LARRY BERMAN, PLAINTIFF, V. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, DEFENDANT. DECLARATION OF TERRY N. BUROKER DIRECTTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION REVIEW OFFICER CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0001188233
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: June 23, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 22, 2010
• Case Number: F-2009-00305
• Publication Date: April 1, 2005

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
LARRY BERMAN,
Plaintiff,
v. ) CIV. 04cv2699 DFL-DAD
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY,
Defendant.
DECLARATION OF TERRY N. BUROKER
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION REVIEW OFFICER
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
I, TERRY N. BUROKER, hereby declare and say:
1. I am the Information Review Officer (IRO) for the
Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). I have held this position since
April 5, 2004. I have held various administrative and
professional positions within the CIA since October 17,
1971.
2. As IRO for the DI, I am responsible for the final
review of documents containing information originated by
components of the DI or that otherwise implicate DI
interests when such documents are the subject of the
Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. ? 552 (FOIA) or other
requests for public disclosure. I also task and coordinate
records searches concerning files or documents reasonably
APPROVED FOR RELEASES
DATE: 15-Sep-2010
 likely to be maintained by the DI. In addition and under a.
written delegation of authority pursuant to section 1.3(c)
of Executive order 12958, as amended,' I hold original
classification authority at the TOP SECRET level.
Therefore, I am authorized to conduct classification
reviews and to make original classification and
declassification decisions.
3. As part of my official duties, I ensure that
determinations as to the release or withholding of
information related to the CIA are proper and do not
jeopardize CIA interests, personnel, or facilities, and
ensure that they do not jeopardize intelligence activities,
sources or methods.
4. Through the course of my official duties, I have
become familiar with the FOIA claim brought by Plaintiff
Larry Berman (Plaintiff) against the CIA as set forth in
the complaint. The statements made herein are based upon
my personal knowledge and upon information made available
to me in my official. capacity.
5. The purpose of this Declaration is to set out to
the extent possible on the public record the bases for the
1 Executive Order 12958 was amended by Executive Order 13292. See Exec.
Order No. 13292, 68 Fed. Reg. 15315 (Mar. 28, 2003). All citations to
Exec. Order No. 12958 are to the order as amended by Exec. Order No.
13292. See, Exec. Order No. 12958, 3 C.F.R. 333 (1995), reprinted as
amended in 50 U.S.C.A. ? 435 note at 91 (Supp. 2004).
 CIA's response to Plaintiff's FOIA request for the
President's Daily Brief for the dates of August 6, 1965,
March 31, 1968 and April 2, 1968 (hereinafter referred to
as the "Requested PDBs")2 pursuant to the FOIA. I have
carefully reviewed the Requested PDBs to determine whether
the Requested PDBs, or any part of them, could be released
to Plaintiff.
6. I have determined that the Requested PDBs would
(a) information about the application of
intelligence sources and methods which the Director of
Central Intelligence is responsible for protecting
from unauthorized disclosure, in accordance with 50
U.S.C.A. ? 403-3(c)(7), and which is therefore exempt
from disclosure pursuant to FOIA Exemption (b)(3);
(b) information that is currently and properly
classified pursuant to Sections 1.4(b)and(c) of
Executive Order 12958, as amended, as its disclosure
reasonably could be expected to result in damage to
the national security and that will be exempt from
automatic declassification under ? 3.3(b)(1) of that
Executive Order, and is therefore exempt from
disclosure pursuant to FOIA Exemption (b)(1); and
(c) information that (1) is related to the pre-
decisional deliberative process of a government
agency, the disclosure of which would cause harm to
the deliberative process, and (2) constitutes
communications with the President made in the
performance of his official duties, and is therefore
exempt from disclosure pursuant to FOIA exemption
(b) (5) .
2 All references to the Requested PDBs in this Declaration refer to the
editions of the PDB dated August 6, 1965 and April 2, 1968. Upon
investigation, the Agency has determined that no edition of the PDB was
produced on March 31, 1968.
 7. I have determined that the Requested PDBs must be
withheld in their entirety, as no reasonably segregable,
non-exempt portions of the documents exist.
8. This Declaration is divided into four parts. The
first part sets forth the procedural history relating to
Plaintiff's FOIA request and the CIA's administrative
response thereto; the second part provides background and
context on the nature of the Requested PDBs; the third part
identifies and explains the FOIA exemptions claimed by the
CIA; and I conclude this Declaration in part four.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
9. By letter dated March 3, 2004, Plaintiff submitted
to the CIA a FOIA request seeking "the President's Daily
Brief (PDB) from August 6, 1965, August 8, 1965, March 31,
1968 and April 2, 1968.i3 Plaintiff requested a waiver of
search and review fees based on Plaintiff's statement that
he intended to use the documents for scholarly purposes
supported by the University of California and not for
individual commercial use.
10. By letter dated March 17, 2004, the CIA
acknowledged receipt of the March 3, 2004 request, and
assigned it Reference No. F-2004-00962.
3 Plaintiff does not request in his complaint that the Agency provide a
PDB from August 8, 1965.
 11. By letter dated April 15, 2004, the CIA stated
that "the President's Daily Brief contains inherently
privileged, predecisional and deliberative material for the
President and also requires withholding on this basis....
