The Imperial Presidency, Secrecy, and the Intelligence Community

In “The Imperial Presidency Continues to Flourish Part I,” I wrote that the consistent growth in the Executive Branch has been a bipartisan effort. In this piece, I intend to focus more on, as historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. calls it, “the all-purpose invocation of ‘national security’, the insistence on executive secrecy, [and] the withholding of information from Congress.” There continues to be concerted efforts to use the tools of the Executive to interpret constitutional and legislative requirements in favor of the Executive Branch, in the sphere of Separation of Powers. The current administration is no outlier; instead it is merely continuing a long-term trend.

The Intelligence Community, a set of national security institutions accountable and responsive to the President, is notorious for referencing ‘national security’ and ‘sources and methods’ as justifications for redacting classified information. The use of these defenses is largely justified, however, the large-scale use clouds a democratic prerogative — transparency. One vital tool in combating government secrecy is the Freedom of Information Act, commonly referred to as FOIA. FOIA is a 1960s law requiring the disclosure of unreleased information and documents controlled by the federal government, upon request. Legislators intended to promote transparency so that the…