Attorney General Alberto Gonzales notified the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that President Bush will not reauthorize the controversial Terrorist Surveillance Program and that the surveillance activities conducted in that program will henceforth be subject to authorization by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The Attorney General’s January 17 letter to Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter is here (pdf).

The initial responses of Senators Leahy and Specter are here.

The numerous questions raised by the Attorney General’s letter were asked though mostly not answered in a background briefing for reporters which is transcribed here.

Background on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act may be found here.

Some noteworthy new reports of the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“Iran: Profile and Statements of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” January 16, 2007.

“Iraq: Regional Perspectives and U.S. Policy,” January 12, 2007.

“A Joint Committee on Intelligence: Proposals and Options from the 9/11 Commission and Others,” updated December 20, 2006.

“Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense — Background and Issues for Congress,” updated December 19, 2006.

“Federal Emergency Management Policy Changes After Hurricane Katrina: A Summary of Statutory Provisions,” December 15, 2006.

The imposition of a deadline for automatic declassification of most 25 year old, historically valuable classified records on December 31, 2006 rewrote the bureaucratic software that governs the national security classification system. In principle, official secrecy can no longer be indefinite and open-ended.

Nevertheless, declassification will not be translated into disclosure and public access until the severe logistical and financial challenges that are facing the National Archives can be overcome.

The Washington Post took a look at the lay of the land in “How to Bury A Secret: Turn it into Paperwork” by Lynne Duke, January 16, 2007.

The current state of scientific knowledge regarding the conduct of interrogation and related forms of intelligence gathering is limited by numerous gaps in theoretical and practical understanding, according to a new book-length study (pdf) from the Intelligence Science Board, an advisory panel to the U.S. intelligence community.

The study was prompted by “concerns about recent U.S. interrogation activities, subsequent investigations, and the efficacy of contemporary tactics, techniques, and procedures.”

The ISB report is somewhat artfully titled “Educing Information,” a term that encompasses interrogation as well as other forms of eliciting information.

The study notes that an accurate perception of the realities of interrogation has been impeded by erroneous preconceptions shaped by wish-fulfillment or popular culture.

“A major stumbling block to the study of interrogation, and especially to the conduct of interrogation in field operations, has been the all-too-common misunderstanding of the nature and scope of the discipline.”

“Most observers, even those within professional circles, have unfortunately been influenced by the media’s colorful (and artificial) view of interrogation as almost always involving hostility and the employment of force — be it physical or psychological — by the interrogator against the hapless, often slow-witted subject.” (p. 95).

A detailed literature review, expert interviews and consideration of the historical record present a more qualified and uncertain picture.

Fundamentally, “there is little systematic knowledge available to tell us ‘what works’ in interrogation. We do not know what systems, methods, or processes of interrogation best protect the nation’s security.”

“For example, we lack systematic information to guide us as to who should perform interrogations. We do not know what benefits would result if we changed the way we recruit, train, and manage our interrogators.” (p. 8).

Dr. Paulette Otis, a contributor to the study (though not an ISB member), summarized her view of its practical conclusions as follows: “(1) pain does not elicit intelligence known to prevent greater harm; (2) the use of pain is counterproductive both in a tactical and strategic sense; (3) chemical and biological methods are unreliable; (4) research tends to indicate that ‘educing’ information without the use of harsh interrogation is more valuable.”

And, of course, “‘more’ research is necessary,” said Dr. Otis, who is Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Irregular Warfare and Operational Culture in Quantico.

The unclassified ISB study was sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Counterintelligence Field Activity, among other U.S. intelligence entities.

See “Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art: Foundations for the Future,” Intelligence Science Board, Phase 1 Report, December 2006 (374 pages, 2.5 MB).

“Effective 16 October 2006, Psychological Operations was established as a basic branch of the Army, pursuant to the authority of Section 3063(a)(13), Title 10, United States Code.”

That is the substance of General Order 30 (pdf) issued by Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey on January 12, 2007.

According to the Department of Defense Dictionary (JP 1-02), psychological operations are defined as “planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives. Also called PSYOP.”

In an uncommon victory for the objectivity of the scientific advisory process, the Office of Management and Budget said that it would not implement a proposed new policy on regulatory risk assessments after a National Academy of Sciences panel said the policy was “fundamentally flawed.”

Last January the OMB issued a proposed “bulletin” (pdf) that prescribed new, centralized procedures for performing regulatory risk assessments.

But “the proposed definition of risk assessment in the OMB bulletin departs without justification from long-established concepts and practices,” the NAS panel said.

What’s worse, the proposed changes would mean that “agency risk assessments are more susceptible to being manipulated to achieve a predetermined result.”

