Secrecy & Government Bulletin - Issue Number 30SECRECY & GOVERNMENT BULLETINIssue Number 30January 1994A Government-Wide "Security Policy Committee"?The Joint Security Commission, which was established last spring tooverhaul a wide range of secrecy practices in defense and intelligence,is proposing to create a single, comprehensive new entity with authorityover most government secrecy and security policies.Since members of the Commission have each signed multiple non-disclosureagreements, details of their deliberations are not easy to come by. Butaccording to a Commission briefing document obtained by S&GB, one oftheir pending recommendations is the establishment of a government-wideSecurity Policy Committee. The proposed Committee would be co-chairedby the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Director of CentralIntelligence. Other government agencies are appended to theorganizational chart, but it is not clear whether they have endorsed theplan, or even been consulted about it.The Security Policy Committee and related topics were described in aNovember 17 briefing to DCI James Woolsey entitled "RedefiningSecurity." Viewgraphs from the DCI briefing are available from S&GB.The proposed Committee represents something of a new structure, withsubpanels on threat assessment, security policy and standards,implementation, and oversight. But its new policy implications, if any,are not evident from the DCI's briefing. To a large extent, it appearsto constitute a perpetuation of the Joint Security Commission itself.The Commission's current staff director, Dan Ryan, is apparently in lineto be designated as staff director for the new Committee.The Committee would replace or absorb several other existing bodies,such as the DCI Security Forum, the NAG/SCM, the SAP/SAR working group,the NSTISSC, the NOAC, the NISPPAC, and others. (If you have to askexactly what all these organizations do-- you don't need to know!) In asecond phase, according to the briefing, 18 out of 20 positions at theInformation Security Oversight Office would be transferred to theCommittee.Though the proposal for the new Committee has not been approved, ahandwritten notation on the briefing indicates that [DepSecretary ofDefense] "Perry likes it."The Joint Security Commission is working toward a February 1 deadlinefor providing its final report and recommendations to the DCI and theDepSecDef.DOE Openness InitiativeOn December 7, Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary announced a newinitiative to reduce Cold War secrecy at DOE, releasing what shedescribed as "the biggest delivery of declassified material in thehistory of this department."Specific disclosures included a surprisingly large 204 unannouncednuclear explosive tests; the location and quantities of most of theU.S. stockpile of plutonium for weapons; most but not all previouslyclassified information on inertial confinement fusion; and other data.A 67 page collection of DOE fact sheets on the disclosures is availablefrom S&GB.The announcement of the new openness initiative promptly drew criticismfrom all sides, which is as it should be. The Military ProductionNetwork, a national alliance of environmental organizations, applaudedthe move in a letter to O'Leary but noted that it is largely focused onhistorical data. "There must be equal emphasis on past, present andfuture documentation," Steve Schwartz of the MPN wrote. The Networkurged greater disclosure of current DOE activities and curtailment ofthe use of the "oxymoronic" designator UCNI-- Unclassified ControlledNuclear Information.But the wisdom of O'Leary's initiative was implicitly confirmed by theweirdness of some of her critics. For example, Washington Timescolumnist Frank Gaffney likened O'Leary's action to the bombing ofPearl Harbor, calling the declassification move "the most devastatingsingle attack on the underpinnings of the U.S. national securitystructure since Japan's lightning strike on the 7th fleet 52 yearsago." (12/14/93, p. A16).DOE still has a long way to go before anyone will be able to plausiblyaccuse it of openness. Internal estimates put the backlog of oldclassified documents at 32 million pages, or a stack 3.3 miles high.Moreover, mid-level managers at DOE facilities haven't heard the news,and continue to practice an aggressive Cold War secrecy policy even, inone recent instance, reclassifying declassified restricted data inviolation of the Atomic Energy Act.Despite the limited scope of the recent declassification announcement,it is a substantial earnest of Secretary O'Leary's good faith and forthat she deserves credit and support. Besides, as O'Leary said, it is"just a beginning to the process."Intelligence Budget to Be Disclosed -- In IsraelWhile the U.S. intelligence budget remains classified in violation ofthe Constitution, the State of Israel (which has no Constitution) ismoving towards publication of its intelligence budget. (IntelligenceNewsletter [Paris], 11/25/93, p.3).Israeli officials recently disclosed that the total annual budget of theMossad and the Shin Bet, the two principal secret services, is "lessthan a billion shekels," or about $345 million. (Ha'aretz, 10/28/93,p.A1, translated in FBIS-NES-93-207, 10/28/93, p. 29).Two senior members of the Knesset subcommittee on intelligence,representing both Labor and Likud factions, said that they do "notoppose disclosing the total budget of the secret services, provided thatit is published without the details." Making the figure public, theyindicated, "will not harm state security."In what passes for debate on this subject in the U.S., opponents ofdisclosure frequently point out that other countries do not disclosetheir budgets for intelligence, as if that ought to determine U.S.policy. Thus, Rep. Greg Laughlin (D-TX) explained his opposition tobudget disclosure with the observation that "No other government in theworld releases its intelligence budget number." (Congressional Record,8/4/93, p. H5776). For whatever it may be worth, that's not true anymore.GAO: Classification Costs BillionsA new General Accounting Office study confirms thatclassification-related security costs run into the billions of dollarsper year. The new report was requested by Rep. Gary Condit, Chairmanof the House Subcommittee on Information.The 32-page GAO report does not, however, give more than a general senseof the costs of classification, since some agencies