“There appears to be no statute that generally proscribes the acquisition or publication of diplomatic cables,” according to a newly updated report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service, “although government employees who disclose such information without proper authority may be subject to prosecution.”

But there is a thicket of statutes, most notably including the Espionage Act, that could conceivably be used to punish unauthorized publication of classified information, such as the massive releases made available by Wikileaks.  See “Criminal Prohibitions on the Publication of Classified Defense Information”, December 6, 2010.

The updated CRS report sorts through those statutes, provides an account of recent events, presents a new discussion of extradition of foreign nationals who are implicated by U.S. law, and summarizes new legislation introduced in the Senate (S. 4004).

A previous version (pdf) of the CRS report, issued in October, was cited by Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a Wall Street Journal op-ed yesterday in support of prosecuting Wikileaks, though the report did not specifically advise such a course of action.  Sen. Feinstein also seemed to endorse the view that the State Department cables being released by Wikileaks are categorically protected by the Espionage Act and should give rise to a prosecution under the Act.

But the Espionage Act only pertains to information “relating to the national defense,” and only a minority of the diplomatic cables could possibly fit that description.

The new CRS report put it somewhat differently: “It seems likely that most of the information disclosed by WikiLeaks that was obtained from Department of Defense databases [and released earlier in the year] falls under the general rubric of information related to the national defense. The diplomatic cables obtained from State Department channels may also contain information relating to the national defense and thus be covered under the Espionage Act, but otherwise its disclosure by persons who are not government employees does not appear to be directly proscribed. It is possible that some of the government information disclosed in any of the three releases does not fall under the express protection of any statute, despite its classified status.”

Incredibly, CRS was unable to meaningfully analyze for Congress the significance of the newest releases because of a self-defeating security policy that prohibits CRS access to the leaked documents.

The CRS report concludes that any prosecution of Wikileaks would be unprecedented and challenging, both legally and politically.  “We are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it. There may be First Amendment implications that would make such a prosecution difficult, not to mention political ramifications based on concerns about government censorship.”

For our part, we would oppose a criminal prosecution of Wikileaks under the Espionage Act.

After its access to the Wikileaks web site was blocked by the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service this week asked Congress for guidance on whether and how it should make use of the leaked records that are being published by Wikileaks, noting that they could “shed important light” on topics of CRS interest.

CRS “has informed our House and Senate oversight committees, and solicited their guidance, regarding the complexities that the recent leaks of classified information present for CRS,” wrote CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan in a December 6 email message (pdf) to all CRS staff.  “I have also contacted the majority and minority counsels of select committees in the House and Senate requesting guidance on the appropriate boundaries that CRS should recognize and adhere to in summarizing, restating or characterizing open source materials of uncertain classification status in unclassified CRS reports and memoranda for Congress.”

“Our challenge is how to balance the need to provide the best analysis possible to the Congress on current legislative issues against the legal imperative to protect classified national security information. This is especially a problem in light of the massive volume of recently released documents, which may shed important light on research and analysis done by the Service,” Mr. Mulhollan wrote.

“As guidance becomes available from Congress, I will follow-up with additional information.  At present, it seems clear that the republication of known classified information by CRS in an unclassified format (e.g., CRS reports or congressional distribution memoranda) is prohibited. We believe this prohibition against the further dissemination of classified information in an unclassified setting applies even if a secondary source (e,g., a newspaper, journal, or website) has reprinted the classified document. The laws and applicable regulations are decidedly less clear, however, when it comes to referencing and citing secondary sources that refer to, summarize, or restate classified information.”

A copy of Mr. Mulhollan’s email message was obtained by Secrecy News.

Noteworthy new products from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf).

“Securing America’s Borders: The Role of the Intelligence Community,” December 7, 2010.

“Hamas: Background and Issues for Congress,” December 2, 2010.

“U.S.-Australia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation: Issues for Congress,” December 1, 2010.

“Intelligence Estimates: How Useful to Congress?,” November 24, 2010.

The Library of Congress confirmed on Friday that it had blocked access from all Library computers to the Wikileaks web site in order to prevent unauthorized downloading of classified records such as those in the large cache of diplomatic cables that Wikileaks began to publish on November 28.

