President Moves to Standardize "Sensitive but Unclassified" Marking
Two days after he signed an executive order calling for more efficient and courteous handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, President Bush quietly sent a memorandum to department and agency heads calling for government-wide standardization of the document identifier “Sensitive But Unclassified.” SBU is used to withhold information as part of what many critics refer to as a Fourth Level of Classification, or pseudo-classification. There are an estimated 55 separate definitions of SBU among federal agencies, all used as a means to label records the agency wants withheld from public disclosure but which are in theory still subject to FOIA. The Bush directive, part of a broader memorandum implementing information sharing requirements among agencies, requires each agency to inventory and assess the effectiveness of its use of SBU in a report to the Director of National Intelligence, who will then recommend standardized procedures for use of the SBU marking. (12/19/05)