The crisis affecting the U.S. economy has made a discernible mark on security clearance disputes, according to a new study of clearance revocation cases.

“Since the collapse of the housing market in 2008, debt resulting from job losses and home foreclosures has had a devastating effect on people holding national security clearances. That, more than any other factor today, is causing the revocation or denial of security clearances, resulting in the loss of good paying jobs, and putting skilled workers further and further behind in their effort to dig out of debt.”

The new study (pdf), by attorney Sheldon I. Cohen, examined cases before the Department of Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA), which is the only one of the eleven clearance adjudicating bodies to publish its decisions. [Correction: The Department of Energy also publishes its clearance adjudication decisions.] The author found a growing trend, though the actual number of cases involved remains fairly small.

“From 2000 to 2002, there was one reported case at DOHA dealing with foreclosure. Between 2003 and 2006, there averaged three cases per year. In 2007 and 2008, the number of cases dealing with foreclosures jumped to nine each year. In 2009, there were twenty-four such cases, and in the first five months of 2010, which looks like a record year, there have been nine foreclosure cases thus far.  While DOHA is the only adjudicative body for clearances that publishes its decisions [note correction above], there is no reason to believe that any of the other ten federal Adjudication Authorities come to different results.”

See “Debt and Home Foreclosures: Their Effect on National Security Clearances” by Sheldon I. Cohen, September 2010.

Updated below

The Department of Defense says that a forthcoming book about the war in Afghanistan contains classified information, and that it should not be put on the market in its current form.  Instead, the Pentagon is considering whether to purchase and destroy the entire first printing of the book, “Operation Dark Heart” by Anthony A. Shaffer, while a revised edition is prepared.  The controversy was first reported by the New York Times in “Pentagon Plan: Buying Books to Keep Secrets” by Scott Shane, September 10.

Shaffer, the book’s author, is a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer and Army lieutenant colonel.  He submitted the manuscript to the Army for prepublication review and received permission to proceed earlier this year.  The book was printed and prepared for release at the end of August by the publisher, St. Martin’s Press.

But prior to the publication date, a copy of the manuscript was obtained by DIA and other intelligence agencies, all of whom raised new objections to its publication.

“DIA’s preliminary classification review of this manuscript has identified significant classified information, the release of which I have determined could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security,” wrote DIA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr. in an August 6 memo.

“I have also been informed that United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have determined that the manuscript contains classified information concerning their activities.  In the case of NSA, this includes information classified at the TOP SECRET level,” Gen. Burgess wrote.  He directed that Lt. Col. Shaffer be “ordered to take all necessary action to direct his publisher to withhold publication of the book” pending a new security review.

But the Pentagon now faces a policy conundrum due to the fact that numerous review copies of the book are already circulating in the public domain.  (We picked up a couple of them last week.)  What this means is that any effort to selectively censor the manuscript at this late date would actually tend to highlight and validate those portions of the text that agencies believe are sensitive, not to conceal them.

Therefore, as a practical security policy matter, it seems that the Pentagon’s best move would be to do nothing and to allow the book to be published without further interference.

“Operation Dark Heart” is a memoir, not a work of scholarship, policy analysis or journalism.  It describes the author’s personal experiences and perspectives in sometimes clunky, occasionally gripping prose.  It often seems formulaic or cliched, though it is quite readable and sometimes moving.  Overall, it seems unlikely to alter the prevailing understanding of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

It is hard to know what to make of the author.  As a clandestine operator he claims to have run one operation “deep into North Korea,” and another that penetrated the Iranian intelligence service.  He also says he once recruited a high ranking Soviet military officer while posing as a freelance journalist.  Maybe so.  His most frequent cultural points of reference are Star Wars and the action movies of Steven Seagal.

Within those parameters, he tells some pretty good stories about intelligence gathering, impromptu clandestine operations and bureaucratic wrangling with stuffy superiors.  Operation Dark Heart was the name of a plan to target and destroy several Taliban operational centers, in what the author believed might have been a decisive blow to the brewing insurgency in 2003.  But because the proposed targets lay across the border in Pakistan, the operation was scuttled, to Shaffer’s dismay and disgust.  He believes his intelligence career was then derailed as the result of his decision to brief the 9/11 Commission about the Able Danger data mining program, which he says had succeeded in identifying some of the 9/11 hijackers in advance.

