For those who like to receive their government policy information and analysis in audio format (I don’t), the Congressional Research Service has launched a new series of podcasts.

The first ones, produced by the CRS Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, are a little rusty, as if the CRS analysts were reading from prepared texts rather than engaging in live conversation. But the effort seems like a worthwhile experiment in outreach– even if it was only intended for a restricted congressional audience:

Human Trafficking

An Overview of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Investment Provisions in U.S. Trade Agreements

The October 2016 term of the US Supreme Court was widely seen as “diminished both with regard to volume and content” compared to prior years. But the upcoming term is likely to be different.

“With the Court already accepting over 30 cases, many of which raise difficult questions in various areas of law, the October 2017 term has the potential to be one of the most consequential in years,” said the Congressional Research Service in a new report previewing some of those cases.

For example, “In a case that could decide whether cell phone users have a protected privacy interest in the trove of location data held by their wireless carriers, the Court in Carpenter v. United States will examine whether the government’s warrantless collection of historical cell phone location data is constrained by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.” See Supreme Court October Term 2017: A Preview of Select Cases, September 19, 2017.

See also Supreme Court October Term 2016: A Review of Select Major Rulings, September 15, 2017.

Other new and updated Congressional Research Service reports that provide informative background on current topics of public policy interest include the following.

Patent Law: A Primer and Overview of Emerging Issues, September 21, 2017

Chevron Deference: A Primer, September 19, 2017

EPA’s Role in Emergency Planning and Notification at Chemical Facilities, September 18, 2017

Confederate Symbols: Relation to Federal Lands and Programs, September 20, 2017

Normalization of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet, CRS Insight, September 20, 2017

Hurricanes and Electricity Infrastructure Hardening, CRS Insight, September 20, 2017

Wastewater Infrastructure: Overview, Funding, and Legislative Developments, September 22, 2017

Oil Spills: Background and Governance, updated September 15, 2017

Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, updated September 19, 2017

Kurds in Iraq Propose Controversial Referendum on Independence, CRS Insight, updated September 18, 2017

Lebanon, updated September 20, 2017

The State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report: Scope, Aid Restrictions, and Methodology, September 19, 2017

Serbia: Background and U.S. Relations, September 19, 2017

Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance with International Obligations, updated September 18, 2017

Redeploying U.S. Nuclear Weapons to South Korea: Background and Implications in Brief, September 14, 2017

Last month, a resolution (H.Res. 496) was introduced in the House of Representatives to “condemn and censure” President Trump for “his inadequate response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.” No action has been taken on the resolution, which was sponsored by Rep. Jerrold Nadler and 77 Democratic colleagues.

The history of such resolutions of censure was reviewed last week by the Congressional Research Service.

On only four occasions has a censure resolution ever been passed by the House or Senate, CRS found, though numerous attempts have been made since 1800 when the House proposed to charge President John Adams with interfering in judicial proceedings. All of the last three presidents prior to Trump have been targets of censure resolutions that were not adopted.

See Resolutions Censuring the President: History and Context, 1st-114th Congresses, CRS Insight, September 14, 2017.

And see, relatedly: Congressional Consideration of Resolutions to “Censure” Executive Branch Officials, CRS Insight, September 14, 2017.

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The ranks of qualified US Air Force pilots are being depleted due in part to increasing demand for commercial airline pilots, another new CRS publication reported. “According to current Air Force statistics, the service is 1,947 pilots short of its authorized strength,” CRS said. See U.S. Air Force Pilot Shortage, CRS Insight, September 11, 2017.

Other noteworthy new or updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Military Sexual Assault: A Framework for Congressional Oversight, September 12, 2017

Unauthorized Childhood Arrivals: Legislative Options, CRS Insight, September 14, 2017

Social Security: The Trust Funds, updated September 12, 2017

Social Security: What Would Happen If the Trust Funds Ran Out?, updated September 12, 2017

NASA Appropriations and Authorizations: A Fact Sheet, updated September 11, 2017

Taylor Force Act: Palestinian Terrorism-Related Payments and U.S. Aid, CRS Insight, September 12, 2017

CRISPR Gene Editing Research in Embryos Generates Scientific and Ethics Debate, CRS Insight, September 12, 2017

Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, updated September 14, 2017

Government oversight can take diverse forms even among Western democracies.

A new report from the Law Library of Congress surveys the mechanisms of parliamentary oversight of the executive branch in Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In Sweden, for example, “Any member of the public may ask the JO [Justitieombudsman, or parliamentary ombudsman] to investigate a breach of law committed by an agency or employee. The complaint must be made in writing and cannot be anonymous.”

The Law Library report does not provide comparative analysis, but simply presents a descriptive summary of each nation’s government oversight practices, with links to additional resources. Any policy conclusions to be drawn are left to the reader.

