Transparency order tough on intelligence agencies

The Obama administration's push for transparency is creating some unease in the intelligence community. The administration's open-government directive has established deadlines for agencies to make information available online in hopes of creating greater accountability. Last week, the White House issued guidance to the agencies so they can comply with this policy.

The intelligence community, according to nextgov.com, is closely reviewing the guidance and pondering its next step. The directive could change the intelligence community's policy of denying Internet access to unclassified data that is currently available in hard copy or only to government personnel.

Michael Birmingham, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said, "We support the president's goal of increased transparency consistent with the protection of sensitive national security information. We are currently reviewing the memorandum to determine appropriate next steps."

A CIA database of declassified intelligence documents known as the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST), which is comprised of 10 million pages--is now available through computers at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Md. To date, the CIA has not placed the documents online because of concern that information could be extracted more easily and combined in a way that reveals classified information.

Jeremy Bigwood, a researcher who helps citizens use CREST at the National Archives, said that he does not understand how the release of the documents would jeopardize national security.

For more on open records:
- see this nextgov.com article

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