Therefore, your request is denied under FOIA exemptions
(b)(1), (b)(3) and (b)(5)." The CIA informed Plaintiff of
his right to appeal this final decision to the Agency
Release Panel within 45 days.
12. By letter dated May 6, 2004, Plaintiff appealed
the CIA's decision to withhold the Requested PDBs to the
Agency Release Panel.
13. By letter dated May 13, 2004, the CIA informed
Plaintiff that his appeal had been accepted and
arrangements would be made for its consideration by the
appropriate members of the review panel.
14. By letter dated June 21, 2004, the CIA informed
plaintiff that in accordance with regulations set forth in
part 1900 of title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations
(C.F.R.), the Agency Release Panel considered Plaintiff's
appeal and determined that the records in question must
continue to be withheld in their entirety on the basis of
FOIA exemptions (b) (1) , (b) (3) and (b) (5) . Therefore, in
accordance with 1900.41 of title 32 of the C.F.R., the
Agency Release Panel denied Plaintiff's appeal. Finally,
 the CIA informed Plaintiff of his right to seek judicial
review.
15. On December 23, 2004, Plaintiff filed a Complaint
for Declaratory Injunctive Relief for Violation of.the
Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. ?552.
II. BACKGROUND AND NATURE OF THE PRESIDENT'S DAILY BRIEF
A. Background
16. The history and development of the PDB establish
that it differs substantively and intrinsically from other
intelligence products created by the Directorate of
intelligence. The PDB is a unique intelligence document
prepared specifically for the President of the United
States and his most senior advisors to provide them with
the most important current intelligence on critical issues
relating to-national defense and foreign policy.
17. The first incarnation of the PDB, the President's
Intelligence Checklist (PICL, pronounced "Pickle") was
formulated in response to President Kennedy's
dissatisfaction with other intelligence products that were
not designed specifically to address matters of interest to
the President and his most senior advisors. Because of
their relatively broad distribution, these other
intelligence products did not include the most highly
sensitive intelligence information that the President and
 his most senior advisors needed to conduct U.S. national
defense and foreign policy. In contrast, the PICL was
designed for the President and his top advisors. It was
intended to select the most sensitive data and provide the
best intelligence judgments available in order to give the
President and his top advisors the most accurate,
comprehensive, and timely information needed to make
national defense and foreign policy decisions for the
country.
18. During the Johnson administration, the PICL
became the President's Daily Brief and its format, content,
and presentation were modified to reflect the needs of
President Johnson and his top advisors. Over the last
forty years, the PDB has continued, to be revised to meet
the needs of the sitting President and his top advisors,
with the same objective of providing them with a unique
publication: a synthesis, in a few pages, of what
immediate intelligence the Central Intelligence Agency
determines is critical for the President and his most
senior advisors to make effective U.S. national defense and
foreign policy decisions. Leadership from various parts of
the CIA are involved in making decisions about what to
include in the PDB to ensure that it presents information
 of sufficient importance to bring to the President's
attention.
19. Throughout the history of the PDB, it has been
common for the.President to ask follow-up questions in
response to information presented in the PDB or for the
President's advisors to suggest areas that should be
covered in the PDB. in this way, and by responding to
questions and suggestions from the President's senior
advisors, the PDB has become an ongoing dialog between the
President, together with his most senior advisors,, and the
CIA; as such it has served as a key element in Presidential
deliberations on the making of U.S. national defense and.
foreign policy.
B. Sensitive Information in the PDB
20. Plaintiff has requested three specific editions
of the PDB. Later in this Declaration, in explaining the
bases of the FOIA (b)(1) exemption claimed by the CIA, I
will describe damage that reasonably could be expected to
result from the disclosure of the Requested PDBs. First,
however, I will explain the sensitivity of this unique
intelligence document. Each individual edition of the PDB
contains the information deemed most important for the
President and his most senior advisors to see that day.
Even more important than the contents of a single edition
 of the PDB, however, is the highly sensitive nature of the
PDB as a series, as described in subpart C of this section,
below.
21. Because of its limited distribution and the high
level of decision-making conducted by the PDB's readers,
the PDB can and does provide more immediate information
than would be feasible to share with a wider audience.
so doing, it sets aside the basic rules of intelligence
documents in that it includes within its four corners
information unavailable to the rest of the U.S.
Intelligence Community, including a) undisseminated raw
operational information, sometimes including true names of
sources and/or cryptonyms, b) sensitive operational
information added to the document by the Directorate of
Operations after the Directorate of Intelligence has
written or edited the material in the PDB, c) information
restricted at the very highest levels of human and
technical source intelligence gathering, d) information
from covert technical operations, and e) information from
specifically developed or acquired CIA-only methods.
22. Furthermore, because the PDB must provide the
most important intelligence on any given day and provide
that information in only a few pages, it fuses all of the
available intelligence, including what is gathered through
 the most sensitive intelligence sources and methods. As a
result, classified information necessarily becomes
inextricably intertwined with unclassified information that
is also included in PDBs.
23. The PDB also presents an absolutely unique window
of insight into the nation's critical intelligence
priorities, collection platforms and turn-around time for
the intelligence process. it provides a unique glimpse as
to what the Intelligence Community is targeting and what
the county's decision-makers know (or do not know) and when
they know it.