See Parliamentary Oversight of the Executive Branch, Law Library of Congress, August 2017.

Changes in classification practices at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) are expected to yield improvements in the quality of national security classification decisions and to lead to reductions in classification at NGA as well as other defense and intelligence agencies.

The most important innovation adopted by NGA is a requirement for a written justification for why each item of classified information needs to be protected, as well as how the information could be paraphrased or discussed in an unclassified manner.

NGA said it has prepared a new classification guide that includes three types of “enhancement statements” for each classification decision:

*    The “Value” statement explains why the information is being protected.

*    The “Damage” statement describes the potential impact to national security should an unauthorized disclosure occur.

*    The “Unclassified” statement outlines how a user can address the classified line item in an unclassified manner.

Notably, none of this explanatory information is required by the current executive order on classification. The order requires classifiers to be “able to” explain their classification decisions, but not to actually do so.

By contrast, the NGA formula is likely to promote a more thoughtful and limited approach to classifying national security information, said Mark Bradley, director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO).

“Including an unclassified paraphrase is especially useful for helping derivative classifiers understand how it may be possible to use the information in an unclassified context,” said Mr. Bradley. “That alone can certainly move the needle towards reducing overclassification.”

NGA said that as of June 2017 it had produced enhancement statements for 292 classified line items in its new consolidated security classification guide.

The new NGA policy was described in the Agency’s report to ISOO on the recently-completed Fundamental Classification Guidance Review. A copy of the report was obtained from NGA under the Freedom of Information Act.

*    *    *

Why would NGA voluntarily impose new requirements on its own classifiers beyond what the executive order mandates?

There are several factors at work. Of all U.S. intelligence agencies, “NGA has  a greater mission need to work more and more in an unclassified environment,” said Mr. Bradley. “This need is playing a central role in driving their new approach.”

Furthermore, under NGA director Robert Cardillo, “NGA’s leadership supports innovation. They realized that their classification guide process was too ‘old school’,” he said.

More specifically, “NGA took DNI Clapper’s [March 2016] memo on the FCGR process to heart.” (See “DNI Clapper Embraces Review of Secrecy System,” Secrecy News, April 6, 2016). And Mr. Bradley cited a visit to the NGA Director by the Public Interest Declassification Board, which he said also provided a useful impetus.

Overall, “the changes we are seeing at NGA are arcing more towards sharing than protecting. That could help shift the paradigm away from excessive secrecy and over-classification,” Mr. Bradley said.

The Agency itself declared that “NGA is leading the DoD and IC [Intelligence Community] in classification management transformation.”

NGA said that its use of enhancement statements to improve classification guides will soon be adopted throughout the Department of Defense, including all DoD intelligence agencies and military services, in a forthcoming revision of DoD manual 5200.45 on classification guidance.

But Mr. Bradley cautioned that “NGA’s model may not be all that easy to adapt to the rest of the IC.”

“NGA has a comparatively limited and well-defined mission with a significant need to share its information. Agencies most likely to benefit from NGA’s model probably include NRO and maybe NSA, [which are] IC agencies with similarly clearly-defined responsibilities and advanced existing classification management infrastructures already in place.”

On the other hand, “I suspect that applying NGA’s model to CIA, DIA, and the military intelligence services would be more challenging because of their decentralized management structures and technical limitations. And, of course, one would be silly to ignore the always-present institutional resistance to wholesale change,” Mr. Bradley said.

Although NGA’s new approach is mission-driven, it should have positive repercussions for public access to agency information by “enabling greater transparency and information sharing.” The new NGA classification guidance provides “better identification and protection of the truly important information — higher walls around fewer secrets,” NGA said.

NGA’s activity in this area is “extremely impressive, groundbreaking work,” said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in feedback quoted by NGA. “Clearly, [it is] a possible example or model for how to achieve transformation, for the IC and nationally.”

The new NGA approach evolved from the second Fundamental Classification Guidance Review in 2016-2017 that was required by the 2009 executive order 13526. That Review process has served to streamline and update classification requirements government-wide.

In recent years there have been signs of a more focused and disciplined approach to classification in several corners of the national security bureaucracy. The volume of new national security secrets tabulated by agencies in each of the past three years is lower than ever previously reported by the Information Security Oversight Office.

While most of Syria’s declared chemical weapons facilities have been destroyed, the possibility of undeclared stockpiles has been hard to rule out. UN investigators said they have confirmed the use of chemical weapons in attacks attributed to the Asad regime. Background on the subject was provided by the Congressional Research Service last week in Syria’s Chemical Weapons: Continuing Challenges, CRS Insight, September 8, 2017.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies, updated September 8, 2017

Congressional Considerations Related to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, CRS Insight, updated September 8, 2017

Patentable Subject Matter Reform, September 8, 2017

The DACA and DAPA Deferred Action Initiatives: Frequently Asked Questions, updated September 6, 2017

The End of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program: Some Immediate Takeaways, CRS Legal Sidebar, September 8, 2017

Do the security clearance procedures that are used for granting access to classified information actually serve their intended purpose?

