The fundamental principles of openness, public debate, and accountability, central to our democracy, are most vulnerable when our nation's security is threatened. It is difficult during times of threats to our nation's security for our leaders to find the ideal balance between accountability and security; however, recent history reveals we have repeatedly failed to find the true balance. We have too often favored secrecy and lack of transparency at the expense of openness and accountability. This pattern persists today, as excessive secrecy and over-classification remove vast amounts of information from public scrutiny, shielding misconduct and impeding oversight.

The Constitution Project has worked to promote transparency and public accountability in several ways:

• Advocating for reforms of our classification system and of the system for handling "controlled unclassified information," to rein in excessive government secrecy;
• Promoting transparency in the development of U.S. national security policies to the greatest extent feasible, particularly with regard to policy for the use of military commissions;
• Calling for investigations of allegations of abuse of detainees; and
• Urging creation of a commission to thoroughly examine U.S. policies on detention, treatment and transfer of detainees.

Recent Work and News

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