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US Declassifications Delayed. Infrastructure Classification to follow?
kiwimate writes "This article discusses an executive order issued yesterday which delays the release of millions of historical documents until the end of 2006. Apparently, the relevant agencies need more time to study the affected papers, even though it only affects papers more than 25 years old. Evidently a quarter of a century is not a sufficiently lengthy review period. For a slightly different version of the same story, see here." For further news on the classification of "critical infrastructure" see Declan's story.
In related news.. Phybersyko writes "Declan McCallagh at cnet.com(website) reports (story)that "President George W. Bush has signed an executive order that explicitly gives the government the power to classify information about critical infrastructures such as the Internet."
Do we chalk this up to the cost of "freedom" or are we repeating the same mistakes the Catholics made in the Middle Ages (keep em' ignorant and our rule is secured)...."
/. with "Fair and Balanced" reporting. Read the The Guardian for the Right and The New Zealand Herald for the Left. Read it at C|Net if you don't care.
Don't worry if you forget a secret Echelon knows it already.
Is this to bury information about the actions of the current administration's people that they carried out when they worked for the Reagan administration?
At least in intelligence, the point of classification is to protect the source. For example, if the enemy knows that by using system X, we are able to gain insight into their operations, they will cease to use system X.
... OOPS!
While some things (like out military tactics and battle plans) are not really relevant 25 years after the fact, these documents should still be examined to make sure that they will not divulge a still valid source of valuable intelligence information.
It has happened in the past. Either through publication in the media or release of documents under FOIA, where later we went
Do people really think government agencies are sitting there for 25 years trying to figure out what documents to declassify? When a document is released, that someone gets assigned to it specifically to determine the precise point at which it can be declassified? Of course not - it'd be a complete and utter waste of resources. These reviews are done periodically and cover reams and reams of documents that can't simply be glanced at and passed through - they must be studied down to the individual words used. No doubt it takes quite a while.
But I guess, since we're dealing with Bush, there must be some nefarious governmental conspiracy behind it, right? It can't possibly be that it just takes a while to do the work properly, can it? "No more documents for oil!"
The linked CNET article has a bit of a misleading title.
The title and by-line states: "Bush order covers Internet secrets" and "President Bush has signed an executive order that explicitly gives the government the power to classify information about critical infrastructures such as the Internet."
But the last paragraph states:
"Steven Aftergood, an analyst at the Federation of American Scientists who tracks government secrecy, says the change in definitions "creates an opening that could be exploited in the future, but in practice the previous policy would have permitted much of the same thing."
Meaning that the previous act (signed into law by President Clinton in '95) would have allowed the same thing as President Bush's re-do of the act.
Unfortunately, most people won't read the entire article to see what the real information is.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
In the past, the declassification of historical documents about American security activities has been damaging to the public perceptions of security agencies (mostly because it reveals them for the unscrupulous bastards they are, or at least were), and this is a time when the US government can hardly afford to risk further losses in public opinion.
They don't want you to know about this stuff because they are afraid you won't like it. It's that simple.
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This administration has been really secretive with documents that should be released to the public. Remember couple of years ago Bush jr passed some executive orders preventing some of the papers of his fathers administration from being released.
Even looking at the way the present administration holds press briefings it is obvious that they want to completely limit and control information flow.
And yes 25 years is long enough. Remember if you go 25 years back you get smack in the middle of Reagan's time. Reagan is in the process of being turned into a living saint by the republicans, and it would be really inconvenient to provide some details about all the nasty things that happened during his presidency. Not to mention that some of these nasty things happened in Iraq, and would be really embarassing given the current reasoning for the war effort.
On top of everything, most of the powerful people of the bush administartion (such as Cheney, Powel and Rumsfield for example) were important people in the reagan administration. This decision shows that they are not quite eager to be judged for their actions back then. That is completely understandable. Powel, for example was implicated in transfering shitloads of anti air missiles to a certain "axis of evil" country.
So it is not surprising at all. But if we are to function as a democracy, these papers should be revealed. Politicians should be accountable for their actions, they should not be able to delay the release of truth indefinately. And who knows the papers may make the Reagan administration look good. Maybe there was a good reason for iran contra, and all the killing in south america. Dont know what that would be but it is possible, I suppose.