Even in the present version of the book that is now in the public domain, the author seems alert to security issues.  He says that several names have been changed or concealed.  At several points in the narrative, he stops short of full disclosure, citing classification restrictions on what he can discuss (p. 147, 165, 180).

But at other points, he is quite chatty, in ways that might have alarmed some officials.  He describes the location of the CIA station in Kabul, along with the name and appearance of the CIA station chief (“he reminded me of Peter Cushing, the actor who played Governor Tarkin, commander of the Death Star in Star Wars”).  He briefly discusses the COPPER GREEN “enhanced interrogation” program (that was first reported by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker).  And he names quite a few unfamiliar names, not all of which have been changed.

At the rare intervals where his assertions can be independently confirmed, they check out.  At one point he introduces a certain person as “chief of NSA here in country” (page 150).  A search of that person’s name online turns up his resume that does indeed describe the individual as “Officer in Charge, Cryptologic Services Group (CSG), OEF, Bagram, Afghanistan” and “Senior SIGINT advisor to Commander, JTF-180.”

Last June St. Martin’s Press, the book’s publisher, distributed promotional material (pdf) to reviewers, including a list of “Key Background Points and New Revelations in Operation Dark Heart.”

While national security classification arguments naturally warrant serious consideration, the mere fact that a government official says certain information could damage national security if it were disclosed doesn’t necessarily make it so.  Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, the DIA director who is Mr. Shaffer’s current antagonist, has previously been known to make dubious claims about classification and about the secrecy needed to protect national security.

Last year, Gen. Burgess formally expressed the view that the size of the National Intelligence Program budget for 2006 was properly classified, even though the DNI had already declassified the intelligence budget figures for 2007 and 2008 and published them openly.  Yet in Burgess’ opinion, as he wrote in a January 14, 2009 letter (pdf), “the release of this [2006 budget] information would reveal sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”

General Burgess was wrong then.  Given the present circumstances, where all of the information in the Shaffer book is effectively in the public domain, it would seem reasonable for him to reconsider his position now.

Update: The Pentagon has insisted on imposing its restrictions on the manuscript, which is therefore being published in partially censored form. See this New York Times account.

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

Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2002-2009, September 10, 2010.

Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, August 20, 2010.

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress, August 26, 2010.

China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues, August 16, 2010.

Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence, August 24, 2010.

Emergency Communications: Broadband and the Future of 911, August 25, 2010.

Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress, August 24, 2010.

Afghanistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance, August 12, 2010.

U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, August 12, 2010.

The Federal Food Safety System: A Primer, August 18, 2010.

The inherent tension between the state secrets privilege and the rule of law reached the breaking point last week when an appeals court dismissed the claims of several persons who said they were illegally transported and tortured through a CIA “extraordinary rendition” program.  They would not be permitted to litigate their case, the court decided, because to do so would place “state secrets” at risk.

“This case presents a painful conflict between human rights and national security,” the 9th circuit court of appeals noted in its September 8 opinion (pdf) in Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, and by a 6-5 majority the judges determined that security considerations would take precedence.

“We have thoroughly and critically reviewed the government’s public and classified declarations and are convinced that at least some of the matters it seeks to protect from disclosure in this litigation are valid state secrets, ‘which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged’,” according to the majority opinion.

At the same time, the majority acknowledged, “Denial of a judicial forum based on the state secrets doctrine poses concerns at both individual and structural levels. For the individual plaintiffs in this action, our decision forecloses at least one set of judicial remedies, and deprives them of the opportunity to prove their alleged mistreatment and obtain damages. At a structural level, terminating the case eliminates further judicial review in this civil litigation, one important check on alleged abuse by government officials and putative contractors.”

For these reasons, “Dismissal at the pleading stage” as in this case “is a drastic result and should not be readily granted.”  Yet grant it the court did.

