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WEEKEND READ: NATIONAL ARCHIVES SUNSHINE WEEK PANEL FOCUSES ON ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE AND GOVERNMENT ACCESS

March 15, 2024
tags: AI, FOIA, Sunshine Week
by Rachel Santarsiero

Federal agencies must prepare to integrate artificial intelligence and machine
learning capabilities while continuing to ensure government transparency,
according to the March 14, 2024 panel hosted by the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA), Artificial Intelligence: The Intersection of
Public Access and Open Government. Expert panelists from NARA, The State
Department, Department of Justice, and Library of Congress gathered at the
William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives during Sunshine Week—the
annual celebration of open government—to discuss how artificial intelligence
intersects with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and access to public
information.

Here are some big takeaways from the panel:

Eric Stein, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Global Information
Services (A/GIS) and Senior Agency Official for Privacy at the State Department,
outlined the agency’s goal to improve the experience of FOIA requesters and
State Department employees processing those requests through its FOIA AI Pilot
Project. According to Stein, the purpose of the project is to: 1) identify
similar FOIA requests—both existing requests and as new requests are received,
2) utilize automation instead of a manual process to search State Department
Central Records and Archives, and 3) improve the searching capabilities on the
public website and overall customer experience.

Currently, the agency spends $65 Million on annual FOIA processing costs,
employs 267 full-time FOIA staff to process requests, and has 20,000 pending
FOIA cases with around 15,000 new requests received annually. “Manual processes
are inefficient,” said Stein. “In certain cases, the Department was duplicating
efforts at various stages of the FOIA process, sometimes re-processing documents
from other cases.” With the help of the pilot-produced 360 FOIA Matching Tool,
Stein stated that FOIA staff will be able to more effectively search FOIAXpress
and State Department Reading Room results, ultimately cutting down on processing
inefficiencies.

For additional resources on the State Department’s FOIA AI Pilot Project and
Artificial Intelligence Strategy, see:  

 * June 23, 2023 National Security Archive Unredacted Post, Questions for the
   State Dept. After News it Launched a Pilot Program for Declassification Work,
   Anniversary of Rosenberg Execution for Espionage, and More: FRINFORMSUM
   6/23/2023
 * September 7, 2023 FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting State Department
   Presentation, Piloting Machine Learning for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
   Requests
 * November 9, 2023 State Department Fact Sheet, The Department of State Unveils
   its First-Ever Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Strategy

Similarly, Bobak (Bobby) Talebian, Director of the Office of Information Policy
(OIP) of Department of Justice, highlighted the DOJ’s commitment to “improving
[FOIA] access and the requester experience using artificial intelligence.”
Talebian reviewed the DOJ’s new “advanced search tool” on FOIA.gov released in
October 2023, which utilizes a “combination of logic and machine learning
functionality.” 

Perhaps the most charged moment of the panel came during the question-and-answer
session, of which National Security Archive Fellow and Washington Post FOIA
Director Nate Jones was an audience member. Jones asked Stein about how the
State Department’s AI integration into its FOIA processes might present an
opportunity for agency proactive disclosure, specifically regarding provision
(a)(2)(D)(ii)(II) of the FOIA Statute which requires agencies to release records
to the public that have been requested three or more times. Stein responded that
while the State Department “doesn’t actually keep track if a record gets
requested three times” because the agency follows the “release to one release to
all” policy, AI will help FOIA staff make associations they weren’t previously
able to make, ultimately improving record tracking and release. Talebian
expanded on Stein’s response, adding that “identifying proactive disclosures is
very challenging for agencies to do…and there is a potential for AI to help
augment what agencies are already doing at a human level that can help bridge
the gaps.”

Another audience member pressed Talebian about the potential for DOJ proactive
guidance in federal agency use of generative AI, remarking that “if it’s not DOJ
[leading], who does the buck pass to?” Talebian skirted these remarks, stating
that OIP exclusively manages FOIA processes, and could not comment on a more
global use of AI within federal agencies.

Other general takeaways from the panel:

According to panelist Abigail Potter, founding member of the Library of Congress
Labs team, data management—much more than data processing—will be one of the
biggest challenges that agencies face when implementing AI capabilities.
Additionally, issues of streamlining processes across all federal
agencies—ranging in size, resources, and structure—as well as transparency to
requesters are still yet to be solved. Gulam Shakir, NARA’s Chief Technology
Officer, highlighted the imperative for agencies to think about the authenticity
of their documents amidst generative AI so “the user can verify if it’s real or
pulled out of thin air.”

Outside of those agencies represented on the panel, it remains unclear how other
agencies will integrate AI and machine learning technologies into their FOIA
processes—and how these changes will impact requesters.

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NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE PUBLISHES NEW DIGITAL DOCUMENT COLLECTION – U.S.
FOREIGN POLICY IN THE CARTER YEARS, 1977-1981: HIGHEST-LEVEL MEMOS TO
THE PRESIDENT

December 12, 2023
tags: carter, DNSA
by The Archive

The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is
publishing a new compilation of documents highlighting the most important
national security issues faced by the Carter administration. The collection is
2,557 documents – totaling 8,904 pages – and includes all currently declassified
daily memoranda from the secretary of state (or acting secretary) and the
national security advisor that were used to brief the president.

One of the most interesting things about this latest Digital National Security
Archive collection, U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981:
Highest-Level Memos to the President, is that the memos from Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski often include
handwritten responses from President Carter. As such, they open a window into
the unfiltered opinions of the president and his most senior aides about the
issues they considered to be of special importance.

