Government extends its secrecy shield

COMMENTARY--Nobody likes to be criticized in public, especially all those politicians in Washington, D.C., who fervently hope to be re-elected.

But the Bush administration has taken the desire to avoid critical commentary toan extreme. In incident after troubling incident, federal agencies have been quietly censoring information that previously had been available on their Web sites and otherwise curbing public oversight.

About a week ago, the U.S. Army surreptitiously pulled the plug on one of its more popular Web sites, call.army.mil, after The Washington Post wrote about areport that had been posted on it.

The Post's October 25 articlesaid "the U.S. military intelligence gathering operation in Iraq is beingundercut by a series of problems in using technology, training intelligencespecialists and managing them in the field," citing the report prepared by theCenter for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The report, which thePost had the foresight to mirror on its own Web site, talked about the "poor quality" of mission planning and"marginally effective" training for certain reserve troops.

The report was not classified. It was merely a sober analysis of the Army's problems in Iraq. It had the ring of truth to it, unlike Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, which he used to blandly reassure viewers. "We canwin this war. We will win this war," he said.

This is not an isolated example. In the two years since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has systematically reduced the amount of information available to the public, which in turn has made government officials less accountable to taxpayers. Attorney General John Ashcroft set the tone in an Oct. 12, 2001, memo that urged agencies to withhold information from requests that were made under the Freedom of Information Act. Then, in January, Rumsfeld claimed that too much data was popping up on military Web sites. Citing al-Qaida, Rumsfeld warned that "one must conclude our enemies' access (to Department of Defense) Web sites on a regular basis."

In the last two years, though, the government has extended secrecy far beyond what recent predecessors have dared.

Rumsfeld's directive explains why, a few weeks ago, another part of the Pentagondecided to shroud its actions in secrecy. Until recently,the Web site for the Defense Science Board--an obscure but influential advisory body thatinfluences military policy and had a budget of $3.6 million a year--had listed the board's membership.

Today, the board's Web site still includes links to "members" and "task forcemembers," but one link requires a password, and the other link returns a "404: file not found" error. What makes this bureaucratic pusillanimity particularlynoteworthy is that the full membership list remains available on a second government Web site the GeneralServices Administration runs.

As with the now-unavailable Army site, national security was hardly at risk. Theboard members include a typical cross section of organizations that receive fatchecks for military work, including representatives of Northrop Grumman, SandiaNational Laboratory, General Dynamics, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory. The onlyreasonable explanation for the disappearing information is to make it harder forthe public and journalists to follow trails of money and influence.

Probably the most blatant example of bureaucrats who hope to duck criticism cameabout a year ago, when the military tried to quell public concern about thenow-defunct Total Information Awareness project through the simple expedient ofdeleting files from the Web.

First, biographical information about TIA project leaders, including retiredAdm. John Poindexter, disappeared. Then the TIA site shrank even more, with the slogan and logo for the TIA project--a Masonic pyramid that eyeballs theglobe--vanishing, a highly unusual move for any government agency. Finally, afew weeks later, a diagram that explains the TIA project was erased.

Some reason for optimism
Once in a while, though, the government can be shamed into backing down.

About a month ago, the Defense Department blocked public access to a Web site that lists internalregulations. Examples include "Prevention of Oil Pollution From Ships" and "Enforcement of the State Traffic Laws on (Defense Department) Installations."

No reason for the block was given. But after the Associated Press ran an article about it and TheMemoryHole.org posted its mirror of the site, the Pentagon relented and restored publicaccess to the regulations. Accelerating that restoration was a strong legalargument that the regulations must be published and available to the public.

Then there's the White House, with its own form of history revisionism. On Sept.24, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Ricegave a briefing to the press on the condition that she be identified only as a"senior administration official," a common practice in Washington. Thetranscriptwas posted to the Whitehouse.gov site.

One reporter, however, had addressed her as "Dr. Rice," a statement the WhiteHouse faithfully included in the posted transcript. By the next morning, thosewords had disappeared from the White House's Web site.

It turns out that the Federation ofAmerican Scientists was suing the CIA to learn the dollar size of the U.S. intelligence budget.

In July, the Department of Energy surreptitiously deleted from its Web sitedocuments that relate to its 2004 budget request. If you look at the HTML sourcecode today, you'll see this note: "7/28/03 removed per J. Campbell request," areference to James Campbell, the department's acting chief financial officer.

It turns out that the Federation of American Scientists was suing the CIA to learn the dollar size ofthe U.S. intelligence budget (countries such as United Kingdom, Canada, and theNetherlands routinely disclose theirs). In its litigation, the Washington-basednonprofit group reminded the judge that the Energy Department is part of theintelligence community, and its budgets were published.

"Shortly afterward, the intelligence budget data was removed from the (Energy Department Web) site," wrote Steven Aftergood, head of the group's Project on Government Secrecy. Anindomitable open-government warrior, Aftergood verified that the deletedinformation was not classified and then promptly republished iton his own Web site. (Aftergood, incidentally, was the first to document andpublicize many of these incidents mentioned in this column.)

Every administration does this to some extent. In 1998, while working for TimeInc., I attended a meeting of the President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption and was kicked out of the room when aNational Security Agency official wanted to brief subcommittee members insecret. Subcommittee members who heard the secret briefing later told me thatlimiting press coverage, not preserving national security, was the real reasonthe chairman closed the meeting.

In the last two years, though, the government has extended secrecy far beyond what recent predecessors have dared. Thereare legitimate reasons for secrecy, but using the excuse of terrorist attacks to shield officials from embarrassment and critical scrutiny is unconscionable. The public deserves better.

biography
Declan McCullagh is the Washington correspondent for CNET News.com, chronicling the ever-busier intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.