Since the Congressional Research Service is a component of the Library, this means that CRS researchers will be unable to access or to cite the leaked materials in their research reports to Congress.  Several current and former CRS analysts expressed perplexity and dismay about the move, and they said it could undermine the institution’s research activities.

“It’s a difficult situation,” said one CRS analyst. “The information was released illegally, and it’s not right for government agencies to be aiding and abetting this illegal dissemination.  But the information is out there.  Presumably, any Library of Congress researcher who wants to access the information that Wikileaks illegally released will simply use their home computers or cellphones to do so.  Will they be able to refer directly to the information in their writings for the Library?  Apparently not, unless a secondary source, like a newspaper, happens to have already cited it.”

“I can understand LOC blocking the public’s access to Wikileaks,” a former CRS analyst said.  “It would have no control over someone from the public using classified information for impermissible or improper purposes.  [But] the connection between LOC and CRS has always been somewhat fuzzy because Congress intended CRS to have a certain amount of autonomy.  There should be room for CRS to adopt a different policy, particularly for specialists who have security clearances, know how to protect classified information, and can be entrusted to use Wikileaks appropriately.  To me, it is a wrong course to simply close the door tightly without searching for a compromise needed to continue providing Congress with high-level professional analysis.”

In fact, if CRS is “Congress’s brain,” then the new access restrictions could mean a partial lobotomy.

“I don’t know that you can make a credible argument that CRS reports are the gold standard of analytical reporting, as is often claimed, when its analysts are denied access to information that historians and public policy types call a treasure trove of data,” another former CRS employee said.

“I understand the rationale behind the policy decision to preclude government agencies from making the information available via their sites as a matter of pure principle.  On the other hand (as CRS is famous for saying), in some cases it would clearly diminish the weight of some of the analysis CRS does on policy issues, particularly on foreign affairs and military strategy where it is widely known that key information that would help inform thoughtful and comprehensive analysis was released on Wikileaks.”

“As an example, when [CRS Middle East analyst] Ken Katzman writes on U.S. policy towards Iran I don’t know how he could meet the high professional standards for completeness and accuracy he routinely meets if he can’t refer to the information in the [leaked] diplomatic notes that express the thoughts of key leaders in the region on the need to strike Iran’s nuclear program.  The same with North Korea; how do you provide Congress complete and accurate analysis to inform their decision making that ignores the [leaked] information on China’s increasing frustration with Pyongyang?  The examples could go on and on.”

“I’m sure public policy analysts from other organizations are going to use the [Wikileaks] information and their reports may prove more valuable to decision makers than CRS reports,” the former CRS employee said.

Another former analyst questioned the legal basis for the Library of Congress’s action.

“In its press release, LOC seems to be saying that it is following OMB advice regarding the obligation of federal agencies and federal employees to protect classified information and to otherwise protect the integrity of government information technology systems.  But LOC is statutorily chartered as the library of the House and the Senate.  It is a legislative branch agency.  I don’t recall either chamber directing the blocking of access to Wikileaks for/or by its committees, offices, agencies, or Members.”

Interestingly, the OMB guidance did not require federal agencies to block access to Wikileaks, only to warn employees against downloading classified information.  So by imposing such blocks, the Library of Congress has actually exceeded the instructions of OMB.

The Library did not reply to an inquiry from Secrecy News over the weekend concerning the impact of its restricted access policy on CRS.  If a reply is forthcoming, it will be posted here.

On December 3, I participated in an interesting, somewhat testy discussion about Wikileaks on the show Democracy Now along with Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, who is a passionate defender of the project.  The ultimate victory of Wikileaks (or something like it) is guaranteed, Mr. Greenwald suggested, so any criticism of it is basically irrelevant.

“We can debate WikiLeaks all we want,” he said, “but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, because the technology that exists is inevitably going to subvert these institutions’ secrecy regimes. It’s too easy to take massive amounts of secret [material] and dump it on the internet….  And I think that what we’re talking about is inevitable, whether people like Steven Aftergood or Joe Lieberman or others like it or not.”

This seems like wishful thinking.  It is true that Wikileaks offers the most direct public access to the diplomatic cables and other records that it has published, most of which could not be obtained any time soon through normal channels.  But instead of subverting secrecy regimes, Wikileaks appears to be strengthening them, as new restrictions on information sharing are added and security measures are tightened.  (Technology can be used to bolster secrecy as well as subvert it.)

