"A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

James Madison

Why Public Access Matters

In a democratic society, the citizens both choose their governors and are the governed. This dual role of the public has produced a tension between the need for secrecy and the need to keep government accountable. Broad access to information is critical for government officials to shape well-reasoned policies and for the public to monitor those it has elected to act on its behalf. However, expansion of the Government's national security bureaucracy since the end of World War II and the closed environment in which it has operated have outpaced attempts by the Congress and the public to oversee that bureaucracy's activities.

As Chapter II made clear, core secrets do exist that need the highest level of protection. There is widespread agreement, even by those who most vigorously support broad declassification, that there are many types of government information that will always require zealous protection—for example, sources whose exposure would jeopardize human life; signals intelligence or imagery, the loss of which would profoundly hinder the capability to collect data; information that would assist chemical, biological, or nuclear proliferators; and details about special military capabilities. However, these types of information are only a portion of the universe of information that now is classified. This chapter focuses on the rest of the classified world, including policy, analysis, factual, and historical data, and how to ensure its public availability when it no longer needs protection.

Ensuring public access to information that does not require protection is a key to striking the balance between secrecy and the openness that is central to the proper functioning of this country's political institutions. There has been a gradual but encouraging shift in recent years on the part of many agencies that use classified information toward declassifying and releasing more of that information to the public. Some agencies realize that better relations with the public can grow from easier access to agency records that no longer need protection. Openness can also demonstrate to the world, especially newly-emerging democracies that are beginning to open their own countries' archives, the strength of our free institutions.

Other benefits flow from moving information that no longer needs protection out of the
classification system. Broad access to information promotes better decisions. It
permits public understanding of the activities of government and promotes more
informed debate and accountability. It increases the Government's ability to respond
to criticism and justify its actions to the public. It makes possible the free exchange of
scientific information and encourages new discoveries that foster economic growth.
By allowing a better understanding of our history, it provides opportunities to learn
lessons from the past, and it makes it easier to quash unfounded speculation about the

Government's past actions. Reducing the amount of information in the classification system allows for better management and cost controls of that system and increases respect for the information that needs to stay protected. Greater access thus provides ground in which the public's faith in its government can flourish.

Chapter II addressed the problem of overclassification of information at the beginning of its life cycle. This chapter focuses on what happens at the end of that life cycle, discussing recent attempts to provide more public access as well as the barriers that persist for effective ways to declassify. It makes recommendations designed to ensure that, in making declassification decisions, agencies use resources efficiently, apply accurate data in making judgments about release, and interact effectively with the public. The Commission supports the appropriate protection of truly sensitive information while establishing wiser ways to handle the rest. In short, this chapter is about managing declassification consistent with principles of good government.

Promising Developments: Declassification Success Stories There has been notable progress by agencies in providing public access to government information that no longer requires the protection of the classification system. For example, public release of the VENONA intercepts in 1995 provided an unprecedented glimpse into the world of codes and codebreaking and revealed new insights into controversial aspects of our nation's history. In 1992, the National Reconnaissance Office's (NRO's) existence was declassified and in 1996, the NRO for the first time publicly announced the planned launch of a reconnaissance satellite. The NRO's stated goal in ending its policy of keeping such launches secret was: "We want to spend our resources protecting the things that are worth protecting." The Intelligence Community also has begun declassifying under Executive Order 12951, which was

In addition to the key insights furnished by release of the VENONA intercepts, declassified information has played a central role in our understanding of, or actions in, times of crisis. For example:

• The declassification of U-2 photographs of Soviet missiles in 1962
shortly after they were taken allowed their use as a centerpiece of U.S.
efforts to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis;

Nearly thirty years after the end of World War II, revelations of signals
intercepts and codebreaking successes (the Ultra project in the Euro-
pean theater and Magic in the Far East) produced a fundamental re-
evaluation of the conduct of that conflict; and

Public release in 1995 of imagery demonstrated evidence of genocide in Srebrenica that helped garner international support for U.S. diplomatic efforts in Bosnia.

issued under the leadership of Vice President Gore, imagery collected from satellites. The eventual result is to be the public release of over 886,000 satellite reconnaissance images (some of which the Government has posted already on the Internet).

In recent years, agency task forces have searched for, reviewed, and declassified large volumes of records on issues involving past government actions about which there is great public interest. After passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and the establishment of a Review Board to monitor implementation of the law, agencies undertook intensive searches for and reviews of relevant records. The result has been to make publicly available over three million pages of previously secret records related to that key event.

In response to the creation of a Senate select committee to investigate the fate of Americans who were prisoners of war or missing in action in past military conflicts, the Department of Defense (DoD) in 1991 established a Central Documentation Office that began a process of coordinating broad searches, declassification reviews, and public releases of records. In 1993, the DoD also established a task force to assist the Gulf War Illnesses Advisory Committee by locating, declassifying, and posting on an Internet site records that might help explain the physical ailments reported by veterans of the Persian Gulf War. Some critics have charged that neither of these two projects has yet released all relevant records. The Gulf War project also. came under scrutiny when intelligence reports that had been placed on-line were removed but later reinstated after their removal drew complaints. Nevertheless, both have succeeded in making much more declassified information available to the public than would otherwise be the case.

