The Foreign Service Journal, June 2014

20 JUNE 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL hours. (It has done so for me on several occasions.) Ultimately, the State Depart- ment approves almost every request it receives for publication. My main advice for anyone embark- ing on this process is to work cordially within the system, know your rights and the State Department’s regulations, and thoroughly cite your sources. If you do, you should feel confident that your material will be cleared for publication and that the State Department will sup- port you. Fixing the Process There is plenty of room for improve- ment in the pre-publication clearance process. First and foremost, State must do a better job of adhering to the regula- tions it has set forth in the Foreign Affairs Manual. Anything short of that standard is unfair to everyone involved. Second, the department should estab- lish clear guidelines on how it distrib- utes material internally and across the interagency community. That threshold should have nothing to do with terms as vague as “equities.” Instead, offices and agencies should have the opportunity to clear on material only if that material is the result of “privileged information”: information that employees acquire dur- ing the discharge of their duties that is not otherwise available. Third, State needs to ensure that former employees receive treatment comparable to current employees. A sig- nificant gap exists between the attention given to current employees by PA and that former employees receive from A/ GIS/IPS/PP/LA. As that lengthy acronym suggests, former employees are relegated to an obscure office in the Bureau of Adminis- tration when they seek pre-publication clearance. In contrast, the PA leadership is often engaged and provides consistent oversight of the review process for cur- rent employees. This bifurcation not only creates unnecessary bureaucratic layers and redundancies, but places additional burdens on former employees trying to do the right thing by clearing their manuscripts. This discrepancy should be rectified. These short-term fixes would go a long way toward improving the pre-publica- tion clearance process for employees. In the long term, however, the State Depart- ment should consider establishing a publication review board modeled on the CIA’s Publication Review Board. A State Department PRB would codify a transparent, objective and fair process that minimizes the need for interagency clearance, ensures proper and consistent determinations on what material should be classified, and reduces the strain on the State Department at large, and its employees in particular. Ultimately, State needs to strike a better balance between protecting information and encouraging activities in the public domain. The pre-publication review process remains too arbitrary, lengthy and disjointed for most govern- ment professionals to share their unique experiences and expertise with the American public. Still, despite the bureaucratic chal- lenges I faced, it is pretty incredible that the U.S. government allowed a young diplomat to write a detailed—and some- times critical —narrative about sensitive military and intelligence operations that occurred only 12 years ago in an ongoing conflict. In fact, I do not think that any other government in the world would allow that sort of liberty. But that is the United States of Amer- ica at its best, and just one more reason I am so proud to represent it. n