Security

60's-Era Presidential Intel Briefs Too Secret for Release, Court Rules

The CIA does not have to release two 40 year-old daily intelligence briefs prepared by the agency for President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to a federal appeals court ruling (.pdf) Tuesday that denied a University of California professor’s attempt to get the documents through a government sunshine request. A three judge panel at the 9th Circuit Court […]
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The CIA does not have to release two 40 year-old daily intelligence briefs prepared by the agency for President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to a federal appeals court ruling (.pdf) Tuesday that denied a University of California professor's attempt to get the documents through a government sunshine request.

A three judge panel at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deferred to the CIA's argument that the Presidential Daily Briefs could reveal sources and methods, and that opening old intelligence documents could deter potential sources from agreeing to work with the spy agency. The court did not examine the documents in chambers to see if the CIA's claims were truthful.

We did not require the CIA to identify particular harms that would occur if the documents were disclosed. Instead, we were satisfied with the CIA's statements that a more specific response might allow foreign intelligence agents to determine the contours and gaps of CIA intelligence operations and make informed judgments as to the identities of probable sources and targets in other countries and that disclosure might prove to be a disincentive to future sources providing assistance to the CIA.

Larry Berman, a University of California at Davis political science professor, filed a Freedom of Information request seeking the two Johnson-era PDBs from August 6, 1965 and from April 2, 1968. The CIA denied his request, and a federal district court agreed.

The appeals court rejected, however, the CIA's argument that the PDB was itself an "intelligence method," an argument that would have made all PDBs exempt from open government requests.

The case is Berman v. Central Intelligence Agency (05-16820).

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