In fact, Wikileaks may deliberately be attempting, in a quasi-Marxist way, to subvert secrecy by provoking governments to strengthen it.  But please try this in your own country first.

It was ordinary political advocacy, not leaks, that produced reversals of longstanding U.S. government secrecy policies this year on nuclear stockpile secrecy and intelligence budget secrecy.  It was also political advocacy, not leaks, that led to the declassification of more than a billion pages of classified records since 1995.  Obviously, much more remains to be done, and the tools available to transparency advocates are not as powerful as one would wish.  Leaks that serve the public interest have their honored place;  more would be welcome.  Advocacy may fail, and often does.  Nothing is inevitable, as far as I know.  But so far it is still politics, not the subversion or repudiation of politics, that has produced the greater impact on U.S. secrecy policy.  (The calculation may well be different in other countries.)

The susceptibility of secrecy policy to political action was discussed in a paper I wrote on “National Security Secrecy: How the Limits Change” (pdf). It will appear in the forthcoming Fall 2010 issue of the journal Social Research that is devoted to the topic of “Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy.”

The ongoing release of U.S. diplomatic communications by the Wikileaks organization is “embarrassing” and “awkward,” said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates yesterday, but its consequences for U.S. foreign policy are likely to be “fairly modest.”

“I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on.  I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets… Other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another.”

Coming from the Secretary of Defense, that measured statement should help to deflate some of the more extreme reactions to the Wikileaks action.

The Obama Administration should “use all legal means necessary to shut down Wikileaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman on November 28.

Wikileaks leader Julian Assange should be designated an enemy combatant, suggested Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on the House floor yesterday.  Then he could be “moved over to a place offshore of the United States outside of the jurisdiction of the Federal courts…, and adjudicated under a military tribunal in a fashion that was designed by this Congress and directed by this Congress. That’s what I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to do.”

Such fantastic notions probably cannot survive the judgment of the U.S. Secretary of Defense that what is at stake is “embarrassment” and “awkwardness,” not the defense of the realm.

That does not mean that the policy consequences of the latest Wikileaks release will be insignificant.  Information sharing within the government is already being curtailed, and avenues of public disclosure may be adversely affected by the Wikileaks controversy. In a November 28 email message to reporters, the Pentagon spelled out several security measures that have already been implemented to restrict and monitor the dissemination of classification information in DoD networks.

“Bottom line: It is now much more difficult for a determined actor to get access to and move information outside of authorized channels,” wrote Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget ordered (pdf) each agency that handles classified information to perform a security review of its procedures and to reinforce the traditional “need to know” requirements that strictly limit individual access to classified information.

“Any failure by agencies to safeguard classified information pursuant to relevant laws, including but not limited to Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information (December 29, 2009), is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” the OMB memo stated.

The possibility of prosecuting Wikileaks as a criminal enterprise is reportedly under consideration, and has been publicly urged by some members of Congress and others.  The feasibility of such a prosecution is uncertain, and nothing quite like it has been attempted before.  The most “promising” legal avenue of attack against Wikileaks would seem to be a charge of conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act (under 18 USC 793g), based on the allegation that Wikileaks encouraged and collaborated with others in violating the terms of the Act.  But these are dangerous legal waters, fraught with undesirable consequences for other publishers of controversial information.

As confidential U.S. diplomatic documents continue to enter the public domain, it is worth remembering that not everything that is written down in a government document, even (or especially) in a classified document, is necessarily true.  “Truth telling” involves a bit more than trafficking in official records.  Any historian or archival researcher knows that.  So did the Soviet agent Kim Philby, who addressed the issue in his 1968 book “My Silent War” (p. 255):

“It is difficult, though by no means impossible, for a journalist to obtain access to original documents.  But these are often a snare and a delusion.  Just because a document is a document, it has a glamour which tempts the reader to give it more weight than it deserves. This document from the United States Embassy in Amman, for example. Is it a first draft, a second draft or the finished memorandum? Was it written by an official of standing, or by some dogsbody with a bright idea? Was it written with serious intent or just to enhance the writer’s reputation? Even if it is unmistakably a direct instruction to the United States Ambassador from the Secretary of State dated last Tuesday, is it still valid today?  In short, documentary intelligence, to be really valuable, must come as a steady stream, embellished with an awful lot of explanatory annotation. An hour’s serious discussion with a trustworthy informant is often more valuable than any number of original documents.”

