WHOSE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BY STANSFIELD TURNER DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000300050015-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2007
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: January 1, 1979
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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015 . 71.1
by Stansfield Turner
Director of Central Intelligence
WHOSE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION? ~.
Last year, the Central Intelligence Agency received 4,172 requests
for information under FOIA, the general rubric for the Freedom of
Information Act, the Privacy Act and Executive Order 12065 on National
Security Information. That was relatively few compared to the Departments
of Defense or Health, Education and Welfare, but considering CIA's
smaller size and special security requirements, it represents a signifi-
cant administrative and financial burden. Unlike other departments,
CIA's files are not centralized. This is because there is so much
information of life and death sensitivity. Therefore each new request
116 man-years of effort. That amounts to about $820 each. All but
$9,216.78 was borne by the taxpayer.
3,617 of those requests were answered at a .cost of nearly $3,000,000 for
required a hand search of as many as 30 separate. filing systems, some
going back to OSS days in the early 1940's. By the end of the year,
Still, that cost in people and time is probably justified if, as a
result, our society can be made more open, government more responsive to
the public, and our nation stronger. That was certainly the intent of
these Acts. Unfortunately, in the case of intelligence agencies, it has
not quite worked that way.
Rather than opening our society, the Freedom of Information Act,
when applied to intelligence information, often leaves the citizen
frustrated at the time it-takes to service a request, and disappointed
at the results. Despite our most sincere efforts to live up to;the
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spirit as well as the letter of the law, we simply are unable to satisfy
most requests for information. This is not at all an unwillingness to
do so, but the need to comply with.other laws which mandate us to
protect national secrets. The most important of those secrets concerns
how we gain access to intelligence information and from whom--what we
call our sources and our methods. Clearly, if through FOIA we released
data on collection techniques, either technical or human, those techniques
would soon be compromised and thereafter useless. Journalists understand
this. Witness the number who have been willing to go to jail rather
than reveal-their sources.
Neither does FOIA improve the responsiveness of intelligence
agencies to the public. Thousands of hours which could be spent on
intelligence work are consumed examining files from which only minute
quantities of information can ultimately be released. Intelligence and
secrecy are inseparable. Not only must sources and methods be protected,
but once information is obtained, its value to our foreign policy makers
often depends on no one else suspecting that we have it. Consequently,
it is neither desirable nor really possible to make intelligence agencies
responsive to the people as a whole if at the same time they are expected
to do their job effectively.
Instead, intelligence agencies should continue to be responsive to-
the people through their elected and appointed government officials.
Tremendous progress has been made in the past few years in establishing
new oversight mechanisms which guarantee to the public that intelligence
agencies are under contro-1_and are being held accountable for what they
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do. In the Congress, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are kept fully informed
on intelligence activities. They review them, often in great detail;
pass judgment on them; and ensure they are consonant with the nation's
expressed foreign policy. In the glare of this examination, there is no
likelihood that intelligence agencies would undertake activities which
would not meet general public approval. In the Executive Branch an
independent Intelligence Oversight Board appointed by the President
investigates any allegations of illegality or impropriety which anyone
may bring to it.
Finally, does FOIA make our nation stronger? Unfortunately, FOIA
has encouraged the erroneous perception that intelligence agencies
cannot withhold national security information from the public. As noted
above, this is not the case since we must by law protect sensitive
security data. Still, as long as this perception persists, we are likely
to lose sources of information. This perception has been created
largely by the distortions in the press where FOIA obtained fragments of
documents have been embellished with conjecture to produce sensational
but misleading or fallacious stories. Foreign persons and agencies
become understandably reluctant to share information which might damage
their own efforts if publicized, if they perceive that we may be
forced to release such information through FOIA. Potential intelligence
sources question our ability to protect their identity. Sources not
found and developed today will impact on U.S. intelligence efforts 15 or
more years from now. No.one can judge the effect that may have.
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Under these Acts, U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens
may cast a wide net to obtain information about themselves and may
request the declassification and release of any classified information.
In addition, anyone, of any nationality, may request any Executive
Branch document which he can reasonably describe. The requests we
receive are often very broad, sometimes vague, and occasionally capricious.
They range from a request for all records on underground newspapers--over
500 titles were given; to the lady who asked for any records on her dog;
to one from an insurance salesman asking for the names of all CIA
employees so that they could be contacted to sell them policies; to one
for personal records on an individual, ostensibly from that individual,
but found to be from a would-be blackmailer; to a request from a high
school civics teacher who wrote to warn us that he was requiring all of
his students to make an FOIA request just to show them how the system
works. I seriously question whether taxpayers' money should be spent on
any of these kinds of searches. Then there are requests from people
like Philip Agee who has vowed to try to destroy the Central Intelligence
Agency, an established arm of the government authorized by the Congress
and supported by the people. Yet, the people have had to pay for 5-1/2
man-years of effort so far to help Agee try to undo a duly constituted
organ of our government. FOIA encourages fishing expeditions into this
country's most sensitive national secrets at a great waste of tax money.-
But, intelligence agencies have no choice but to investigate every
request to determine what can and cannot be released. No other country
in the world is so obliging. It is no wonder so few others understand
our compulsion to risk hurting ourselves.
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I fully support the concept of freedom of information. The public
has a right to know in general terms what their intelligence agencies
are doing. But, the scope of these Acts should be narrowed so that the
taxpayer does not have to pay so much for so little in return, and so
that our security is not threatened, as it inevitably is, when it is
perceived by some that we are'powerless to keep national secrets. Such
a narrowing would not lessen the accountability of intelligence agencies,
nor loosen the restraints under which they now operate, nor reduce the
quantity of meaningful information flowing directly to the public. In
all events, the CIA will continue to publish as much of the results of
its work as it possibly can. Last year alone over 150 analytic studies
and documents were made public under this openness program. We want to
share with the public as much as we can, but we prefer not to have to
respond to a lot of fishing expeditions. Let's leave fishing to the
fishermen, and keep our nation's secrets just that--secret.
y
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