The collection also includes all available summaries and minutes of the Policy
Review Committee and the Special Coordination Committee, two of the most
important policy-formulating bodies of Carter’s presidency, shedding light on
the views of other cabinet officers and agency heads who helped shape U.S.
foreign policy. Access to these materials makes it possible to trace the
evolution of the administration’s approaches to world affairs, to comprehend the
rationales behind different policy options, to learn which agencies and
officials supported which choices, and to understand how final decisions were
reached.

A further benefit of the collection for researchers is that, unlike document
collections focusing on a single country or topic, this compilation, if read
chronologically, allows researchers to experience the unpredictable daily flow
of events and crises exactly as Carter and his top advisers did. Alternatively,
when isolated by topic, the documents let readers explore specific events as
they unfolded and see how they fit within the context of the many other global
issues facing the president.

The subjects in this collection cover a broad spectrum of world events during
the Carter administration, including:

 * relations with the Soviet Union, including the collapse of détente, the
   invasion of Afghanistan, the grain embargo, and the 1980 Olympic boycott;
 * the Arab-Israeli dispute and the Camp David Accords;
 * the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis; 
 * the formal establishment of diplomatic relations with China;
 * Carter’s emphasis on linking foreign policy with human rights;
 * efforts to mediate conflicts in Rhodesia, Angola, Zambia, and the Horn of
   Africa;
 * conflicts in Southeast Asia, including the Cambodian-Vietnamese war and
   China’s invasion of Vietnam;
 * tensions between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus;
 * arms control issues, including the strategic arms limitation talks;
 * consultations with NATO allies on theater nuclear weapons and the neutron
   bomb;
 * the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons;
 * U.S. trade negotiations with Canada and Mexico;
 * the effort to persuade Congress to ratify the Panama Canal treaties despite
   public opposition;
 * efforts to normalize relations with Cuba; and
 * the revolutions in El Salvador, Nicaragua.  

Online access to this Digital National Security Archive collection is available
through a growing number of major libraries. Researchers can send a message via
email to nsarchiv@gwu.edu to learn about the most recent and pending
publications, to identify nearby libraries with access to DNSA, and to learn if
the Archive has additional materials in its collections on topics of interest.
If so, these documents can be viewed by making an appointment to visit the
Archive’s reading room, the Smith Bagley Research Center, in Suite 701, Gelman
Library, The George Washington University, 2130 H Street NW, Washington, D.C.,
20037. The Archive’s phone number is 202-994-7000 and its fax number is
202-994-7005.

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Collection – U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981: Highest-Level
Memos to the President
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YEAR IN REVIEW: “CHILE’S COUP AT 50” IMPACT

December 5, 2023
tags: Chile, declassified, FOIA, Kissinger
by The Archive

The National Security Archive’s Chile Documentation Project is wrapping up a
notable year, as project director Peter Kornbluh continues to draw significant
media attention to the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-backed military takeover
that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. 

Chilean media has interviewed Kornbluh for numerous productions, including
ChileVision’s Operación Chile: Top Secret, which can be viewed by clicking on
the hyperlink and features dozens of U.S. declassified records obtained by
Kornbluh. The declassified records include recently obtained documents published
in the new Chilean edition of Kornbluh’s Chilean non-fiction bestseller,
“Pinochet Desclasificado.”

Chile’s Museo de la Memoria y DDHH also invited Korkbluh to speak about his
bestselling book, and the discussion can be watched here. 


Museo de la Memoria y DDHH
Sep 4, 2023


Kornbluh also appeared on Vía X to discuss the CIA and Manuel Contreras, who was
head of Chile’s secret police during the Pinochet regime. The video can be
watched below.


Contreras su propio pago como informante y colaborador”, Peter Kornbluh
VIA X
Sep 7, 2023

The recent death of Henry Kissinger also brought renewed attention to the darker
side of his controversial tenure, including his role in the overthrow of Chilean
democracy. Kornbluh recently appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered to discuss
Kissinger’s role in Chile, noting, among other things, that “the historical
record, I think, will outlive and has outlived him. And, you know, years from
now, when the compliments that have been paid to him at this time have faded in
memory, the verdict of history will still be there.” Listen to the entire
podcast here

To learn more, visit the National Security Arcihve’s Chile Documentation
Project. 

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HENRY KISSINGER: THE DECLASSIFIED OBITUARY AND OTHER RESOURCES

November 30, 2023
tags: FOIA, Kissinger, Operation Condor
by The Archive

Henry Kissinger’s death renews global attention to the paper trail of secret
documents recording his policy deliberations. Famous for initiatives including
détente with the USSR, the opening to China, and Middle East shuttle diplomacy,
the historical record also documents the darker side of Kissinger’s
controversial tenure in power.

The National Security Archive has published a selection of declassified Henry
Kissinger records – including memos, memcons, and “telcons” – to contribute to a
balanced evaluation of his legacy at the White House and Department of State. 

Documents included in the Archive’s latest posting shed light on Kissigner’s
role in the overthrow of democracy and the rise of dictatorship in Chile;
disdain for human rights and support for dirty, and even genocidal, wars abroad;
secret bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia; and involvement in the Nixon
administration’s criminal abuses, among them the secret wiretaps of his own top
aides.

“Henry Kissinger’s insistence on recording practically every word he said,
either to the presidents he served (without their knowledge that they were being
taped) or the diplomats he cajoled, remains the gift that keeps on giving to
diplomatic historians,” remarked Tom Blanton, director of the National Security
Archive. “Kissinger’s aides later commented that he needed to keep track of
which lie he told to whom. Kissinger tried to keep those documents under his own
control. His deed of gift to the Library of Congress would have kept them closed
until five years from now, but the Archive brought legal action and forced the
opening of secret documents that show a decidedly mixed picture of Kissinger’s
legacy, and enormous catastrophic costs to the peoples of Southeast Asia and
Latin America.”

