U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein told the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations that NARA is conducting an audit to determine how many records were withdrawn from the public, why they were withdrawn, and whether reclassification was appropriate. He added that a final report would be available within 60 days, the March 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.
The subcommittee’s chair, Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), called the secrecy “silly and absurd” and compared reclassification with “trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.” He criticized the Bush administration for keeping information secret by adding Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) designations to many documents—a category for which no uniform classification exists across federal agencies and which provides notice to an agency that a public document should be carefully scrutinized before it is released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Shays also told agency representatives that he was bothered by information revealed in a previous hearing, not open to the public, that the Department of Defense has overclassified 50% of its records, while other agencies have 50%–90% overclassification rates.
Defense of Department Undersecretary Robert Rogalski told subcommittee members that any one of the DOD’s 2.5 million employees has the authority to classify a document as SBU, according to a report by the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive (NSA), a group based at George Washington University that uses FOIA to compile information on international affairs, told Shays that the DOD should limit the authority to designate SBU information.
The NSA released the results of its own audit of government classification practices at the hearing, finding 28 different and uncoordinated agency policies on SBU designations, “none of which include effective oversight or monitoring of how many records are marked and withheld, by whom, or for how long.”
Subcommittee member Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Congress should use its authority to keep the administration from improperly classifying public records. “Our nation is neither safer nor more open,” he said. “We need to take another look at the laws and regulations that guide classification policy, for I believe the current system is out of control.”
Posted March 17, 2006.