To help answer that question, the Senate Intelligence Committee mandated a review of security clearance requirements, including “their collective utility in anticipating future insider threats.”

See the Committee’s new report on the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, filed September 7, 2017.

The report summarizes the content of the pending intelligence authorization bill (S. 1761), which was filed last month, and adds Committee comments on various aspects of current intelligence policy.

So, for example, “The Committee remains concerned about the level of protection afforded to whistleblowers within the IC and the level of insight congressional committees have into their disclosures.”

The central point of contention in the bill is a provision (sec. 623) declaring a sense of Congress “that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.”

The provision had originally stated that WikiLeaks and its leadership “constitute” a non-state hostile intelligence service. But this was amended to replace “constitute” with “resemble”. That move might have attenuated the provision’s significance except that it went on to say — whether WikiLeaks constitutes or merely resembles a non-state hostile intelligence service — that the U.S. should treat it as such.

A hostile state-based intelligence service would presumably be subject to intense surveillance by the US. A competent US counterintelligence agency might also seek to infiltrate the hostile service, to subvert its agenda, and even to take it over or disable it.

Whether such a response would also be elicited by “a non-state hostile intelligence service” is hard to say since the concept itself is new and undefined.

“The Committee’s bill offers no definition of ‘non-state hostile intelligence service’ to clarify what this term is and is not,” wrote Sen. Kamala Harris, who favored removal of this language, though she said WikiLeaks has “done considerable harm to this country.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, who likewise said that WikiLeaks had been “part of a direct attack on our democracy,” opposed the bill due to the WikiLeaks-related provision.

“My concern is that the use of the novel phrase ‘non-state hostile intelligence service’ may have legal, constitutional, and policy implications, particularly should it be applied to journalists inquiring about secrets,” Sen. Wyden wrote in minority views appended to the report. “The language in the bill suggesting that the U.S. government has some unstated course of action against ‘non-state hostile intelligence services’ is equally troubling.”

If the Trump Administration decided to terminate U.S. acceptance and implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement, how might it do that?

The Congressional Research Service considered the question, without advocating such a move, in a new report.

“There are several mechanisms or methods the Administration might use to cease implementing the JCPOA [Iran nuclear agreement] or to alter its implementation, if there is a decision to do so,” CRS found. These include provisions in the agreement itself or in the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that was passed in 2015.

See Options to Cease Implementing the Iran Nuclear Agreement, September 7, 2017.

Dealing with the debris left by a major disaster such as Hurricane Harvey is a challenge that requires skilled management to overcome, a new report from the Congressional Research Service explains.

“In the aftermath of a major disaster, a potential threat to safety and obstacle to recovery is the presence of significant amounts of disaster debris.”

“Improperly managing debris can have detrimental long-term repercussions. During or after a disaster, some debris will likely become mixed with hazardous constituents. For example, under flooding conditions, household hazardous waste or sewage may contaminate otherwise benign personal property or building materials, such as drywall or carpeting. Improper disposal of contaminated debris may lead to future environmental, health, or safety problems, such as groundwater contamination.”

The CRS report provides an overview of the legal and regulatory frameworks for addressing disposal of post-disaster debris. See Disaster Debris Management: Requirements, Challenges, and Federal Agency Roles, September 6, 2017.

Other notable new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Floodplain Management and Flood Resilience: Current Policy and Considerations for Congress, CRS Insight, September 6, 2017

Issues in Autonomous Vehicle Deployment, September 1, 2017

Retirement Benefits for Federal Law Enforcement Personnel, updated September 5, 2017

Qatar: Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, updated September 1, 2017

Paraguay: In Brief, August 31, 2017

New Financial Sanctions on Venezuela: Key Issues, CRS Insight, September 1, 2017

Since 2002, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system has reportedly achieved 36 successful missile intercepts out of 44 attempts. Lately, Japan has indicated that it will purchase and deploy an Aegis Ashore system to bolster its own defense against North Korean missiles. See Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, updated September 1, 2017.

Aside from immediate needs for food, shelter, and medical care incurred by Hurricane Harvey, there are important disaster response and recovery tasks that will require prompt attention from Congress, according to an overview from the Congressional Research Service.

These tasks include appropriation of supplemental funds and extension of needed authorities.

“Special attention will be paid to the remaining balance of the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) that pays for most of the immediate response activities supported by the federal government,” CRS said. “Before Hurricane Harvey made landfall the DRF had roughly $3.5 billion in total unobligated resources available. The total projected end-of-fiscal-year balance, as of July 31 (prior to Hurricane Harvey), was $1.45 billion.”