Chile’s ruler Augusto Pinochet meeting U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
in Santiago, June 8, 1976 (Wikimedia Commons)

The Declassified Obituary is the latest in dozens of postings by Archive
analysts examining Kissinger’s career. Other notable postings available on the
National Security Archive website include:

 * The Kissinger Telcons
 * Archive Sues State Department Over Kissinger Telcons
 * The Kissinger Telcons: New Documents Throw Light on Sensitive Ford and
   Kissinger Views
 * The Kissinger Telcons: The Dobrynin File
 * ”Dr. Kissinger, Mr. President”: More Kissinger Telcons and Nixon Tapes
 * The Kissinger State Department Telcons
 * Archive Hails Final Turnover of Kissinger Telcons
 * Stopping Korea from Going Nuclear, Part I
 * Stopping Korea from Going Nuclear, Part II
 * Kissinger Told Soviet Envoy during 1973 Arab-Israeli War: “My Nightmare is a
   Victory for Either Side” – The Soviet Agreed
 * Kissinger State Department Insisted that South Koreans Break Contract with
   French for Reprocessing Plant
 * Kissinger’s ”Salted Peanuts” and the Iraq War
 * Nixon, Kissinger, and the Madman Strategy during Vietnam War
 * Kissinger Considered Attack on Cuba Following Angola Incursion
 * Declassified Documents Show Henry Kissinger’s Major Role in the 1974
   Initiative That Created the Nuclear Suppliers Group
 * Kissinger to Ford: ”Smash” Rumsfeld
 * Kissinger and Chile: The Declassified Record
 * Kissinger Blocked Demarche on International Assassinations to Condor States
 * CUBA and the U.S.
 * ”We can bomb the bejesus out of them all over North Vietnam.”
 * New Kissinger ’Telecons’ Reveal Chile Plotting at Highest Levels of U.S.
   Government
 * Kissinger Conspired with Soviet Ambassador to Keep Secretary of State in the
   Dark
 * Massive Collection of Formerly Secret and Top Secret Transcripts of Henry
   Kissinger’s Meetings with World Leaders Published On-Line
 * New Documentary Reveals Secret U.S., Chinese Diplomacy Behind Nixon’s Trip
 * Kissinger to The Argentine Generals in 1976: ”If There Are Things that Have
   to Be Done, You Should Do Them Quickly”
 * Indonesia’s 1969 Takeover of West Papua Not by ”Free Choice”
 * Nixon’s Trip to China
 * Kissinger to Argentines On Dirty War: ”The Quicker You Succeed the Better”
 * The Beijing-Washington Back-Channel and Henry Kissinger’s Secret Trip to
   China
 * Secret Diplomacy to Normalize Relations with Cuba
 * Nixon/Kissinger Saw India as ”Soviet Stooge” in 1971 South Asia Crisis
 * Archive Hails Turnover of Kissinger Papers

Archive analysts have also written and contributed to numerous books on
Kissinger, including:

The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top-Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow
Feb 1, 1999 Nixon’s Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy,
and the Vietnam War (Modern War Studies)
May 15, 2015 Pinochet Desclasificado: 
Los Archivos Secretos del Los Estados Unidos Sobre Chile
(Catalonia Press: June 2023) The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on
Atrocity and Accountability
Sep 11, 2013
The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three
Continents
By John Dinges
Jun 1, 2005 Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between
Washington and Havana
Oct 13, 2014
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SPECIAL CLIMATE ENVOY JOHN KERRY SAYS “NO CLIMATE REPARATIONS” FOR DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES, CONTINUING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S LONG OPPOSITION TO
ENVIRONMENTAL COMPENSATION

August 1, 2023
tags: climate, Climate Change, environmental diplomacy, FOIA
by Rachel Santarsiero
Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry testifies on the State
Department’s climate agenda on July 13, 2023. Photo copyright Tierney L. Cross.

The United States will not pay climate reparations to developing countries under
any circumstances, Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry stated in his
July 13, 2023, testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and
Accountability Subcommittee during a hearing on the State Department’s climate
agenda. Kerry’s testimony, scheduled just days before a visit to China for
another round of bilateral talks on climate negotiations, comes amidst
international disputes over the landmark “Loss and Damage” Fund, an
international finance mechanism that would provide assistance to nations most
vulnerable to climate change that was established at the November 2022
Conference of Parties (COP) 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.[1]

Kerry’s July 13 testimony is the latest indicator that the U.S. Government will
not compensate developing nations for environmental damages caused by developed
ones. Previous indicators that add context to Kerry’s recent comments are
outlined in the National Security Archive’s July 6, 2023, briefing book, 50
Years of U.S. Resistance to Environmental Reparations. This posting captures
nearly half a century’s worth of documentation from U.S. policymakers on how
developed countries could avoid financially supporting developing
countries—despite being the largest greenhouse gas emitters. 

The Archive’s posting features a range of declassified intelligence notes,
memorandums of conversation, and cables from the Nixon to Obama Administration,
underscoring the U.S. government’s long opposition to environmental compensation
measures for developing countries. Beginning with the 1972 United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm, Sweden, the posting
tracks several State Department, Department of Energy, and high-ranking White
House officials and their concerns that developing countries would continue to
link issues related to development and environmental degradation “for years to
come.”