But the majority seemed conflicted and apologetic about its own ruling.  It ordered the government to pay the parties’ costs, and it devoted several speculative paragraphs to identifying potential “non-judicial remedies” that might be available to the plaintiffs.  Perhaps Congress could investigate the matter, the court weakly noted, or maybe pass legislation on behalf of the plaintiffs.

And just because the court ruled against the plaintiffs, the majority suggested, that “does not preclude the government from honoring the fundamental principles of justice” and providing reparations to the plaintiffs anyway.

But these suggestions range from “impractical” to “absurd,” five dissenting judges wrote.  “Permitting the executive to police its own errors and determine the remedy dispensed would not only deprive the judiciary of its role, but also deprive Plaintiffs of a fair assessment of their claims by a neutral arbiter.”

Attorney General Eric Holder’s September 23, 2009 policy statement on the state secrets privilege did hold out the possibility of seeking Inspector General review of allegations of misconduct whose adjudication was blocked by the use of the state secrets privilege:

“If the Attorney General concludes that it would be proper to defend invocation of the privilege in a case, and that invocation of the privilege would preclude adjudication of particular claims, but that the case raises credible allegations of government wrongdoing, the Department will refer those allegations to the Inspector General of the appropriate department or agency for further investigation….” (section 4C).

Given the court’s extended discussion of non-judicial remedies, this case would seem to be a fitting subject for an Inspector General investigation under the 2009 Justice Department policy.  But it could not immediately be learned if the Department has made such a referral to an agency Inspector General in this or any other state secrets case.

“The state secrets doctrine is a judicial construct without foundation in the Constitution, yet its application often trumps what we ordinarily consider to be due process of law,” the five dissenting judges wrote.  “This case now presents a classic illustration.”

“The Soviet police state tried to control every citizen in the country.  The new, more sophisticated Russian [security] system is far more selective than its Soviet-era counterpart;  it targets only those individuals who have political ambitions or strong public views.”  That’s what Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan discover in “The New Nobility,” their impressive new book on the resurgence of Russia’s security services in the post-Cold War era.

Soldatov and Borogan, Russian journalists who have produced some of the boldest reporting on the subject over the past decade, are also the creators and editors of Agentura.ru, a pioneering web site devoted to public interest research on Russian intelligence policy and related matters.

In “The New Nobility,” they present many of the decisive episodes in the recent history of the FSB, the primary Russian security service, from the 2002 Moscow theater siege, to the 2004 Beslan school massacre, the war in Chechnya, and more.  Overall they present a picture of a security service of increasing power and influence, uneven competence — but virtually no accountability to parliament or the public.

“The Soviet KGB was all-powerful,” Soldatov and Borogan write, “but it was also under the control of the political structure: The Communist Party presided over every KGB section, department, and division.  In contrast, the FSB is a remarkably independent entity, free of party control and parliamentary oversight….”

The book is based on the authors’ original reporting, which itself is a demonstration of unusual courage and commitment.  A reader soon loses track of the number of times their computers are seized by authorities, how often their papers’ web servers are confiscated, and how many times they are summoned for interrogation or even charged with crimes based on their reporting.  Yet they persist.

Their book is full of remarkable observations.  For example:

•     In 2006, the FSB organized a competition “for the best literary and artistic works about state security operatives.”
•     The history of Moscow’s Lefortovo prison has never been documented.  “Even the prison’s design [in the shape of the letter K] remains a mystery.”
•     The Russian security services in Chechnya have made extensive use of the tactic known as “counter-capture,” which involves seizing the relatives of suspected terrorists in order to induce them to surrender.

Fundamentally, the authors contend, Russia’s FSB has gone astray by acting as an agent of state authority instead of representing the rule of law.  “In today’s Russia,… the security services appear to have concluded that their interests, and those of the state they are guarding, remain above the law.”  An American reader may ponder the similarities and differences presented by U.S. security services.

“The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB” by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan is being published this month by Public Affairs Books.

“To those following the increasingly hostile environment for journalists in Russia, Soldatov’s career is a curiosity,” according to an internal profile of him prepared by the DNI Open Source Center in 2008.  “Despite being questioned and charged by the FSB on several occasions, Soldatov has continued to cover hot-button issues such as corruption, security service defectors, and the increasing role of the special services in limiting free speech in Russia.”

