Just have to hope sooner rather than later more complete information is released on the program.
Quote from: Star One on 08/21/2012 06:53 pmJust have to hope sooner rather than later more complete information is released on the program.Don't hold your breath too hard. There's little that's more tightly held than scam/signals intelligence. (I'm still pretty surprised that they released the Venona stuff, although of course that didn't come out until 1995, and covered messages sent in the mid-1940's.)It'll come out some day, but there are often technical threads that lead from that work to current day stuff (as with the delta attack on Tunny), which is why they are wary of letting any of it out, no matter how old it is.NoelBut there has to be some kind of limitation on how long this kind of information is classified, plus I am sure the releases could be redacted in such a way as to mitigate this issue.
But there has to be some kind of limitation on how long this kind of information is classified, plus I am sure the releases could be redacted in such a way as to mitigate this issue.
Quote from: Star One on 08/21/2012 09:47 pmBut there has to be some kind of limitation on how long this kind of information is classified, plus I am sure the releases could be redacted in such a way as to mitigate this issue.Intelligence sources and methods can be exempted from the regular rules.But the general rule of thumb seems to be 25 years after the end of the program. Note that the program only ends when the last spacecraft dies. So if a ferret subsatellite operated until 2000, the program might not get declassified until 2025.
Is there any kind of sliding scale on that 25 years depending on the type of program it is? Woud a photo reconnaissance project be declassified earlier say than an signals intelligence project and so on.
Quote from: Star One on 08/22/2012 04:53 pmIs there any kind of sliding scale on that 25 years depending on the type of program it is? Woud a photo reconnaissance project be declassified earlier say than an signals intelligence project and so on.Not really. First of all, it's a rule of thumb, not something hard and fast. And it's frequently ignored by many government agencies for lots of reasons. The most common reason is lack of resources: they are ordered to declassify records that are older than 25 years. They then fail to devote much money to doing this, then they miss the deadline and complain that it's too expensive to do. Unless somebody in the government forces them to expend the resources, they can continue to get away with that. And although they made some progress in the past few years, the situation is getting much worse very fast because government agencies now generate many more classified records very fast (think of classified email--it's really easy to dash off a bunch of classified email messages whereas previously somebody had to type up a classified letter).Note that I said that it probably dates from the end of the program, not when the last satellite was launched. For instance, Poppy was turned off in 1977, and the existence of the program was not declassified until 2005. You can do the math.
Thanks. Are some government agencies better than others when it comes to this, from what I can see the NRO themselves don't seem too bad in this respect?
Quote from: Star One on 08/23/2012 08:20 pmThanks. Are some government agencies better than others when it comes to this, from what I can see the NRO themselves don't seem too bad in this respect? Yes, some agencies are better than others, but I don't know which ones those are. Look at Secrecy and Government Report and they may have some info.I do know that the Naval Research Lab simply doesn't respond to FOIA requests. That's actually illegal, and I don't know how they get away with it because they should report on their FOIA activity to somebody, and that somebody should notice that they're not doing anything, but the only way to force them to comply is for somebody to sue them.Los Angeles Air Force Base used to be pretty sloppy about replying to FOIA requests, but they may have gotten better. A big problem is that military offices are supposed to designate somebody as their FOIA officer, and frequently they give this task to somebody who has no training and doesn't want the job.You were asking about which agencies are better at declassifying stuff when they are supposed to. I don't know the answer to that offhand.
I would not be surprised if they released more info on these spacecraft (Samos F-1, F-2, etc. and the Agena ferrets and subsatellites) in the near future. They have already released POPPY info.However, it is a thorny issue, because some of these low altitude satellites were used for comint, and the subsatellite ferrets were launched as late as the early 1990s and it is theoretically possible that they operated into the last decade.