like the CIA refusedto cooperate and those that did often lacked suitable accountingprocedures to enable an accurate assessment.Thus, costs directly attributable to classification for 1992 totaledonly around $350 million. But an additional $6 billion was spent withinthe Department of Defense to protect classified information. Suchexpenditures include the costs of secure storage containers, backgroundinvestigations, guards, communications and computer security, specialcourier services, and on and on.The GAO acknowledged the limitations of its analysis, noting for examplethat "The Central Intelligence Agency would not provide us with costinformation." Presumably national security would have been placed injeopardy if the CIA had disclosed such data.Also not included were the substantial costs incurred by the Departmentof Energy, by hyper-classified special access programs, and byindustrial security programs (which protect government classifiedinformation within industry). An earlier government estimate put thecost of industrial security alone at $13.8 billion in 1989.Single copies of the report [Report number GAO/NSIAD-94-55] may berequested for free by calling the GAO at (202)512-6000.Rationalizing ClassificationRecognizing that the classification system has become highly arbitrary,several government agencies are belatedly attempting to define specific,plausible rationales for classification decisions. One such effort is anAugust 1993 paper entitled "An Approach to Deciding What Kinds ofInformation Should Be Classified for National Security Purposes,"authored by Dr. Michael Kennedy of the RAND Corporation under contractto the Air Force.Kennedy discusses at length and rather abstractly how a classificationsystem could be founded on cost-benefit principles.In general, he writes, "For each set of information that one may wishto classify, [one should] identify the national security goal, andassociated national security strategy, that is supported by keeping theinformation secret. In practical terms, this means identifying how muchthe carrying out of a strategy would be impeded, and thus how much theattainment of an associated goal would be reduced, if the informationwere revealed at large. This cost of revealing the information shouldthen be compared to the cost of keeping it secret, which is how muchsociety would gain if the information were not kept secret."This kind of thinking represents a step forward if only because itrequires a balancing of costs and benefits, so that "there is noabsolute criterion on which one can say certain information should orshould not be classified" prior to evaluating the costs and benefits.The RAND analysis does not explicitly acknowledge as a benefit thepositive value of public access to government information. In atelephone interview, Kennedy conceded "that's a good point," but saidthat the study focused on classification of technical details that werelikely to have minimal public interest value. He further observed thatwith the disappearance of the major high-tech superpower adversary, "therationale for conducting black programs on an unacknowledged basis hasnow diminished sharply."More AuroraAerospace writer T.A. Heppenheimer offers the latest attempt to siftfact from fantasy out of the reports of secret hypersonic surveillanceaircraft, often referred to as "Aurora," in the first chapter of his newbook Hypersonic Technologies (Pasha Publications, 1993).Heppenheimer carefully reviews the evidence, allegations, and sightings,and presents these conclusions: It is not plausible that a hypersonic aircraft exists or soon will exist as an SR-71 replacement. It is highly plausible that at least one major high-speed aircraft program has gone forward within the black world, featuring a new type of propulsion-- the pulsed detonation engine. Rather than regard this craft as moving toward operational status, one should view it as an experimental testbed. The National Aerospace Plane program may well have served as a cover for this project, supporting particularly the development of new materials. Having served its purpose, NASP will gracefully fade away.As Bill Sweetman and others have pointed out, the possibility that NASPwas a cover for some sort of Mach 6 (or so) Aurora program is consistentwith the curious fact that the "low speed" (Mach 6 to 10) portion of theNASP program is classified, while the higher speed (Mach 10 to 17 andabove) portion of the program is not.More broadly, it is increasingly clear that many unacknowledged blackprograms are paired with an analogous unclassified program that is usedto deflect attention from them. "This basic cover and deceptionmaneuver has been identified repeatedly in black programs," said JohnPike of FAS.Groom Lake Photos, Paraphernalia for SaleNew photographs of the secret, unacknowledged "Area 51" militaryfacility at Groom Lake, Nevada, are now available from the SecrecyOversight Council, a private research and publishing company "promotingopenness and reasonable public oversight in government."The mural-size photos of the Groom Lake base were taken by photographerJames Goodall. The Council notes that the new 1993 panoramic printsfeature "exquisite detail" and are suitable "for den or office.""Richly colored winter morning shot with fine grain and excellentdefinition, even in this huge blowup. Almost as informative as Russiansatellite photos costing many times more, and far more attractive."Also available from the Council are Glenn Campbell's exemplary Area 51Viewer's Guide, the Testor Corporation's toy models of the allegedAurora spy plane, and phony Area 51 visitor's permits and cloth patches.A free copy of the current publications catalog may be requested bysending a SASE to the Secrecy Oversight Council, HCR Box 38, Rachel,Nevada 89001.The Secrecy & Government Bulletin is prepared by Steven Aftergood.Subscriptions are available from the Federation of American Scientists.The FAS Project on Secrecy & Government is supported by grants from theRockefeller Family Fund, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, and theC.S. Fund. This publication may be freely reproduced. Secrecy and Government Bulletin is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists, 307 Massachusetts Avenue N.E., Washington, DC 20002. For more information call (202)675-1012 or send email to saftergood@igc.apc.org
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