The posting notes how the United States consistently maintained the hardline
that developing countries make reciprocal commitments towards emissions targets.
The U.S. held this stance in the 1972 UNCHE, the 1992 Rio Conference, and the
2015 Paris Climate Accords, even though developing countries contribute only a
fraction of the greenhouse gases that developed countries do. The U.S.
government also emphasized scientific research, market mechanisms, and
regulations to reduce greenhouse gas, “all while ensuring the most flexible
emissions commitments” for industrialized nations.

Key documents published in the briefing book include:

 * A May 31, 1972, State Department Bureau of Intelligence Research Intelligence
   Note, Stockholm Environment Conference: African Position, assessing
   “increasing African militancy” on environment and ecological issues;
 * A May 1, 1992, White House Memorandum of Conversation from a meeting between
   President George H. W. Bush and Japan’s Minister of Trade and Industry Kozo
   Watanabe, in which Bush makes clear that he will not sacrifice the U.S.
   economy for the sake of environmental compensatory calls from developing
   nations; and
 * A September 24, 2015, State Department Cable outlining the U.S. stance on
   finance mechanisms ahead of 2015’s COP21 in Paris; plus many more.

National Security Archive staff have filed several FOIA requests related to
Kerry’s visit to China, as well as for a May 2022 email referenced by
Representative Bill Huizenga (R-MI) during the July 13 hearing, in which the
State Department’s Director of Climate Finance suggested a call or meeting to
update Kerry on the FY2022-2023 budget, “focusing on all the elements we can’t
put on paper.”

Huizenga also inquired about a FOIA request submitted by his staff concerning
the FY2022-2023 budget during the hearing, which the State Department had
estimated it would take 3 years to answer. Kerry responded that he couldn’t
“imagine any FOIA [request] that would take that long” to process. When pressed
further by Huizenga, however, Kerry agreed to communicate with the State
Department’s FOIA office to address the request “as soon as possible.”

It remains unclear how the U.S. government will navigate its contributions to
the Loss and Damage fund, but Kerry’s opposition to climate reparations appear
to be in line with longstanding U.S. resistance to environmental liability.

For more context on climate cooperation between the United States and China in
the wake of Kerry’s most recent bilateral talks in Beijing, see Archive posting
The U.S. and Climate Change: Washington’s See-Saw on Global Leadership.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Unlike a reparations program, the Loss and Damage fund makes no mention of
developed countries’ liability or responsibility to ‘foot the bill’ for climate
damages. Instead, the fund relies on voluntary commitments from countries,
although the specific parameters of the funding mechanism remain uncertain
heading into November’s COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  



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for Developing Countries, Continuing the U.S. Government’s Long Opposition to
Environmental Compensation
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DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHED A LIGHT ON U.S. DRONE WARFARE IN PAKISTAN

July 20, 2023
tags: aclu, drones, FOIA, Glomar, Pakistan
by Burkely Hermann
A fully armed MQ-9 Reaper taxis down a runway in Afghanistan in November 2007.
Reapers and Predators were the two types of drones used during U.S. drone
strikes in Pakistan.

On March 17th of this year, State Department spokesperson Ned Price was asked by
Pakistani news media about unconfirmed reports of a U.S. drone strike in the
Pakistani village of Zangara, within the South Waziristan region. Price, who has
since resigned from his position, neither confirmed nor denied the strike,
stating “we’ve seen reports that Pakistani security forces conducted
counterterrorism operations in South Waziristan on March 15.  We refer you to
the Government of Pakistan for any additional information.” To date, no new
information has been released about the potential strike, but, if it were
confirmed, it would be the first known U.S. strike in Pakistan since 2018.

To help add context to what a potential resumption of U.S. drone activity in
Pakistan could mean, this posting contains a selection of documents dating from
2010 through 2013 that detail the range of issues created by the drone strikes
since they began in 2004. The declassified documents appear in the recent
Digital National Security Archive collection, Afghanistan War and the United
States, 1998-2017, and were released in response to the Archive’s Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requests.

A confidential declassified January 9, 2010 cable from the Defense Department to
the Defense Intelligence Agency summarized two opinion pieces by an unnamed
Pakistani research scholar in The Nation, an English-language daily newspaper
based in Lahore. The op-eds, according to the cable, defended U.S. drone strikes
in the country, claiming they were supported by Punjabi people, who reportedly
saw them as a cause for “joy.” The writer also alleged that the Pakistani
government subjugated the Punjabi people to provide a base to harbor terrorists.
Similar arguments were promoted by scholars such as Neha Ansari.

The larger picture was more complicated. On January 22, 2010, a confidential and
highly-excised Defense cable provided the Defense Intelligence Agency with a
summary of front-page stories in the Daily Times and The Frontier Post. The
summary reported that the Pakistani military was engaged in military exercises
to shoot down four Pakistani drones, with an unnamed retired general stating
that they did not want to “spoil relations with the U.S.” as a result of the
exercises. 

Unease with U.S. drones in Pakistan is further explored in a February 2010
Congressional Research Report by John Rollins, entitled “Al Qaeda and
Affiliates: Historical Perspective, Global Presence, and Implications for U.S.
Policy.” On pages 9 to 10 of the report, Rollins argued that U.S. policy options
to fight al-Qaeda in Pakistan were limited because “anti-American sentiment
is…at peak levels within a broad spectrum of Pakistani society.” Rollins noted
that there were perceptions that the U.S. was fighting against Islam, that the
U.S. did not care about Pakistani democracy, and that drone strikes, and
suspected covert operations, were a violation of the country’s national
sovereignty. Rollins reported that while there was an increase in U.S. economic
and development assistance to Pakistan, U.S. troops still could not officially
operate within the country. He added that Pakistan’s security environment and
distrust of the U.S. made it “extremely difficult for U.S. officials to operate
effectively there.” This assessment is reinforced by a public opinion survey
released by the Meridian International Center and Gallup in 2011. It estimated
that in 2010, only 18% of Pakistanis approved of U.S. leadership.

