Lecturer criticizes government secrecy, advocates public records

Steven Aftergood thinks the government keeps too many secrets.

But there’s one thing… Steven Aftergood thinks the government keeps too many secrets.

But there’s one thing that differentiates Aftergood from your average nervous conspiracy theorist. He happens to be the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, a respected organization that applies scientific authority to public policy.

At a lecture in the Frick Fine Arts building yesterday afternoon, he said that the U.S. is paradoxically the most open and the most secretive government in the entire world – open in the respect that the government keeps people informed of many issues with help from the media, and secretive in the respect that it has more classified technology and war plans than any country needs to hide.

In his work, Aftergood has made strides toward bringing more government documents into the public domain.

“We live in the information age,” Aftergood said. “Certain information most certainly needs to be classified, while other [information] doesn’t.”

Aftergood went on to say that as of 2006 about 20.5 million classification decisions were made by more than 4,000 executive branch officials.

In Aftergood’s view there are three types of government secrecy utilized within the U.S. government. The first is genuine secrecy, which includes national security issues, war plans and other related information. The second is political secrecy, which is used by politicians to shield programs from unwanted controversy.

And the last mode of government secrecy is the bureaucratic secrecy that is the reflexive hoarding of information of various kinds, which occurs naturally within most bureaucracies.

Genuine secrecy is the most legitimate reason for items to be deemed classified, Aftergood said, because certain information would be detrimental to the security of our country if released.

Aftergood also has used his position within the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy to attempt to reduce the range of official secrecy and help in the modification of governmental security practices.

By declassifying many documents that had no real need to be classified or needed to be in the public eye, Aftergood has been successful in returning many of these documents and figures to public domain.

He declassified a document from 1915 concerning World War II – a document that had no strategic or military importance any longer.

“The cost exceeds over a billion dollars a year for classifying information,” Aftergood said. “Some documents are more benign than any document could be.”

Aftergood also uncovered a manual documenting the shipboard laundry facilities of a U.S. naval ship.

“Obviously there is no self interest or reason for classifying such an item,” he said. Aftergood also approves of declassifying items that he believes will help further the U.S. political process.

For example, an internal document entitled the Taguba Report was uncovered in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. It directly aided authorities and the public by illuminating incidents of torture against Iraqi prisoners at the hands of the U.S. military

Aftergood has received the James Madison Award, the Public Access to Government Information Award and the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for his strides in counteracting government secrecy throughout the country.

Aftergood conceded that the free press, certain congressional oversight, the Freedom of Information Act and technology have really aided in the desensitization of many documents and will continue to do so in the future.

He said that he and many others have made great strides in decreasing government secrecy but believes there’s much more work to do.

“Congress has not utilized all the tools available to force the disclosure of information to the public,” Aftergood said.