Agencies have shown initiative in providing public access in other ways. In recent years, the State Department has worked closely with a statutorily created historical advisory committee to more regularly review, declassify, and publish records on key foreign policy events for its Foreign Relations of the United States series. In 1996, the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) each established formal working relationships with advisory groups of prominent scholars to obtain advice on their declassification efforts, although it is not yet clear what the continuing impact these citizen committees ultimately will have on those agencies' public access policies.

In addition, the Department of Energy (DoE) in 1993 began an “Openness Initiative” to increase public confidence in the DoE and to make more declassified information publicly available. The DOE also established an advisory committee in response to reports of government-sponsored human radiation experiments. In 1995, that advisory committee issued a comprehensive report and assembled over 1.6 million pages of relevant records from numerous sources, most of which had not been easily accessible before; these records are now available at the National Archives and on the Internet as well. Another consequence of the DOE's attempts at greater openness was that an environmental group that had been on the verge of suing the Department (and that had sued it in the past) decided to refrain from legal action and give the Department additional time to respond to the problems it had identified.

Unnecessary Secrecy Persists

Although some agencies show promising signs of more openness than in the
past, public access to government information that no longer needs protection
is not yet universally recognized as an important agency mission that
deserves priority. Despite the increased access to government information
that resulted from the projects just described, it is important to understand
that none was created solely due to agency initiative; all were compelled by
pressure on the Executive Branch from the public, the media, and the
Congress. Where government activities have stayed shrouded in secrecy,
sometimes for many years, that secrecy at times has contributed to
widespread public speculation of government wrongdoing. Sometimes this
has resulted in the eventual declassification of records, but often the
perception that the Government is using classification to hide its misdeeds has already
taken root and is difficult to dispel.2 Public mistrust of the reasons information is
classified is illustrated by a 1994 DoD survey, which found that a majority of
Americans believe that "given the world situation," too much information still is kept
secret by the Government.3

Skepticism about agency motives can also arise from the way in which an agency declassifies and publicly disseminates information. When agencies selectively declassify only a handful of records on an event but do not make entire files available, it can lead to the impression that the Government is more interested in self-justification of its actions than in a full airing of the historical record.

Secrecy is a tool that can help government officials reach
policy goals, but too often a secret can become self-
perpetuating even after the reason for maintaining it has
been achieved or abandoned. Solving the problem of the
growing backlog of classified documents, discussed in
more detail below, requires the acceptance of declassifi-
cation as a routine government activity. The dictionary
defines "classify" as simply "to organize or arrange
according to class or category." Thus, providing public
access to government records that no longer need
protection, or "declassifying," means finding sensible,
cost-effective, and routine ways to separate the catego-
ries of materials no longer warranting protection from

According to a former government historian, weather reports produced by an aide to General Eisenhower during World War II were still classified

thirty years after the fact.

Journalist and former hostage Terry Anderson filed FOIA requests for agency records on his capture and release. After waiting many months for responses to his requests, he received copies of his own press clips that had been kept in classified government files. Nearly everything else in those files was denied to him as still secret.

those needing to stay secret. One historian active in recent debates about the appropriate boundaries of government secrecy has observed that "the whole process of security classification itself is a Cold War artifact; we need to distinguish what of the process can be jettisoned and what we need to keep."4

Sensible Risk Management

Chapter II discussed the Joint Security Commission's (JSC's) recommendation in 1994
that agencies practice sensible risk management as an integral part of deciding
whether information should be classified. Although many government officials claim
to practice risk management in making declassification decisions, their analytic

approach often more closely resembles absolute risk avoidance. Risk management, as applied to declassification, means that the information at issue is assessed to determine what harm is likely to occur from release. There is some highly sensitive information that requires zero tolerance of risk from its potential release. However, other information that required protection at an earlier point in its life cycle may later be amenable to a risk assessment that would result in a decision that the information can be released.

Thus, applying risk management principles to declassification is closely tied to the type of information involved; not all classified information should be treated alike when it is being considered for release. For example, information that would encourage nuclear proliferation needs careful protection. However, a decades-old report analyzing a foreign country's political situation or in which policymakers are advised of possible options may not pose any risk to national security from public release. Evaluation of the potential harm from release based on current and realistic risk assessments is critical to managing declassification well.

Continuing Barriers to Declassification and
Public Access

Agencies are making more declassified information available than before, and in the
process they are discovering positive aspects to increased public knowledge about
what they do. However, it remains very difficult for the public, and sometimes for the
Congress, to get access to information about certain government activities when
information related to them has been protected at some point by classification. Schol-
ars, historians, journalists, scientists, and individual citizens cite many
problems in obtaining access to even very old or widely known
information because it is still classified. Many who try to use the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-even to get information in
government files about themselves-routinely wait up to several
years before they receive a response. Even when records are
eventually released, they are often riddled with excisions (frequently
called "redactions"). Outside the FOIA context, scientists who wish
to exchange information with their colleagues have been threatened
at times with the loss of their clearances or instructed by government
officials not to discuss certain matters that an agency asserts are
classified, even though the information in question is based on what
already is publicly known. 5

Information Security Oversight Office Director Steven Garfinkel has observed that "the major failing of all our security classification systems up to now has been the absence of a viable declassification program that could adequately address the huge buildup of older, permanently valuable classified records."

Despite some successes in increasing public access, the vast majority of classified information, including many very old records that might provide key insights into our nation's history, remains inaccessible to the public. Sensible, cost-effective processes do not currently exist to distinguish between the material that would and that would not harm national security if it were released. Now, it simply is easier to classify information and keep it classified than to move it out of the system when it no longer requires protection.