 Welcome everyone. Good morning or good afternoon I suppose this is the PIDB's second virtual meeting and we're happy to have all of you join us for this important event. First I wanted to go over a few housekeeping matters and if you have a question please email it to PIDB at nara.gov. We have staff monitoring this address and there'll be time for questions toward the end of the meeting. If we are unable to get your questions on air like our meeting in June we promise to address the questions and post our responses on our blog Transforming Classification. So we've largely been virtual over the summer but we've been quite busy. We welcomed our newest member former Congressman Trey Gowdy. John Tierney testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and provided the board's view on declassification reform and the bipartisan 2020 declassification reform act bill co-sponsored by one of our speakers today Senator Ron Wyden and we met virtually to discuss our ideas for 2021 something we'll talk about in more detail today and we also talked about how we follow up on the report we issued earlier this year. We have an ambitious agenda today so let's get started with our first guest speaker. I'm pleased to welcome the archivist of the United States David Ferriero back to speak to all of us. David was appointed by President Obama and then confirmed by the Senate on November 6th 2009. Before becoming the archivist of the United States he served as the director of the New York Public Library the largest public library system in the world. He is an advocate and ally for open government and government transparency. Over the last 11 years he has led and modernized the National Archives. Among his accomplishments he eliminated a backlog of over 400 million records awaiting declassification review. He oversaw the declassification and public release of over 40,000 documents that were previously withheld in the John F. Kennedy assassination records collection. He transformed the National Archives by fostering a culture of openness, transparency and innovation to improve public access to government records. He developed a citizen archivist program that allows users to provide description information to digitize archival images making it easier for all of us to discover and use them. And he issued a directive on managing government records with the director of the Office of Management and Budget establishing requirements and metrics to help federal agencies modernize their own records management practices and processes. And most importantly he is in the PIDB corner. We deeply appreciate his support. Not only has he allowed us to borrow and use his staff for our work he's also served as a willing partner in our work making time to answer our questions, brainstorm ideas and provide an archivist and librarian perspective with us. So without further ado I welcome David to the meeting. Thank you this good afternoon. Normally I'd welcome you to my house in the McGowan Theater here at the National Archives in Washington. Today however I'm welcoming you to my office due to the COVID-19 national emergency. I'm joining you through our Webex video platform and on the National Archives YouTube channel with our buildings closed to the public and much of our staff performing their work remotely. Our staff here in Washington DC and in facilities around the nation are continuing to serve the American people. Our staff are assisting veterans and their families claim benefits, help federal agencies with their records responsibilities and responding to research or requests. We continue to add and update descriptions in the National Archives online catalog enhancing and improving access to our records. Since March our staff has added over 865,000 descriptions to the National Archives catalog and they've added over 10 million digitized images to the catalog. In August we launched the Presidential Libraries Explorer. It complements the record group explorer that we deployed in late 2019. The next generation digital finding aids that also offer users a visualization tool to help them find digitized images by collection or record group. They include textual records, audio and video files, photographs and artifacts. Our staff developed interactive programming and created online exhibits to help our nation celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. As the presidential election season enters its final month our federal register staff is busy preparing for their role in the electoral college process. This work is important and meets three goals in our strategic plan to make access happen, connect with our customers and maximize our value to the nation. I commend our staff for their work, especially during this challenging time. With all this important work continuing during the pandemic I'm pleased to speak at this virtual public meeting of the Public Information Declassification Board. I'd like to thank PIDDIP for their work during this difficult year. Despite the pandemic they published an important report to the president, modernization of the U.S. national security classification and declassification system in June, bringing attention to an unheralded issue that is nevertheless critical in the digital age we now live and work. Their report was intended to inspire the government to think differently about policies and practices that may have worked well in the previous era but are no longer effective in this digital age. Just as we at the National Archives did in developing a new model for electronic records management that includes entirely new processes and policies. Earlier this month I watched PIDDIP member John Tierney testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the recommendations in this report. His testimony and their report are compelling and worthy of discussion. The issue of declassification is of concern to the National Archives. Through the National Declassification Center our staff processes millions of pages of classified records each year for declassification to make them available to the public. This work requires the participation of agency partners who have equity in the information contained in the records. In that sense the NDC is already taking a federated approach as agencies review their information for declassification taking their cue from NDC staff on records that need their review. The NDC prioritizing the review of records that our researchers want to see through our indexing on demand program. Through this process driven by researchers this year the NDC has released intelligence records from the Chief of Naval Operations during the Korean War. Department of the state records related to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the Carter administration and records relating to the US Canada International Joint Commission. Department of the Navy records and motion picture records relating to nuclear testing in the Pacific. Conversations from the Nixon White House tapes and motion pictures related to the development of the Polaris weapons system. It's important though to recognize that challenges lie ahead with the growth of digital records. Our mission is to drive openness, cultivate public participation in government, and strengthen our nation's democracy through public access to high value government records. The National Archives and the NDC will be an active participant in discussions seeking new solutions to improve declassification processes for electronic records. We look forward to working cooperatively with other government agencies to harness use of advanced technologies and tools necessary to aid archival processing and declassification review. Thank you for your work on behalf of the American people. And I look forward to your continuing interest and engagement in seeking solutions to modernize the classification and declassification system. Thank you, David. Good afternoon. I'm Mark A. Bradley, the Director of Information Security Oversight Office here at the National Archives. I also serve as the Executive Secretary, the Public Interest Declassification