House passes homeland security secrecy 'over-classification' act

The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed the Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2009, H.R. 553, sponsored by California Democrat Jane Harmon, which will "require the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to prevent the over-classification of homeland security and other information and to promote the sharing of unclassified homeland security and other information."

One purpose of the bill is to provide unclassified versions of intelligence information to law enforcement agencies that work with DHS.

The bill pronounces that "excessive government secrecy stands in the way of a safer and more secure homeland," and that, since 9/11, "considerable confusion [exists] about what information can be shared with whom both internally at the Department of Homeland Security and with its external partners. This problem negatively impacts the dissemination of homeland security information to the Department’s State, local, tribal, and territorial homeland security and law enforcement partners, private sector customers, and the public."

The bill calls for the creation, in consultation with the Archivist of the United States and within one year of passage, of "standard classified and unclassified formats for finished intelligence products created by the Department"; and for "all finished intelligence products created by the Department [to] be simultaneously prepared in the standard unclassified format, provided that such an unclassified product would reasonably be expected to be of any benefit to a State, local, tribal or territorial government, law enforcement agency or other emergency response provider, or the private sector."

It also calls for periodic audits of the process, with reports going annually to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate, and "to the public, in an appropriate format."