Washington, DC–Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) said his committee will hold a hearing Wednesday, March 25, at 10 am in Room 342 of the Dirksen Senate Building on legislation relating to the declassification of information by government agencies.
“Government needs a secrecy system,” Thompson said, “that does a better job of identifying those secrets which truly must be kept, and then maintains their secrecy. The Government Secrecy Act is an issue of government reform that deserves prompt consideration by Congress, and after this hearing I hope to have the Governmental Affairs Committee markup legislation as soon as possible.
“The secrecy system functions as a form of government regulation, imposing significant costs on the government and the private sector. It is time to begin reviewing these costs so we can identify which secrets really need to be kept and which do not.”
The witness list for the hearing includes:
Panel 1
Edmund Cohen, Central Intelligence Agency
Bill Leonard, Department of Defense
Bryan Siebert, Department of Energy
Panel 2
Steven Garfinkel, Information Security Oversight Office
Jeremy Gunn, John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board
Steven Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists
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