1964-1968 is now scheduled for December of this year,
according to the State Department's latest status report on the FRUS
series.

Publication of this unclassified volume has been fiercely resisted by
senior CIA officials because it alludes to covert US intervention in
Greek elections during the 1960s.

The anticipated FRUS publication schedule, updated as of this month, is
posted here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/frusstat.html


The State Department Historical Advisory Committee on Monday approved
release of minutes of its June 2001 meeting. The minutes include
discussion of current declassification disputes with the CIA, a
forthcoming retrospective volume on the Congo, and National Security
Agency declassification activity in support of FRUS. See:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/hac0601.html

OCTOBER 17 COMES AND GOES

Today marks a deadline that was established by the Clinton
Administration for declassification of 25 year old records, but this
milestone is not expected to have much of an impact.

One of the "revolutionary" features of the 1995 executive order 12958 on
classification and declassification policy was its requirement that
historically valuable 25 year old records (that are not otherwise
exempt) were to be automatically declassified after 5 years "whether or
not the records have been reviewed" (Sec. 3.4).

In 1999, executive order 13142 extended that 5 year deadline for
automatic declassification by 18 months for general records and by 36
months for intelligence records or those requiring multi-agency review.
See:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/amendfact.html

Today, October 17, 2001, the 18 month extension period comes to an end.

What is the practical effect of this automatic declassification
deadline? "Not much," said an Administration official.

The volume of records that might have affected by today's date has been
diminished by a number of factors: many records have been specifically
exempted under one of the executive order's nine exemptions; other
records have already been declassified; and many of the remainder have
been excluded from automatic declassification by congressional
intervention.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is quietly developing a new executive
order on classification and declassification policy to amend or replace
the 1995 Clinton order. No details concerning a new order have been
disclosed.


******************************
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
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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
=========================================================
> Larry W. Harris ,,,,,,,, Audio files
> http://www.newswatchmagazine.org/realaudio/10~11~01.ram
> http://www.newswatchmagazine.org/realaudio/10~12~01.ram
> http://www.newswatchmagazine.org/realaudio/10~15~01.ram 
> http://www.newswatchmagazine.org/realaudio/10~16~01.ram
>

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