Largely prescribed in a series of successive presidential executive orders (EO) issued over the past 50 years, security classification policy and procedure provide the rationale and arrangements for designating information officially secret for reasons of national security, and for its declassification as well. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the first EO in 1940. Contents of this report: (1) Background; (2) Clinton¿s EO 12958 as Issued: Prescribing Declassification; Controversial Areas; Classification Challenges; A Balancing Test; Program Direction; New Organizations; (3) Bush¿5s Amendments to EO 12958; (4) Obama¿s Review of EO 12958; () Obama Revokes EO 12958 and Issues a New EO.

Recently, there have been multiple high-profile incidents involving the release of classified government info. Perhaps most prominent was Wikileaks.org's unauthorized publication of more than 600,000 classified DoD documents. Such incidents have further heightened congressional, media, and public interest in classified info. policy. This report provides info. on classified info. policy, which also is called security classification policy and national security classification info. policy. It discusses the history, costs, and agencies assigned roles in classified info. policy. The report focuses on Executive Order 13526, which establishes much of the current policy, and it identifies possible oversight issues for Congress. Illus. A print on demand report.

A series of laws passed in the 1970s promised the nation unprecedented transparency in government, a veritable “sunshine era.” Though citizens enjoyed a new arsenal of secrecy-busting tools, officials developed a handy set of workarounds, from over classification to concealment, shredding, and burning. It is this dark side of the sunshine era that Jason Ross Arnold explores in the first comprehensive, comparative history of presidential resistance to the new legal regime, from Reagan-Bush to the first term of Obama-Biden. After examining what makes a necessary and unnecessary secret, Arnold considers the causes of excessive secrecy, and why we observe variation across administrations. While some administrations deserve the scorn of critics for exceptional secrecy, the book shows excessive secrecy was a persistent problem well before 9/11, during Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Regardless of party, administrations have consistently worked to weaken the system’s legal foundations. The book reveals episode after episode of evasive maneuvers, rule bending, clever rhetorical gambits, and downright defiance; an army of secrecy workers in a dizzying array of institutions labels all manner of documents “top secret,” while other government workers and agencies manage to suppress information with a “sensitive but unclassified” designation. For example, the health effects of Agent Orange, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria leaking out of Midwestern hog farms are considered too “sensitive” for public consumption. These examples and many more document how vast the secrecy system has grown during the sunshine era. Rife with stories of vital scientific evidence withheld, justice eluded, legalities circumvented, and the public interest flouted, Secrecy in the Sunshine Era reveals how our information society has been kept in the dark in too many ways and for too long.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks have sparked a wildfire of debates. There are several issues that serve as the source of these debates but they are all based on one of two common concerns: either the balance of power between the people and the U.S. government, or the efficiency of the nation's security resources. How far should the government be able to infringe upon the people's constitutional rights to expression, privacy, religious worship etc. to ensure the safety of its people? And how far will the people be willing to let those rights be infringed upon, if they are even aware that they exist. It is a strange dichotomy that is ironic when one considers that the war on terrorism is being fought in the name of freedom. The other concern was born from questions of whether or not 9/11 could have been prevented and if more lives could have been saved during the tragedy if the nation's security infrastructure was better organised. This book examines these various issues and debates.

The publication of secret information by WikiLeaks and multiple media outlets, followed by news coverage of leaks involving high-profile national security operations, has heightened interest in the legal framework that governs security classification and declassification, access to classified information, agency procedures for preventing and responding to unauthorized disclosures, and penalties for improper disclosure. Classification authority generally rests with the executive branch, although Congress has enacted legislation regarding the protection of certain sensitive information. While the Supreme Court has stated that the President has inherent constitutional authority to control access to sensitive information relating to the national defense or to foreign affairs, no court has found that Congress is without authority to legislate in this area. This report provides an overview of the relationship between executive and legislative authority over national security information, and summarizes the current laws that form the legal framework protecting classified information, including current executive orders and some agency regulations pertaining to the handling of unauthorized disclosures of classified information by government officers and employees. The report also summarizes criminal laws that pertain specifically to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, as well as civil and administrative penalties. Finally, the report describes some recent developments in executive branch security policies and legislation currently before Congress (S. 3454).

Words of Intelligence: An Intelligence Professional's Lexicon for Domestic and Foreign Threats is intended for the intelligence and national security men and women at the federal, state, and local levels. The intelligence community has undergone massive changes since it developed after World War II. Intelligence work now involves several different processes, including the planning, collection, analysis, and production of information. It also requires extensive expertise in its terminology. And in the post-9/11 era, the intelligence community has expanded, requiring the transmission of information to state and local public administrators, health officials, and transportation planners in times of a possible domestic attack. The number of people who need to know the specialized terminology of the intelligence community continues to grow. This dictionary is an invaluable tool for those requiring a working knowledge of intelligence-related issues from both a foreign intelligence perspective and a local perspective for law enforcement officials. The number of terms, abbreviations, and acronyms has more than doubled for this new edition, and it includes a topical index and extensively cross-referenced entries. This book explains terms that relate to intelligence operations, intelligence strategies, security classifications, obscure names of intelligence boards and organizations, and methodologies used to produce intelligence analysis. Both entry-level and experienced intelligence professionals in the domestic and foreign intelligence communities find this book useful. This book is more than just a reference book; it is a book to read and enjoy, and from which to learn the art and science of intelligence analysis.