Declassified Defense Department documents from 2012 and 2013 discussing
responses to the drone strikes by terrorist organizations add another layer of
complexity to the issue. A secret, heavily-excised August 7, 2012 cable relayed
intelligence about a meeting two-months prior in Miram Shah, Pakistan between
senior leaders from al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, the
Haqqani Network, and other terrorist organizations. These leaders discussed how
to target U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan with suicide bombings, and other attacks,
in retaliation for U.S. drone strikes that had killed Taliban fighters.

A secret June 27, 2013 Defense Department cable, which provided insights about
Pakistan after the country’s May 2013 elections, goes further, stating, “drones
do cause collateral damage and fear.” This statement was couched by the claim
that F-16s operated by the Pakistani military and terrorist actions were more
damaging than U.S. drone attacks. Despite this claim, the over 560 drone strikes
during the Obama administration killed scores of civilians in Pakistan, Somalia,
and Yemen, according to Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates.

The declassified documents in this posting are significant because of the
ongoing official secrecy surrounding the U.S. drone war in Pakistan – despite
widespread reporting on the program. Reports from as early as 2009 note that the
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan were conducted by operators for the Central
Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division, which “piloted” U.S. Air
Force drones. Yet the legal memorandums outlining justifications for CIA use of
drones and the summary strike data, for U.S. drone warfare in Pakistan and
elsewhere, have remained classified.

Notably, the ACLU filed a FOIA request in 2010 for information about the program
with the CIA. The Agency issued a “glomar” response to the request, refusing to
confirm or deny the existence of documents because “the existence or
nonexistence of requested records is currently and properly classified.”. The
ACLU filed suit, but was ultimately rejected by D.C. District Court, which ruled
that the documents relating to the program were “properly classified.”

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in Pakistan
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QUESTIONS FOR THE STATE DEPT. AFTER NEWS IT LAUNCHED A PILOT PROGRAM FOR
DECLASSIFICATION WORK, ANNIVERSARY OF ROSENBERG EXECUTION FOR ESPIONAGE, AND
MORE: FRINFORMSUM 6/23/2023

June 23, 2023
tags: AI, Rosenberg spy trial
by Lauren Harper

State Department Launches AI Pilot Program for FOIA Processing

Federal News Network reports that the State Department is “experimenting with
automation” to improve its FOIA work. Of specific interest is a pilot program
that has “trained a machine learning model on years of humans reviewing and
declassifying records” to improve the agency’s declassification processing. “The
model is now as accurate as human FOIA professionals about 97-99% of the time,”
and has saved the agency, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office
of Global Information Services Eric Stein, half a year’s worth of work.

This is good news. Embracing machine learning will be critical for agencies as
their FOIA backlogs grow and incoming records requests deal with ever-larger
pools of electronic responsive records. However, the article begs several
important questions. 

One critical question for the State Department is whether the AI pilot is
helping FOIA officers search for responsive records, or is it performing
redactions after a document has been deemed responsive to a request? Another key
question is at what stage in a FOIA request does a machine model base its
learning? Is it based on responses that have been appealed and litigated, or
primarily on initial determinations? Because agencies release more information
on appeal roughly a third of the time, and because an independent, inter-agency
body overrules agency declassification decisions 70% of the time, the stage
during the administrative process that machine learning is based on is an
extremely important one. Hopefully the State Department will provide more
details soon – and engage requesters in the process.

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Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

The recent death of Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower and leaker of the Pentagon
Papers, closes an extraordinary chapter in American history, and begs the
question of how far the nation has come in its treatment of whistleblowers and
its ability to rein in the national security apparatus. 

The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States-Vietnam Relations,
1945-1967, was commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara to help
document the Vietnam War. The voluminous study was compiled by 36 analysts,
including then-Rand Corporation analyst Ellsberg, who leaked portions of the
report to the New York Times in 1971. The disclosure caused a furor, enraged the
Nixon administration (and prompted the establishment of the “White House
Plumbers”), and led to a seminal Supreme Court ruling on the freedom of the
press.

Despite the attention the leak garnered, and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975,
much of the report stayed secret. The National Security Archive filed both FOIA
and Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) requests for the report in the
1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. 

Yet the full version of the Pentagon Papers, nearly 7,000 declassified pages,
wasn’t made public until the 40th anniversary of the 1971 leak, when the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and its National
Declassification Center (NDC) released the complete version, minus eleven words
the government maintained must stay secret. 

The National Security Archive’s John Prados commemorated the 2011 release by
publishing declassified records that were “central to the larger story of the
Pentagon Papers.” These records include, but are not limited to, a set of the
legal briefs that were filed with the Supreme Court, and declassified text that
was compiled by the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research
(INR). The INR’s “study had a stature similar to that of the Pentagon Papers and
deserves to be examined alongside it. The State Department Papers never leaked
and thus are hardly known. They will be completely new to most readers.”

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – Executed 70 Years Ago as Spies

On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after being convicted
of espionage for the Soviet Union. The grand jury testimonies from the trial,
one of the most sensational flash points of the early Cold War, have been a
focus of Archive release efforts for years. 

In 2008, the Archive and leading U.S. historical associations won the opening of
the majority of witness statements before the grand jury, including those of
Julius and Ethel, which collectively “cast significant doubt on the key
prosecution charge used to convict Ethel Rosenberg at the trial and sentence her
to death.” The notable exception from the release was the grand jury testimony
of Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass. 

