Declassifying Info to Get Favorable Press in the New York Times?

Today's article in the New York Sun (not exactly a bastion of liberalism) reveals that Scooter Libby (Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff) told Patrick Fitzgerald (the prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame outing) that he had been told by Cheney that President Bush (!) had OKed him to reveal portions of the "National Intelligence Estimate" to Times reporter Judith Miller. The secret bits were to be used to rebut the article by Valerie Plame's husband (Joseph Wilson) challenging the administration's claim that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake uranium from Niger for use in building nuclear weapons.

It's been decades since I held any kind of security clearance and I'm no lawyer but this seems like a highly dubious use of declassification authority to me. The law of unintended consequences often rears it's ugly head and revealing one piece of sensitive info can narrow the range of speculation on a host of other sensitive issues. If there is a reason for it to be secret to start with, you should assume there are people out there who are trying to learn what it is. Declassification is a seroius matter is all I'm sayin'. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that usually the agency that classified it to start with is the agency that gets to decide if it can be declassified because they are the only folks who can potentially see where the dominoes may fall.

So I searched .gov domains for declassifation steps and found this White House Press Release

PART 3 DECLASSIFICATION AND DOWNGRADING

Sec. 3.1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:

(a) "Declassification" means the authorized change in the status of information from classified information to unclassified information.

(b) "Automatic declassification" means the declassification of information based solely upon:

(1) the occurrence of a specific date or event as determined by the original classification authority; or

(2) the expiration of a maximum time frame for duration of classification established under this order.

(c) "Declassification authority" means:

(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position;

(2) the originator's current successor in function;

(3) a supervisory official of either; or

(4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official.

(d) "Mandatory declassification review" means the review for declassification of classified information in response to a request for declassification that meets the requirements under section 3.6 of this order.

(e) "Systematic declassification review" means the review for declassification of classified information contained in records that have been determined by the Archivist of the United States ("Archivist") to have permanent historical value in accordance with chapter 33 of title 44, United States Code.

(f) "Declassification guide" means written instructions issued by a declassification authority that describes the elements of information regarding a specific subject that maybe declassified and the elements that must remain classified.

(g) "Downgrading" means a determination by a declassification authority that information classified and safeguarded at a specified level shall be classified and safeguarded at a lower level.

(h) "File series" means documentary material, regardless of its physical form or characteristics, that is arranged in accordance with a filing system or maintained as a unit because it pertains to the same function or activity.

I think this gives the President has the authority to declassify anything any Executive department agency classifies since he is a "supervisory official." Fair enough. But...

Sec. 3.2. Authority for Declassification.

(a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.

(b) It is presumed that information that continues to meet the classification requirements under this order requires continued protection. In some exceptional cases, however, the need to protect such information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information should be declassified. When such questions arise, they shall be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official. That official will determine, as an exercise of discretion, whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from disclosure. This provision does not:

(1) amplify or modify the substantive criteria or procedures for classification; or

(2) create any substantive or procedural rights subject to judicial review.

(c) If the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office determines that information is classified in violation of this order, the Director may require the information to be declassified by the agency that originated the classification. Any such decision by the Director may be appealed to the President through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The information shall remain classified pending a prompt decision on the appeal.

(d) The provisions of this section shall also apply to agencies that, under the terms of this order, do not have original classification authority, but had such authority under predecessor orders.

If I'm reading this right, the information revealed to Judith Miller either
a) no longer met the standards for classification, or
b) the need to protect that information was outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information.

But if b) was the reason, didn't it need to be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official before it was declassified? I'm just reading what's there.

It would seem to me that whichever agency is responsible for producing that National Intelligence Estimate would need to approve the declassification. This may seem like legalistic nit picking but these rules were written for a reason.

Well, as I said before, I don't think upholding the laws you are sworn to obey is a "liberal" position but I gotta agree with Anonymous Liberal who writes:

So let's assume, for the moment, that Libby's testimony is accurate. That would mean that the President, instead of following normal declassification procedures and publicly releasing a redacted version of the NIE, authorized an aide to present a cherry-picked and manipulated version of that document to a friendly New York Times reporter on deep background. That aide then passed along the highly misleading information and asked that it be attributed to a "former Hill staffer." That may not be illegal, but it is sure as hell unethical. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that during this same conversation, Libby revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

Meanwhile, National Security Counsel staff, unaware of this secret declassification, continued to go through the steps of formally declassifying portions of the document, and finally succeeded ten days later, on July 18, 2003.

I honestly don't know what to make of all this, but any way you slice it, it seems pretty dodgy. Hopefully our esteemed Washington press corps will now start asking some questions.