24. In sum, on a day-to-day basis, the PDB is the
most highly selective compendium of the most important
intelligence available to the U.S. Intelligence Community.
As such, it is uniquely sensitive in terms of risk of
identification of intelligence sources and methods,
including analytical methodology. The disclosure of the
specific information in any individual edition of the PDB
reasonably could be expected to result in exceptionally
grave damage to national security.
C. Additional Sensitivity of the PDB Series
25. Although one edition of the PDB is presented as a
single document each day, the CIA regards the PDB as a
series of documents through which the DCI informs the
 President and other top policymakers of the most important
intelligence information available about the most critical
national' defense and foreign policy issues over time, and
which informs decisions on what topics to focus
intelligence collection and analysis activities.
26. While some information in specific PDBs may
appear harmless to disclose when read in isolation, such
information may be very valuable as part of a "mosaic" of
information gleaned from various sources, including
multiple PDBs prepared over time. That is, one datum may
appear harmless by itself, out of context, but one cannot
determine the potential harm of a single piece of
information merely by examining it out of context or even
within a review of the document from which it comes.
Intelligence services specialize in collecting information
from many sources and drawing conclusions from all of the
information gathered. Information that seems innocuous on
its face can provide the pieces necessary to complete a
puzzle (or a mosaic) and expose targeting strategies, gaps
in intelligence capabilities, or more specifically reveal a
source or an intelligence capability. The least severe
result of such exposure might be the end of a source's or
capability's usefulness; additional consequences may
include the death or other reprisal against the source or
 his family or associates, and deception against the United
States by manipulation of the exposed intelligence method
before the U.S. is aware of the exposure.
27. Known as the "mosaic theory," this process is a
theory in name only. Tt is one of the primary methods
employed by all intelligence services. The CIA's
Directorate of Intelligence, for example, is itself
dedicated to collecting seemingly disparate pieces of
information and assembling them into a coherent picture or
foreign intelligence targets' activities and intentions.
28. The mosaic theory is particularly important in
the context of the PDB. As I have previously observed in
this Declaration, precautions taken to protect intelligence
sources that are common in the creation of other
intelligence products are not taken in the production of
the PDB. The PDB contains information that is often known
by only a few individuals at very high level and is often
reported to the President on a real-time basis. The
release of a PDB, therefore, presents an especially useful
means for a foreign intelligence service, a sophisticated
international terrorist organization, or other entity
hostile to the united States, to dissect and analyze the
information to identify specific intelligence sources and
methods. For example, a hostile intelligence service may
 reliably infer that a human source for information
contained in the PDB is most likely one of a very few
number of individuals with access to the subject
information, and that the source must have provided the
information very close in time to when it was reported in
the PDB. Thus the nature of the PDB would allow a hostile
entity to identify a source with far fewer pieces of the
"mosaic" than would be needed if the information came from
other intelligence products.
29. In addition to putting intelligence sources and
methods at risk of exposure, disclosure of the Requested
PDBs, evenly if heavily'redacted, will begin a process of
disclosing ever greater amounts of information contained in
the PDB as a series. As I will explain further below, the
PDB itself is an intelligence "method" as it is the means
of providing the President and his closest advisors the
most current, important intelligence information each day
and is responsive to the interests expressed by the
President and his most senior advisors. It thereby
reflects not only the capabilities, accomplishments, and
deficiencies of the CIA and the Intelligence Community as
of a particular date, but also their decisions and
judgments as to what topics are most important to have the
 attention of the President and his closest advisors on that
day.
30. The decision to disclose information in the
Requested PDBs because such information appears harmless in
isolation presents the danger that the same analysis will
be applied repeatedly to individual pieces of information
subject to future disclosure requests.4 Indeed, if the
information in the Requested PDBs is broken down and
analyzed piecemeal in this case, it does not appear that
there will be a principled point at which to stop
disclosure of information in additional PDBs in the future
on the grounds that each piece of information appears
individually harmless. The result will be a detailed
mosaic of the most important intelligence information
? Plaintiff points out in his complaint that the Agency has previously
released portions of PDBs. The two PDBs that were included (in redacted
form) in the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks on the United States, were released pursuant to the procedures
established in Section 3.1(b) of the Executive Order that allow for the
release, in some exceptional cases, of information that should
otherwise remain classified, after the DCI, acting with specific
authorization from the President, determined that the public interest
in disclosure outweighed the damage to national security that might
reasonably be expected from the release of this particular information.
Additionally, ten issues of the PICL were released by the JFK
Assassination Records Review Board, pursuant to the President John F.
Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, 44 U.S.C. 2107
note. The CIA had no authority to overrule the Board's decision.
After investigation, I have also determined that the Agency has
released PDBs on four occasions as a result of a mistake in fact as to
what the document was that was being released because it was not
identified as a PDB or as information from a PDB, and in two instances
when the individual with the authority to release the document made a
mistaken determination to do so.
 available to the U.S. government being made available to
entities hostile to the United States.
III. FOIA EXEMPTIONS CLAIMED
31. I have determined that the Requested PDBs are
exempt from disclosure based on three of the statute's
exemptions, set forth more fully below: information
protected under another statute, in this case the National
Security Act's requirement that the Director protect
intelligence sources and methods (exemption (b)(3)),
classified information (exemption (b)(1)), and inter-agency
or intra-agency information that would be protected in
litigation, in this case by both the deliberative process
privilege and the presidential communications privilege
(exemption (b)(5)). Each of these exemptions in my
judgment applies to the Requested PDBs in their entirety.
