White House Sets New Goals for Open Government - Secrecy News - 0 views
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In a new Open Government National Action Plan that was released today, the White House affirmed its support for open government values, and set an agenda for the remainder of the current Administration. “The new plan includes a wide range of actions the Administration will take over the next two years, including commitments that build upon past successes as well as several new initiatives,” the Plan stated. “The Administration will work with the public and civil society organizations to implement each of these commitments over the next two years.” With respect to national security secrecy, the Plan includes a new commitment to “transform the security classification system” based on the principle that “classification must… be kept to the minimum required to meet national security needs….”
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Towards that end, a new interagency Classification Review Committee is being established with White House leadership to evaluate proposals for classification reform, and to coordinate their implementation throughout the executive branch. The creation of such a body was the primary recommendation of the Public Interest Declassification Board last year, and it was strongly endorsed by public interest groups. Both because of its interagency character and especially due to its White House leadership, the new Committee has the potential to overcome the autonomous classification practices of individual agencies that have contributed to the explosive growth in secrecy. Positive results are naturally not guaranteed. The Administration has not embraced an explicit theory of how overclassification occurs, or even how overclassification is to be defined, and therefore it is not yet well-equipped to address the problem.