Steven Garfinkel, the leading architect of the current government-wide security-classification system, is the recipient of the American Library Association’s 13th annual James Madison Award, which recognizes efforts to promote government openness.
While director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives from 1980–2002, Garfinkel designed a system that has produced more than 800-million declassified pages—the largest number of pages declassified in the history of the government’s program, and more than four times as many as were released in the 15 years preceding the system’s 1995 implementation.
“At a time when more and more official government activity is conducted behind closed doors and in secrecy, beyond public oversight,” noted ALA President John W. Berry, “Mr. Garfinkel has been a thoughtful and informed critic of the system he supervised and consistently fought to expand public involvement in the process.”
Two other awards were presented at the March 15 Freedom of Information Day ceremony at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Virginia: The New Jersey Foundation for Open Government received a “Recognition of a Significant Contribution to Public Access to Government Information” certificate for its role in winning passing legislation modernizing New Jersey’s 38-year-old Open Public Records Act; and a posthumous James Madison Award went to former U.S. Rep. John E. Moss (D-Calif.), the father of the Freedom of Information Act.
Posted March 18, 2002.