On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Clapper announced a plan to implement a new set of transparency principles for the Intelligence Community. This is the latest in a series of Intelligence Community initiatives to disclose more information about how the agencies do business.
While the release of this “implementation plan” may seem at first blush to be a minor bureaucratic event, it is a welcome development for several reasons. It shows that the agencies are beginning to break a habit of reflexive secrecy. The difficulty of shedding institutional habits developed over the course of decades—if not centuries—should not be underestimated, and the plan released on Tuesday shows that the government is serious about taking on this challenge.
But what about more detailed rules and procedures? When do they reveal sources and methods? How much can the government tell the American public (and therefore everyone else in the world) about what type of information our agencies can and cannot collect and the sources from which they can and cannot collect it before legitimate targets can use that information to avoid surveillance altogether? These are not easy questions. The Intelligence Community undoubtedly hopes that its new transparency principles and implementation plan will help it strike the right balance.
There's a lot of work to do (and especially in a future where privacy is less possible)