Administration has yet to make proposed security policy revisions public

The deadline for administration officials to hand President Obama recommendations for revising two national security policies passed quietly last week, without officials allowing the public to review the proposals.

In a May 27 memorandum, the president directed National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones to submit revisions to the executive order governing classified national security information by Aug. 27. Separately, the memo ordered an interagency task force to deliver within 90 days recommendations for sharing sensitive information that does not meet the standards for classification, known as controlled unclassified information.

Obama's post-inaugural pledges to create a transparent government and to administer the Freedom of Information Act with a presumption in favor of disclosure should guide the policymaking decisions, the memo stressed.

But officials did not open for public comment or disclose either set of proposals.

More than 20 parties advocating for government transparency signed an Aug. 1 letter to Jones, saying that while they appreciated an opportunity to suggest policy changes during a summer online forum, the final wording of the proposals might not accurately capture their advice. The coalition asked that he permit the public to comment on the language before submitting it to the president.

A week before the Aug. 27 deadline, National Security Council spokesman Ben Chang said Jones was working on a response to the coalition and expected to have it soon. Late Friday, Chang said, "We have no further update for you at this time." He could not confirm whether Jones had submitted his proposal to the president.

A spokesman for the task force that wrote recommendations on handling controlled information said the panel is waiting on guidance from the White House before making anything public.

White House officials on Friday evening said the task force's report had been delivered, but did not have information on whether it would be made public.

The classification reviews are a response to the problem of over-classification in government. Many public interest groups blame the Bush administration for institutionalizing over-classification and government secrecy, pointing to a post-Sept. 11, 2001, memo that ordered agencies to scrub their Web sites of sensitive data that could perhaps aid terrorists.

"The recommendations and proposed revisions shall address . . . effective measures to address the problem of over classification, including the possible restoration of the presumption against classification," the Obama memo stated.