Greenglass objected to the release of his testimony in 2008, seven years after
being paid to sit with reporter Sam Roberts, who was then working on a book that
would be titled, “The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass
and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair.” During the
paid sessions, Greenglass admitted that, “he had lied on the witness stand about
the single most incriminating evidence against his sister — that she typed his
handwritten notes for delivery to the Soviets. Without that testimony, Ethel
Rosenberg might well have never been convicted, much less executed.”

In 2015 the Archive, together with the historical associations, finally won a
petition for the release of David Greenglass’s testimony. In the 2015 ruling,
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein dismissed the Government’s
argument that the release would rekindle apathy towards the Greenglass family,
and found, “The requested records are critical pieces of an important moment in
our nation’s history. The time for the public to guess what they contain should
end.” The testimony released in 2015 suggested Greenglass did in fact commit
perjury on the witness stand. 

Read the Greenglass testimony here. More information about the lawsuit can be
found on our website.  



In Brief

 * Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) member Ezra Cohen recently
   joined Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) director Henry
   Sokolski to discuss overclassification. Discussion points were drawn from
   NPEC’s recent paper, “Over-classification: How Bad Is It, What’s the Fix?”
   The video broadcast can be found on YouTube. 

Comments Off on Questions for the State Dept. After News it Launched a Pilot
Program for Declassification Work, Anniversary of Rosenberg Execution for
Espionage, and More: FRINFORMSUM 6/23/2023
from → Documents


DECLASSIFICATION PROVISIONS OF THE 2024 INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT, TREASURY
DEPT.’S EGREGIOUS “STILL INTERESTED” LETTERS, AND MORE: FRINFORMSUM 6/16/2023

June 16, 2023
tags: FOIA FACA, IAA, still interested
by Lauren Harper

Declassification Provisions of the 2024 Intel Authorization Act

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is touting the 2024 Intelligence Authorization Act
(IAA), which unanimously passed the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, as
“historic declassification reform legislation” that will help fix “the country’s
broken classification and declassification system.” Wyden’s press release notes
that the IAA includes provisions that were initially introduced with Senator
Jerry Moran (R-KS) in the Declassification Reform Act of 2020, and which were
subsequently included in the Classification Reform Act of 2023.

The text of 2024 IAA has not been made public, but, if it includes the main
provisions of the Classification Reform Act (CRA), it deserves careful scrutiny.
The CRA mandates, among other things, the establishment of an Executive Agent
for Classification and Declassification, with the Director of National
Intelligence serving as said Agent. The Agent would be responsible for:
promoting programs to “ensure that declassification activities keep pace with
classification activities;” promoting “a federated classification system” that
incorporates automatic declassification and consistent declassification review
across agencies; and working “with the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget in developing a line item for classification and declassification in each
budget of the President that is submitted for a fiscal year under section
1105(a) of title 31, United States Code.”

The selection of the DNI as the Agent could be particularly problematic,
depending on who fills that role. An alternate option for Executive Agent could
be the director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), which is
currently a part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Some have suggested that ISOO should become a part of the DNI itself, but a more
diplomatic move might be to make ISOO its own, independent office. ISOO also
already reports to the president annually on the classification system,
including its cost, making it a natural fit for the Executive Agent role. 

The Classification Reform Act has other potential upshots and downsides. It
explicitly adds ISOO to the text of the National Security Act; includes
potentially good language on not classifying information if there is any doubt
it should be classified (as well as declassifying if there is any doubt the
record needs continued protection); and requires considering public interest
when determining harm to national security. Controversially, the bill also
provides “for no more than two levels of classification,” which ostensibly means
eliminating the Confidential category, potentially leading to lower-level
information being classified as Secret rather than declassified. 

It is likely that much of the CRA language is now part of the IAA. But without
the relevant text of the IAA, there are more questions than answers about its
benefit to the classification system.

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Treasury Dept. “Still Interested” Letters Demand Signature Response

The National Security Archive has recently received dozens of “still interested”
letters from the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism of Financial
Intelligence that are more problematic than most. (“Still interested” letters
are sent by agencies and threaten to close a FOIA request, even if it abides by
all the rules of a perfected FOIA request and may have been pending for years,
if a requester doesn’t reply affirmatively within 30 days – or sometimes less.
The Archive once received a 7-day response timeframe for a request we had been
waiting for 15 years to be processed.) Treasury is now requiring that FOIA
requesters manually sign the letters and return them, and only upon receipt of
signature will it continue to process the request.

This arbitrary requirement violates Department of Justice Office of Information
Policy (OIP) guidance, which requires, among other things, that requesters are
not disadvantaged by the letters. OIP guidance also states that agencies must
limit the use of “still letters” and provide at least 30 days for a requester to
respond.

While the use of these letters continues (presumably to help agencies cut down
on their FOIA backlog), nothing in the FOIA statute itself suggests an agency
may close a request if it does not receive a response from a “still interested”
letter. Aside from settling possible fee disagreements, the statute does not
require any further action on a requester’s part after a request has been
submitted.  

The Archive’s 2021 Sunshine Week audit, “Still Interested” Letters Add Insult to
Injury of Long-Ignored FOIA Requests, examines the issue in greater detail and
can be read on our website. 

FOIA Advisory Subcommittee Needs Your Feedback

The FOIA Advisory Committee’s Modernization Subcommittee is seeking public
feedback on its draft model determination letter. The letter, which was
introduced during the most recent FOIA Advisory Committee meeting, is designed
to be a template for agencies when providing initial and final determination
responses, and would help standardize disparate agency responses. 