The New York Times featured Agentura.ru in “A Web Site That Came in From the Cold to Unveil Russian Secrets” by Sally McGrane, December 14, 2000.

The New York Times has also published Above the Law, a continuing series of stories by Clifford J. Levy on “corruption and abuse of power in Russia two decades after the end of Communism.”

The Department of Defense last week increased its efforts to require that Department contacts with the media be monitored and approved by DoD public affairs officials.

“I am asking the heads of the Military Services, the Joint Staff and the Combatant Commands to reinforce to all of their employees to work closely and effectively with their public affairs offices to ensure full situational awareness,” wrote Douglas B. Wilson, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in a September 2 memorandum (pdf).

The latest Pentagon move follows up on a July 2 memo (pdf) from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who stated that the DoD Office of Public Affairs “is the sole release authority for official DoD information to news media in Washington, and … all media activities must be coordinated through appropriate public affairs channels.  This policy is all too often ignored,” he complained.

“We have far too many people talking to the media outside of channels, sometimes providing information which is simply incorrect, out of proper context, unauthorized, or uninformed…,” Secretary Gates wrote.

Both memoranda assert prohibitions on unauthorized disclosures of classified information as well as on unclassified but sensitive or predecisional information.

As a practical matter, the degree of control over DoD contacts with the media sought by the Pentagon may be impossible to achieve.  The Department is too large (with millions of employees), too decentralized (with thousands of locations) and, perhaps, too open (with hundreds of reporters holding building permits at the Pentagon alone) to allow rigorous monitoring or “coordination” of more than a fraction of all external contacts and communications.

And though it may not be convenient for Pentagon officials to say so, almost everyone understands that freedom of the press means something more, and something different, than reproducing authorized government releases.  Unauthorized disclosures — even incomplete or partially inaccurate ones — often serve a valuable public policy function, at least when they do not trespass on legitimate secrets, because they enable reporters and others to develop an independent account of events and to generate a more complete public record.  When the short-term institutional interests of the Pentagon or other U.S. government agencies lead them to overclassify or otherwise impede public access to information, unauthorized and “uncoordinated” disclosures help to fill the void.

Last year, the number of “original classification decisions” — or new national security secrets — actually declined by almost ten percent from the year before.

This and other empirical measures of government secrecy were compiled in a new Secrecy Report Card (pdf) that was issued today by Openthegovernment.org, a coalition of public interest advocacy organizations.  The Report Card presented data on classification and declassification activity, classification costs, Freedom of Information Act requests, Presidential signing statements, assertions of the state secrets privilege, and other aspects of official secrecy.

While new classification activity slowed last year, the Report Card noted, so too did declassification, with 8% fewer pages declassified in 2009 than in 2008.  A National Declassification Center that was established in December 2009 is supposed to sharply increase the number of pages declassified in the coming months and years.

Updated below

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has proposed new rules to comply with the provisions of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.  The Court reviews government applications for intelligence surveillance and physical search under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The proposed FISA Court rules (pdf) provide new procedures by which telecommunications companies can petition the Court to modify or dismiss a court order or a directive from the Attorney General or the DNI requiring them to assist in electronic surveillance, to provide “any tangible thing,” or to adhere to a nondisclosure requirement concerning intelligence surveillance.  Meanwhile, other procedures would permit the government to petition the Court to compel cooperation by a non-compliant telecommunications provider.  A new section in the proposed FISA Court rules accordingly addresses the conduct of “adversarial proceedings,” a term that does not appear in the current rules (last modified in 2006).

The proposed new rules make other minor editorial changes in current procedures.  For example, the existing rules provide for publication of FISA Court opinions, but state that “Before publication, the Opinion must be reviewed by the Executive Branch and redacted, as necessary” to ensure that properly classified information is not disclosed.  In a slight but possibly noteworthy revision, the proposed new rules state that “Before publication, the Court may, as appropriate, direct the Executive Branch to review the order, opinion, or other decision and redact it as necessary….”

