Documents / Official release
This Clinton Presidential Library file from the National Security Council holds Presidential Determination 95-45, signed September 29, 1995. The determination exempts the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, from hazardous waste disclosure rules that would require releasing classified information. It came out of the lawsuits Kasza v. Browner and Frost v. Perry. The file also includes Anthony Lake's decision memo, Secretary Sheila Widnall's declaration claiming the military and state secrets privilege, and a Deputy Secretary of Defense recommendation.
3 operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada. I am satisfied that the information described in the classified Declaration is properly classified. I have further determined that the information described in the classified Declaration, if released to the public, could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security. It is not possible to discuss publicly the majority of information at issue without risking the very harm to the national security that protection of the information is intended to prevent. 4. National Security Information : As the head of the agency responsible for information regarding the operating location near Groom Lake, I have determined that information that concerns this operating location and that falls into any of the following categories, is validly classified: 3. Security Classification: Under Information Security Oversight Office guidance, “[cjertain information that would otherwise be unclassified may require classification when combined or associated with other unclassified information.” (32 CFR 2001.3(a)) Protection through classification is required if the combination of unclassified items of information provides an added factor that warrants protection of the information taken as a whole. This theory of classification is commonly known as the mosaic or compilation theory. The mosaic theory of classification applies to some of the information associated with the operating location near Groom Lake. Although the operating location near Groom Lake has no official name, it is sometimes referred to by the name or names of programs that have been conducted there. The names of some programs are classified; all program names are classified when they are associated with the specific location or with other classified programs. Consequently, the release of any such names would disclose classified information.
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 35 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.