“Of course, it is best to have both,” he added.

Nuclear physicist Sam Cohen died Sunday at age 89, the Washington Post reported in an obituary today. Cohen, a veteran of the Manhattan Project, conceived, designed and advocated development of the neutron bomb, a high-radiation anti-personnel weapon.

He cordially despised the Federation of American Scientists, which didn’t stop him from writing and calling us regularly to discuss his bodily ailments, the history of nuclear weapons, classification policy, and whether or not former Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary was the devil’s spawn.

In 2000, Sam Cohen authored and self-published a book called “Shame.” It is an almost unbearably candid memoir of the author’s abusive childhood, which left him deeply scarred, and a description of how his views of nuclear weapons emerged as a result.  It is a neglected classic.  We reviewed it here.  Rest in peace.

Noteworthy new documents from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“Changes in Airport Passenger Screening Technologies and Procedures: Frequently Asked Questions,” November 23, 2010.

“North Korea’s 2009 Nuclear Test: Containment, Monitoring, Implications,” November 24, 2010.

“Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Background and Current Developments,” November 16, 2010.

“North Korea: U.S. Relations, Nuclear Diplomacy, and Internal Situation,” November 10, 2010.

“Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI),” November 5, 2010.

The massive disclosure of a quarter million diplomatic records by Wikileaks this weekend underscores the precarious state of the U.S. national security classification system.

The Wikileaks project seems to be, more than anything else, an assault on secrecy.  If Wikileaks were most concerned about whistleblowing, it would focus on revealing corruption.  If it were concerned with historical truth, it would emphasize the discovery of verifiably true facts.  If it were anti-war, it would safeguard, not disrupt, the conduct of diplomatic communications.  But instead, what Wikileaks has done is to publish a vast potpourri of records — dazzling, revelatory, true, questionable, embarrassing, or routine — whose only common feature is that they are classified or otherwise restricted.

This may be understood as a reaction to a real problem, namely the fact that by all accounts, the scope of government secrecy in the U.S. (not to mention other countries) has exceeded rational boundaries.  Disabling secrecy in the name of transparency would be a sensible goal — if it were true that all secrecy is wrong.  But if there is a legitimate role for secrecy in military operations, in intelligence gathering or in diplomatic negotiations, as seems self-evident, then a different approach is called for.

Although it has rarely been front-page news, important progress has been made this year in shifting U.S. government secrecy policy away from its cold war roots, and promoting greater discernment and discrimination in the use of national security classification.

In May, the U.S. government formally disclosed the current size of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal for the first time (5,113 warheads as of September 30, 2009).  Declassification of this information, which is integral to future arms control and disarmament efforts, had been sought — and resisted — for decades.  That battle for public disclosure has now been won.  Also this year, the Report of the Nuclear Posture Review, the basic statement of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, was produced and released in unclassified form for the first time.

In September, the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense revealed the total intelligence budget ($80.1 billion in FY2010) as well as its “national” ($53.1 billion) and military ($27 billion) components.  This is a more complete and detailed disclosure of U.S. intelligence spending than has ever been provided before.  (An aggregate figure — with no further breakdown — was disclosed in 1997 and 1998.)  It also represents a major policy reversal.  Just a few years ago, intelligence community leaders swore under penalty of perjury that disclosure of this information would damage national security and compromise intelligence methods.  Now annual intelligence budget disclosure is the new norm.

These are not cosmetic changes.  They represent real discontinuities with past practice.  Stockpile secrecy and intelligence budget secrecy have each been cornerstones of entire edifices of national security classification that will now be susceptible to change.  And in each case their disclosure is the culmination and the successful fruition of years or even decades of advocacy, agitation and litigation by the Federation of American Scientists and other organizations and political leaders.

