The number of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the decade following 9/11 is documented or projected in a detailed new report from the Congressional Research Service.  “Using five DOD sources, this report describes, analyzes, and estimates the number of troops deployed for each war from the 9/11 attacks to FY2012 to help Congress assess upcoming DOD war funding requests as well as the implications for the long-term U.S. presence in the region.”  See “Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001-FY2012: Cost and Other Potential Issues” (pdf), July 2, 2009.

Other substantively new and interesting CRS reports that have not previously been published online include the following (all pdf).

“U.S. Security Assistance to the Palestinihttps://sgp.fas.org/an Authority,” June 24, 2009.

“North Korea’s Second Nuclear Test: Implications of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874,” July 1, 2009.

“Indonesia: Domestic Politics, Strategic Dynamics, and American Interests,” updated June 17, 2009.

Last month, for the first time since 1989, the House of Representatives impeached a federal judge, Samuel B. Kent of the Southern District of Texas.  Background on the process is helpfully provided in “Impeachment: An Overview of Constitutional Provisions, Procedure, and Practice,” June 22, 2009.

Resolutions of Inquiry are increasingly used in the House of Representatives to elicit information from the executive branch.  In the current Congress, eleven such resolutions had been introduced by mid-June.  An updated account of this legislative instrument is given in “House Resolutions of Inquiry,” June 17, 2009.

Last year, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought by the ACLU against the National Security Agency challenging the constitutionality of the Terrorist Surveillance Program.  Sen. Arlen Specter wrote to Judge Sonia Sotomayor this week asking the Supreme Court nominee to be prepared at her confirmation hearing next week to say, among other things, whether she would have favored Supreme Court review of the matter.

The DNI Information Sharing Environment has released its latest annual report (pdf), detailing progress made and challenges remaining in the effort to improve sharing of terrorism-related information among authorized users, which generally does not include members of the public.

The public interest group OMB Watch reviewed the evolving policy on “controlled unclassified information” and offered its own critique in “Controlled Unclassified Information: Recommendations for Information Control Reform” (pdf), July 2009.

Compliance with IAEA nuclear safeguards agreements is mandated in a new Air Force Instruction that also provides useful background on the safeguards process.  See “Implementation of the US-International Atomic Energy Agency Integrated Safeguards Agreements” (pdf), Air Force Instruction 16-605, June 23, 2009.

The effectiveness and the unintended consequences of U.S. export control policies were discussed at a hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee.  The record of that hearing, with extensive post-hearing questions for the record, has just been published.  See “Impacts of U.S. Export Control Policies on Science and Technology Activities and Competitiveness” (pdf), February 25, 2009.

Public comments and recommendations on classification and declassification policies and related matters are being received until July 19 on the White House Office of Science and Technology blog.

Last month, the House Intelligence Committee complained that the Department of Defense has blurred the distinction between traditional intelligence collection, which is subject to intelligence committee oversight, and clandestine military operations, which are not.  Because they are labeled in a misleading manner, some DoD clandestine operations that are substantively the same as intelligence activities are evading the congressional oversight they are supposed to receive.

“In categorizing its clandestine activities,” the Committee said in its report on the 2010 intelligence bill, “DoD frequently labels them as ‘Operational Preparation of the Environment’ (OPE) to distinguish particular operations as traditional military activities and not as intelligence functions.  The Committee observes, though, that overuse of the term has made the distinction all but meaningless.”

Operational Preparation of the Environment (OPE) is an elusive, somewhat mysterious concept, variously described as a form of foreign intelligence collection, covert action, unconventional warfare, or a prelude to any of these.  The phrase does not appear in the otherwise comprehensive DoD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (pdf).  It was mentioned in passing in the 2006 Posture Statement (pdf) of the U.S. Special Operations Command, but not in subsequent posture statements.