A. FOIA Exemption (b)(3)
32. FOIA exemption (b)(3), 5 U.S.C. ?552(b)(3), as
amended, protects matters that are specifically exempted
from disclosure by statute (other than the FOIA), provided
that such statute:.
(A) requires that the matters be withheld from the
public in such a manner as to leave no discretion on
the issue, or
(B) establishes particular criteria for withholding or
refers to particular types of matters to be withheld.
 33. FOIA exemption (b)(3) protects any information
contained in the Requested PDBs that is also protected by
Section 103(c)(7) of the National Security Act of 1947, 50
U.S.C. ?403-3(c)(7), as amended, which requires the
Director to protect intelligence sources and methods from
unauthorized disclosure. It applies without regard to any
determination whether disclosing the specific information
would cause damage to the national security.5 (I will,
nevertheless, discuss that potential damage in the
following section in the context of the (b)(1) Exemption.)
1. Specific Revelations of Intelligence Sources and
Methods within the Requested PDBs.
34. The Requested PDBs contain information that
could, by itself or with other information, expose the
existence of specific intelligence sources and methods.
These include human sources, foreign liaison sources, and
technical collection methods. Each of the Requested PDBs
contains information specifically stating sensitive sources
or methods of collection; in addition, the nature of the
information contained in each of the Requested PDBs
provides substantial information about its provenance to an
educated reader.
s This is one way in which FOIA exemption (b)(3) differs from exemption
(b)(1), which I discuss below, since national security classification
rests on an assessment of the damage to the national security that
unauthorized disclosure of Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret
information might cause. See Executive Order 12958, as amended, ?
1.2(a). Any information that is properly classified on the basis that
it relates to intelligence sources and methods is, to at least the same
extent, also subject to the Director's statutory obligation to protect
such sources and methods.
 2. The PDB is an intelligence Method.
35. In addition to containing information about
intelligence methods, which I shall also describe below,
the PDB itself is an intelligence method, to be protected
under the National Security Act. The PDB is part of the
process by which the CIA advises the President and his most
senior advisors regarding the subject areas most important
to them, the CIA receives feedback concerning the
intelligence priorities upon which it should focus more
closely, and the President and his most senior advisors are
provided the intelligence necessary to make highly
sensitive determinations concerning national defense and
foreign policy.
36. The daily decisions where to focus the CIA's
resources and energy, from operations officers in the field
to analysts at CIA headquarters, are directly affected by
the PDB process of presenting analysis, discussing its
implications, and receiving questions and taskings from the
President and his most senior advisors. The PDB process
affects the conduct of intelligence both on a daily and
more long-term basis.
37. The PDB is thus no less an intelligence method
than the CIA's budget, which has been held to be exempt
from disclosure under FOIA exemption 3 because it relates
to intelligence methods, namely the allocation, transfer
and funding of intelligence programs. See Aftergood v.
Central Intelligence Agency, ---F.Supp.2d --- , 2005 WL
 29983 (C.A. No. 1-2524, February 9, 2005). Since the PDB
is itself an intelligence method, it follows that any PDB
information, including both the obviously classified
revelations of sensitive methods and the information
remaining after such specific revelations are removed,
constitutes information about the application of an
intelligence method.
11
3. The Mosaic of information About Intelligence
Sources and methods.
38. In addition to the PDB being an intelligence
method in and of itself, each edition of the PDB is a piece
of a "mosaic" of information reflecting the most sensitive,
as well as the mundane, intelligence sources and methods
employed by the CIA and the Intelligence Community over
time. I have described the nature of this mosaic earlier
in this Declaration. If significant numbers of individual
editions of the PDB (no matter how old) were publicly
disclosed, even after redaction of the obvious revelations
of specific collection methods and sources, due to regular
or even sporadic disclosure (by CIA policy or court order),
patterns of application of intelligence methods including
those by which the U.S. sets priorities, collects
intelligence, and analyzes it would emerge. The unique
nature of the PDB makes disclosure of any of its contents
particularly dangerous because, as I have described earlier
in this Declaration, it is the only finished intelligence
product that synthesizes all of the best available
 intelligence on topics that the U.S. government has
determined to be the most important foreign policy issues
facing the county at a given time.
39. Any evaluation of whether a reference to a source
or a collection method that is reflected in a single
edition of the PDB should be deemed sensitive must be done
with awareness that any information released can be
analyzed in light of other information (i.e., other pieces
of the "mosaic") that might lead to the exposure of an
intelligence source or a still-secret method. As I
explained earlier in this declaration, the immediacy. of the
PDB and the nature of its audience implicitly provide some
information about any human source of the information the
PDB contains. Similarly, even portions of PDBs may provide
insights to knowledgeable readers as to the CIA's
capabilities, accomplishments, methodologies, and judgments
over time. As a result, it provides a bigger piece of any
"mosaic" that a hostile entity might assemble to use
against the United States and its sources than most other
intelligence documents would provide.