The FISA Court has provided an opportunity for public comment on the new rules.  Comments are due by October 4, 2010.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which provided the impetus for the new rules, was strongly opposed by civil liberties groups because it granted immunity to telecoms that may have violated the FISA by implementing President Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, which circumvented that binding statute altogether.  The 2008 Amendments were also opposed by several Senators who went on to become leading figures in the Obama Administration and who expressed concern that the Act did not give the FISA Court enough independent authority.

“Although the bill gives the FISA Court a greater role than earlier bills did, it still fails to provide for a meaningful judicial check on  the President’s power,” said Senator Joe Biden during the July 9, 2008 floor debate on the Act.

Likewise, “while the bill nominally calls for increased oversight by the FISA Court, its ability to serve as a meaningful check on the President’s power is debatable,” said Sen. Hillary R. Clinton, explaining her decision to vote against the Amendments.

But the FISA Amendments Act was supported by then-Senator Barack Obama, along with a majority of other Senators and Congressmen, and it was enacted into law.

Update:

Greg McNeal and Marc Ambinder believe that the proposed FISC rules signal a change in the court’s attitude towards the executive branch’s authority over classified information, indicating that executive branch review would be “optional” under the new rules. But that is almost certainly a misunderstanding.

The modified language may invite such a misunderstanding. Thus, the existing rule 5c states:

“Before publication, the Opinion must be reviewed by the Executive Branch and redacted, as necessary, to ensure that properly classified information is appropriately protected pursuant to Executive Order 12958 as amended by Executive Order 13292 (or its successor).” (emph. added)

The proposed new rule 62 states:

Before publication, the Court may, as appropriate, direct the Executive Branch to review the order, opinion, or other decision and redact it as necessary to ensure that classified information is appropriately protected pursuant to Executive Order 13526 (or its successor).” (emph. added)

Based on the change in wording from “must” to “may, as appropriate”, McNeal concluded that “the Executive Branch review requirement is now optional.” But that is a hasty and likely erroneous reading.

Note first that the existing rule applied only to Opinions (which “must” be reviewed), whereas the proposed new rule applies more broadly to an “order, opinion, or other decision” (which “may, as appropriate” be subject to review). Is it sensible to think that every FISC decision and order, even decisions on scheduling matters or orders granting leave to exceed a standard page limit, must be subject to classification review by the executive branch prior to publication?

Even full-fledged Opinions may reasonably be exempt from any need for classification review. On August 27, 2008 the FISC issued an Opinion (pdf) denying an ACLU motion for leave to participate in court proceedings. There was nothing classified in the ACLU motion or in the government opposition. Why would anyone suppose that executive branch review of the subsequent Opinion should be required prior to publication?

Does this mean that the FISC is going soft on executive branch authority over the classification system? I don’t think so. Both current and proposed rules explicitly acknowledge the authority of the current executive order concerning classified information and the need to ensure that “classified information is appropriately protected” under that order.

In fact, one could argue that the Court has moved in the opposite direction. The existing rules speak of protecting only “properly classified information,” whereas the proposed new rules eliminate the adjective “properly” and apply categorically to all classified information. Thus, in its proposed rules the Court has seemingly renounced any role in validating the proper classification of information by the executive branch.

Update 2:

Greg McNeal responds here.

The continuing controversy over whether the Government Accountability Office will be permitted to participate in intelligence oversight, as some in Congress wish, or whether cleared GAO auditors and investigators will be excluded from intelligence oversight tasks, as the Obama Administration prefers, was discussed in the Washington Post’s Top Secret America blog yesterday.

I participated in a Q&A on the issue with the Post’s Dana Hedgpeth here.

The question of whether or not to disclose the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal “goes to the very heart of our democratic system of government,” said Senator Brien McMahon (D-CT) in a newly rediscovered 1949 speech (pdf) on secrecy in nuclear weapons policy.

“Do we possess five bombs, or fifty bombs, or five hundred bombs?  Are we strong or weak in the field of atomic weapons?  Only the Atomic Energy Commissioners, high-ranking military men, and a few others know the correct answer to these vital questions,” Sen. McMahon said.

Sen. McMahon (1903-1952) was the principal author of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which established the Atomic Energy Commission and placed control of nuclear weapons in civilian hands.

