Public Hearing

At the request of the National Security Advisor, the Public Interest Declassification Board held a public meeting at the National Archives this morning in order to solicit public comments and recommendations concerning proposed revisions to executive branch classification and declassification policies. Below are comments I provided at that hearing.

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In order to highlight the sorry state of over-classification today, I’d like to provide a recent example.

As revealed in the State Department publication, Foreign Relations of the United States, during a period beginning in the Eisenhower administration and ending in the Johnson administration, the U.S. conducted a covert action program within Italy through which we had assisted the democratic Italian political parties and trade unions at a very high rate. I can’t tell you much more, such as what U.S. agencies, what Italian organizations or how much money was involved, since that information remains classified even though much of it is more than 50 years old and harkens back to the darkest days of the Cold War. However, as we all recall from our history lessons, this was a period of ascendency for the Italian Communist Party.

A few years ago, an interagency committee considered the declassification of additional information associated with this covert action. It didn’t declassify any on the grounds that the declassification of more information would seriously and demonstrably impair relations between the United States and the Italian government, or seriously and demonstrably undermine ongoing U.S./Italian activities such as cooperation in the Iraq War and cooperation between our respective intelligence agencies.

According to the governing executive order, such a rationale can be reasonable, and it is employed frequently to either classify information in the first place or to refuse to declassify information, even half a century later. From a common sense point of view, however, use of this rationale in this instance would be comical if it was not surrounded by tragedy.

For shortly before this interagency committee came to the conclusion that this decades old information should remain classified, a couple of noteworthy events occurred which, if anything would, should have seriously and demonstrably impaired relations between the United States and the Italian government, to include cooperation between our respective intelligence services. The first one occurred in March 2005 when we shot and killed an Italian intelligence officer. You will recall this incident, which occurred when a U.S. armored vehicle in Iraq fired on a car carrying a freed Italian hostage wounding her and killing the Italian intelligence officer who had been at the forefront of negotiations with her kidnappers.

The second event also occurred in 2005, when allegedly the CIA was involved in the abduction and extraordinary rendition to Egypt of the Imam of Milan. This incident resulted in a judge issuing a European arrest warrant against numerous CIA agents for allegedly abducting the Egyptian terrorist suspect.

Notwithstanding these two events, last time I checked U.S./Italian relations remain strong – yet we are still fearful of releasing 50-year-old information on the grounds that it would seriously and demonstrably harm those relations.

Now, if I was the Italian desk officer at the State Department or the CIA, I too would probably prefer that this antiquated information not be released in order to ensure that it did not prove to be an additional distraction, no matter how remote that possibility might be.

However such an attitude fails to recognize what can and is a more likely source of damage to our national security. Our nation has experienced this decade some of the worst intelligence failures and one of the worst military debacles in the history of our country – notwithstanding the extraordinary sacrifice and commitment of the dedicated men and women of our military and intelligence services. These failures have occurred not because of any compromises of classified information but rather due to the faulty decisions made by our national leaders at all levels.

Ironically, within the vaults of this very building, there is a veritable treasure trove of information which can help enhance the decision making process for our leaders. No agency has had the luxury of dedicating resources to research the boxes of classified historical records and begin to make sense of lessons learned from our past and apply them to the challenges of the here and now. Thus, for example, our military and intelligence services have had to learn the lessons of counterinsurgency all over again at the cost of tremendous sacrifice in terms of blood and treasure. Our agencies have deliberately chosen to cut themselves off from the free and willing efforts of the multitude of researchers and historians who can help unravel the past in order to give a better understanding of the future.

Our country’s security can no longer afford to have such a national resource go to waste as it is kept locked away for no good reason other than uncertainty and indecisiveness on the part of some agencies. Right now we are confronted with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix once and for all the bane of over-classification, not only with respect to declassification efforts but initial classification as well. I implore you to use your influence with the President and the Congress not to let this opportunity pass us by.