Reducing Secrecy

Excessive secrecy has long been a problem in the fields of national and homeland security because it limits information sharing and leaves us less safe as a nation. Both the 9/11 Commission and the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11 recommended reforms to reduce unnecessary secrets. OpenTheGovernment.org works with our partners, the Administration, and Congress to put policies in place that both protect constitutional rights and ensure national security by better protecting real secrets and improving information sharing.

A Simple 'Explainer' of Some Classification Terms

The expected release this afternoon of the report by the President's review group on the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance programs will, we hope, spur a deeper discussion about government secrecy, including issues with our classification system. To help people who might not be as familiar with some of the terms regularly used by those who work on classification policy, we have put together some basic slides to explain the differences between information that is properly marked and appropriately classified and between original and derivative classification. We have also put together a slide explaining overclassification. Click "Read More" to see the slides.

12/18/2013

Facing Surveillance and National Security as a Member of the OGP

As a co-founder of the Open Government Partnership, the United States is perfectly placed to model open government’s potential and to set a high bar of ambition for member countries’ action plans. The US’ plans, successes, failures, and neglects are placed in a glaring spotlight. A statement of concern addressed to the new OGP co-Chairs from more than 100 civil society organizations from across the globe called out a significant threat to open government found in many OGP member countries: the secret surveillance of the communications of millions.

11/22/2013

PIDB Sets Public Meeting for November 21

On Thursday, November 21 the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) will hold a public meeting at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to discuss its recommendations to the President on transforming classification, and gather input on prioritizing declassification.

11/12/2013

Groups Challenge Obama: Commit to Curb Secret Law

On October 21 OpenTheGovernment.org released a letter signed by 45 national security and transparency organizations urging President Obama to commit to making publicly available authoritative legal interpretations that are currently secret -– in order to begin to address domestic concerns that laws are being implemented in ways beyond what was thought allowable and to rebuild faith with our international partners. Among the groups joining the effort are the ACLU, the Constitution Project, Win Without War, Human Rights Watch, EFF, and the Liberty Coalition.

10/30/2013

State Secrets Privilege Reforms Return

On October 23^rd, 2013, Congressmen John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Tom Petri reintroduced the State Secrets Protection Act, legislation that would allow courts to conduct independent assessments of the government’s state secrets privilege claims and provide a much-needed arbiter in the balance between legitimate national security secrets and the community’s track record of excessive secrecy.

10/28/2013

Secrecy Report 2013 --The Tip of the Iceberg

WASHINGTON, October 1, 2013 – Today’s release of the 2013 Secrecy Report, the 9^th annual review and analysis of indicators of secrecy in the federal government by OpenTheGovernment.org, comes amid shocking revelations that cast doubt on the accuracy and the meaningfulness of the government’s statistics about surveillance. As is highlighted in the introduction to this report and in comments provided to OpenTheGovernment.org by former-Representative Mickey Edwards (R-OK), the government’s insistence on keeping interpretations of the law secret and a lack of oversight by Congress and the Judicial Branch helped set the stage for a surveillance program that is much broader than previously believed.

10/01/2013

Groups to Senate Intel: Release Text of NSA Surveillance Program Proposal

Yesterday afternoon 26 organizations joined OpenTheGovernment.org in sending a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to urge them to make the text of their proposal to address the National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance programs available to the public before marking it up.

10/01/2013

Legislation Aimed at Reforming Classification System Introduced

Last week Senators Shaheen and Risch introduced a bill that would help push forward some of the proposals made last year by the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) to improve the classification and declassification system.

08/06/2013

Calls for Transparency and Oversight on Intelligence Surveillance Programs

The House of Representatives recently took the first vote on limiting the government's national security surveillance programs since their broad scope was revealed by a series of leaked documents and press reports.

08/06/2013

Our Focus Issues

Reducing Secrecy