Some say OPE closely resembles human intelligence collection.  OPE refers to “the ability of Defense to get into an area and know it prior to the conduct of military operations,” said Gen. Michael Hayden at his 2006 confirmation hearing to be Director of CIA.  “An awful lot of those [OPE] activities… are not, in terms of tradecraft or other aspects, recognizably different than collecting human intelligence for a foreign intelligence purpose,” he said.  “They look very much the same.  Different authorities;  somewhat different purposes;  mostly indistinguishable activities.”

From another point of view, OPE is more akin to covert action.  “There is often not a bright line between [covert action and] military activities to prepare the battlefield or the environment,” said DNI Dennis C. Blair in a written response to questions (pdf) about OPE in advance of his confirmation earlier this year (pp. 15-16).

Though it was neither intelligence collection nor covert action, “U.S. support to and in some cases leadership of irregular resistance to Japanese forces in the Philippine archipelago [in 1942-1945]… stands as a premier example of what military planners today call operational preparation of the environment,” according to a historical survey of unconventional warfare in the September 2007 Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept (pdf).

Perhaps the most extensive unclassified treatment of OPE (then still known as “operational preparation of the battlespace” or OPB) appears in a 2003 U.S. Army War College research paper, which noted that the term is “seldom used outside of Special Operations Forces channels.”  OPE “consists of both pre-crisis activities (PCA) and, when authorized, advance force operations (AFO),” both of which are described by the author at some length.  See “Combating Terrorism with Preparation of the Battlespace” (pdf) by Michael S. Repass, U.S. Army War College, April 2003.  Further discussion appeared in “Leveraging Operational Preparation of the Environment in the GWOT” (pdf) by Maj. Michael T. Kenny, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2006.  OPE should be reconceived as a stand-alone mission with its own doctrine, argued another research paper.  See “Ending the Debate: Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, and Why Words Matter” (pdf) by D. Jones, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2006.

In any event, “DoD has shown a propensity to apply the OPE label where the slightest nexus of a theoretical, distant military operation might one day exist,” according to the House Intelligence Committee report last month.  “Consequently, these activities often escape the scrutiny of the intelligence committees…. In the future, if DoD does not meet its obligations to inform the Committee of intelligence activities,” the House report concluded weakly, “the Committee will consider legislative action clarifying the Department’s obligation to do so.”

The increasing capability of high-resolution military and intelligence sensors is producing ever growing quantities of data that could overwhelm the capacity to analyze them without new approaches to data management and analysis, according to a newly released report (pdf) from the JASON defense advisory panel.

“As the amount of data captured by these sensors grows, the difficulty in storing, analyzing, and fusing the sensor data becomes increasingly significant,” the report said.

Extrapolating from current trends, data production could hypothetically reach the Yottabyte range by 2015.  (The Yotta- prefix means ten raised to the twenty-fourth power.  Mega- means ten to the sixth power, Giga- means ten to the ninth power, and Tera- is ten to the twelfth power.)  If one byte of data were used to image one square meter of the Earth’s surface, then 1.6 Yottabytes would be generated by imaging the entire surface of the Earth every second for a hundred years, the report explained.

While the data management challenge is daunting, it is not unmanageable in principle, the JASONs said, nor is it entirely unprecedented.  “Important parallels can be drawn with data intensive science efforts such as high energy physics and astronomy.”  These efforts show how data filtering approaches can be applied to reduce data storage and processing requirements well below the Yottabyte range.

The report suggested several research and development strategies for improving data management and analysis.  The JASONs also proposed a series of “grand challenges” that would set ambitious technical goals and provide monetary rewards for their achievement.

The December 2008 JASON report was initially withheld from public access, but a copy was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Secrecy News.  See “Data Analysis Challenges”.

A new Joint Chiefs of Staff publication presents updated doctrine on intelligence preparation of the operational environment — which, confusingly enough, is not the same thing as “operational preparation of the environment” (OPE).  See “Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment” (pdf), Joint Publication JP 2-01.3, June 16, 2009.

The Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines last week became the 181st State to have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits all nuclear explosive testing.

Public discussion of proposed or desired changes to national security classification and declassification policies continues this week on the web site of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Although people have been complaining about abuse of the national security classification system for decades, such complaints have rarely been translated into real policy changes.

More than half a century ago, a Defense Department advisory committee warned that “Overclassification has reached serious proportions.”  But despite innumerable attempts at corrective action over the years by official commissions, legislators, public interest groups and others, similar or identical complaints echo today.  What is even more interesting and instructive, however, is that a few of those attempts did not fail.  Instead, they led to specific, identifiable reductions in official secrecy, at least on a limited scale.

For example, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) that was created in 1995 has consistently overturned the classification of information in the majority of documents presented for its review.  And the Fundamental Classification Policy Review that was performed by the Department of Energy in 1995 eliminated dozens of obsolete classification categories following a detailed review of agency classification guides.  These and just a few other exceptional efforts demonstrate that even deeply entrenched secrecy practices can be overcome under certain conditions.

In an effort to identify some of those conditions, I wrote a paper entitled “Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works” (pdf). It has just been published in the Yale Law and Policy Review, volume 27, no. 2, Spring 2009.

Among other things, the experience of the ISCAP underscores the importance of extending declassification authority beyond the agency that imposed the classification in the first place.  It would be useless to restore “the presumption against classification” in cases of “significant doubt,” as President Obama suggested on May 29, if that presumption applied only when such doubt arose in the mind of the classifier.  But if classification were to be overruled by doubt in the minds of other persons — ISOO overseers, Inspector General auditors, judges in FOIA proceedings, and others — significant changes would be enabled.

However, systemic classification reform simply will not happen without careful independent review of agency classification guides, which specify exactly what information is to be classified.  The DoE Fundamental Classification Policy Review proves that such a review, including public participation and input, is both possible and highly effective. It needs to be replicated at other classifying agencies.

The White House has announced an online process for receiving public comments and recommendations for changes to classification and declassification policies.  Discussion of declassification policy begins today here.

The House Intelligence Committee last week filed its report on the FY 2010 intelligence authorization act, including many interesting and potentially important intelligence policy provisions.

Perhaps the most significant measure is the proposed creation of a statutory inspector general for the intelligence community.  Other steps include a requirement to report on the number of Federal Government employees who hold security clearances (remarkably, a number that is not readily available today, even within the government); cautious endorsement of a limited role for the Government Accountability Office in intelligence oversight (a move favored by FAS [pdf]); expanded review and notification requirements concerning covert action; a proposed study on the possibility of revoking the pensions of persons who commit unauthorized disclosures of classified information; and quite a bit more.

See “Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010,” House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, H.Rept. 111-186, June 26, 2009.

Bill Leonard, the esteemed former director of the Information Security Oversight Office and the principal overseer of the government secrecy system, now has his own blog where readers may look for his views and his insights on secrecy policy as the process of classification reform gets underway in earnest.

The House Judiciary Committee rebuffed a Republican proposal for a “resolution of inquiry” to require the Administration to produce documents concerning the use of Miranda warnings given to detainees captured in Afghanistan.  The Committee’s adverse report, dated June 26, is available here.

The Defense Department has issued a newly updated policy statement (pdf) on reporting “questionable” intelligence activities.  “It is DoD policy that senior leaders and policymakers within the Government be made aware of events that may erode the public trust in the conduct of DoD intelligence operations,” the June 17, 2009 memorandum states.  Some such questionable activities are to be reported to the Intelligence Oversight Board, a component of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. However, the efficacy of any such reporting is limited by the fact that that Board currently has no sitting members. (“White House Intel Advisory Board Has No Members,” Secrecy News, June 15, 2009).

