Nsa/css declassification Program Presentation to the

NSA/CSS Declassification Program

• Presentation to the

• Public Interest Declassification Board

• Mr. Louis Giles

• Associate Director, Policy and Records

Missions and Responsibilities

• Development and promulgation of policy

• Senior Classification/Declassification Authority

• Initial Denial Authority for FOIA/PA and declassification access requests

• NSA/CSS Federal Records Officer

• Senior Privacy Official

Organization

Declassification Services

• Review of records subject to automatic declassification

• Mandatory Declassification Reviews

• State Dept. Foreign Relations of the United States Series reviews

• Discretionary projects

• Pre-publication review of unclassified NSA/CSS information intended for public dissemination

Classification Policy

• 22 Original Classification Authorities

• All decisions coordinated with Office of Policy and Records to ensure corporate approach, consistency and coordination with other government agencies

• Unique position with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom

Declassification Reasons

• Executive Order 12958, as amended

• Operational necessity

• Historical relevancy

• Legal mandates

• Executive Branch direction

• Discretionary projects

Files Series Exemptions

• Cryptanalysis

• SIGINT Product & Cryptologic Technical Records

• Traffic Analysis

• Electronic Intelligence (ELINT)

• Foreign Relationships/Partnerships

• Nuclear Command and Control

• Space and Weapons Control

• Cryptologic Key Management

• Counterintelligence

• Tempest

E.O. 12958, as amended, 25 Year Review

• 46 million pages subject to automatic declassification – review completed

• 4.5 million pages file series exempt

• Pass/Fail as of March 2001

Review Process

• Reviews conducted at NSA HQs

• Pass/Fail

• Document level review

• Review for declassification only; not reviewed for public release

• Quality Control – two level review by government and contractor personnel

• Documents and decisions stored in Automated Document Management System

Interagency Cooperation

• Support to Declassification Initiatives

• External Referral Working Group
• Automation Working Group
• Classification Management Working Group
• NARA’s Interagency Referral Center
• Presidential Libraries Records Remote Archive Capture Program
• Document Declassification Support System (DDSS)

• Equity Recognition Training

• Conferences and agency-to-agency

Challenges

• Release to the public

• Funding

• Referral processing (quantity, location and process is still unknown)

• Lack of community-wide referral standards

• Special media processing

Accomplishments

• Completion of 25-year review

• Gulf of Tonkin Incident

• U.S.S. Liberty Incident

• Nazi/Japanese War Crimes

• Vietnam POW/MIA Records

• Rockefeller Library Papers

• Venona

• Cuban Missile Crisis

• JFK Assassination Records