The Archive will be submitting comments on the letter, which is already good,
including recommending that determination letters include information on what
fees are waived for different requester categories when an agency doesn’t meet
its statutorily-mandated deadlines, and informing requesters that there is a
25-year sunset to FOIA Exemption 5’s “deliberative process” privilege when that
exemption is invoked.  

Comments may be submitted through the Office of Government Information Services
(OGIS) Public Comments Form, and will be made public if they comply with OGIS’s
Public Comment Policy.

The June 8, 2023, full FOIA Advisory Committee meeting, and all of the meeting
materials, can be found here. 

Comments Off on Declassification Provisions of the 2024 Intelligence
Authorization Act, Treasury Dept.’s Egregious “Still Interested” Letters, and
More: FRINFORMSUM 6/16/2023
from → Documents


NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE PUBLISHES NEW DIGITAL DOCUMENT COLLECTION: TARGETING
IRAQ, PART II: WAR AND OCCUPATION, 2004-2011

May 24, 2023
by The Archive

The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is
publishing a new compilation of documents on U.S. policy toward Iraq. The 2,179
-document collection, Targeting Iraq, Part II: War and Occupation, 2004-2011, is
relevant for researchers studying a range of issues, including:

 * The history of Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion;
 * The creation of a new Iraqi governing system and Iraqi elections;
 * Intelligence and national security;
 * U.S. policy towards the Middle East;
 * Al-Qaeda in Iraq; and 
 * U.S. counterterrorism policy. 

The collection totals 77,706 pages and begins with the closure of the Coalition
Provisional Authority, which was established by the United States following the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and ends with the withdrawal of all American combat
troops in 2011 under the terms authorized by President George W. Bush. The
documents spotlight a range of key issues across the intervening years,
including efforts to restore a functioning economy and reestablish security in
Iraq, American attempts to suppress violence motivated by U.S. presence in the
country, U.S. influence in Iraq’s political and economic decision-making, oil
legislation, and much more.

The documents, which were obtained by submitting hundreds of Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) and Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) requests,
also address military strategy, human rights issues and prisoner abuse,
corruption, and contractor malfeasance and the conduct of private security firms
– including Blackwater. Some of the specific events documented in the collection
include the execution of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity, the
ramifications of U.S. torture of Abu Ghraib detainees, and American killing of
Iraqi civilians in Haditha, at al-Mahmudiyah, and Baghdad’s Nisour Square. 

The vast majority of the documents in the new set come from the U.S. Armed
Forces, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Coalition forces,
United States embassies, as well as the Department of Defense. Others originate
from the White House, Congress, international organizations, and non-U.S.
governments. 

Targeting Iraq, Part II expands on an earlier collection, Targeting Iraq, Part
I: Planning, Invasion, and Occupation, 1997-2004, and complements and
supplements information in both of the Digital National Security Archive’s
collections on Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflakes. The extensive set is constrained by
similar issues as with the sets mentioned above: the U.S. government’s
persistent and unwavering overclassification on foreign, military, and
intelligence policy; the laboriously slow processing of FOIA requests combined
with the increasing number of documents born classified; and the inability of
many federal agencies to efficiently process and declassify electronic records.
Also worthy of note are delays and complications in attempting to access
documents containing White House equities or that are presidential records;
these records face additional hurdles and delays, in no small part because
presidential records do not become subject to the FOIA until five years after
the end of an administration.

Online access to this Digital National Security Archive collection is available
through a growing number of major libraries. Related records are available on
the Archive’s website as “Electronic Briefing Books” that are regularly updated
as additional material is declassified. Researchers should check the Archive’s
website, http://www.nsarchive.org, to find the latest information. They can also
send a message via email to nsarchiv@gwu.edu to learn about the most recent (or
pending) publications, to identify nearby libraries with subscriptions to DNSA,
and to learn if the Archive has additional materials in its collections on
topics of interest.

Comments Off on National Security Archive Publishes New Digital Document
Collection: Targeting Iraq, Part II: War and Occupation, 2004-2011
from → Documents


DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS DESCRIBE CHINA-TALIBAN RELATIONS AND FEARS ABOUT
UIGHUR GUERILLAS

May 8, 2023
by Burkely Hermann

Recent allegations that the Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group native to the
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the Northwest region of China, are an
“attractive constituency” for terrorist groups like Islamic State – Khorasan
Province, warrant careful scrutiny, particularly at a time of increased
U.S.-Chinese tension. The Chinese government strongly opposes the political
movement that seeks an independent Uighur nation-state, in part due to purported
concerns about political violence, and Beijing has been accused of violating
Uighur human rights. The U.S., however, has indicated its support of the Uighur
community in recent years. In January 2023, President Biden stated that ethnic
minority communities, such as the Uighurs, continue to face “intimidation,
violence, and unequal protection under the law,” a sentiment previously
reflected in U.S. press briefings and other statements since at least March
2019.

The U.S. stance on the Uighur issue has evolved across recent presidential
administrations, and the assessments found in the declassified documents
featured in today’s post, which were all released under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), reflect those of the first George W. Bush
administration. These documents are a selection from the new Digital National
Security Archive collection, Afghanistan War and the United States, 1998-2017,
which was published in December of last year. The five documents examined in
this post primarily detail: friendly Chinese relations with the Taliban in the
early 2000s in an attempt to secure assurances about Uighur guerrillas in
Afghanistan; a U.S. assessment of threat posed by said guerrillas; and U.S.
complicity in allowing Chinese officials to interrogate Uighur detainees held at
Camp X-Ray, which was housed at Guantanamo. 