40. I have determined that, as documents that reveal
specific information about the sources and methods by which
the intelligence reported in them was obtained, as an
intelligence method, and as a part of a mosaic of
information that reveals intelligence sources and methods,
the Requested PDBs must be protected from disclosure
pursuant to Section 103(c)(7) of the National Security Act
 and, consequently, they are protected under FOIA exemption
(b) (3) .
B. Folk Exemption (b)(1)
41. FOIA Exemption (b)(1), 5 U.S.C. ? 552(b)(1),
provides that the FOIA does not apply to matters that are:
(A) specifically authorized under criteria established
by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the
interest of national defense or foreign policy; and
(B) are in fact properly classified pursuant to such
Executive Order.
1. The Definition of "Specifically Authorized Under__.
. . an Executive Order"
42. The authority of a CIA official to classify
documents is derived from a succession of Executive Orders,
of which Executive Order 12958, as amended (the "Executive
Order"), is the most recent. Under the criteria of ? 1.1
of the Executive order, information may be originally
classified only if it:
(1) is owned by, produced by or for, or is under the
control of the United States Government; (2) falls within
one or more of the categories of information set forth in ?
1.4 of the order; and (3) is classified by an original
classification authority who determines that its
unauthorized disclosure reasonably could be expected to
result in damage to the national security that the original
classification authority can identify or describe. For
documents over 25 years old, the criteria for continued
classification after December 31, 2006, and which we apply
 in reviewing such documents for possible declassification,
are found in ? 3.3(b) of the Executive Order. Section
3.3(a) of the Executive order calls for the automatic
declassification of previously-classified information that
is more than 25 years old after 31 December 200.6 unless the
information is properly exempted under ? 3.3(b). As
explained more fully below, information withheld from
release in the Requested PDBs meets the Executive Order
criteria for classification under ? 1.4 and is exempt from
declassification under ? 3.3 and thus is properly withheld
under FOIA exemption (b)(1).
2. The Definition of Information that is "Properly
Classified"
43. Section 6.1(h) of Executive Order defines
"classified national security information" or "classified
information" as "information that has been determined
pursuant to this order or any predecessor order to require
protection against unauthorized disclosure and is marked to
indicate its classified status when in documentary form."
44. Under ? 1.3(a)(2) of the Executive Order, the
President designated the Director of Central Intelligence
as an official authorized to exercise original TOP SECRET
classification authority. The Director has delegated such
authority, under ? 1.3(c)(2) of the Executive Order, to a
limited number of CIA officials whom he has determined have
a demonstrable and continuing need to exercise this
authority. As noted above (paragraph 2), 1 am one such
 official. I am therefore authorized to conduct
classification reviews and to make original classification.
and declassification decisions.
45. Under the CIA's FOIA Declassification Review
Program, information responsive to FOIA requests and
classified under the Executive Order cited above or its
predecessor Orders is reviewed to determine whether the
information is currently and properly classified. Section
1.2 of the Executive Order requires the classification of
information at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, OR TOP SECRET
level, depending on whether the unauthorized disclosure of
the information reasonably could be expected to cause
damage, serious damage, or exceptionally grave damage,
respectively, to the national security.
46. I have reviewed the Requested PDBs and have
determined that the information contained therein continues
to meet the standards for classification under the
Executive Order and is properly classified in that it:
(1) comprises information that is owned by,
produced by or for, or is under the control of the
CIA;
(2) falls within one or more of the following
categories of information set forth in ? 1.4 of the
Order: foreign government information (? 1.4(b)), and
intelligence activities, sources and methods (?
1.4 (c)) ?
 (3) if disclosed, reasonably could be expected to
result in damage to the national security that I can
identify or describe.
In addition, the contents of the Requested PDBs fall within
? 3.3(b)(1) of the Executive Order, which exempts from
automatic declassification after 31 December 2006
information that could be expected to reveal the identity
of a confidential human source, or a human intelligence
source, or reveal information about the application of an
intelligence source or method.
47. Finally, even text that in isolation may be
considered unclassified may be classified as part of a
compilation of information that is classified in the
aggregate. Section 1.7(e) of the Executive order provides:
Compilations of items of information that are
individually unclassified may be classified if the
compiled information reveals an additional association
or relationship that (1) meets the standards for
classification under this order; and (2) is not
otherwise revealed in the individual items of
information. As used in this order, "compilation"
means an aggregate of pre-existing unclassified items
of information.
if all the information that is classified piece-by-piece
for the reasons explained below were redacted out of. the
Requested PDBs, the information remaining would presumably,
standing alone, not be classified. However, that remaining
text (if there would be enough to be comprehensible) would
still be part of the mosaic of information that, in the
 aggregate, provides insights into the intelligence process;
in hostile hands, those aggregated insights reasonably
could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage
to the national security.
48. The information contained within the Requested
PDBs and being withheld in this case is properly classified
TOP SECRET because the unauthorized disclosure of this
information reasonably could be expected to cause
exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
3. Foreign Government Information
49. The first category of Exemption (b)(1).
information withheld concerns information provided to the
CIA from foreign governments and through foreign
intelligence liaison relationships with the CIA. The
Requested PDBs contain explicit references to information
provided by foreign officials as well as other information
that may incorporate information from foreign liaison
relationships. Disclosure of any of this information could
itself, or in conjunction with other information otherwise
obtained by foreign intelligence services, betray
particular intelligence sources and could be exploited by
third-party governments to determine what countries'
representatives were talking to the United States and when
they were talking to us.
