WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- The federal government's secrecy watchdog has asked the Pentagon to explain why parts of a memo about the interrogation of terror detainees were classified.
The Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces government secrecy policy, says one passage discussed the political fallout if the use of certain techniques became public.
"Looking at that paragraph," said William Leonard, the office's director, "it's difficult to see how that information (could) ... damage national security."
The memo, declassified and released last month, is the report of a working group on interrogation techniques established in January 2003 by the Defense Department's general counsel.
The relevant passage -- marked "secret" prior to declassification -- reads: "Consideration must be given to the public's reaction to methods of interrogation that may affect the military commission process. The more coercive the method, the greater the likelihood that the method will be met with significant domestic and international resistance."
Leonard said the decision to classify that part of the report was part of a disturbing trend, what he called a "bureaucratic impulse," a tendency on the part of officials to "almost reflexively reach out to the classification system."