In fact, the deepest significance of these disclosures may lie in the fact that they demonstrate the feasibility of effective public advocacy in national security secrecy policy.  If a half century of nuclear stockpile secrecy and intelligence budget secrecy can be overturned in favor of public disclosure, then citizens can confidently seek the release of many other, less deeply entrenched official secrets as well as a continuing reduction in the overall scope of the secrecy system.

Of course, efforts to reduce government secrecy have not been uniformly successful.  For example, the Obama Administration’s use of the state secrets privilege to derail litigation on sensitive national security topics is indistinguishable from that of the Bush Administration, despite a September 2009 policy change promising “greater accountability” and more limited use of the privilege.  Moreover, it appears that the Obama Justice Department has failed to fulfill its own policy of referring to agency Inspectors General any legitimate cases against the government that could not be litigated because of the state secrets privilege.  (We are still attempting to confirm and to document that this is indeed the case.)  Nor has it offered any other alternative remedy to those who may have been wronged by U.S. government actions concealed by state secrets claims.

But even when the wheels of progress move slowly — or slip into reverse — proponents of greater openness are not helpless.  At Secrecy News, we have tried to shine a spotlight on the mechanics of secrecy, and to provide our own almost daily disclosures of official documents of public policy value that are somehow restricted or otherwise hard to find.  Not just because they are restricted, but because they are also of public policy value.  Over the past year, Secrecy News produced unique coverage of numerous important secrecy stories.  For example:

**  Leaking classified information may be the right thing to do in certain circumstances, suggested district court Judge T.S. Ellis III at a 2009 hearing, “but you have to stand up and take the consequences.”  We obtained and released the previously unpublished transcript of that remarkable hearing last March.  (“Judge: If You Leak Classified Info, Take the Consequences,” March 22).

**  We offered the most complete and in-depth reporting of the dispute between Congress and the executive branch over Government Accountability Office access to intelligence information.  We provided related documentation including a 1988 Office of Legal Counsel opinion and a new Department of Defense directive on GAO access to highly classified DoD special access programs.  In congressional testimony and public advocacy, we also argued in favor of an increased role for GAO in intelligence oversight.  Despite a veto threat from the White House earlier this year, a favorable resolution of the matter now seems to be within reach. (“GAO Gains a Foothold in Intelligence Oversight,” September 29).

**  We maintained and expanded our online library of reports from the JASON defense science advisory board.  Ours is the most complete public collection  of these consistently interesting and influential studies.

**  We obtained and published numerous unreleased reports from the DNI Open Source Center, such as a March 2010 report on Turkey’s mysterious underground Ergenekon movement.

**  We spent more time than we would have liked criticizing the Wikileaks organization, whose spectacular releases of large collections of classified documents continue to generate controversy.  From our perspective, Wikileaks has been inattentive to the unintended consequences of its actions, careless about putting individuals in harm’s way, particularly in the case of the Afghan war records, and ethically deficient in its invasions of personal privacy.  (In its latest release, Wikileaks did redact some names of individuals and some other sensitive information.)

**  With other like-minded organizations (and, in this case, a remarkably responsive White House), we helped prevent the creation of an ominous new information control system for so-called Controlled Unclassified Information.  Instead of constituting a fourth level of classification, the new CUI marking should simply facilitate information sharing without providing authority for any new restrictions on information. (“A New Policy on Controlled Unclassified Info,” November 4).

**  We obtained and published a previously undisclosed 2009 report from the Intelligence Science Board on the virtues of non-coercive interrogation.  We also reported that the DNI had disbanded the ISB this year.

**  We published hundreds of Congressional Research Service reports that had not previously been made available to the public, and numerous other popular records from a three-volume description of the Soviet army to the U.S. Army’s latest weapons system handbook to a speculative scientific paper on “interstellar archeology.” And quite a bit more.

It’s impossible to say whether the race to fix the classification system can be won through our kind of advocacy from the outside and by enlightened self-interest within government.  Before that happens, classification itself could be rendered moot and ineffective by leaks, abuse or internal collapse.  Or, in a reflexive response to continuing leaks, officials might seek to expand the scope of secrecy rather than focusing it narrowly, while increasing penalties for unauthorized disclosures.