50. Foreign liaison services can also be intelligence
sources, since such services covertly provide the CIA with
 foreign intelligence. Moreover, the establishment of
relationships with foreign liaison services is also an
intelligence method exempt under Exemption (b)(3) as set
forth previously in. this Declaration.
51. The information provided to the CIA by the
intelligence services of foreign countries with which the
CIA maintains a liaison relationship is provided only upon
a guarantee of absolute secrecy. If this agreement were
abrogated by the CIA, the results could include domestic or
diplomatic difficulties for, or reprisals against, the
country whose service cooperated with the United States.
The impact on the liaison relationship would lead to a loss
to the U.S. government of valuable foreign intelligence.
52. Any disclosure by the CIA of information that
could lead to the exposure of a past or current liaison
relationship could cause serious damage to the CIA's
ability to maintain current relationships, even with
countries other than the source of the disclosed
information, or to establish new ones. The consequent loss
of intelligence information for the United States
Government reasonably could be expected to cause
exceptionally grave damage to national security.
Therefore, I have determined that information which could
reveal the fact or the nature of CIA's liaison
relationships is properly classified TOP SECRET pursuant to
the criteria of Executive Order 12,958, as amended, as its
disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause
 exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the
United States. This information is thus exempt from
disclosure pursuant to FOIA Exemption (b)(1). Moreover,
because foreign government information also constitutes
information about intelligence sources and the application
of intelligence methods, such information is exempt from
declassification under Section 3.3(b)(1) of the Executive
Order.
4. Intelligence Sources
53. The CIA collects foreign intelligence through a
variety of sources, including individual human sources and
relationships with other entities including foreign
governments and intelligence services. Disclosure of the
information at issue in this case would tend to reveal the
identities of intelligence sources, both as a result of the
disclosure of the specific documents requested and as part
of a mosaic of information as discussed above. The
exposure of such sources would undermine the CIA's ability
to collect intelligence in the future, which reasonably
could be expected to result in exceptionally grave harm to
national security.
54. The Requested PDBs each contain references to
intelligence obtained from individual human sources and
from confidential liaison relationships. The exposure of a
source's relationship with the CIA could lead to
embarrassment, political ruin, retribution, and for
individual human sources imprisonment, torture or even
 death of the source or the source's family and friends.
Understandably, such sources can only be expected to
furnish information to the-CIA when they are assured that
their relationship with the CIA will be protected from
exposure. Sources must be able to rely on the total
secrecy surrounding their relationship with the CIA for all
time.6
55. Intelligence information that may reveal an
intelligence source does not automatically lose its need
for protection after a period of even thirty or forty
years. Individual people may have long lives and careers,
and foreign governments and intelligence services may exist
in perpetuity. Also, individuals may have colleagues,
family members and friends who may suffer repercussions if
the fact of an individual's cooperation with the CIA ever
came to light.
56. In addition, the damage to national security
caused by the exposure of a source's relationship with the
CIA is not limited to the impact upon that source.
Disclosure of information leading to the exposure of an
intelligence source, no matter how inadvertent, could
cripple the CIA's ability to recruit new individuals,
establish new relationships, or even to maintain current
relationships with intelligence sources. Potential new
6 As I have previously discussed in this Declaration, information in the
Requested PDBs that does not explicitly reference identities of
intelligence sources or contain information that would directly
identify the sources may contribute to or complete a mosaic of
information that exposes an intelligence source.
 sources must be assured of the security or their
relationship for all time. At the time a new source
chooses to provide information to the CIA, there is no way
to know how long the identity of that source will need to
remain secret. If it is believed that, after a period of
time, the CIA will disclose information that could
potentially lead to the exposure of an intelligence source,
such sources would be understandably reluctant to work with
the CIA.
57. Further, while the CIA recognizes that in some
circumstances there may be information provided by human
sources or foreign liaison services that can be
declassified, declassification decisions must be made with
awareness that any information released can be analyzed in
light of other information (i.e., other pieces of a
"mosaic") that might lead to the exposure of an
intelligence source. As I have explained, the PDB would be
an especially large piece of any mosaic of intelligence
information; this is the case even after the identifiable
pieces of specifically source-revealing information are
redacted out of a PDB. The remnants of a series of PDBs
would tend to reveal source information to the educated
reader that would not be apparent from a single, specific
document.
58. Therefore, I have determined that unauthorized
disclosure of information responsive to Plaintiff's FOIA
request that could reveal intelligence sources reasonably
 could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to
the national security of the United States and is therefore
properly classified as TOP SECRET. Moreover, because such
unauthorized disclosure could be expected to reveal the
identity of a confidential human source, or a human
intelligence source or reveal information about the
application of an intelligence source or method, the
Requested PDBs are exempt from declassification under
Section 3.3(b)(1) of the Executive Order. Thus, such
information is currently properly classified and is
coextensively exempt from disclosure pursuant to FOIA
exemption (b)(1) and, as discussed previously, (b)(3).
5. intelligence methods
59. Generally, intelligence methods are the means by
which, and the manner in which, an intelligence agency
accomplishes its mission. Most organized professions or
businesses employ methods that are common to and, in some
cases, unique to that business or profession, to accomplish
their goals and objectives. Certain methods used in
intelligence activities imbue any resulting records with a
special character that necessitates protecting the fact of
their use, as well as the details of their use, from
unauthorized disclosure. The release of the information in
each of the Requested PDBs would disclose specific
intelligence methods, including technical collection
methods.