More than anything else, Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a judicial conservative who has hewed closely to established precedent, according to a new analysis by the Congressional Research Service of appellate court decisions authored by President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

“Perhaps the most consistent characteristic of Judge Sotomayor’s approach as an appellate judge has been an adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis, i.e., the upholding of past judicial precedents,” the 59-page CRS report (pdf) stated.

In several important areas, however, the Judge’s conception of the law remains opaque.  For example, “An examination of Judge Sotomayor’s opinions provides little guidance as to her judicial philosophy regarding executive authority in the realm of national security,” the report said.

Judge Sotomayor authored two opinions involving the Freedom of Information Act.  But “because the opinions are few and relied on relevant Supreme Court precedent, it is difficult to draw conclusions from them regarding her overall approach to FOIA or to related matters such as individual privacy or transparency in government,” the CRS concluded.  See “Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Analysis of Selected Opinions,” June 19, 2009.

Other noteworthy new CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News include the following (all pdf):

“Supreme Court Nominations: Senate Floor Procedure and Practice, 1789-2009,” updated June 5, 2009.

“Inherently Governmental Functions and Department of Defense Operations: Background, Issues, and Options for Congress,” June 22, 2009.

“Federal Rulemaking: The Role of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs,” June 9, 2009.

“Homeland Security Department: FY2010 Request for Appropriations,” June 15, 2009.

“Iran’s 2009 Presidential Elections,” June 22, 2009.

At the request of the National Security Advisor, a public meeting has been scheduled for July 8 to solicit public comments and recommendations concerning proposed revisions to executive branch classification and declassification policies.  The meeting was announced in a June 23 Federal Register notice.

The Public Interest Declassification Board, which is hosting the July 8 meeting, will also launch a new blog next week to solicit public recommendations online.  The blog will sequentially consider four areas: declassification policy, creation of a National Declassification Center, classification policy, and technology challenges and opportunities.  Discussion of each topic will continue for three days, before moving to the next topic.

Meanwhile, an experimental and somewhat erratic White House process for gathering public input on transparency and openness has entered its third phase, intended to draft “constructive proposals” for advancing open government.

In February 2008, the U.S. fired a missile at an inoperable U.S. intelligence satellite that had failed shortly after launch in December 2006. The satellite was destroyed reportedly in order to prevent an intact reentry of its toxic hydrazine fuel tank.  But do we know why or how it failed in the first place?

“No,” the director of the National Reconnaissance Office told Congress last year, in newly disclosed responses (pdf) to questions for the record (p.89).

“After an exhaustive formal failure investigation, and three different independent review team investigations, the cause of the failure and what failed was not determined,” said Scott Large, then-director of the NRO.  “Our exhaustive analysis of the spacecraft design and test program did not identify the root cause of the failure,” Mr. Large said.  His remarks appeared in the record of a March 5, 2008 hearing before the House Armed Services Committee that was published this month.

“The era of Acquisition Reform is over,” Mr. Large also told Congress.  “It has left the NRO in a fragile state with a poor history of performance.”

On June 12, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, with concurrence of the DNI, appointed retired Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson as the 17th director of the National Reconnaissance Office.

A new U.S. Marine Corps Order establishes Corps policy governing the disclosure of U.S. classified military information and controlled unclassified information to foreign governments.  See “Disclosure of Military Information to Foreign Governments and Interests” (pdf), MCO 5510.20A, May 15, 2009.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff issued new doctrinal guidance on combating weapons of mass destruction, including the three pillars of nonproliferation, counterproliferations, and WMD consequence management.  See “Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction” (pdf), Joint Publication 3-40, June 10, 2009.

The Merit Systems Protection Board upheld the firing of federal air marshal Robert MacLean for allegedly disclosing “sensitive security information,” even though the information in question had not been marked as “sensitive” at the time, reports Nick Schwellenbach of the Center for Public Integrity. But then the Board published its ruling online even though the document (pdf) was marked “sensitive security information.” No word yet on whether the Board will fire itself. See “Transparency: A Shrill Message for Whistleblowers,” June 25.