A. Bryan Siebert

As a senior executive at the Department of Energy, Bryan Siebert led perhaps the federal government’s largest review of classification policy in the last 50 years as part of then-Secretary Hazel O’Leary’s “Openness Initiative.”

The goal of the initiative, which occurred from 1993 to 2000, was to peel back unnecessary secrecy by revising the department’s classification practices. Also participating in the review were the departments of Defense and State and the CIA, as well as the French and British governments. At Siebert’s direction, public meetings were held across the nation, allowing citizens to express their views about classification and declassification. The Openness Initiative, of which Siebert was a driving force, resulted in the careful declassification of large amounts of material, which were made available to the public on the Internet and at four press conferences.

Siebert also directed the development of procedures to speed up and make more accurate the redaction of classified documents to make the Department of Energy more responsive to FOIA requests.

He retired from the federal government in 2002.