But in the coming year, we see some promise in what is called the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review.  This is a procedure (mandated in executive order 13526, section 1.9) for every agency that classifies information to seek out, identify and remove classification requirements that are no longer valid.  In effect, it provides an opportunity and a mechanism for rewriting the “software” of the entire classification system.  Though success is not guaranteed, we expect the Review to produce a measurable reduction in the scope of national security classification.  We plan to monitor its progress as closely as we can.

Finally, we want to ask for your help.  If you identify with our approach and you derive value from the work that we are doing, then we encourage you to help sustain it for another year with a tax-deductible contribution.  Although we make our online resources freely available to everyone who wants them, we incur costs in collecting, analyzing, and publishing them as well as in our related advocacy activities.  If you can help us with that, please do.

Donations can be made online.  Donors who contribute $25 or more will automatically be enrolled as members of the Federation of American Scientists (unless you prefer not to be). Donations can also be made by sending a check made out to Federation of American Scientists and earmarked for Secrecy News.

Updated below

U.S. efforts to promote the rule of law in Afghanistan are expanding and accelerating.  Nearly a billion dollars has been spent in the past decade to strengthen Afghanistan’s legal infrastructure, rising from $7 million in FY2002 to an estimated $411 million in FY2010.  In July 2010, a new Ambassador-rank position was created to focus on justice-related issues in the country.  Yet the effectiveness and even the feasibility of these efforts to establish the rule of law are in doubt.

A new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service provides a detailed overview of the U.S. approach to rule of law (ROL) issues in Afghanistan.  It describes the numerous and diverse initiatives that have been undertaken, the political, cultural and institutional obstacles that confront them, and their uncertain results.

The rule of law in this context simply means the stable, predictable, and fair application of public legal standards.  It is considered essential to the establishment of a legitimate and effective government.  “Without ROL the country cannot progress no matter what contributions are made by outsiders,” according to a 2008 State Department Inspector General report.

But progress towards a state of rule of law in Afghanistan is stymied both by the general instability in the country and by the pervasive corruption that prevails.  “As many as one out of every two Afghans experienced bribery in the past year,” the CRS noted, based on UN data, “resulting in an estimated $2.5 billion in bribe payments in 2009 alone.”  The average bribe was said to be around $160, and those who paid bribes did so three to five times per year.

The U.S. has a “Strategy for Rule of Law in Afghanistan” but it is “not available publicly,” the CRS said.  A summary of its contents was provided in the CRS report, based on State Department information.  For the first time this year, rule of law issues in Afghanistan constitute a separate portfolio under the new position of the Coordinating Director of ROL and Law Enforcement, held by Ambassador Hans Klemm.

“Although significant progress in establishing ROL in Afghanistan has been achieved, there appear to be several fundamental limitations on the ability of the U.S. government and other donors to strengthen the Afghan justice sector in the short term,” the CRS report concluded.  Besides the instability of war and widespread corruption, other obstacles include illiteracy and the lack of qualified personnel to serve in law enforcement and the judiciary;  local reliance on traditional councils that do not always practice a consistent or egalitarian form of law;  and “existing perceptions among many Afghans that high-level corrupt officials are exempt from the full force of Afghan law.”

Afghan officials themselves have observed that “despite increasing resources devoted to justice sector support, efforts have not yet translated into a functional formal justice system in Afghanistan.”

“The 112th Congress may choose to address these long term issues in the context of the Obama Administration’s review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan,” the CRS suggested.

A copy of the new CRS report was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “Afghanistan: U.S. Rule of Law and Justice Sector Assistance,” November 9, 2010.

Update: “Despite some efforts by the Government of Afghanistan to eliminate corruption and improve rule of law, overwhelming reports of corruption continue,” a new report to Congress (pdf) from the Department of Defense said.

“The latest survey of Afghan perceptions of the Afghan Government’s rule of law capacity shows an almost 7 percent decline in Afghans’ confidence in their government’s ability to deliver reliable formal justice. This is likely due to continued corruption and to the slow progress in hiring and placing justice professionals at the provincial level. Additional polling shows that fewer than half of Afghans polled trust the Afghan Government to settle a legal dispute,” the November 2010 DoD report to Congress said.

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf).

“Countering Terrorism in East Africa: The U.S. Response,” November 3, 2010.

“Latin America: Terrorism Issues,” October 26, 2010.

“U.S.-South Korea Relations,” November 3, 2010.