CIA Information Act of 1984; Operational File Exemptions

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

CIA Information Act of 1984; Operational File Exemptions

AGENCY: Central Intelligence Agency.

ACTION: Notice of operational file exemptions.

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SUMMARY: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is soliciting comments

regarding the historical value of, or other public interest in, the CIA

files designated under the CIA Information Act of 1984.

DATES: Comments must be received by September 7, 1994.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments in writing to Director, Information

Management, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC 20505. Comments

also may be faxed to (703) 482-8361.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Edmund Cohen, Director, Information Management, Central Intelligence

Agency, Washington, DC 20505, (703) 482-6567.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

In 1984 the CIA Information Act (Act) became law. This Act

authorized certain CIA operational files from the Directorates of

Operations and Science and Technology and the Office of Security to be

designated by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) as exempt from

the search requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The

Act also required that not less than once every ten years the DCI

review the exemptions then in force to determine whether such

exemptions could be removed from any category of exempted files or any

portion thereof. The first such review must be completed by 15 October

1994.

Increased Responsiveness to FOIA, Privacy Act, and Mandatory

Declassification Requests

A major purpose of the Act is to expedite the Agency's review of

information qualifying for release pursuant to FOIA, Privacy Act, and

Mandatory Declassification standards. Under the Act the Agency is

relieved of having to search files, and review records contained

therein, that would likely result in little, if any, released

information under the FOIA. Consequently, the Agency can devote its

resources to those files more likely to result in released materials

and, thus, FOIA requesters experience much faster processing of those

Agency records with a higher likelihood of being released. Since the

passage of the Act in 1984, there has been a considerable reduction in

the amount of time FOIA requesters must wait for their responses from

the Agency. In 1984, when the CIA Information Act was passed, CIA

completed action on 2,991 FOIA, Privacy Act, and Mandatory

Declassification requests and the median response time for FOIA

requests was approximately 15 months. In 1993, CIA completed action on

5,705 requests and reduced the median response time for these requests

to 2.4 months. Thus, a primary goal of the Act has been and continues

to be met.

Declassification and Release of CIA Information of Historical Value

The Act also sought to encourage CIA to undertake a program for the

systematic review for declassification and release of selected

information of historical value. The Act required the DCI, in

consultation with the Archivist of the United States, the Librarian of

Congress, and appropriate representatives of the historical discipline

selected by the Archivist, to prepare and submit to Congress a report

on the feasibility of conducting systematic review for declassification

and release of CIA information of historical value. In his report,

submitted on 29 May 1985, the DCI stated that this kind of review was

feasible and he described the new Historical Review Program that the

Agency had established to carry it out.

Before making his report to Congress, the DCI consulted a panel,

made up of the Archivist of the United States, an Assistant Librarian

of Congress, and three distinguished historians. This panel recommended

that the aim of the new Historical Review Program:

must be release of inactive records, appraised as permanently

valuable, to the public via the National Archives and Records

Administration (NARA), as the most effective means of serving the

public interest and especially that of historical research.

As part of the DCI's Openness Policy, CIA's Historical Review

Program has expanded substantially since 1992. Under the Program, the

Center for the Study of Intelligence has undertaken to declassify and

release CIA records of significant historical value. Records

declassified and transferred to the NARA include:

Over 140,000 pages from the JFK sequestered collection of

documents.

Over 380 political and economic National Intelligence

Estimates primarily on the Soviet Union produced prior to 1984.

Over 1,000 previously classified articles and book reviews

from the CIA's professional journal of intelligence.

Studies in Intelligence

Over 1,500 pages of records on Raoul Wallenberg.

Since 1992, the CIA History Staff has also published three volumes

of documents in its Cold War Records:

CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis. This

publication is made up of 112 of the most important documents (some of

which are excerpts of documents) from that period.

Selected Estimates on the Soviet Union. This volume

includes 27 National Intelligence Estimates on International Politics,

Foreign Affairs, Global Issues and Nuclear Arms Control and

Disarmament.

The CIA Under Harry Truman. This publication includes

approximately 80 important policy level documents, more than half of

which have never been made public before.

The Program has also declassified, released, and transferred to the

NARA the following three formerly classified internal CIA histories:

The Central Intelligence agency, An Instrument of

Government, to 1950.

General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central

Intelligence, October 1950-February 1953.

Allen Welsh Dulles as Director of Central Intelligence, 26

February 1953-29 November 1961.

Finally, related to these declassification and release programs and

in conjunction with the Agency's Openness Policy, the Center for the

Study of Intelligence:

Conducted a symposium on Teaching Intelligence which also

resulted in an unclassified published report.

Conducted a symposium on the Cuban missile crisis.

Conducted a conference entitled ``The Origins and

Development of the CIA in the Administration of Harry Truman.''

Produced two video tapes in conjunction with its symposium

on the Cuban missile crisis and on its conference on the CIA and the

Truman Administration.

