America's Obsession with Secrecy

Here's an excellent op-ed on the costs of metastasizing secrecy regulations in the United States by Case Western Reserve journalism professor Ted Gup. His most striking finding: how readily Americans are giving up their freedoms. As Pogo put it many decades ago, "We have seen the enemy and he is us."

America's Secret Obsession
by Ted Gup (Washington Post; 2007-06-10

"If you guard your toothbrushes and diamonds with equal zeal, you'll probably lose fewer toothbrushes and more diamonds." -- Former national security adviser McGeorge Bundy

In April 1971, CIA officer John Seabury Thomson paddled his aluminum canoe across the Potomac on his daily commute from his home in Maryland to CIA headquarters in Langley. When he reached the Virginia shore, he noticed a milky substance clouding the waters around Pulp Run. A fierce environmentalist, Thomson traced the pollution to its source: his employer. The murky white discharge was a chemical mash, the residue of thousands of liquefied secrets that the agency had been quietly disposing of in his beloved river. He single-handedly brought the practice to a halt.

Nearly four decades later, though, that trickle of secrets would be a tsunami that would capsize Thomson's small craft. Today the nation's obsession with secrecy is redefining public and private institutions and taking a toll on the lives of ordinary citizens. Excessive secrecy is at the root of multiple scandals -- the phantom weapons of mass destruction, the collapse of Enron, the tragedies traced to Firestone tires and the arthritis drug Vioxx, and more. In this self-proclaimed "Information Age," our country is on the brink of becoming a secretocracy, a place where the right to know is being replaced by the need to know.

For the past six years, I've been exploring the resurgent culture of secrecy. What I've found is a confluence of causes behind it, among them the chill wrought by 9/11, industry deregulation, the long dominance of a single political party, fear of litigation and liability and the threat of the Internet. But perhaps most alarming to me was the public's increasing tolerance of secrecy. Without timely information, citizens are reduced to mere residents, and representative government atrophies into a representational image of democracy as illusory as a hologram.

The rest of the story: The Washington Post

Issues: Perspectives on Small Arms Control (Federation of American Scientists)

In the latest issue of the Federation of American Scientists' Public Interest Report, experts from three continents report on arms trafficking in Africa, Venezuela's small arms build-up, and the UN Small Arms Review Conference:
"Where Have All the Antonovs Gone? The Illicit Small Arms Trade in Africa" by James Bevan, researcher, Small Arms Survey (Geneva);
"A Recurrent Latin American Nightmare: Venezuela and the Challenge of Controlling State Ammunition Stockpiles" by Pablo Dreyfus, research coordinator, Small Arms Control Project, Viva Rio (Rio de Janeiro);
"United Nations Action on Small Arms: Moving Forward from Failure" by Rachel Stohl, senior analyst, Center for Defense Information (Washington, D.C.).

In the same issue, there are an overview by FAS analyst Matt Schroeder, "Global Approach Needed to Stem the Trade of Illicit Small Arms," and a summary of the new book, The Small Arms Trade.

The War on Terror: Report blasts U.S. for failures in fighting terrorism

CNN reports:

A just-released report slams the federal government for failing to coordinate the work of U.S. law enforcement agencies overseas to fight terrorism.

The Government Accountability Office found that in one country a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may have compromised several investigations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities.

The GAO did not name the country in its report.

The White House has long issued directives asking that U.S. law enforcement agencies assist foreign nations' anti-terrorism efforts.

But the report finds that embassy and law enforcement officials told the GAO "they had received little or no guidance" on how to accomplish that.

The issue of roles and responsibilities "remains unresolved and is still subject to ongoing debates within the administration," it said.

The 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism instructed the State Department to develop and coordinate U.S. counterterrorism policy abroad, but the report says that was not done.

The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act shifted that responsibility to the National Counterterrorism Center and, although a general plan has been drafted, it has not yet been implemented.

"As a result of these weaknesses, LEAs [law enforcement agencies], a key element of national power, are not being fully used abroad to protect U.S. citizens and interest from future terrorist attacks," the GAO concluded.

The rest of the story: CNN

Media: Iran to Launch Global News Channel

Iran's state-sponsored broadcasting company will launch Press TV on July 2. With a staff of Iranians and journalists imported from other countries, including Britain, the Tehran-based network will offer conventional hourly news updates, talk shows and documentaries familiar to viewers of CNN and BBC World. At a time of mounting pressure by the United States and some European nations over the country's nuclear energy program and its growing influence in the Middle East, the new channel will present news and opinion from an Iranian perspective. Far News Agency

Media: BBC plans foreign audience push

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Ben Fenton (Financial Times; 2007-6-17)

LONDON — The BBC is planning a more aggressive push for international audiences and advertising revenue with an overhaul of its overseas television lineup aimed at creating channels that can be "No. 1 or No. 2" in their markets, senior executives said.

Darren Childs, managing director of global channels for BBC Worldwide, the state-funded broadcaster's commercial arm, acknowledged that channels such as BBC America and BBC Prime had suffered from "a lack of focus and a scatter-gun strategy."

A multimillion-pound investment plan will see the BBC Prime general entertainment channel replaced with a series of thematic channels such as BBC Entertainment, BBC Lifestyle and CBeebies, a children's channel, and will include new U.S.-focused news programs for BBC America.

"I think with George W. Bush's approval rating at 29%, having a news broadcast with a neutral, British, BBC approach is well-timed," said Garth Ancier, president of BBC America.

The rest of the story: The Financial Times

Outed Ex-Agent Plame and publisher sue CIA over her memoir

(Reuters) An ex-spy whose unmasking led to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide is suing the Central Intelligence Agency, accusing it of unconstitutionally interfering with publication of her memoir. Valerie Plame Wilson and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, filed a suit against J. Michael McConnell, the CIA director of national intelligence, and CIA director Michael Hayden. The CIA demanded "significant portions" of Wilson's manuscript be "excised or rendered 'fiction'" to protect the secrecy of Wilson's service before 2002. The rest of the story: Reuters.