NSA To Scientists: We Won't Tell You What We've Told You; That's Classified

MojoKid writes One of the downsides to the news cycle is that no matter how big or hot a story is, something else inevitably comes along. The advent of ISIS and Ebola, combined with the passing of time, have pushed national security concerns out of the limelight — until, that is, someone at the NSA helps out by reminding us that yes, the agency still exists and yes, it still has some insane policies and restrictions. Earlier this year, the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the NSA. The group was seeking information it thought would be relatively low-key — what authorized information had been leaked to the media over the past 12 months? The NSA's response reads as follows: "The document responsive to your request has been reviewed by this Agency as required by the FOIA and has been found to be currently and properly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526. The document is classified because its disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security." The NSA is insisting that it has the right to keep its lawful compliance and public disclosures secret not because the NSA is made of evil people but because the NSA has a knee-jerk preference and demand for secrecy. In a spy organization, that's understandable and admirable but it's precisely the opposite of what's needed to rebuild American's faith in the institution and its judgment.

Comments

Propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Government is now allowed to use propaganda against its own people due to the NDAA. They don't want us to know what propaganda they are using against us.

Re:Propaganda

[meerling]

The NSA is the NSA. They were there before the president, and will be there many more presidents to come. They don't care about the president because he's only there for 4 years, maybe 8 at the most. Really, do you think any president "controls" the NSA? The best they can hope to do is reign in their worst activities on a good day.

Who is surprised ?

[redelm]

First, there are the knee-jerk responses of an "Intelligence" organisation never wanting to let anything truthful be known about it, and particularly detesting FIOA requests. Traitors. Then there is the bureaucratic response of never saying anything lest you be accused of inaccuracy.

But there also is a real security concern for the agency involved -- in answering "what did you release", they burn clandestine "leakers" as stooges. I do not think Snowden was a deliberate leak, but unless proven otherwise I assume about half the leaks are plants.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[Black Copter Control]

Telling people (including 'enemies') which 'leaks' were authorized and which ones were really leaks could give people all sorts of interesting information -- including which disinformation^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H leaks to trust and which ones not to.