Accordingly, the NAS panel recommended that the OMB bulletin be withdrawn. See this January 11 news release on the NAS report.

In light of the NAS critique, the OMB will not finalize the proposed bulletin, Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reported today.

See OMB Watch for further background on the OMB risk assessment proposal and the resulting controversy.

A bill to amend and strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Act was introduced yesterday by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and several bipartisan Senate colleagues.

“Our legislation ensures that Federal whistleblowers are protected from retaliatory action when notifying the public and government leaders of waste, fraud, and abuse,” Senator Akaka said.

“If we fail to protect whistleblowers, then our efforts to improve government management, protect the public, and secure the nation will also fail.”

See Introduction of the “Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act,” January 11.

Some noteworthy, newly updated products of the Congressional Research Service that are not readily available in the public domain include the following (all pdf).

“Congressional Oversight Manual,” updated January 3, 2007.

“Paperwork Reduction Act Reauthorization and Government Information Management Issues,” updated January 4, 2007.

“Nuclear Arms Control: The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty,” updated January 3, 2007.

“Proliferation Control Regimes: Background and Status,” updated December 26, 2006.

The growing military presence at U.S. embassies abroad is arousing suspicion among some foreign officials and producing friction between civilian foreign service officers and military personnel, according to a new staff report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“There is evidence that some host countries are questioning the increasingly military component of America’s profile overseas,” the report found. “Some foreign officials question what appears to them as a new emphasis by the United States on military approaches to problems that are not seen as lending themselves to military solutions.”

“For the most part, ambassadors welcome the additional resources that the military brings and they see strong military-to-military ties as an important ingredient in a strong bilateral relationship. Nonetheless, State and USAID personnel often question the purposes, quantity, and quality of the expanded military activities in-country.”

“One ambassador lamented that his effectiveness in representing the United States to foreign officials was beginning to wane, as more resources are directed to special operations forces and intelligence. Foreign officials are ‘following the money’ in terms of determining which relationships to emphasize, he reported.”

“Left unclear, blurred lines of authority between the State Department and the Defense Department could lead to interagency turf wars that undermine the effectiveness of the overall U.S. effort against terrorism. It is in the embassies rather than in Washington where interagency differences on strategies, tactics and divisions of labor are increasingly adjudicated.”

See “Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report, December 15, 2006.

Update: Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times reported on the Committee report on December 20, and it was discussed the same day in WhirledView.

A recent Presidential signing statement on the Postal Reform Act “has resulted in considerable confusion and widespread concern about the President’s commitment to abide by the basic privacy protections afforded sealed domestic mail,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “For some, it raised the specter of the Government unlawfully monitoring our mail in the name of national security.”

To mitigate such concerns, Senator Collins yesterday introduced a proposed resolution to “reaffirm the fundamental constitutional and statutory protections accorded sealed domestic mail.”

The Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007 was introduced by Senators Russ Feingold (D-Wisc) and John Sununu (R-NH) to require agencies to report to Congress on their data mining activities.

The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded its review of the ABLE DANGER program with a letter report (pdf) finding that, contrary to claims advanced by former Rep. Curt Weldon and others, the program “never produced a chart with Mohammed Atta’s photograph or name prior to the 9/11 attacks.”

There are still “unanswered questions” about former national security advisor Samuel R. Berger’s unauthorized removal of classified records from the National Archives, according to a House Government Oversight Committee minority staff report. See “Sandy Berger’s Theft of Classified Documents: Unanswered Questions” (pdf), January 9, 2007.

“Catching Terrorists: The British System versus the U.S. System” was the subject of a September 14, 2006 hearing of a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee hearing.

A redacted version of the National Reconnaissance Office Congressional Budget Justification Book for Fiscal Year 2006 was released to the Federation of American Scientists last week in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and in compliance with a court order. The more intelligible portions of the document are now posted here (pdf).

Jargon-heavy and formulaic, the redacted volume will nevertheless be of interest to close students of the NRO.

“The NRO develops and operates unique and innovative space reconnaissance systems and conducts intelligence related activities essential for U.S. national security.”

The recovery of American personnel who are lost or captured in the course of military operations abroad is the subject of a new Department of Defense doctrinal publication (pdf).

“The President of the United States can choose to exercise military, diplomatic, or civil options, or a combination thereof, to recover isolated personnel” and each of these options has been utilized over the past two decades, the report notes.

The practices and procedures for locating missing personnel and for planning and executing their recovery are discussed. See “Personnel Recovery,” Joint Publication 3-50, January 5, 2007 (283 pages, 2.5 MB PDF).