Vol. 59 No. 151 Monday, August 8, 1994  p 40339 (Notice)   1/282
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

CIA Information Act of 1984; Operational File Exemptions

AGENCY: Central Intelligence Agency.

ACTION: Notice of operational file exemptions.


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:
   ^Q Over 140,000 pages from the JFK sequestered collection
of documents.
   ^Q Over 380 political and economic National Intelligence Estimates
primarily on the Soviet Union produced prior to 1984.
   ^Q Over 1,000 previously classified articles and book reviews
from the CIA's professional journal of intelligence.

Studies in Intelligence

   ^Q 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:
   ^Q 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.
   ^Q 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.
   ^Q 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:
   ^Q The Central Intelligence agency, An Instrument of Government,
to 1950.
   ^Q General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence,
October 1950-February 1953.
   ^Q 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:
   ^Q Conducted a symposium on Teaching Intelligence which also
resulted in an unclassified published report.
   ^Q Conducted a symposium on the Cuban missile crisis.
   ^Q Conducted a conference entitled ``The Origins and Development
of the CIA in the Administration of Harry Truman.''
   ^Q 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]
BILLING CODE 6310-02-M



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CIA Information Act of 1984; operational file exemptions, 40339