SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2008, Issue No. 36
April 10, 2008

保密新闻博客://www.tumejico.com/blog/secrecy/

U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES RETHINK CLASSIFICATION POLICY

根据国家情报局局长新获得的报告，美国情报机构已经着手制定一项制定统一分类政策和单个分类指南的过程。

The way that intelligence agencies classify information is not only frustrating to outsiders, as it is intended to be, but it has also impeded interagency cooperation and degraded agency performance.

In order to promote improved information sharing and intelligence community integration, the ODNI undertook a review of classification policies as a prelude towards establishing a new Intelligence Community Classification Guide that would replace numerous individual agency classification policy guides.

最初的ODNI审查于2008年1月完成，确定了当前情报分类政策中的基本缺陷。

"The definitions of 'national security' and what constitutes 'intelligence' -- and thus what must be classified -- are unclear," the review team found.

"Many interpretations exist concerning what constitutes harm or the degree of harm that might result from improper disclosure of the information, often leading to inconsistent or contradictory guidelines from different agencies."

"There appears to be no common understanding of classification levels among the classification guides reviewed by the team, nor any consistent guidance as to what constitutes 'damage,' 'serious damage,' or 'exceptionally grave damage' to national security... There is wide variance in application of classification levels."

Among the recommendations presented in the initial review were that original classification authorities should specify clearly the basis for classifying information, e.g. whether the sensitivity derives from the content of the information, or the source of the information, or the method by which it is analyzed, the date or location it was acquired, etc. Current policy requires that the classifier be "able" to describe the basis for classification but not that he or she in fact do so.

A copy of the unreleased ODNI report on classification policy was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Intelligence Community Classification Guidance: Findings and Recommendations Report," January 2008:

From Secrecy News' perspective, the initial ODNI review falls short in two respects.

首先，它假设分类的一致性本质上是可取的，因此应通过社区范围的分类指南施加。但是一致性最多是次要美德。当一项分类政策是有道理的时，最好是不一致地应用它，例如情报预算保密（见下文）。

Second, the review does not touch upon what is probably the single most necessary change in intelligence classification policy, namely the need to narrow the definition of intelligence sources and methods that require protection. Almost anything can serve as an intelligence source or method, including a subscription to the daily newspaper. But not every intelligence source or method requires or deserves classification or other protection from disclosure.

STATE DEPARTMENT REVEALS 2009 INTELLIGENCE BUDGET REQUEST

The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is among the most highly regarded members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Not coincidentally, it is also among the most open and accessible.

特别是，它是唯一定期发布其预算的情报社区组织之一。（联邦调查局还披露了其大部分情报支出。）

Thus, the recent 2009 State Department budget justification book projects a 2009 INR budget of $59.8 million for a staff of 313 persons. The ten-page 2009 budget justification for INR may be found here:

This would be unremarkable except for the fact that INR's budget disclosure policy deviates from the norm of U.S. intelligence classification policy, in which most budget information is automatically classified. Even some intelligence organizations that are smaller and less influential than INR insist on classifying their budgets.

For more than a decade, the Department of Energy Office of Intelligence published its detailed budget each year. But under pressure from CIA (so I was told), DOE began withholding its intelligence budget information in 2004. The last reported figure for DOE intelligence was $39.8 million in FY 2004 (Secrecy News,02/07/05).

If consistency in classification policy were to prevail throughout the U.S. intelligence community, as the Director of National Intelligence has recommended, then State Department intelligence might be expected to follow DOE intelligence into pointless, unnecessary secrecy.

CORRECTION ON COLLAPSE OF BEE COLONIES

关于蜂蜜蜜蜂种群下降的原因的科学日报yesterday从4月秘密消息2007, not April 2008. Though interesting, it was not news.

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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

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