Homeland Security's culture of secrecy."The Department of Homeland Security Noun 1. Department of Homeland Security - the federal department that administers all matters relating to homeland security Homeland Security executive department - a federal department in the executive branch of the government of the United States is requiring thousands of employees and contractors to sign nondisclosure agreements prohibiting them from sharing sensitive but unclassified The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. Please help [ improve the introduction] to meet Wikipedia's layout standards. You can discuss the issue on the talk page. information with the public," reported the November 16 Washington Post. "The department was rebuffed, however, when it also tried to require congressional aides to sign the secrecy pledges as a condition for gaining access to certain materials...." "We have steadfastly refused to sign any nondisclosure agreements," stated Ken Johnson Ken Johnson can refer to:
adj. 1. Not placed or included in a class or category: unclassified mail. 2. material and Congress has a right to it without signing away our lives." "They're forgetting who's overseeing who [sic]," commented another nameless panel official. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA TSA See tax-sheltered annuity (TSA). ) has adopted similar strictures. In October, former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage, weary of being subjected to invasive and repeated pat-down searches at airports, demanded to see the regulation governing "secondary screening" searches at airports. "She said she wanted to see the regulation ... and she was told she couldn't see it," explained TSA official Julian Gonzalez to the October 10 Idaho Statesman. "She refused to go through additional screening [without seeing the regulation] and she was not allowed to fly. It's pretty simple." Why wouldn't TSA simply allow the former congresswoman--or any other law-abiding American --to see the regulation? "Because we don't have to," insisted Gonzalez. "That is called 'sensitive security information' [SSI (1) See server-side include and single-system image. (2) (Small-Scale Integration) Less than 100 transistors on a chip. See MSI, LSI, VLSI and ULSI. 1. (electronics) SSI - small scale integration. 2. ]. She's not allowed to see it, nor is anyone else." So determined is the TSA to preserve such secrecy that it threatened to arrest and prosecute air marshals suspected of discussing non-classified SSI with the press or public. According to a Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a branch of the Library of Congress that provides objective, nonpartisan research, analysis, and information to assist Congress in its legislative, oversight, and representative functions. U.S. report, "air marshals from two locations said they were threatened with arrest and prosecution if they were found to have released sensitive security information ... even though release of SSI is not a prosecutable offense." |
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