Government Secrecy and Your Library Presentation for LIS 610 By Gwen Sinclair March 1, 2016

What is “open government?” Transparent actions Available information Minimal secrecy

Open government ideal vs. reality Government secrecy is entrenched President Obama’s directive only applies to Executive Branchdirective Many types of information are still subject to secrecy protocols

What people believe about government information It all gets saved/preserved It’s all subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) It’s available online, including declassified documents, and is fully searchable

Deliberate or Accidental Destruction FBI files destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover (FBI director, ) and others Shredded documents related to Iran-Contra, 1980s s of IRS officials being investigated for targeting Tea Party

Archiving by Government Agencies Retention schedules: transfer-disposition.html transfer-disposition.html Agency or NARA? ions/index.html ions/index.html Selective Service medical records

Presidential Papers Prior to Presidential Records Act of 1978, considered president’s personal property Restricted access for years

Congress Congressional Papers –Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act –Considered personal property of each member of Congress –Access restricted in Deed of Gift –Some have not been saved –Classified information kept at National Archives

Freedom of Information Act Applies only to Executive Branch There are many exceptions: –National security –Personal information/Privacy –Law enforcement –Trade secrets/commercial or financial information –Pre-decisional information

Freedom of Information Act Where can you read documents once released? –FOIA reading roomsFOIA reading rooms –Very little available online Subscription-based collections released documents –Digital National Security Archive (ProQuest) –Declassified Documents (Gale) –ProQuest microfilm collections Various online collections

Even when FOIA applies… It is very cumbersome to file a request It can take years to receive a response No central administration FOIAonline Guide

Inconsistent Redactions

Executive agreements Executive agreements/treaties –Destroyers for bases in British territories (1940) –Military bases in Spain, Diego Garcia, Bahrain Trade agreements –NAFTA –Trans-Pacific Partnership Source: Daily Mail

Presidential Directives Executive orders Presidential policy directives National security directives

National Security Intelligence budget –Contractors Geospatial data –Strategic resources –Military installations –Imagery Biopreparedness Nuclear power plants and chemical plants risk assessments and emergency plans

Classification (show & tell) Policy set by president Automatic declassification –E.O E.O Classification schedules –Top Secret –Secret –Confidential –Restricted Data (Dept. of Energy) –Circumvention of classification Sensitive but Unclassified Controlled Unclassified

Classification Declassification: how long does it take? –Fantasy: automatic declassification after 25 years –National Declassification CenterNational Declassification Center Uses page-level pass/fail declassification threshold Low-hanging fruit approach Lack of resources 1,171 JFK documents Reclassifications: Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of State nuclear arsenal publications Classification of previously unclassified material –Hillary Clinton’s s Acknowledged overclassification

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Names of informants Human subjects research Medical records Military service records (handout) POW/MIA research

Law Enforcement Procedure manuals for investigations Internal rules Interagency communications

Climate change research –George W. Bush Administration altered 2003 EPA draft report on the environment 2004 Taguba report on Abu Ghraib abuse of prisoners was classifiedTaguba report Book written by former FBI counterintelligence agent was suppressed by FBIBook Political Secrecy and Censorship

Exemption 4 under FOIA Private/confidential information submitted to government agencies –Securities and Exchange Commission –Environmental Protection Agency Trade Secrets

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s legal opinions and orders Military commissions for terrorists The Courts and Secrecy

Here today, gone tomorrow Secrecy orders on patents Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Defense, Department of Energy reports after 9/11 Los Alamos National Laboratory technical reports NASA technical reports (handout) ERIC documents DOI web site

Cultural property & privacy Archaeological sites Human remains Department of Hawaiian Home Lands records Census records

Organizations monitoring government secrecy Center for Effective Government Federation of American Scientists National Security Archive OpenTheGovernment.org Sunlight Foundation

What are librarians doing? Archiving partnerships –Cybercemetery (UNT)Cybercemetery –End of term web crawls Web harvesting Lobbying Congress FOIA requests Free Government Information

Questions?