Board, and my staff is responsible for providing administrative and logistical support for the board. At this time, I'd like to welcome our newest member, Trey Gowdy. Trey was appointed to a three year term on the board on August 24, 2020 by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Trey is a graduate of Baylor University and the University of South Carolina School of Law. After serving as a federal and state prosecutor, Trey served four terms in Congress, representing South Carolina's fourth congressional district, encompassing both Spartanburg and Greenville. While in Congress, Trey served on the Judiciary Committee, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, among others. He also chaired the House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Charisd Attacks in Benghazi. Along with my staff and the other board members who are present, I look forward to working with Trey as the board continues its efforts to make recommendations on how the federal government can modernize and improve the national security classification declassification system. Trey, would you like to say a few words to the audience? Well, yeah, just a few more. First of all, thank you for the introduction. I also want to thank Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for allowing me to work alongside each of you. You are correct. I am out of elected office, but that does not mean you have to be out of public service. That can manifest itself in lots of different ways, including around issues as significant as classification and declassification and access to information in an open and free society like the one that we aspire to live in. And I want to thank my fellow board members. I learned a lot from Alyssa and John and Ken, as well as the staff in our first meeting and I look forward to working with each of you over the pendency of the time to which I've been appointed. It's now my pleasure to introduce and welcome Senator Ron Wyden. I will introduce him. He's incredibly busy, so he may not have joined us yet, but I will introduce him in anticipation of his joining us. Senator Wyden was first elected to the United States Senate in 1996 and has been at the forefront of the fight against unnecessary classification for over two decades. He, along with Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, coauthored the Bipartisan Declassification Reform Act of 2020. Senator Wyden is largely responsible for the existence of the PIDP having taken a leadership role in extending the board's mandate, expanding its authorities and ensuring that it is funded. Senator Wyden has been a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2001. He has fought numerous declassification battles on behalf of the American people in those battles. The name of few include public access to the top line intelligence budget, reports on the 9 11 attack and the Iraq war. He's also been an opponent of secret law and fall for the public to gain access to important legal opinions that they otherwise would not have had access to. Senator Wyden's efforts in the classification and declassification realms go back some 20 years to his work with then Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. His efforts also include the Bipartisan Declassification Reform Act. The aforementioned with Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas. Senator Wyden, welcome and we look forward to your remarks. Has he joined us? I will say in his defense, we are shockingly running ahead of schedule and I don't think he is scheduled to join us just yet. But at least the introduction is out of the way when he does come. Alyssa, do you want to keep going? Well, so it may actually be good to cover. So we are so pleased to have Trey Gowdy with us to actually help fill out the board and not have been a good progress over the summer. We've actually had a lot of discussions also about what the board does next. So obviously, the board issued a report earlier this year. And one of the things that we've been doing over the course of the summer is thinking about how we follow up. So we will be talking a little bit about that as we go forward, thinking about how we make sure that people understand the challenges that we're seeing in the declassification realm and what we can potentially do about it as a government and things that just look like good government, which is why we want to actually go into a little bit more on the details of the board. We're also thinking a lot about how we just do more education on what classification and declassification looks like. And we think that that is something actually that came out of our last meeting that we realized that there is actually a fair amount of work to be done in that space on prioritization questions and also just what process looks like. So we're going to be talking about more about that after Senator Wyden joins us. I think while we wait for him, we also had one of our members, as has been mentioned, John Tierney testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. So we might do a little bit of a preview of some of the discussion that we had there, which actually might lead well into Senator Wyden's testimony as well. So John, do you want to give a little bit of a recap of the testimony? You're praying that I say yes, since we're running out of schedule for that. It's simple to know when you send things spiraling down with another platform. Now, look, I was happy to represent the public interest declassification board and testify in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence just last month, as a matter of fact. In the new year coming up, I think it's going to be really important that we continue at the advocacy for our plan, that we educate policymakers and senior leaders of the executive branch, members of Congress and their staffs and the public on just how important it is to actually modernize the classification declassification system. It's important for our democracy, but it's also essential for our national security. It's critically important that the government establish a senior-level executive age. I spoke a great deal about that at the hearing, and I want to add a little more. We need an executive agent, a senior-level person to oversee and implement any meaningful classification and declassification reform. It's going to take sustained leadership, essentially, and that's going to be instrumental in driving any change that's necessary to bring the classification and declassification system into this century. That executive agent would have the authority to oversee implementation of new policies and processes across the agencies. That's a coordination role that includes developing specific classification and declassification guidance. It can be used across the agencies to make decisions even more precisely. It'll have the authority to direct and coordinate research into advanced technology solutions, and it'll ensure the interoperability across the federated enterprise system, and have the authority to coordinate technological acquisitions and be able to be responsible for progress and answerable to the president. I think that's one of the critical things, Alistair, is that somebody has to be a person with an up-credibility and authority in green that people will listen to them. An individual answers directly to the president, and who has that authority is going to be able to take all of those agencies and get them to work cooperatively across the spectrum on that. It's critical to the security of the nation, and technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, they're revolutionizing operations and missions, and it has to be used to revolutionize the management of the classified data. There are specific tools and technology solutions that exist now at various agencies for other purposes, and we need to allow those agencies to share the acquisition and the advanced technologies and the technical expertise that's going to take the system going forward. This integrated federated systems approach is going to be what ensures interoperability, what ensures and allows for the effective use of advanced technologies to support the classification, declassification, system, and it's going to lead to solutions for the declassified large volumes of the digital data. So that's essentially, I think, enough to get you started on that, Alissa, and I spoke as slowly as I could to eat up as much time as I could. Oh no, we're not trying to eat up time. We have a lot to talk about in that area. You know, I think actually one of the things I was sort of stressed by that the committee was considering, that hopefully we'll hear from Senator Wyden on as well, was the question of executive agent and who actually should be responsible for exactly those kinds of actions. And I think we have thought a lot about as a board about who the right entity would be. And I know Senator Wyden specifically focused on our recommendation that it be the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence. And I guess sort of again in anticipation of Senator Wyden it might be good to talk a little bit about that recommendation because I think we did, you did get a lot of questions on that piece. And I think we have actually talked a fair amount about that at the board level about why the DNI makes the most sense. And it was really something that we considered a fair amount. We, you know, we thought about the kind of experience the DNI had and really the fact that the DNI's role was to integrate the agencies and organizations of the intelligence community in a way that would help support a mission. I think that my sense from the testimony on the point that you made very effectively in the testimony was, yes, there are lots of organizations that have classified information that are not in the intelligence community. But the ODI actually plays a role with those organizations as well. And it's just having a leader who can oversee processes and practices. And someone, as you said, who is at the top levels part of the conversations already is a voice that people already listen to. And that's just an important piece. You know, our sense also was just that the ODI has the technical know-how and acquisition experience to get the machining learning programs and artificial intelligence programs that you mentioned. We really need someone who can help in exactly that area. They've actually done, the ODI has done the intelligence community information technology enterprise eyesight. It's an enterprise, which is an enterprise level system that's exactly the kind of example of a federated system that we're thinking about in the declassification space. So it seems to us that that is the fact that ODI has experience that they really thought about how you develop and deploy information systems means that they can also play an incredible role in managing declassification. And that is something I think that the again that the committee was very interested in. But also I think Senator Wyden specifically. So I think that's something that we will want to focus on. And my hope is that Senator Wyden actually brings that piece up because it is something I think that was an important recommendation for us. I agree on that. And there was a question, some push back from committee members I think were taking on the testimony of the NDI who was a little hesitant on that. One of the questions have been why doesn't the information security oversight office? We call them ISU. Why don't they do it? And I think that is because one thing, they've done a great job and they've been nice of the staff us and they're very busy and they committed public servants that we rely on a lot. But they also have a pile of other work to do. And they're responsible for present policy and oversight on government-wide classified national security information system. And I could tick off all the different executive orders that do the classified national security information, national industrial security program, tribal, local tribal, private sector entities, patrols on classified official, all of that plus the work that they do with the PID pitted on that. And there are only 18 people, 18 for all of that. And they're so over-attached right now with the personnel that they have. It would be unfair and unreasonable to expect them to take on responsibility, but also they wouldn't be able to be very effective. And we're talking about an operation that needs the command authority to be able to get the respect of all the other agencies, to coordinate the work between all of them, to go out and find technology and new ways to deal with this. That's 18 people who's not going to be able to do that. The whole national archives under which ISU is housed, the whole thing only gets $360 million, which is $40 million less than it had been getting over the last five years. So it does not look like this is anywhere near the type of agency that's able to do it. And intelligence community, on the other hand, does have the resources, we believe, to take on the project. Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree. And that really was something that we covered in our report. I think the other thing that was sort of striking in the testimony and the sort of back and forth that you had during the testimony was the underlying question of the notion that OD&I was going to somehow be taking charge of classification overall. That's clearly not what we were proposing as a board. This is not a system where they then control classification for all of the agencies. This is a federated system. Those agencies still have their own processes for classification and declassification, but it's really that notion of coordinating what the process looks like across different agencies. So it's not that the OD&I then has authority for declassifying non-intelligence community information, for example, but having a consistent process, having a consistent set of practices, having tools that can actually help on the declassification side is incredibly important. And I think that is also something that came up. And I think that they're going back to the education piece that we talked a little bit about. My sense is that there's confusion about how declassification processes work internally and what role the executive agent can play, in part because I think that there's sort of confusion over someone actually declassifying themselves versus creating a system that enables declassification. It's just not something that people think about in practice, which is certainly an area I think for education that we can actually help on on the education side. That was obviously an area of concern, is interesting enough as members came and left in front of the committee hearing is there they have to do because there's so many other obligations so they were actually good about coming in and spending as much time as possible. That question kept arising, you know, are they going to be trying to decide how documents get classified within each agency? It gave us a chance to repeat it and emphasize that no, that's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about this executive agent coming in and deciding what documents get classified and declassified. It's actually coordinating the whole enterprise to do that and as to help them get the technology and the other learning tools that are necessary to do it and all of that aspect of it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I thought going back to the testimony piece, which I think I would encourage people who are if they haven't read it already, we actually have public testimony that is available. John has public testimony that's available about the about the PIDB views on this. I think the I think that the the long-term challenge for us is making sure that people understand that this is something that can be done that we can make progress on that but we have to take steps on it as well. Absolutely. So I think I think Senator Wyden will be joining us shortly. I think just on other issues that came up in front of the committee we obviously talked about the need for it. I think that one of the things that was most compelling John just in the testimony are the actual stories that you gave. So the questions of what happens when we don't declassify, what happens when we have a build-up of records and what a big problem that is for government. I actually think it might be useful if you could just talk about the the joint staff example for example or some of the other examples that you gave of how this actually hurts the government overall. Melissa you are coming in and out of in fact I might have put my earphones in you're coming in and out on the audio on my system so I'm not at all clear on what you were that you were even talking to me on that. Let me see if I can hook us up here. Sorry about that. Can you hear me now John? I can a lot one second. Let's try that. Oh so I was just suggesting that you one of the things I thought was really powerful in the testimony that you gave were the examples that you had about why declassification is so important, why this is such a significant problem and then you just had some really interesting stories in the testimony. I don't know if you might make sense to just go over a couple of those. I think we have about three minutes before Senator Wyden joins us. I think the most compelling one was the story about General Heighton and his comments on the fact of what it does in the Bachelor of Security realm of the inability to get these records of the other part of it was the space force where newly implemented space force, the ranking officers there indicating clearly that it's not good. They're not able to share across other aspects of their own enterprise and the other agencies, the information is necessary to get this off the ground and move it forward and it basically slows things down and interferes pretty dramatically. With their operations and I think those were probably the two most compelling quotes that we had during the testimony and comments that we made on that. And I know that there are many, many others. I don't have listed in front of me right here, but I think it's clear and I think people's just general experience. And I think Trey Gowdy would recognize this we just have only experience in Congress or whatever. The system right now is clearly not understood by many, many people in Congress and why would they have had been schooled in it. But it probably something people have to be educated and schooled in so they understand how the process works. But you also don't want to get in a situation where everything is classified because it's easier to classify than it is to not classify. You certainly don't get criticized for over-classifying, but you're surely going to get some flak if you don't classify something that should have been classified. So the default mechanism works in a contrary way as well. So I think we need to have this system explained across the board to members of Congress that there's staff, the executive and the public to make sure on that and then we have to make sure that all of our national security apparatus within this so that it functions properly. If you have two of your highest ranked security people in military telling you that you need this, you need them a better classification system, a declassification system, you ought to take heed. That's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. So I'm actually going to ask maybe turn it over to Mark as you see if Senator White has joined us. I'm right here and unmuted I believe. Welcome Senator. Would you like me to start? Please. Well thank you very much and first of all I understand that you've got Congressman Gowdy involved and Senator Moran and I are working very hard to attract more bipartisan support for the cause and we look forward to working with the congressman in that particular focus because I think all important issues you want to mobilize bipartisan support and I think this is hugely important. I've spent 20 years working to reform this out of control mess of a classification and declassification system and the public interest classification board has played a very important role in this effort and so I so appreciate your work with very involved in effort to get your organization off the ground and so I appreciate all of the work you're doing and we need help on the issue from the outside help from the inside and let me get very quickly to the point about what is broken in this mess of a system. The American people now spend more than $1.8 billion a year on a broken down dysfunctional wreck that really doesn't serve anybody not the public not the government not national security every single day records are classified electronically so you've got a tsunami of classified information coming in that has just completely flooded and overwhelmed and obsolete paper based declassification system so the system is in effect choking on itself and it has been going on for year and years and it is getting worse and worse here's an example of how absurd this all has become when it comes time to declassify a document the agencies that have to sign off do not even have the ability to communicate about it securely online put your arms around that one in 2020 the agencies that we want to do heavy lifting don't even have the ability to communicate about it securely online so what happens is people print out the document they put them in a bag and drive around presumably after they've packed a big lunch because they're going to be out there a long time if they get stuck in traffic and they put these documents in a bag and drive around from one agency to another what a colossal waste of taxpayer money and something that at the same time really hard to pull all this off it damages America's national security and our democracy now is there a group that thinks that this is not a serious problem I can't find down everybody agrees that this system has become a spark and has to be modernized lots of people including the board have been proposing technical solutions for years and I understand that this is probably not the kind of thing people are talking about in the local coffee shop but it is still important work that needs to be done and there's only one thing missing that's somebody to take responsibility who has the expertise who has the qualifications and can make it happen it is very very apparent but that's somebody someone is the director of national intelligence the DNI is already responsible for information management information technology and the protection of sources and methods the DNI is already responsible for developing uniform policies within the community and at times across the government that's why the PIDB recommended that the DNI a lot of acronyms here step up and take on the leadership role and that's what the bipartisan legislation that I've introduced with Senator Jerry Moran does it gives the director of national intelligence to authorities and funding it needs to do the job now some of you may have seen the intelligence committee's hearing last month in which the ODNI the director of national intelligence said you know this is a serious problem but they just practically just say that virtually anybody else in America should be tasked with doing the job they just did everything they could to avoid taking responsibility but that's what leadership is all about that's what Congress is to direct that this task be implemented and that we make the judgment because it's our decision not the decision of the director of national intelligence there is a mess on our hands a mess on our hands with enormous national security implications privacy implications efficiency implications taxpayer implications there's bipartisan support for legislation to fix this problem and you all can play a critical role we understand that democracy depends on transparency and accountability this generation and future generations need access to government records if they are to know their own history but you're aware the rubber meets the road you're the ones who understand the damage caused by a broken system you're the ones on behalf of the American people can play an enormous role in pushing the government and the Congress to fix it now I want finally to wrap this up by saying in a very polarized political climate I have never once never once suggested there is anything about this issue that is partisan from the time senator ran who is very well respected in the Senate considered thoughtful knowledge of knowledgeable about about technology when he joined me we said I'm not going to run around and say that the democratic issue and the republic issue this is a red white and blue issue we shouldn't be spending billions and billions of dollars on a system that is just completely dysfunctional so I thank you very much for inviting me to join you in an important meeting and I just want you to know that I believe it would be an enormous benefit if in your work on a non-partisan basis you would make sure with your efforts to reach out to government officials and the work that you do to analyze ideas ends up pushing the government and the Congress to fix this system and give us a classification declassification system that Americans can be proud of and is well worth the money I thank you all and I understand that you've got a busy program and I very much look forward to hearing the results I hear that you're going to have government officials you're going to have historians and contractors and as I indicated I'm very pleased that Congressman Gowdy is going to be involved and I think he can be instrumental in helping us line up more Republicans on this issue it's all about red white and blue enough to do the partisan politics thank you all very much and by the way I will speak for the last five or six minutes so I I hope that all of this came came through none the last it did senator yes sir thank you very much for your eloquent words we really appreciate it Alyssa good look yeah thank you so much senator wide sorry go ahead no please I just said look forward to working with you to say I can't see the screen well well we can still hear you if that makes you feel better so thank you so much for speaking to us and for joining the public meeting and for your remarks I think we all agree with you wholeheartedly we think this is a good government issue and we appreciate the fact that you've been an advocate for really considering classification declassification reform I think we all share your views that this is a national security issue that it's a long-term question for the government that we just need to to get our hands around and that we need to come up with processes on a nonpartisan basis that that actually helps make sure that we have records that are publicly available so that people can learn from them so that people can make sure we actually coordinate across government and and aren't sort of siloed because of restrictions we really appreciate the opportunity okay I I so appreciate your taking that approach because you know look this issue is not going to be on the cover of next week's People magazine it is not some sensationalistic kind of question but I'll tell you it is enormously important because these documents as I say they're just you know it's a tsunami of documents and we are just making a mess out of this so I thank you for your thoughtful comments and I'm going to have to have to get off to another call but I look forward to working with you and we look forward to working with you too and thank you again for for inviting John Tierney one of our board members to the the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last month I was appreciated having the opportunity to testify very good thank you all yes sir thank you bye sir thank you senator okay so I think we're we want to turn next to our thoughts for our work on 2021 to some of which have actually been previewed I think by the senator's comments but also some of our discussions about what happened in front of the committee so we have a couple of things that we wanted to cover and I think what we will do is I will touch on a few of them and then I'll turn it over to our other members so that we can hear their thoughts as well I think our sense is that some of our work is going to simply continue from this year and then we have a few new projects and proposals that we are we are working through right now one thing I just want to flag again at the end of the portion meeting we will have some time for questions so if you have questions submit them by email to PIDB at narah.gov and we are happy to get to them as quickly as we can and we can we can also get to them on the blog if we don't get to them during the live meeting so before we get we begin I think we wanted to talk about a few of the things that we've agreed to and so where we think we are on some of them so going back to to both our comments earlier and senator Wyden's comments we really think it's important to continue advocating for the recommendations that we had in our May 2020 report to the president those big questions of systems and how those pieces fit together and the ability of using technical approaches for example to really work through declassification of a massive massive number of records it's something that we have to be sooner rather than later we need someone who can be an ally to help make sure that those things happen and we really see that as a as something that is important for for government to work through and the other component of that I think which has come up again on this call a few times already is the component of education so one of the things that was striking that has been striking throughout the process was the the lack of information that was out in the public about why this matters and maybe as senator Wyden said it's not going to get you on the cover of people but we do think that the question of classification and the number of records and the ability of making records public is an incredibly important one so I think one of our goals is going to be to seek out venues platforms and activities that will bring attention to the problems of the antiquated or outdated classification and declassification system but also that talks through what is classified information how is information classified is how do we go about declassifying declassifying it how do we prioritize that so that is going to be I think a significant chunk of our work in the in the coming period which is really a follow-on to the report but making sure that the public and members of Congress understand what that system looks like so that they can really fully evaluate solutions and long-term approaches to the problem one other thing that we know we're going to be working on over the next next few months we actually received a request from Senator Chris Murphy's office to review five classified records and provide recommendations for the president on whether some or all of them can be declassified so we intend to conduct a review in accordance with the provisions in the Public Interest Declassification Act of 2000 and that that is something that is on our agenda we are we do recognize that this is a strange time for everyone and we are constrained about what we can do in person because of the pandemic so we don't know exactly what the timing will be for that process but it is something that we have agreed to undertake as as a as a board and then finally the last thing just from a thing that we intend to do standpoint or where we want to go we actually are planning on bringing back on the report side we want to we're going to prepare a short letter highlighting the need for modernizing the classification and declassification system and recommendations for solving these challenges that will be sent to the new White House after the the inauguration with whatever whatever party that is the goal really is to talk about this again about how modernizing the classification and declassification system is an issue that concerns us all we think it's critical for democracy and it's just the reality of having digital records these days the system that Senator Wyden described of one agency printing out records bringing them in person to another agency for declassification review is not one that's sustainable it's not one that that that taxpayers want us to engage in we need to come up with better processes and we think that's just an important thing from a national security standpoint so it's something that we want to highlight and now I'm going to turn to my PIDB colleagues for their comments so John, what do we start with you well I think you make this very brief for us so I think you hit it all right on the head you talked about the very points that that we discussed at our meeting and we're going forward so I'm not going to be long I'm just going to reiterate essentially what you said quickly is we need to educate I think that's the basis of all of it make sure people understand why it's important and what exactly we're talking about and what needs to be done and that and that turns into advocacy of course the recommendation we've made while we listen and keep it open mind to what others may inject as their ideas into it it's not necessarily the case that present legislation is filed is going to be exactly the end model but I think we've got a good piece out there for the base and work on it from that and I think it's important we get the next White House and whether it's the second term or the initial term focused on this as well we need their cooperation and we need them to be able to empower the executive agent to give them the type of authority it's going to take to carry this throughout so I think that's a lot of work that will have to be done and it should keep us busy throughout the petafile of the year that's great Don and Tre I wanted to turn to you next well Alyssa this is my second meeting and you may recall the advice I've given myself is that when you're new to something you should talk last and talk the least so I'm going to try to stick with that you and John touched on the two things that are foremost in my mind which is it's a challenge sometimes to both educate and and advocate so you have to educate first and you know I was in I was in the house for eight years but it was only being on the the house permanent select committee on intelligence where I learned anything related to classification it's just being a regular member of Congress you don't even undergo a background check the election is your background check so you don't even know what it takes to get up to get a clearance and you certainly don't understand the process so part of it is the public consciousness you know convincing the public that this is an important idea but frankly some of it is also convincing members of Congress that do not own a daily basis work with intelligence related issues so Alyssa I think you're right education often comes before the advocacy does I was also struck by John's testimony before Sissy the Senate select committee on intelligence about the military leaders and their take on how classification or over classification actually can have a negative impact on our national security so under the kind of under the heading of of education I'm personally curious the motive if there is an over classification what is the motive and I think there probably is a bias towards over classification what is the motive behind it is it a is it a fear of guessing wrong I don't want to I don't want to speculate on what the motive may be but I think we need to understand the motive we're going to be able to solve it so all that to say I am in favor of the board moving on this issue a program of education the public but not overlooking the fact that many members of Congress despite having served the long time just don't have the familiarity that they would want to have with these issues because they don't bump into them on a regular basis well I do think you may be a you may be a new member and this may be only your second meeting but I think that the you're highlighting that issue for us I think it's something that really will lead to productive work in the next year I think it's I think you're exactly right and I think that it's something that we can actually make a big difference on that education teach us understanding what this looks like which actually then I think we'll lead to a better process down the road so we really appreciate your thoughts on that and then finally I wanted to turn to Ken Wainstein he has served two terms on the PIDB and this is and his second term just ended so he's been incredibly productive and an important member for us and we wanted to make sure he had an opportunity to provide some remarks because his insight and experience in government have been extremely helpful as we deliberate as we deliberated discuss and report wrote our reports to the president and he has actually had a lot of thoughts on that but some of the questions that the trade that you brought up on issues of over-classification and incentives and how we actually get to a better result from the from the initial classification side so Ken over to you okay thanks Luc appreciate the kind words and good to be here with everybody I just want to start out making a couple general comments I think it's been whatever six seven years on the group on the board and and just I just want to point out how this really is a special group it's it's a it's a DC group a DC entity that's like distinctly on DC in the sense that it's nonpartisan it's focused on problem solving not problem making it's all about making the government more effective more efficient and it's collegial we all like each other we work well together we produce unanimous reports so it's really a it's a wonderful group doing really important work and I feel honored to have been a part of it these last six or seven years also want to give a nod to the staff the IT staff is tremendous as we've been remarked on already and they do a great job of keeping us on the right path and supporting us and pushing the mission forward and then lastly just want to thank the stakeholders the folks who are on this call the people who you know for whom this issue is you know near and dear and you know the folks who are passionate about it because as Senator Wyden said you know it isn't something that's going to get in the front of people magazine but it really is important to our democracy so it's important that we have people who are maintaining a focus on that while it's all too easy to get distracted by the you know the issues du jour what I do what I want to talk about here is just for just a moment to talk about overclassification at the front end and that is near and dear to my heart because I was a long time government employee and I saw sort of arcane practices by which documents became classified and it's troubling it's really the root of the whole problem and this is as Senator Wyden said this is not a political this is not a partisan issue this is a completely bipartisan concern and as bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done about it that too much information is being classified without reason that too much information is classified at a higher level than it needs to be and look there are practical reasons why this happens it's you know people often talk about this issue and want to go the darkest corner of the room and suggest that overclassification is all about you know certain government employees wanted to hide embarrassing information that's you know while that might happen on isolated situations the root of the problem is that the incentive screening in place doesn't reward anybody for classifying at a lower level or airing on the side of not classifying the incentive scheme pushes a classifier to classify and to classify higher than possibly necessary and that's just that's been that's inherent in our our government system it's been a problem that's been recognized by groups that have studied this you know going back to the Moynihan commission of the 1990s or the commission to reduce to protect government secrecy they get made recommendations about how to try to deal with this issue the 9-11 commission report in the early OOs addressed this issue and then they were reducing overclassification act in 2010 that was specifically intended to address this issue and still it persists and as we've discussed already you know this this has real practical implications it causes damage you know for government policy makers that means that they don't necessarily get all the information they need to make sound policy decisions in terms of security overclassification actually encourages leaks seems counterintuitive but that's the case when information that should get out doesn't get out that emboldens and encourages people to leak that information and we've seen that over and over and over and so transparency transparency as to those matters that should be transparent actually discourages people from leaking things that shouldn't be transparent as John mentioned in his testimony overclassification can limit innovation as with his testimony about the Air Force leaders complaining that overclassification is limiting their ability to develop technologies to deploy the private sector to you know to develop technologies that they need because overclassification of information prevents them from sharing that information with the private sector partners who are you know key to these efforts to develop the next generation technology we need to protect our country you know these are all real world problems that need to be addressed and then in question of you know that's fine Ken we see the problem what is the answer that's a tough question but the answer is you know we need to step back look at this whole process and put new processes in place that do a few things one that don't just say okay something is a source of method and therefore it needs to be protected to the highest degree we need to be we need to distinguish between sources of methods that are you know super sensitive those are the less sensitive and those that really aren't sensitive at all and and classify according to that delineation we need to be able to accept some risk in this process this goes back to my point about the incentive scheme we need to be able to assume that it's going to be a little bit of risk for the purpose of transparency there's always a conflict always will be an inherent conflict between transparency and and they need to protect secrecy but we need to accept some level of risk and we see the consequences if we don't so we need to sort of take on that tension acknowledge it and then try to build processes and help us to manage that tension and look I think I'm very happy to hear the comments by everybody so far today about the importance of this issue we need to re-energize the effort to crack this nut it's a it's really difficult one and it's one that's all too often put at the bottom of the priority list when other crises are coming to the floor and it's hard for the executive branch to sort of keep the eye on that but I but I think we need to do that I'm hopeful that the PIDB can play a leadership role in that effort and I appreciate the opportunity I've done so for the last seven years so thanks very much I just tuned out I no longer see myself on the screen which is a blessing but I don't know if I've tuned out for you guys or not no we can still see you we can still see you again and even more importantly we can still hear you so there we go okay so thanks so much for letting me say my piece and thanks to everybody on this call for the good work you're doing for a very important cause well and thank you Ken for all of the work that you've done you've been such a such an incredible advocate on these issues and particularly the the expertise that you've brought on the questions of again incentive structures why people over classify what this looks like and how we fix it because that's really the hard part it's trying to solve the practical problem so thank you for everything that you've done and we hope we can continue to work with you as things go forward thanks as do I so I think the next thing we're going to do is turn to some questions that we've gotten from the public and so I think that we are we're ready at this point to to look at comments that we've gotten and answer your questions again just to repeat for a third time if you have questions during the course of the meeting please email and we'll have staff monitoring that email so that we can get to your questions today but we're I think maybe I'll turn to to Robert who's been taking those questions yes hello I've got some questions that we've been receiving the first one is what is the purpose of the executive agent John why don't you take that one yeah yeah I was going to say the I think this person probably been a pretty clear voyage on that that I know I know it would be one of the things we talk about today on that but as I mentioned you know in my testimony from the Senate and a little earlier today when we were talking about that it's a core natural essentially and we need some agency that is going to provide leadership on the whole classification declassification system for developing for implementing for managing the system it's not designed to control what information gets classified to declassify that's not the role I think another opportunity for us to make sure that we stress that they this entity would not be controlling the information of agencies essentially to go to classify and declassify but it's going to leave those agencies in the way they address the declassification as an enterprise system so they'll this executive will work with an executive committee and then together they'll design new practices on how to streamline and modernize the classification declassification system how we can integrate advanced technologies in the process and then how we can align them across those agencies so it's crucial to have this executive agency for reform modernize the system is complicated because it involves so many agencies so it's going to require that dedicated leader who has authority and has the responsibility to break the change and get it done okay very good another question that might allow you to touch on some points you've already discussed but here goes how does the PIDD recommend implementing technology to improve classification and declassification so I can take that one so we really think that technology is a critical component for modernizing the system we think that artificial intelligence and machine learning and advanced technologies can really do significant work in the space that is not being done currently and our sense is that the DNI in particular has the proven leadership abilities to coordinate new processes that might involve things like AI and machine learning and they can actually come up with solutions that help modernize the classification declassification process to make it more efficient and effective you know our sense right now from a lot of the work that we have done and we did in sort of advance of the report was that the intelligence community has had a lot of experience in thinking about these technologies and they actually have an ability to be sort of a change agent in the space because there's things that they're looking at for other purposes already so for us this is an area that can really benefit from that from new technology our sense also is that DNI in particular has the technical expertise and the access to advanced technologies in place to facilitate information sharing so getting at that exactly that problem that we discussed before which is that the fact that people can't share across agencies that they actually have to carry paper again that's not something that's acceptable in the long term and we think that the DNI can really do a good job in thinking through what those processes look like and making sure that they have access to that all of the different agencies that have classified information have access to relevant technologies but that doesn't happen ODNI also has experience developing, deploying and managing secure multi-agency cloud-based enterprise systems so if you think about iSight or the email system the Secure Communications Network J-Wix the idea of all of those is that there are ways of actually connecting as the intelligence community and dealing with classified information and the fact that they actually have the expertise in deploying those systems seems to us that we can use that expertise for declassification and classification systems as well okay thank you looks like there's a follow-up question on that can these new technologies be used with all types of records textual still photos films videos audio recordings and electronic records so I think actually that's one of the huge new areas for development in fact that may be something that's easier to do from a technology standpoint that it would be in person that there's yes they absolutely can be and I think that we are those technologies are exactly the area you want to go on those things they can they can recognize similarities and patterns along things like images in a way that is that is much easier in the long term than actually having having human review so from a practical standpoint we think that that is a that's a significant area for of opportunity but it's something that someone really needs to get their hands around make sure it is it is all sort of different sources of information coming in not just text thank you here's another one from a different direction why did the board not also recommend an EA for classification well Mr. I think we you know you know my I'll just hit that off because we talked about that a little bit as well the board's vision what we had envisioned of that was that the executive agent would address the modernization of both the classification and the declassification also of an integrated process and that would go across the whole government as a matter of fact so modernization is going to lead to more accurate precise classification and declassification decisions if we reform the front end of the process this ought to support the information sharing and the security for the operations but it's also going to reduce the volume if facilitate the automation of data requiring declassification of the future so the federated system assistance approach is going to support the entire life cycle of the record from the point of classification protecting the use of sensitive information for the timing of the conception through archiving declassification review and the ultimate least of public so it's all there very good yet another question does the DNI have authority outside of the IC? I touched a little bit on this but I think Trey has just joined the board and he actually may have read up on this issue as well so maybe I'll I'll Trey if you could answer that one that would be great well I can certainly amplify what I think you have already already said which is the DNI already coordinates policy and is responsible for the implementation of that policy even beyond the intelligence community that includes implementing the use of secure communications technology across the executive branch and the and the ODNI also has a role to play in security clearances across all of government DNI policies I believe already guide the electronic communication and sharing of classified information between the IC and non-IC civilian agencies including by way of example the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Assistant Secretary for preparedness and response yeah I think that's exactly right Trey I think the DNI has also done some other things that for example they developed the first intelligence community information environment data strategy which provides a framework for applying advanced analytics and big data techniques to store process and manage classified information while protecting sensitive sources and methods so this is a really space that they have been in on exactly that point and I think that that's the important piece to understand so unlike NARA and ISU that ODNI really has a structure in place to think about these kinds of technologies they've been doing a lot of work in that space and they're just trusted within the IC which is is an important component I think of of whoever takes on this role okay what is a federated declassification system and how would it work well I'll I'll be happy to try to answer this for Elisabeth without using too much gibberish on that but but the intention of the federated declassification system would be whether to allow agencies to share technology and applications in order to accomplish similar tasks that the agencies might have it would require the agencies to work into a common goal and work with one another to accomplish those goals it's also going to require that agencies develop a declassification work process and operate across the agencies where they have matching and overlapping equity interests and information so a lot of it as you see is the coordination and the working together aspect of that they're going to need comprehensive data standards that will facilitate technology integration and that would be into the declassification process and make that process more effective and efficient it's also going to allow them to have budgets that are more effective in order to be able to research and invest and acquire the technology that's going to be such an important and the like part of all of this and in essence it will facilitate and improve and standardize the declassification decisions so that'll be a more precise decision as a result it will protect the information and that truly requires protection it'll declassify the information that no longer is sensitive and they can be publicly released so that's the basis of it and coming to the end of what's been received today will this federated system of approach be too costly? Will it necessitate a wholesale reallocation of resources away from critical mission activities? I'll take a crack at that one I don't think it should these efforts can be and often are effective and not only reducing costs but equally importantly increasing efficiency government spending on information security including technology acquisition safeguarding and IT systems can be like any other government program duplicative and occasionally uncoordinated and since spending is still so agency centric and therefore occasionally siloed forcing agencies to coordinate work with one another I think would be a benefit for for government and for those that fund government which would be the taxpayer okay thank you very much that's that's what's come in today so I think that concludes our questions for today wonderful well thank you so I think that's the that may be the the end of our public meeting component I think I think we're again happy to take additional questions if if if folks have questions they want to submit please again feel free to submit them and we can respond on our on our public blog and I I guess since we're coming to the end of our public meeting I want to I want to thank all of the folks who have spoken today so on behalf of the board and all of our members certainly the archivists of the United States David Ferriero for opening our meeting today Senator Ron Wyden for speaking about the 2020 Declassification Reform Act and really the thing that we were all focused on which is the need to reform the classification system generally and most importantly I want to thank all of you for joining us today and for continued your continued interest in reforming the classification and declassification system we talked a lot today about the need for education and I think everyone who has participated in our meeting today everyone who has joined virtually has a role to play in that space as well so we recognize that there are certainly advocates in the space on declassification that have important voices that we need to make sure that we amplify and also that can play an important role in education as well so thank you again for joining us please stay engaged please read and respond on our blog again follow up if you have questions and I think with that I think we will close the meeting today thank you so much thank you thank you also that concludes our conference thank you for using AT&T Event Services you may now disconnect