Basis for the 1984 Designation of CIA Files as Operational

The 1984 Act specified the following three categories for

designating CIA files as operational and thus exempted from FOIA search

requirements:

1. Files of the Directorate of Operations which document the

conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations or

intelligence or security liaison arrangements or information exchanges

with foreign governments or their intelligence or security services;

2. Files of the Directorate of Science and Technology which

document the means by which foreign intelligence or counterintelligence

is collected through scientific and technical systems; and

3. Files of the Office of Security which document investigations

conducted to determine the suitability of potential foreign

intelligence or counterintelligence sources.

Throughout the legislative history there is a clear recognition

that there is little benefit from the requirement to search and review

certain operational files that almost invariably prove to be exempt

from release under the FOIA. By exempting only operational files, which

document the methods by which intelligence is collected or which

describe and identify sources that furnish the intelligence, FOIA

requesters are assured of more responsive access to foreign

intelligence information provided to U.S. policy makers. Through a

reduction in the backlog of FOIA cases, the Agency's response to FOIA

requests for nonoperational information becomes more timely. In

speaking in support of the bill which eventually became the law, the

then Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said:

The purpose of this legislation is to amend the National

Security Act of 1947 in order to relieve the CIA of the unproductive

burden of searching and reviewing certain operational files under

the FOIA. This relief will enable the CIA to become more efficient

so that requests under the provisions of the FOIA may be answered

more quickly.

In supporting the bill when it was before the House, one member

stated for the record that:

The bill is carefully crafted to achieve three purposes.

First, the bill will relieve the CIA from an unproductive FOIA

requirement to search and review certain specifically defined CIA

operational files consisting of records which, after line-by-line

security review, almost invariably prove not to be releasable under

the FOIA.

Second, the bill will provide more effective security for the

identities and operational activities abroad of individuals who risk

their lives and livelihoods to assist the United States by

cooperating with the CIA.

Third, the bill will improve the ability of the CIA to respond

to FOIA requests from the public in a timely and efficient manner,

while preserving undiminished the amount of information releasable

to the public under the FOIA.

Moreover, intelligence sources, current and future, have increased

confidence about the Agency's ability to protect them from the threat

of exposure many have felt under the FOIA.

Pursuant to the criteria specified in the Act, the DCI in 1984

designated as operational files:

1. Files of the Directorate of Operations:

a. Operational Activity files. These files document the sources and

methods involved in foreign intelligence and counterintelligence

operations, liaison relationships with foreign governments and their

intelligence and security services, and special activities.

b. Operational Interest files. These files contain vulnerability

information collected on targets for potential operational activities

including foreign intelligence and security services, foreign hostile

parties, international narcotics, international terrorism, and

clandestine technology transfer.

c. Personality files. These files contain information on persons

and sources involved in operational activities and persons of

operational and counterintelligence interest, including active and

perspective agents, contacts, sources, and targets.

d. Policy and Management files. These files contain information

concerning the management of individual projects and decisions made for

the conduct of operational activities.

e. Obsolete Category files that remain open, but were created

before the establishment of the Directorate of Operations central file

system and contain the types of information in the four categories of

files listed above.

f. Operational files that are maintained and used within the

Directorate of Operations, but that remain outside of and peripheral to

the central file system. These are files that contain operational

information of the type listed in the first four categories, but is so

sensitive that it is compartmented within the Directorate of Operations

division or staff directly responsible for the operation. Also included

in this category are background and working files derived from

materials from the other designated file categories.

2. Files of the Directorate of Science and Technology:

a. Imagery Analysis and Exploitation files. These are files that

document the scientific and technical methods used in the collection,

analysis, and exploitation of photographic intelligence and other

imagery for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence.

b. Signal Intelligence files. These are files which document

scientific and technical methods used in the collection, analysis, and

exploitation of electromagnetic signals for foreign intelligence and

counterintelligence.

c. Operations and Technical Support files. These are files which

document scientific and technical methods used in support of human

intelligence source operations in the collection of foreign

intelligence and counterintelligence.

d. Intelligence Collection Systems files. These files document the

use of other scientific and technical methods in conjunction with

clandestine operations in collecting foreign intelligence and

counterintelligence.

3. Files of the Office of Security:

a. Covert Security Approval and Provisional Covert Security

Approval files. These files document investigations to determine the

suitability of potential foreign intelligence or counterintelligence

sources proposed for use in operational support activities.

b. Operational Approval and Provisional Operational Approval files.

These files document investigations to determine the suitability of

potential foreign intelligence or counterintelligence sources proposed

for use in operational activities.

c. Security Access Approval files. These files document

investigations to determine the suitability of potential foreign

intelligence or counterintelligence sources proposed for use in

collection activities involving scientific and technical systems.

Solicitation of Comments Regarding Historical Value or Other Public

Interest of the Previously Designated Operational Files

In undertaking a decennial review of whether the DCI should remove

any of the files designated under the 1984 Act, or portions thereof,

from any of the specified categories of exempted files, the DCI hereby

solicits comments for his consideration regarding the historical value

of, or other public interest in, the subject matter of these particular

categories of files or portions thereof and the relationship of that

historical value or other public interest to the removal of previously

designated files or any portions thereof from such a classification.

Dated: August 2, 1994.

Frank J. Ruocco,

Deputy Director for Administration.

[FR Doc. 94-19223 Filed 8-5-94; 8:45 am]

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