The uneven availability of flood insurance must also be addressed.

“Flood insurance claims made through the NFIP [National Flood Insurance Program] will be an important source of financial assistance to policyholders in the region. However, past data on participation (i.e., penetration) rates suggests that many properties in the special flood hazard area (SFHA) affected by Hurricane Harvey may not have flood insurance.”

In any case, “Key provisions of the NFIP are also set to expire on September 30, 2017…. Expiration of these authorities could have a deleterious effect on the NFIP’s ability to meet needs following Hurricane Harvey,” CRS said. See Congressional Considerations Related to Hurricane Harvey, CRS Insight, August 29, 2017.

Other new or newly-relevant publications from the Congressional Research Service on disaster response include the following.

Hurricane Harvey and Army Corps: Background for Flood Response and Recovery, CRS Insight, August 29, 2017

Oil and Chemical Spills: Federal Emergency Response Framework, August 29, 2017

Introduction to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), July 25, 2017

Federal Disaster Assistance Response and Recovery Programs: Brief Summaries, July 18, 2017

Private Flood Insurance in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), CRS Insight, June 2, 2017

Federal Disaster Assistance: The National Flood Insurance Program and Other Federal Disaster Assistance Programs Available to Individuals and Households After a Flood, April 6, 2017

Major Disaster Assistance from the Disaster Relief Fund: State Profiles, March 29, 2017

Dam Safety: Federal Programs and Authorities, CRS In Focus, February 23, 2017

FEMA Disaster Housing: The Individuals and Households Program–Implementation and Potential Issues for Congress, September 2, 2016

Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies, May 19, 2015

Deployable Federal Assets Supporting Domestic Disaster Response Operations: Summary and Considerations for Congress, May 13, 2015

FEMA’s Disaster Declaration Process: A Primer, November 12, 2014

FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund: Overview and Selected Issues, May 7, 2014

FEMA Disaster Cost-Shares: Evolution and Analysis, April 4, 2013

FY2013 Supplemental Funding for Disaster Relief, February 19, 2013

Federal Involvement in Flood Response and Flood Infrastructure Repair: Storm Sandy Recovery, October 31, 2012

The National Security Agency has declassified the finding aid for a collection of thousands of historically valuable NSA scientific and technical records that were transferred to the National Archives (NARA) last year.

Up to now the contents of the collection had been opaque to the public. As David Langbart of NARA described the collection to the State Department Historical Advisory Committee last year:

“These records mostly consist of technical, analytical, historical, operational, and translation reports and related materials. Most of the records date from the period from the 1940s to the 1960s, but there are also documents from the 1920s and 1930s and even earlier. The NSA reviewed the records for declassification before accessioning and most documents and folder titles remain classified. [. . .] The finding aid prepared by NSA was the only practical way to locate documents of interest for researchers, but it is 557 pages long and is classified.”

When confronted with this impasse last month, the National Security Agency to its credit moved to rectify matters by declassifying the finding aid, which is now available as a .pdf file here (or as an .xlsx file here).

Most of the folder titles (listed beginning on p. 13 of the .pdf file) deal with narrow, highly specialized aspects of cryptologic history prior to 1965. A few examples picked at random: German Signals Intelligence in World War II; A Compilation of Soviet VHF, UHF and SHG Activity by Area, Source and Service; Hungarian Army Communications; Description of Chinese Communist Communications Network; and so on. Those folders all remain classified. But armed with the titles and file locations of such records (and of thousands more), researchers can now pursue their declassification.

Release of the finding aid by NSA “should help interested researchers gain access to relevant material more readily,” said David J. Sherman of NSA, who facilitated disclosure of the document.

The Congressional Research Service has prepared a summary overview of the presidential pardon power, addressing various legal questions such as: “whether the President can issue ‘prospective’ pardons; whether the President can pardon himself; and the extent to which Congress can regulate or respond to the exercise of the President’s pardon authority.”

So can the President pardon himself?

“The Framers did not debate this question at the Convention, and it unclear whether they considered whether the pardon power could be applied in this manner. No President has attempted to pardon himself. . . Accordingly, this is an unsettled constitutional question, unlikely to be resolved unless a President acts to pardon himself for a criminal offense.”

See Presidential Pardons: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), CRS Legal Sidebar, August 28, 2017.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following:

Allowances and Office Staff for Former Presidents, FY2016-FY2018 Appropriations, CRS Insight, August 28, 2017

Transport Agencies Withdraw Proposed Sleep Apnea Rules, CRS Insight, August 24, 2017

Kurds in Iraq Propose Controversial Referendum on Independence, CRS Insight, August 25, 2017

China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States, updated August 26, 2017

China-U.S. Trade Issues, updated August 26, 2017