[Infowarrior] - Declass Board Tells Obama Openness is “At Risk”

[Richard Forno]

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/03/at_risk.html

In a new letter to President Obama, the Public Interest  
Declassification Board warned that reliable public access to  
government information, the very foundation of representative  
democracy, may be in jeopardy.

Although “our Board was heartened by your early statements and actions  
on openness in Government,” wrote Board acting chairman Martin Faga to  
the President on March 6, “we have to sound a note of alarm about how  
well the Government is doing in this area.”

“In fact, we have concluded that this fundamental principle of self- 
government” — that is, citizen access to information about Government  
— “is at risk and, without decisive action, the situation is likely to  
worsen.”

The Public Interest Declassification Board was established by Congress  
in 2000 to advise the president on declassification policy and  
practice.  Board members are appointed by the White House and Congress.

Mr. Faga, a former director of the National Reconnaissance Office,  
identified several structural and procedural factors that he said  
impede declassification, including inadequate resources, coordination  
and leadership, as well as poor management of digital records.   
“Future historians may find that the paper records of early American  
history provide a more reliable historical account than the inchoate  
mass of digital communications of the current era.”

Although the Board’s mission focuses on declassification of historical  
records, the Board has also taken an interest in classification policy  
and has called for a revision to the executive order on classification.

“Serious attention to the classification process itself is needed to  
ensure that it supports declassification and to address the  
particularly challenging and long-standing issue of over- 
classification,” the Board’s letter said.

A presidential directive initiating a revision of the executive order  
on classification policy is believed to be imminent.