 60.. Intelligence methods must be protected in
situations where a certain capability or technique, or the
application thereof, is unknown to those individuals or
entities that would otherwise take countermeasures. Secret
information-collection techniques, capabilities, or
technological devices are valuable from an intelligence-
gathering perspective only so long as they remain unknown.
Once the nature of an intelligence method or the fact of
its use in a certain situation is discovered, the method
may become useless.
61. Many times, the mere fact of acknowledging a
specific piece of information in isolation can expose a
collection method, even though the source is never
mentioned. Just as disclosure of a piece of information
known to only a small handful of people may make it a
simple process to determine who must have provided the
information to the CIA, so entities hostile to the United
States may be able to deduce the method by which the CIA
gathered a piece of information based upon the nature of
the information itself along with other available
information.
62. In addition to revealing specific intelligence
methods, the Requested PDBs are part of a mosaic of PDBs
that would reveal information about the application of
intelligence methods even excluding any text that reveals
specific methods as such. To the extent that there may be
remnants of information in either individual PDB that would
 not be classified standing alone, when pieced together with
other information available to a foreign intelligence
service the remnants would reveal information about the
application of intelligence methods employed by the CIA to
obtain the intelligence reported. Should multiple PDBs
become publicly available over time, the pattern of
information then disclosed would provide foreign
intelligence services an understanding of the various
intelligence methods used by the United States to gather
specific kinds of information from various locations around
the world, as well as an understanding of gaps in our
collection, of what the United States knew and didn't know,
when, and the effectiveness of the methods we have used.
63. Although the intelligence included in the
Requested PDBs is over 30 years old, its disclosure would
reveal to educated observers information about the
application of intelligence methods in use at the time of
the Requested PDBs and subsequently. The effective
collection, analysis and exploitation of intelligence
requires the CIA to prevent disclosure of such information
to foreign governments, intelligence services or other
entities hostile to the United States who could use it to
undermine the current collection and analysis of foreign
intelligence.
64. Moreover, as I described in the previous section
of this Declaration, the PDB process is itself an
intelligence method. Disclosure of individual editions of
 the PDB would, necessarily, reveal information about the
application of an intelligence method.
65. Therefore, I have determined that the unauthorized
disclosure of the Requested PDBs would tend to reveal
specific intelligence methods and, even after redaction of
material that is classified in isolation, disclosure would
tend to reveal as part of a mosaic information about the
CIA's intelligence methods that could reasonably be
expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the
national security of the United States and are therefore
properly classified as TOP SECRET. Also, because such
unauthorized disclosure could be expected to reveal the
identity of a confidential human source, or a human
intelligence source or reveal information about the
application of an intelligence source or method, the
Requested PDBs are exempt from declassification under
Section 3.3(b)(1) of the Executive Order. Thus,. the
requested information is currently and properly classified
and is coextensively exempt from disclosure pursuant to
FOIA exemption (b)(1) and (b)(3).
C. FOIA Exemption (b)(5)
66. FOIA Exemption (b)(5), 5 U.S.C. ? 552(b)(5), as
amended, protects "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums
or letters which would not be available by law to a party
other than an agency in litigation with the agency." I
have determined that the Requested PDBs are 1) inter-agency
and intra-agency documents that comprise pre-decisional,
 deliberative information protected by the deliberative
process privilege and 2) communications with the President
in the exercise of his official duties, and thus fall with
the protection of FOIA exemption (b)(5).
67. FOIA exemption (b)(5).exempts those documents
normally privileged in the civil discovery context.
1. The Deliberative Process Privilege
68. The deliberative process privilege is a
governmental privilege that permits the government to
withhold documents or information that reflects advisory
opinions, recommendations, and deliberations that are part
of a process by which government decisions and policies are
formulated. It allows the government to protect the
internal deliberations of policymakers, recommendations,
analyses, speculation and other information that is
prepared in order to inform decision-making. It protects
deliberative, pre-decisional information or documents used
in the decision-making process as well as the candor and
confidentiality that are integral to the deliberative
process itself.
69. The Requested PDBs constitute deliberative
documents in two respects. First, they reflect the
overarching deliberative process of U.S. foreign policy
decision-making. As I have previously described in this
Declaration, the contents of the PDB reflect the foreign-
policy priorities of the U.S. government by showing what
subjects are of interest to the President and when. The
 Requested PDBs also expose the deliberative process of
providing intelligence to the President with regard to
these foreign policy priorities. Producing the PDB
requires the PDB analysts and writers to comb through
thousands of pieces of information in determining what must
be briefed to the President. Determining what information
to include is the height of the deliberative process.
70. The deliberative process privilege protects not
only the analysis in the Requested PDBs, but also factual
information, because the specific facts contained in the
PDBs were selected and highlighted out of a wide body of
other potentially relevant facts and background material.
In addition, many of the facts contained in the PDB are
also intertwined with CIA analysis, making it impossible to
segregate specific hard facts from the analytical content
of the PDB.
