
Secrecy, overclassification, and the the CIA’s hidden history - danso
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/sep/30/unraveling-cia-secrecy/
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mpiedrav
Would it be safe to say that CIA (and NSA and other parts of the intelligence
community) is the actual "State within the State" (i.e., the so-called "Deep
State")?

"National security", almost at any cost, became the paramount prerogative of
US intelligence agencies. However, they seem to be using a military criteria
in a civil environment, which was supposed to be transparent enough for
accountability.

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
I'd argue today's situation is, despite many problems, still comparatively
better than the past: the Hoover era, as the most salient example, was vastly
more corrupt and undemocratic.

It's crucial in this regard to distinguish two issues: (a) to what degree do
these institutions wield power unchecked by democratically-elected/legitimized
institutions (President/Congress/Courts), and (b) those institutions
commanding certain secret programs you (or I) disagree with (i. e. the stuff
Snowden revealed).

Despite some regression in the last two years, there is still at least _some_
accountability, as the current whistleblower demonstrates. But, of course, the
safety margin is shrinking. With enough turnover in some key positions, a
future whistleblower may just find their legitimate complaint buried.

~~~
nexuist
> With enough turnover in some key positions, a future whistleblower may just
> find their legitimate complaint buried.

Couldn't you say this has already happened with e.g. Snowden?

~~~
Aloha
Did Snowden try to go they official channels? I don't think he did, Snowden
(mostly rightly) decided to bypass the existing reporting systems.

~~~
eggsthedev
He didn't, and I recall that Snowden was motivated to do so outside the
reporting systems after he saw the Director of National Intelligence straight-
up lie to Congress.

Snowden was pretty smart; it's quite a good thing that he chose to act in good
faith.

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pmiller2
Great article. It brings back to mind a question I had recently: what gives
the federal government, specifically the executive branch, the power to
classify information at all?

I know there are laws and executive orders that say they can do that, but I’m
wondering what the ultimate authority derives from in the Constitution. If
it’s not a simple explanation, are there any scholarly legal articles I can
look at?

~~~
handedness
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the_United_States#Executive_privilege)

~~~
pmiller2
Upvote for trying, but executive privilege isn't quite it, IMO. All that does
is protect the papers and communications of government officials in a way that
makes them less accessible to the courts.

State secrets privilege[0] is closer, but not quite it. All that does is allow
the executive to say in court "sorry, that's classified, state secrets
privilege," and have certain evidence excluded. It doesn't really get to the
root of what allowed the government to classify the information in the first
place.

My suspicion is that it derives somehow from the president's role as
commander-in-chief, but I'm not very familiar with the legal scholarship
behind it.

~~~
HenryKissinger
The federal government has the power to classify information because it owns
it. The primary purpose of a state is to preserve itself. The ability to
control access to secrets is critical to this. It's a bit like asking "What
gives the government the right to execute the laws?" Because that's what it's
meant to do.

~~~
mch82
That’s not the primary purpose of government in the United States. And that’s
not how government derives the right to execute laws in the United States.

We govern ourselves. The government is given the right to execute laws by the
people who vote. The Bill of Rights clarified that any other rights are
reserved by the people.

Additionally, most federal information is public domain and owned by the
people. That’s why Freedom of Information Act requests are effective.

Freedom isn’t free and things might not always be this way if we don’t protect
our freedoms.

~~~
HenryKissinger
The United States government classification system is established under
Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the
topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526
replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations
codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification,
declassification, and handling of national security information generated by
the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information
received from other governments.

~~~
pmiller2
Right, but what's the constitutional basis for those laws, regulations, and
executive orders?

~~~
HenryKissinger
The preamble of the EO only says: by the authority vested in me as President
by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America

------
zarro
I always found it annoying how things get "declassified" only after anyone
that could have provided context and good points of objection, in order to
develop a better system of rules, is dead.

How can you expect to perfect a system by making the negative feedback loop
ineffective.

~~~
vonmoltke
It's a tricky balance between that and protecting the people involved from
harm, as well as protecting methods that may still be of use. I think the US
government is too conservative about when to release information, but in many
cases even less conservative standards will result in information being
withheld until most or all of the principals are dead.

~~~
zarro
I agree that's the argument used, but you have to weigh that against the
possibility that it also incentivises malicious actor(s) to subversive
behavior because they will not be held accountable for their actions.

In the grand scheme of things it comes to a subjective decision point, and I
would tend to argue that an increase in accountability toward the customers
(us), wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

~~~
vonmoltke
Hence why I think the US government is too conservative in deciding these
matters. The accountability to us is supposed to come via our
Congresscritters, but that clearly has issues.

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wildduck
There are academic researchers have written about this topic:

Amy Benjamin: The Many Faces of Secrecy
[https://ssrn.com/abstract=3038640](https://ssrn.com/abstract=3038640)

"Political secrecy in the United States has never been more studied – and less
understood – than it is today. This irony is due in large part to the slippery
nature of the phenomenon: Secrecy presents in different guises depending on
the area of governmental activity under consideration. In the classified world
of the U.S. national security state, secrecy results from affirmative
governmental acts designed to enforce a sharp distinction between official and
public knowledge...."

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readhn
To better understand this organization and its inner workings i highly
recommend the book "Overthrow" by Stephen Kinzer.

~~~
zby
How about "Legacy of Ashes"?

[https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-
Weiner/dp/03...](https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-
Weiner/dp/0307389006)

~~~
_iyig
Came here to post this. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. For one
thing, the quality of the author’s research speaks for itself:

“The book is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives
of the CIA, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten
Directors of Central Intelligence.”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Ashes_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Ashes_\(book\))

------
no_opinions
It's perfect timing this gets brought up because with all this news about
Xinjiang, HK, East Ukraine, etc. we need to make sure China, Russia and so on
also let us examine their transparency and protocols so we can give a
rigorous, thorough checkup for human rights abuses. This being all about
fairness and truth and we need to make sure everyone else can be held
accountable to the same standards.

I look forward to a new muckrock feature where FOIA can be sent to Iran,
China, and Russia to open up like USA and other European countries.

Also since US journalists evangelize Snowden and Assange, I'm sure
Russia/China/other countries targeting USA won't have any leakers themselves.
Their people being so well treated and obedient, such great gentlemen, even if
they feel flustered and out of place over there, no matter, they can just
trust in the virtues of their system and everything will be just fine. :)

/s

~~~
boomboomsubban
So in your eyes, "probably better than China" is the optimum?

~~~
jessaustin
If USA government employees are more accountable than China government
employees, China wins!

~~~
no_opinions
I doubt US Department of Agriculture or Department of Education operate abroad
or have human rights issues to FOIA, you can try.

> If USA government employees are more accountable than China government
> employees, China wins!

"Transparency and accountability in foreign policy/information gathering only
applies to the country with a FOIA system conveniently available and uses
english!"

~~~
jessaustin
ITT we're complaining about "overclassification" and other sins of USA's
unsupervised services. (I hadn't been familiar with the atrocities in
Indonesia linked by TFA...) We're not sure what you're on about. Do you mean
that China and other nations have not respected human rights? We all agree.
What else do you intend to say? Do you really think that "US journalists
evangelize Snowden and Assange"? If that were the case, surely a name-brand
media firm like WaPo, NYT, MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN, etc. would have published such
evangelizing in the last several years, but they haven't. Some smaller firms
do mention them, but I note that TFA doesn't. Why have you introduced this red
herring?

