Congressional Staffers Told To Pretend NSA Leak Docs Don't Exist; So How Are They Supposed To Respond?

from the i-prefer-not-to-be-governed-by-the-insane dept

Last week, we thought it was ridiculous enough that the DoD (of which the NSA is a key part) had reminded all staff that they were not allowed to look at any of the leaked NSA documents, even if they came across them in the press. If they spotted any, they had to alert various security officials and delete what they saw "by holding down the SHIFT key while pressing the DELETE key for Windows-based systems and clearing of the internet browser cache." As we noted at the time, pretending these documents aren't public does not make much sense, and suggests a government agency that does not want to live in reality.

Now we can add Congress to that list as well. Senate staffers have now been told not to look at the leaked documents, and similarly that they need to "contact the Office of Senate Security for assistance" if they happened across any of the documents accidentally. Once again, this is insane because it means Congress should deny reality and pretend to live with its collective head in the sand -- which is no way to govern.

However, the much bigger deal is that if this were actually obeyed (and it's not), this would effectively hinder Congress's required duty of oversight of the NSA to prevent abuse. If the very Congress that's supposed to monitor the NSA's practices, and which has already been directly lied to by the intelligence community is now being told that it can't even look at the leaks to understand what's going on, how the hell are they supposed to do their oversight job?

Furthermore, last week, we pointed to some video of Rep. Grayson on the House floor giving an impassioned speech about the leaks... and displaying many of the leaked NSA docs blown up on an easel. If Congress isn't allowed to look at them, but Congress is also presenting them on the floor of the House and broadcasting live on C-SPAN and YouTube for the world to see... was the rest of Congress just supposed to avert its eyes while Grayson spoke? Is that a reasonable world?

Filed Under: classified information, congress, oversight, staffers, transparency

CIA Cannot Find Its Own Regulations On How To Declassify Documents

from the or-maybe-it's-classified dept

There have been questions about what documents the CIA chooses to declassify, and so Kel McClanahan of National Security Counselors filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out what procedures the CIA must follow in response to requests to declassify information. McClanahan appeared to know exactly what he was looking for, but... was told that the CIA simply could not find any such documents.
I especially like this part: "our searches were thorough and diligent, and it is highly unlikely that repeating those searches would change the result." This certainly reminds me of the news that came out last year about how the administration wanted permission to lie in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, such that if it doesn't want to release a document, it can just say that no such documents exist, rather than admit it does exist but can't be revealed. No, that's not wide open to abuse at all...

Filed Under: cia, classified information, foia, national security counselors