Senate Intelligence Committee Adopts a Dozen Anti-Leak Measures
"In an earlier generation of intelligence oversight, leaks led to leak investigations in executive agencies, but they also prompted substantive oversight in Congress. When Seymour Hersh and the New York Times famously reported on unlawful domestic surveillance in December 1974, the urgent question in Congress was not how did Hersh find out, or how similar disclosures could be prevented, but what to do about the alarming facts that had been disclosed.
In contrast, while pursuing leaks and leakers, today’s Senate Intelligence Committee has not held an open public hearing for six months. The Committee’s investigative report concerning CIA interrogation practices from ten years (and two presidential terms) ago has still not been issued. Upon publication — perhaps this fall — it will essentially be a historical document.
Most fundamentally, the Committee’s new draft legislation errs by treating “classification” as a self-validating category — i.e., if it’s classified, it warrants protection by definition — rather than as the flawed administrative instrument that it is.
As far as the Committee is concerned, the unauthorized disclosure of any classified information — even the substance of a constitutional violation that was recently committed by a US intelligence agency — would constitute a punishable offense, regardless of its public policy significance."
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/07/ssci_leak.html
I'm curious about why such a long time since an open's record meeting, but then I'm not sure what the rate of openness was before this time....