Federal Records Declassification Follies: Biden Administration Edition

Patrick G. EddingtonYesterday, POLITICO ’s Brian Benderreported on a new Biden administration effort to “pierce the veil” of excessive federal government secrecy. The mechanism: a new National Security Council ‐​led initiative to reform America’s insanely broad and totally dysfunctional system of classifying and declassifying U.S. government records.The “both sides” tone of much of Bender’s piece–that declassification advocates have points in their favor, but government bureaucrats have legitimate concerns too–is emblematic of the kind of lazy reporting on this issue that makes it seem like just another inside‐​the‐​Beltway dust‐ ​up that has no actual impact on people outside of Washington. The truth is that at best, government secrecy fosters waste, inefficiency, and gross mismanagement at taxpayer expense. At its worst, our secrecy system provides a shield for criminal conduct, including murder or deaths that otherwise could have been prevented.Let ’s talk about the former first.In 2017, Cato initiated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation over documents regarding two cancelled National Security Agency (NSA) programs, codenamed THINTHREAD and TRAILBLAZER, respectively. Thebackstory is that by the early ‐ to mid‐​1990s, NSA was confronting the fact that its traditional, analog signal‐​based collection and analysis systems were being overtaken by the digital communications revolution. Two approaches to probl...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs