Secrecy News -- 04/22/13

Mon Apr 22 07:00:11 PDT 2013

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2013, Issue No. 40
April 22, 2013

Secrecy News Blog:  http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/

**     INTELLIGENCE SATELLITE IMAGERY DECLASSIFIED FOR RELEASE
**     MILITARY PHOTOGRAPHERS READY TO DEPLOY AROUND THE GLOBE

INTELLIGENCE SATELLITE IMAGERY DECLASSIFIED FOR RELEASE

An enormous volume of photographic imagery from the KH-9 HEXAGON
intelligence satellites was quietly declassified in January and will be
transferred to the National Archives later this year for subsequent public
release.

The KH-9 satellites operated between 1971 and 1984. The imagery they
generated should be of historical interest with respect to a wide range of
late Cold War intelligence targets but is also expected to support current
scientific research on climate change and related fields of inquiry.

The film-based KH-9 satellites were officially declared "obsolete" by the
Director of National Intelligence in 2011.  The KH-9 imagery was nominally
approved for declassification in February 2012, and then it was finally
declassified in fact this year.

ODNI spokesman Michael Birmingham said that approximately 97 percent of
the satellite imagery that was collected from the 19 successful KH-9
missions was formally declassified by DNI James R. Clapper on January 11,
2013.

"The small amount of imagery exempted from this declassification decision
will be removed prior to its accession to the National Archives (NARA) and
will remain classified pursuant to statute and national security interests,
and reviewed periodically to determine if additional declassification is
warranted," Mr. Birmingham said last week.  

The imagery is being transferred to NARA in stages, with final delivery
scheduled for September 2013, he said.

The transfer is being implemented pursuant to a November 2012 Memorandum
of Agreement between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and
the National Archives, under which the Archives is "responsible for
providing public access to the declassified imagery."

   http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/intel/kh9-moa.pdf

Reishia R. Kelsey of NGA public affairs confirmed that the imagery "will
be made available to the public following its accession to NARA" later this
year.

The National Archives was not prepared last week to set a precise date for
public release.  But an Archives official said that "NARA intends to make
these records available to the public at our research room in College Park,
MD as soon as possible following transfer."

If successfully executed, the release of the KH-9 imagery will constitute
a breakthrough in the declassification and disclosure of national security
information. It will be one of several discrete but momentous shifts in
secrecy policy during the Obama Administration that have often gone
unrecognized or unappreciated. Though these declassification actions took
years or decades to accomplish, they have been downplayed by the White
House itself, which has seemed curiously ambivalent about them.  They
include the public disclosure of the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons
arsenal, the routine publication of the annual intelligence budget request,
the release of the Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos," the
declassification of the KH-9 satellite itself, and others.

The KH-9 imagery is being processed for public release pursuant to the
1995 Executive Order 12951 on "Release of Imagery Acquired by Space-based
National Intelligence Reconnaissance Systems."  That order had been
effectively dormant since the Clinton Administration, when the last major
release of intelligence satellite imagery (from the CORONA, ARGON and
LANYARD missions) took place.

The declassification of the KH-9 imagery is a massive undertaking, Mr.
Birmingham of ODNI said last year.

"For context, and to grasp the scope of the project, the KH-9/HEXAGON
system provided coverage over hundreds of millions of square miles of
territory during its 19 successful missions spanning 1971-1984," he said.  
"It is a daunting issue to address declassification of the program
specifics associated with an obsolete system such as the KH-9, which
involves the declassification of huge volumes of intelligence information
gathered on thousands of targets worldwide during a 13 year time period."

   http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2012/10/hexagon_imagery/

MILITARY PHOTOGRAPHERS READY TO DEPLOY AROUND THE GLOBE

Just as law enforcement relied upon surveillance cameras and personal
photography to enable the prompt identification of the perpetrators of the
Boston Marathon bombing, U.S. armed forces increasingly look to the
collection of still and motion imagery to support military operations.

Combat camera (COMCAM) capabilities support "operational planning, public
affairs, information operations, mission assessment, forensic, legal,
intelligence and other requirements during crises, contingencies, and
exercises around the globe," according to newly updated military doctrine.

COMCAM personnel are "highly trained visual information professionals
prepared to deploy to the most austere operational environments at a
moment's notice."

COMCAM units "are adaptive and provide fully qualified and equipped
personnel to support sustained day or night operations" in-flight, on the
ground or undersea, as needed.

"Effectively employed COMCAM assets at the tactical level can potentially
achieve national, theater strategic, and operational level objectives in a
manner that lessens the requirement for combat in many situations," the new
doctrine says.  "Their products can counter adversary misinformation,
disinformation, and propaganda and help commanders gain situational
awareness on operations in a way written or verbal reports cannot."

"The products can also provide historical documentation, public
information, or an evidentiary foundation... for forensic documentation of
evidence and legal proceedings. They can provide intelligence documentation
to include imagery for facial recognition and key leader engagements, and
support special reconnaissance."

The newly issued COMCAM doctrine supersedes previous guidance from 2007.  
See Combat Camera: Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for
Combat Camera (COMCAM) Operations, April 2013.

   http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/atp3-55-12.pdf

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691
twitter: @saftergood

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