Aerial image of Camp X-Ray under construction in January 2002. Photograph by
U.S. Navy Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Shane T. McCoy.

In March 5, 2001, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research
issued a one-page secret intelligence brief noting a meeting between Chinese
diplomats and Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil. The discussion
included recommendations from a Chinese fact-finding mission, including
assurances that so-called “Xinjiang dissidents” were being trained to fight
anti-Taliban groups inside Afghanistan, and not threatening China. The unnamed
U.S. diplomat noted that such meetings were indicative of broadening engagement
between the Taliban and China, and pointed to evidence of increased commercial
contacts. Similarly, then-U.S. Ambassador to China, Joseph W. Prueher, stated in
a March 9, 2001, confidential cable to Secretary of State Colin Powell that
China’s “beautiful friendship” with the Taliban was rooted in a desire for
“stability” and a resolution to the Afghanistan civil war. In his cable, Prueher
examined why the Chinese accepted Taliban rule and cited increasing academic and
official exchanges. When it came to the Uighurs, he noted Chinese fears that an
unfriendly Taliban government could cause “mischief” in the Xinjiang region by
supporting those termed “Uighur separatists,” and China’s hope that the Taliban
would not support such guerrillas. However, he argued that although China would
not formally recognize the rule of the Taliban, China was impressed by
“performance and pledges” of the Taliban.

On September 18, 2001, Clark T.  Randt, Jr., Prueher’s successor as U.S.
Ambassador to China, reported in a confidential cable to Secretary Powell, on a
meeting with an ambassador to China who predicted possible Chinese support of
the U.S. War on Terror. He also noted that “growing links” between Taliban and
China might complicate such support. Part of this cable described Chinese
provision of economic cooperation and development aid to the Taliban to
accomplish political and economic goals. This included Chinese attempts at
convincing the Taliban to “not supply arms and training to separatists in
Xinjiang.” These guerrillas were later described as a non-threat to the U.S. A
heavily-excised cable sent on September 20 from the U.S. Air Force Office of
Special Investigations summarizing the terrorist threat facing U.S. military
forces in southern Kyrgyzstan stated this directly. On page three, it noted that
Uighurs had proven “capable” in assaults, including against Chinese people, with
the attack on an official Chinese delegation from Xinjiang at the Dostuk Hotel
in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in May 2000. Despite this, the document said that Uighurs
did not “threaten US interests in [the] region” even though some fought for the
religious extremist group, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

This perceived lack of threat from the Uighurs could partially explain why the
U.S. government granted Chinese officials access to Uighurs imprisoned in Camp
X-Ray, which was a temporary detention facility inside the Guantanamo Bay
detention camp that had been used by the U.S. government to house Cuban exiles
in the mid-1990s. A remarkable passage buried within an unclassified October
2009 Department of Justice Inspector General report, “A Review of the FBI’s
Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay,
Afghanistan, and Iraq,” states that “several Uighur detainees” were subjected to
cruel treatment such as sleep deprivation and “disruption” at Camp X-Ray,
including food deprivation. These prisoners were either interrogated by Chinese
officials or by U.S. personnel at the “behest of Chinese interrogators.” (See
pages 183-184.) The lingering questions surrounding the interrogation of the
Uighur detainees at Camp X-Ray deserve further scrutiny now that the Biden
administration is expressing support of the Uighurs.

For related documents, see our previous blog post, “Declassified U.S.
Intelligence Documents Describe Taliban History with Illicit Narcotics Trade,”
the Archive’s Afghanistan Project, and the Archive’s China Documentation
Project.

Comments Off on Declassified Documents Describe China-Taliban Relations and
Fears About Uighur Guerillas
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 * UNREDACTED: THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE BLOG
   
   30+ Years of Freedom of Information Action


 * RECENT POSTS
   
   * Weekend Read: National Archives Sunshine Week Panel Focuses on Artificial
     Intelligence and Government Access
   * National Security Archive Publishes New Digital Document Collection – U.S.
     Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981: Highest-Level Memos to
     the President
   * Year in Review: “Chile’s Coup at 50” Impact
   * Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary and Other Resources
   * Special Climate Envoy John Kerry Says “No Climate Reparations” for
     Developing Countries, Continuing the U.S. Government’s Long Opposition to
     Environmental Compensation
   * Declassified Documents Shed A Light on U.S. Drone Warfare in Pakistan
   * Questions for the State Dept. After News it Launched a Pilot Program for
     Declassification Work, Anniversary of Rosenberg Execution for Espionage,
     and More: FRINFORMSUM 6/23/2023
   * Declassification Provisions of the 2024 Intelligence Authorization Act,
     Treasury Dept.’s Egregious “Still Interested” Letters, and More:
     FRINFORMSUM 6/16/2023
   * National Security Archive Publishes New Digital Document Collection:
     Targeting Iraq, Part II: War and Occupation, 2004-2011
   * Declassified Documents Describe China-Taliban Relations and Fears About
     Uighur Guerillas
   * NSArchive Activity Round-up: FRINFORMSUM 3/30/2023
   * National FOIA Portal Should be Made Priority as Agencies Prepare for
     Decommissioning of FOIA Online: FRINFORMSUM 2/16/2023
   * DNI Haines Delivers Keynote Address on Overclassification at PIDB Meeting,
     and Much More: FRINFORMSUM 2/2/2023
   * Should NARA Ask Living Former Presidents and VPs to Search Personal
     Holdings for Classified Info? FRINFORMSUM 1/26/2023
   * Declassified U.S. Intelligence Documents Describe Taliban History with
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