§3355d Standards and Procedures

Summary

Agency heads who can classify information and the heads of Federal Presidential libraries must pick an employee to act as the Board’s liaison. The Board may also work with other historical or advisory groups it thinks are useful. If an agency or library head decides to deny or limit the Board’s or the liaison’s access to a record or material, the head must quickly tell the Board in writing, describe what records are involved, and explain why access was denied. If the denial involves a special access program set up by the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, or another agency head, the notice and the description of the Board’s request must go to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs instead of to the Board. After a declassification review ends, an agency head may decide to release still-classified material if the public interest in disclosure is greater than the need to protect it, following Executive Order 13526 (or any successor order). Or the agency head may decide to keep the material secret if protection outweighs public interest, also under Executive Order 13526. The Board must file a yearly report to the appropriate congressional committees that summarizes its work and any denials of access. “Appropriate congressional committees” means the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Governmental Affairs, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Government Reform. Notices of denials for certain special access programs must instead be sent directly by the denying agency to the specific Armed Services, Appropriations, and/or Intelligence committees named in the law. In response to a congressional request for declassification review under section 3355a(b)(5), the Board must tell the requester in a timely way whether it will do the review.