The constitutionality of the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program was examined from various points of view at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee today.

“The President had ample authority to authorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program under acts of Congress and the Constitution,” said Steven Bradbury of the Justice Department in a prepared statement (pdf).

It’s not so simple, said Louis Fisher of the Law Library of Congress in an extended analysis (pdf). “Federal courts have rejected the theory that the President has ‘inherent’ constitutional authority to engage in warrantless domestic surveillance.”

The President’s program is clearly illegal, argued conservative critic Bruce Fein. “If Congress leaves the Bush administration’s illegal spying programs unrebuked, a precedent will have been established that will lie around like a loaded weapon ready for permanent use throughout the endless conflict with international terrorism,” he said (pdf).

See the prepared testimony from the June 7 hearing on “Constitutional Limitations on Domestic Surveillance”.

The convoluted procedures by which the U.S. government purchases weapons and other military systems are rendered almost intelligible in a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

The report introduces the defense acquisition structure, summarizes several recent analyses of that structure, and points towards some unfinished business.

“The unparalleled complexity of DOD’s defense acquisition structure lends itself to the continued emergence of many problematic issues,” the CRS report said.

“Simply put,” the House Armed Services Committee said last year, “the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition process is broken… The rising costs and lengthening schedules of major defense acquisition programs lead to more expensive platforms fielded in fewer numbers.”

A copy of the new CRS report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “Defense Acquisition: Overview, Issues, and Options for Congress,” June 4, 2007.

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Classified budget numbers concealed in an unclassified PowerPoint document suggest that total U.S. intelligence spending is significantly larger than generally assumed, perhaps around $60 billion annually.

The briefing document (ppt), prepared by Terri Everett of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), was first obtained by Tim Shorrock of Salon, who wrote a probing account of the growing prominence of contractors in U.S. intelligence agencies, who now consume 70% of the total intelligence community budget. See “The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence,” Salon, June 1, 2007.

Annual intelligence contract awards were illustrated in a bar chart in Ms. Everett’s briefing document, without dollar figures attached. But by using the edit function in Power Point, it is possible to discern the classified figures that were used to prepare the bar chart.

R.J. Hillhouse, an author and former intelligence officer who writes on intelligence and outsourcing, explained how to retrieve the concealed data in her blog The Spy Who Billed Me. See “Office of Nation’s Top Spy Inadvertently Reveals Key to Classified National Intel Budget,” June 3.

The data appear to indicate that $42 billion was awarded to contractors in FY 2005. If so, and if that represented 70% of the total budget, as stated in the preceding Power Point slide, it would follow that the total is $60 billion, rather than the $45 or $48 billion usually cited.

Intelligence officials were not available to comment on the disclosure, and a certain amount of deliberate obfuscation surrounds the subject such that it is hard to draw a firm numerical conclusion regarding overall spending. The new budget figures on contractor awards do not distinguish, for example, between “national” and military or tactical intelligence, nor is it clear whether they account for supplemental appropriations.

The Everett briefing document, which had been publicly available on the Defense Intelligence Agency web site, was withdrawn yesterday. But a copy has been posted here (see slide 11).

Update: I mistakenly referred to author R.J. Hillhouse as a former intelligence officer; she’s not. But she has provided continuing exploration of this topic on her blog The Spy Who Billed Me. Other interesting follow-up stories that have appeared are “Intel budget numbers revealed on public PowerPoint slide show” by Daniel Friedman, Federal Times, June 7; and “Intel Budget May be Buried in Powerpoint” by Laura Heaton, United Press International, June 6.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has issued a proposed regulation for public comment on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.

“The proposed regulations address all aspects of FOIA processing, including how and where to submit FOIA requests, fees for record services, procedures for handling business information, requests for expedited processing and the right to appeal denials of information,” according to the notice published in the June 4 Federal Register.

The ODNI FOIA case log (pdf), listing the subjects of all FOIA requests submitted to the ODNI through April 2007, is available here (courtesy of James Klotz and Michael Ravnitzky).

Naturally, the fact that an item was requested does not necessarily mean that it will be released.

Letters sent to Judge Reggie B. Walton regarding the sentencing of vice presidential aide Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice, were released by the court (large pdf) today. Several of them touched on matters of secrecy and national security policy.

“If there is anyone who fully understands our ‘system’ for protecting classified information, I have yet to meet him,” wrote John R. Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, implying that infractions of classification rules are to be expected.

Former CIA officer Fritz Ermarth recalled that Mr. Libby had assisted him “in a matter, although less grave, somewhat similar to that which put him on trial. It concerned official secrecy and classification, its definition and interpretation, varying recollections of who behaved how with respect to it, and aspects of abuse by authorities.”

“Mr. Libby has done more to enable the United States to address the challenges of bioterrorism than any other single person,” ventured Seth Carus of National Defense University.

“Scooter worried that liberties restricted during times of danger do not always get restored when the danger passes,” wrote Doug Feith, the controversial former Pentagon official. “A major part of the terrorist threat, he and I agreed, was the danger that a series of 9/11-type attacks could fundamentally alter — perhaps permanently — the state of civil liberties in America.”

Somewhat ironically, Mr. Libby once undertook “to persuade a newspaper not to publish information that would have endangered the life of a covert CIA agent working overseas,” wrote former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz. “Late into the evening, long after most others had left the matter to be dealt with the next day, Mr. Libby worked to collect the information that was needed to persuade the editor not to run the story.”

Most of the letters favor clemency for Mr. Libby. Many of them are poignant and heartfelt. Quite a few others are pompous and self-aggrandizing. An angry minority demand the maximum possible sentence.

The full set of letters in alphabetical order by author may be found here (373 pages in an 18 MB PDF file).

Mr. Libby was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and fined $250,000.

