Sour Grapes

Thank you, Senators Specter & Santorum!

I want to take this rare opportunity to thank both the Senators from my home state &mdash Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum — for voting to disclose the intelligence budget total beginning in fiscal year 2006 (1 Oct 2005 - 30 Sep 2006). You can read the debate and see who voted which way here. The entire bill, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, is here.

I found this in the 5 October issue of Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News where, ironically, it precedes a story about the U.S. Department of Energy going directly against a course recommended by the 9/11 Commission:

The 9/11 Commission unanimously recommended that intelligence budget secrecy should be reduced and that individual intelligence agency budget totals should be disclosed annually.

But the Department of Energy has decided to do exactly the opposite of what the Commission recommended....

Instead of serving as an example for other agencies, DOE has decided to classify its intelligence budget, as if the 9/11 Commission had never existed. For the first time in decades, DOE is withholding all substantive information about its intelligence program. More than that, DOE is attempting (improperly) to retroactively classify budget information that it has previously declassified and published.

Since President Bush has vowed to implement the Commission's recommendation, does this mean he'll overrule this backwards step by the DoE? Somehow I doubt it.

Original post by Hugh at 10/21/2004 04:58:00 PM Eastern time :: 0 comment(s) :: links to this post

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