“Though I have been a member of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy since its inception, and though I have just been elected its chairman, I do not myself know how many bombs we possess or how rapidly we are making new ones,” he said.

“It is interesting to note that concealment of atomic production rates is secrecy of a scope which has never been attempted before during peacetime in the United States,” Sen. McMahon said. He indicated that he had not reached a definite conclusion as to whether the size of the stockpile size should be made public.

The text of Senator McMahon’s January 31, 1949 address to the Economic Club of Detroit was entered into his rather voluminous FBI file, which was obtained by researcher Michael Ravnitzky.

Illustrating the often glacial pace of secrecy reform, it was not until May 3 of this year that the current size of the nuclear arsenal was officially revealed for the first time.

The Obama Administration continued its pursuit of individuals who leak classified information to the press with another indictment of a suspected leaker. The Department of Justice announced last week that Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor, had been indicted (pdf) under the Espionage Act for the unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and for lying to the FBI.  Mr. Kim pleaded not guilty to both charges.

The classified information, which was not specified in the indictment, reportedly consisted of a 2009 intelligence assessment conveyed to Fox News stating that North Korea was likely to respond to United Nations sanctions by conducting another nuclear explosive test.

“The willful disclosure of classified information to those not entitled to it is a serious crime,” said Assistant Attorney General David S. Kris in an August 27 news release. “Today’s indictment should serve as a warning to anyone who is entrusted with sensitive national security information and would consider compromising it.”

Mr. Kim’s attorneys blasted the decision to indict him.

“In its obsession to clamp down on perfectly appropriate conversations between government employees and the press, the Obama Administration has forgotten that wise foreign policy must be founded on a two-way conversation between government and the public,” said Abbe D. Lowell and Ruth Wedgwood in an August 27 statement (pdf) on the case.

“It is so disappointing that the Justice Department has chosen to stretch the espionage laws to cover ordinary and normal conversations between government officials and the press and, in doing so, destroy the career of a loyal civil servant and brilliant foreign policy analyst,” they said.  “There is no allegation that a document was given, that any money changed hands, that any foreign government was involved, or that there was any improper motive in the type of government/media exchanges that happen hundreds of times a day in Washington.”

Mr. Kim was released pending trial on a $100,000 property bond.  A status conference in the case has been set for October 13, 2010.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry said that more criminal prosecutions were needed to deter leaks of classified information.

“When I was secretary, we had an example of an egregious leak which I thought compromised national security,” Secretary Perry told Senator McCain on August 3. “We prosecuted a case and sent the leaker to prison. And I think more examples of that would be useful in injecting better discipline in the system.”

However, he may have misspoken.  There does not seem to have been a leak prosecution during the years that he served as Secretary (1993-1997), and Dr. Perry’s office was not able to provide clarification of his remarks.

Technologies to modify the Earth’s climate are at least conceivable and, in the absence of a comprehensive national and international climate change policy, may soon emerge as practical alternatives, a new survey of the subject from the Congressional Research Service suggests.

“The term ‘geoengineering’ describes this array of technologies that aim, through large-scale and deliberate modifications of the Earth’s energy balance, to reduce temperatures and counteract anthropogenic climate change,” the CRS report said.  However, “Most of these technologies are at the conceptual and research stages, and their effectiveness at reducing global temperatures has yet to be proven.”

“Moreover, very few studies have been published that document the cost, environmental effects, sociopolitical impacts, and legal implications of geoengineering. If geoengineering technologies were to be deployed, they are expected to have the potential to cause significant transboundary effects.”  See “Geoengineering: Governance and Technology Policy” (pdf), August 16, 2010.

The Congressional Research Service — acting at congressional direction — does not permit direct public access to its publications.  Some other recent CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News include the following (all pdf).

“Federal Civil and Criminal Penalties Possibly Applicable to Parties Responsible for the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill,” August 16, 2010.

“Public Employees’ Right to Privacy in Their Electronic Communications: City of Ontario v. Quon in the Supreme Court,” July 28, 2010.

“Samantar v. Yousef: The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and Foreign Officials,” August 24, 2010.

“The European Union’s Response to the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis,” August 13, 2010.

“Turkey: Politics of Identity and Power,” August 13, 2010.