The detention of a man infected with tuberculosis who may have exposed fellow passengers on commercial airliners to a particularly resistant form of the disease has generated new interest in the government’s power to quarantine and isolate persons who may pose a threat to public health.

A recent report (pdf) of the Congressional Research Service provides extensive legal, factual and historical background on the subject.

In a nutshell, “state and local governments have the primary authority to control the spread of dangerous diseases within their jurisdictions, and the federal government has authority to quarantine and impose other health measures to prevent the spread of diseases from foreign countries and between states,” the CRS report explains.

See “Federal and State Quarantine and Isolation Authority,” updated January 23, 2007.

and, relatedly, see “Quarantine and Isolation: Selected Legal Issues Relating to Employment” (pdf), updated February 28, 2007.

“The term ‘quarantine’ is derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni, which refer to the 40-day period during which certain ships arriving at the port of Venice during the Black Death plague outbreaks of the 14th century were obliged to sit at anchor before any persons or goods were allowed to go ashore,” the CRS notes.

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Students at Mercyhurst College created a wiki-based resource on global disease to support the National Intelligence Council, while demonstrating the utility of the wiki approach for intelligence analysis.

“The fundamental question had to do with the impact of chronic and infectious diseases on US national interests over the next 10-15 years,” said Prof. Kristan J. Wheaton, whose class produced the wiki.

“The 26 students in the class worked for the 10 weeks of the course on the project, producing over 1000 pages of analysis on every country in the world. They also wrote global, regional and national interest reports. They even produced a process report that talks about how they did what they did and several videos to accompany the reports. The project was completed using entirely open sources.”

“The final product is interesting on a number of levels,” Prof. Wheaton told Secrecy News, “not the least of which is the way in which wiki technology facilitated the analysis.”

A description of the activity with a link to the final product can be found on the National Intelligence Council web site here.

Update: Further discussion of this initiative may be found in Government Computer News, Haft of the Spear, The SPOT Report and, for a particularly critical account, Kent’s Imperative.

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The significance of China’s naval modernization programs and their impact on U.S. national security considerations are explored in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service. See “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress” (pdf), updated May 29, 2007.

Hans Kristensen of FAS observed that a recent Department of Defense annual report (pdf) on Chinese military power conspicuously declined to endorse press reports (mainly attributable to Bill Gertz of the Washington Times) that China intends to deploy five new Jin-class ballistic missile submarines.

“Are you building five SSBNs or not?” Hans inquired in a followup letter to the Embassy of China. “No one here even knows the answer to your question,” the Embassy replied.

See “Pentagon China Report Ignores Five SSBNs Projection,” Strategic Security Blog, May 25.

Update/Clarification: Although the new DoD report did not specify the development of five Jin-class ballistic missile submarines, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence stated in a report last year that China will build “probably five” such subs, as reported in the Washington Times on March 2.

“The chances for a radical change in leadership in Cuba are remote,” the Central Intelligence Agency assessed in a 1966 analysis (pdf) that was declassified last year.

“Fidel Castro is still the undisputed ‘maximum leader’ of the Cuban revolution and the dominant figure in Cuban politics, despite rumors to the contrary which circulated widely last spring.”

See “Castro’s Cuba Today,” Current Intelligence Weekly Special Report, 30 September 1966, declassified October 2006.

See also “Cuba: U.S. Restrictions on Travel and Remittances” (pdf), Congressional Research Service, updated May 3, 2007.

and “Cuba: Issues for the 110th Congress” (pdf), updated May 1, 2007.

“The United States and Canada maintain the world’s largest trading relationship, one that has been strengthened during the past fifteen years by the approval of two multilateral free trade agreements,” according to another recently updated Congressional Research Service report (pdf).

“But it has been over security-related matters, particularly defense spending, Iraq, and missile defense, that the two governments had their sharpest differences.”

“Notwithstanding these controversies, Canada and the United States have been working together on a number of fronts to thwart terrorism, including strengthening border security, sharing intelligence and expanding law enforcement cooperation.”

See “Canada-U.S. Relations,” updated May 15, 2007.

As frequently mentioned, the Congressional Research Service does not make its products directly available to the public. Some noteworthy new CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News and not readily accessible elsewhere include the following (all pdf).

“Nuclear Weapons: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” updated May 24, 2007.

“Access to Government Information in the United States,” updated April 23, 2007.

“Security Classified and Controlled Information: History, Status, and Emerging Management Issues,” March 8, 2007.

“Security Classification Policy and Procedure: E.O. 12958, as Amended,” updated April 23, 2007.

“Central Asia’s Security: Issues and Implications for U.S. Interests,” updated April 26, 2007.

“Detection of Explosives on Airline Passengers: Recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and Related Issues,” updated April 26, 2007.

“Treatment of ‘Battlefield Detainees’ in the War on Terrorism,” updated January 23, 2007.

“The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle,” updated April 26, 2007.

“Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Education: Status and Issues,” updated April 23, 2007.

“Intelligence Issues for Congress,” updated May 16, 2007.

“National Science Foundation: Major Research Equipment and Facility Construction,” updated May 4, 2007.

“Crime and Forfeiture,” updated May 9, 2007.

“The War Powers Resolution: After Thirty-Three Years,” updated May 1, 2007.

A new Joint Chiefs of Staff publication (pdf) describes operational principles for executing deployment and redeployment — meaning transfer or withdrawal — of U.S. military forces.

“Redeployment operations, particularly for combat units, … should be identified and planned as early as possible,” the document instructs. “The operation or campaign is concluded when the national strategy end state is achieved and redeployment operations are complete.”

“Although the emphasis of this publication is on overseas deployments and redeployments, deployments within the homeland are possible in support of homeland defense and civil support.”

See “Deployment and Redeployment Operations,” Joint Publication 3-35, 7 May 2007.