71. The Requested PDBs contain predecisional analysis
in the area of U.S. foreign policy. By definition the PDB
is meant to provide the President and his most senior
advisors information upon which to base foreign policy
decisions. The Requested PDBs include analysis of the
political, economic, military and social conditions in a
multitude of countries around the world. Clearly, the
President and his advisors were engaged in foreign policy
decisions with respect to these countries on an ongoing
basis. Moreover, the specific countries and individuals on
which the Requested PDBs reported would likely have
 influenced decision-making in other areas of foreign policy
not specifically mentioned in the PDB.
72. On a daily basis, various senior officials within
the CIA must determine which subjects merit reporting to
the President and his most senior advisors. This
determination is based on the expressed requirements of the
President, the content and urgency of raw intelligence,
current events and foreign policy priorities of the U.S.
government. On occasion, information will also be provided
in the PDB that responds directly to questions from the
President or one of his advisors.
73. Essentially, the PDB, as a series, is an ongoing
dialogue between the President and his most senior advisors
and the CIA. As the basis for this dialogue and the
catalyst for foreign policy, discussion. and decision-making,
each edition of the PDB is the quintessential pre-
decisional, deliberative document. The CIA, in conjunction
with the President, must determine what issues on which to
report, and must determine what information to provide out
of the thousands of pieces of information available on
certain subjects and what information, out of all of the
information available, on which to base its analysis.
74. Intelligence is not a perfect science, and the
fresh intelligence and real-time analysis included in the
PDB is subject to revision and even refutation over time.
Timely intelligence necessarily includes judgments based
upon available information that evolves as additional
 information and insight emerge through further collection
and through policy-makers' comments, questions, and
deliberation. Disclosure of the pre-decisional policy
analysis and deliberation reflected in the PDB would
effectively stifle and "chill" the presentation of timely
intelligence collection and analysis. Analysts and others
who contribute to the decision-making process would
hesitate to report information that appears at odds with
previously-accepted understandings, or to voice opinions or
points of view that may at first blush appear radical or
"outside the box," or could be subject to misinterpretation
or taken out of context by others. Their worries about
such problems could lead them to refrain from providing
their best judgments about what is the unvarnished truth in
their analyses to policy-makers, who would then be left
with an incomplete and therefore flawed foundation on which
to base their ultimate decisions.
75. Those producing the PDB are producing a document
meant to provide a current snapshot of intelligence about
the most important areas of foreign policy in the world
today. They must present their judgments and conclusions
based on the best information available to the Intelligence
Community at the moment. If those contributing to and
producing the PDB believe that their work will be critiqued
years later by those with the benefit of twenty-twenty
hindsight and their own agenda to pursue,. there is a risk
that they will be less willing to offer speculative
 analysis that might later be mischaracterized or proved
wrong, with the eventual result that the PDB will be of
less use to policymakers' deliberative processes.
76. Thus, I have determined that disclosure of any
part of the Requested PDBs in response to Plaintiff's FOIA
request would cause harm to the CIA's and the Government's
internal deliberative process and would therefore harm U.S.
policymaking generally. The Requested PDBs are therefore
exempt from disclosure under FOIA exemption (b)(5).
2. The Presidential Communications Privilege
77. As I have previously discussed in this
Declaration, the PDB is prepared for the President and his
most senior advisors to provide that intelligence which is
necessary to the effective development of U.S. national
security and foreign policy. As such it is a communication
directly with the President used in the conduct of his
official duties. Therefore, I have determined that the
Requested PDBs would normally be privileged in the civil
discovery context and are therefore exempt from disclosure
pursuant to FOIA Exemption (b)(5).
D. Segregability
78. The FOIA requires that "[a]ny reasonably
segregable portion of a record shall be provided to any
person requesting such record after deletion of the
portions which are exempt under this subsection." 5 U.S.C.
? 552(b). Following a careful review and consideration of
the Requested PDBs, as distinct records and in the context
37
 of the Requested PDBs as part of a series of intelligence
documents that reflect both the development of the
Intelligence Community's collection and analyses over time
and the evolution of national defense and foreign policy
decisions by the President and his most senior advisors, I
have determined that the Requested PDBs must be protected
from release in their entirety, on the basis of FOIA
exemptions (b)(1), (b)(3) and (b)(5), and that no
reasonably segregable, non-exempt portions of the documents
exist. All of the information in the Requested PDBs is
related to intelligence activities, sources and methods,
foreign government information,. foreign relations and
activities and/or the deliberative process. Any
information is so inextricably intertwined with the exempt
information that release of the non-exempt information
would produce little, if anything, more than fragmented,
unintelligible sentences composed of isolated, meaningless
words. Any intelligible information that is not properly
classified as a specific item is nevertheless a part of a
mosaic of PDB information such that a compilation of PDBS
would tend to reveal gravely damaging insight into how the
CIA conducts its intelligence business.
79. Therefore, I have determined that there is no
non-exempt information that can be reasonably segregated
from the exempt information.
 IV. Conclusion
80. I have determined for the reasons set forth above
that the Requested PDBs must be protected from release
because their disclosure could reasonably be expected to
cause harm to the national security, to reveal intelligence
sources and methods and to harm the deliberative process.
81. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws
of the United States of America that the foregoing is true
and correct.
Executed this 1st day of April 2005.
Terry N. Buroker
Information Review Officer
Directorate of Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency