At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday on foreign cyber threats to the U.S., there were several references to the saying that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” The point, made by DNI James Clapper, was that the U.S. should not be too quick to penalize the very espionage practices that U.S. intelligence agencies rely upon, including clandestine collection of information from foreign computer networks.

But perhaps a more pertinent saying would be “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”

U.S. intelligence agencies should be well-equipped to recognize Russian cyber threats and political intervention since they have been tasked for decades to carry out comparable efforts.

A newly disclosed intelligence directive from 1999 addresses “information operations” (IO), which are defined as: “Actions taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one’s own information and information systems.”

“Although still evolving, the fundamental concept of IO is to integrate different activities to affect [adversary] decision making processes, information systems, and supporting information infrastructures to achieve specific objectives.”

The elements of information operations may include computer network attack, computer network exploitation, and covert action.

See Director of Central Intelligence Directive 7/3, Information Operations and Intelligence Community Related Activities, effective 01 July 1999.

The directive was declassified (in part) on December 2 by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, and was first obtained and published by GovernmentAttic.org.

Jeremy J. Stone, a pioneering arms control advocate who served as president of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) from 1970 to 2000, passed away on January 1, 2017 at his home in Carlsbad, California.

A mathematician by training, he turned to nuclear arms control in the early 1960s with a focus on preventing the development and deployment of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems due to their destabilizing potential. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed by the US and the USSR in 1972, was shaped in large part by Jeremy and his scientific colleagues, who collectively created the foundation for nuclear arms control in the last decades of the Cold War.

Jeremy jump-started the process of scientific exchange with China in the early 1970s. He was a prominent defender of dissident Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov, and he instituted new mechanisms for monitoring and upholding the human rights of scientists around the globe. He discovered and helped terminate a CIA program to open U.S. mail.

All of these episodes, and many more, were vividly and insightfully described in his 1999 memoir “Every Man Should Try: Adventures of a Public Interest Activist”.

Jeremy was a chess-player, on and off the chess board. He took a strategic approach to his work and his life. He did not drift. He was always on his way towards one goal or another. He might take you with him if you were lucky.

He was a scintillating conversationalist who could successfully engage even the most tongue-tied staffer or physicist. He had a sophisticated sense of humor which he wielded skillfully — perhaps following the example of his early Hudson Institute boss, the nuclear strategist Herman Kahn — to disarm opponents and to make his own ideas more palatable to skeptical or hostile audiences.

He was lucky in love, having been married for 58 years to BJ (Yannet) Stone, a brilliant, beautiful and kind mathematician, who passed away in 2015.

He was an exceptionally capable talent-spotter, and he could see the latent potential in people that they could scarcely imagine in themselves. At the Federation of American Scientists, he gathered a group of scruffy young individuals of no particular academic pedigree or obvious distinction and he shined his peculiar light on them until they bloomed. He presented them (us) with enormously difficult problems — ballistic missile defense, nuclear proliferation, global arms sales, government secrecy — and challenged them to tackle those problems in creative new ways.

Of course, he was not without flaws. His intuitive powers, which usually made him uncommonly perceptive, occasionally hardened prematurely into convictions that proved to be unfounded. In one particularly lamentable episode, he suggested mistakenly that MIT physicist Philip Morrison, a Manhattan Project veteran and FAS founder, had once spied for the Soviet Union. Making such a false allegation could have been an unforgivable offense. But Morrison, himself a person of awesome depth and distinction, forgave him, although with some sadness.

More typically, Jeremy was a profoundly generous and thoughtful person. His intelligence and problem-solving abilities were often directed to meeting the needs of others — not just friends or employees (he once directed poorly dressed staff to buy some new clothes at his expense), but also casual acquaintances, foreigners, children and strangers. He knew how to give a gift, and he usually anticipated exactly what gift a particular person wanted or needed.

Above all, Jeremy was an institution builder, turning the Federation of American Scientists into a public interest platform of significant influence.

“FAS is a legitimate and prestigious scientific association,” wrote Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in a classified cable to the US Embassy in Japan in 1975. “Dr. Stone… is [a] highly regarded lobbyist on foreign policy and has wide contacts on the Hill. Embassy should have no reservations about facilitating his appointments in Japan,” Kissinger wrote.

By the time I showed up at FAS in 1989, the organization under Jeremy’s leadership had become a powerhouse of intelligent and effective advocacy in arms control and quite a few other areas. My own cohort included figures like John Pike, David Albright, Lora Lumpe, and the late Tom Longstreth, to name just a few. Wandering the halls of our Capitol Hill headquarters, I would sometimes run into Carl Sagan, former CIA director Bill Colby, Philip Morrison, Paul Nitze, former JFK aide Carl Kaysen, Ted Taylor, Dick Garwin, former Senator Alan Cranston, and you could never be sure who else. One day I literally collided with Hans Bethe in the hallway outside Jeremy’s office. (No particles were emitted.) Jeremy made all of that possible, providing a forum for scientists and others to participate in the national policy process and a strategic vision to guide them.

After leaving FAS, Jeremy pursued further adventures in conflict resolution as president of Catalytic Diplomacy, created a website in honor of his father, I.F. Stone, and advocated for independent journalism.

Intelligence officials disclosed classified information to members of the press on at least three occasions in 2013, according to a National Security Agency report to Congress that was released last week under the Freedom of Information Act.

See Congressional Notification — Authorized Disclosures of Classified Information to Media Personnel, NSA memorandum to the staff director, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 13, 2013.

The specific information that NSA gave to the unnamed reporters was not declassified. But the disclosures were not “leaks,” or unauthorized disclosures. They were, instead, authorized disclosures. For their part, the reporters agreed not to disseminate the information further.

“Noteworthy among the classified topics disclosed were NSA’s use of metadata to locate terrorists, the techniques we use and the processes we follow to assist in locating hostages, [several words deleted] overseas support to the warfighter and U.S. allies in war zones, and NSA support to overall USG efforts to mitigate cyber threats. The [deleted] personnel executed non-disclosure agreements that covered all classified discussions.”

In one case, “classified information was disclosed in order to correct inaccurate understandings held by the reporter about the nature and circumstances of [deleted].”

On another occasion, “classified information was disclosed in an effort to limit or avoid reporting that could lead to the loss of the capability [deleted].”

In all three cases, “the decision to disclose classified information was made in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence pursuant to Executive Order 13526, and in each case the information disclosed remains properly classified.”

This seems like a generous interpretation of the Executive Order, which does not mention disclosures to the press at all. It does say, in section 4.2(b) that “In an emergency, when necessary to respond to an imminent threat to life or in defense of the homeland, the agency head or any designee may authorize the disclosure of classified information […] to an individual or individuals who are otherwise not eligible for access.” In an emergency, then, but not just “to correct inaccurate understandings.”

Still, the report accurately reflects the true instrumental nature of the classification system. That is, the protection of classified information under all circumstances is not a paramount goal. National security secrecy is a tool to be used if it advances the national interest (and is consistent with law and policy) and to be set aside when it does not.

So hypocrisy in the handling of classified information is not an issue here. The concern, rather, is that the power of selective disclosure of classified material can be easily abused to manage and to manipulate public perceptions. The congressional requirement to report on authorized disclosures of classified information to the press may help to mitigate that danger.

New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

International Trade and Finance: Overview and Issues for the 115th Congress, December 21, 2016

China-U.S. Trade Issues, updated December 29, 2016

U.S. International Corporate Taxation: Basic Concepts and Policy Issues, updated December 21, 2016

Political Status of Puerto Rico: Brief Background and Recent Developments for Congress, December 28, 2016

U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, updated December 22, 2016

Iran’s Foreign and Defense Policies, updated December 21, 2016

The Impeachment of South Korea’s President, CRS Insight, December 22, 2016

Nuclear Cooperation with Other Countries: A Primer, updated December 27, 2016

Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) Negotiations: Overview and Issues for Congress, updated January 3, 2017

New State Abortion Requirements Post-Whole Woman’s Health, CRS Legal Sidebar, January 3, 2017

EPA Regulations: Too Much, Too Little, or On Track?, updated December 30, 2016

Broadband Internet Access and the Digital Divide: Federal Assistance Programs, updated December 28, 2016

Expedited Procedures Governing Senate Consideration of Legislation Waiving a Restriction Related to the Military Service of the Secretary of Defense, CRS Insight, December 27, 2016

The Pentagon has prepared a newly updated compilation of infractions that might be committed and prohibitions that might be violated by Department of Defense employees, together with the recommended punishments.

“Mishandling or failing to safeguard information or documentation that is classified,” for example, can entail punishment ranging from written reprimand to removal. See Disciplinary and Adverse Actions, Administrative Instruction 8, December 16, 2016.

The document’s Table of Offenses and Penalties does not include overclassification, faulty compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, or some other readily imaginable forms of misconduct.

But proscribed (and punishable) activities do include retaliation against whistleblowers (conduct unbecoming a federal employee), discourtesy (abusive language or gestures), and lack of candor or truthfulness.

The United States continued to lead global trade in conventional armaments last year, according to a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service, but overall trade declined from the year before.

“Worldwide weapons orders decreased in 2015. The total of $79.8 billion was a decrease from $89 billion in 2014. The United States’ worldwide weapons agreements values increased in value from $36.1 billion in 2014 to $40.2 billion in 2015. The U.S. market share increased greatly as well, from roughly 40.5% in 2014 to 50.3% in 2015. Although the United States retained its position as the leading arms supplying nation in the world, nearly all other major suppliers saw increases too.”

The CRS report is based on access to unclassified but unpublished government databases. As such, the 72-page document provides a uniquely informative view of the global arms trade. See Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2008-2015, December 19, 2016.

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

Defense Acquisitions: How and Where DOD Spends Its Contracting Dollars, updated December 20, 2016

U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, updated December 16, 2016

Tribal Broadband: Status of Deployment and Federal Funding Programs, updated December 20, 2016

The Federal Food Safety System: A Primer, updated December 16, 2016

State Management of Federal Lands: Frequently Asked Questions, updated December 16, 2016

The FCC’s Rules and Policies Regarding Media Ownership, Attribution, and Ownership Diversity, updated December 16, 2016

Special Minimum Wages for Workers with Disabilities: Frequently Asked Questions, updated December 16, 2016

Discretionary Budget Authority by Subfunction: An Overview, updated December 16, 2016

Restrictions on Lobbying the Government: Current Policy and Proposed Changes, CRS Insight, December 15, 2016

U.S. Policy on Cuban Migrants: In Brief, December 16, 2016

The African Union (AU): Key Issues and U.S.-AU Relations, December 16, 2016

Earlier this month the Director of National Intelligence asked intelligence community historians to recommend topics in the history of intelligence which, if declassified and disclosed, “would help the public better understand the work of the IC and contribute to a public dialogue surrounding significant historical events.”

DNI James R. Clapper directed that historical topics shall be provided to the DNI for proposed declassification review “on a semi-annual basis.” IC historians are to “collaborate with other public historians or private subject-matter experts to solicit input for such topics,” he wrote in a December 9 memorandum.

In itself, this DNI directive is not a very significant step. It does not make any specific commitments, it is not enforceable, and it does not allocate any new resources. Above all, it does not set forth new criteria for declassification of historical materials. This is a serious omission, since records which qualify for declassification under existing criteria are supposed to be declassified anyway, without the need for a new procedure.

Nevertheless, the latest memorandum adds at least a dash of momentum to a series of steps that have been taken by DNI Clapper to advance intelligence-related transparency, and that cumulatively may help to keep it alive as a topic of policy deliberation. Those other steps include the creation of IC on the Record (where the new memorandum first appeared), the issuance of IC “Transparency Principles,” the creation of an IC Transparency Council, and especially the DNI’s active embrace of the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review process, which should pay dividends in the months and years to come. Meanwhile, “over-classification” has recently been flagged by the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board as an issue requiring the attention of the next Administration.

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These days, intelligence history is not just for historians. One historical topic that is timely and that might be fitting for comprehensive treatment by declassifiers concerns the role of intelligence agencies in tampering with foreign elections.

“The United States cannot in good faith decry what has been done to its decent citizens until it is ready to face what it did so often to the equally decent citizens of other nations,” wrote Ariel Dorfman, referring to the CIA intervention in Chile’s elections in the 1970s (“Now, America, You Know How Chileans Felt,” New York Times, December 16).

“The C.I.A. got its start trying to influence the outcome of Italy’s elections in 1948, as the author Tim Weiner documented in his book ‘Legacy of Ashes,’ in an effort to keep Communists from taking power,” wrote David Sanger, also in the Times. The US went on to interfere in elections in Iran, Guatemala, and Japan, he noted.

In Indonesia, the CIA reportedly made a pornographic film in 1957 featuring an actor disguised as the disfavored leader Sukarno that was intended to embarrass him, according to the 1976 book Portrait of a Cold Warrior by former CIA officer Joseph Burkholder Smith.

*

The current classification system “is broken,” wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Washington Post. It is too complicated, too expensive, and rewards overclassification.

“We… must do what we can to change incentives to further encourage government personnel to classify at the lowest appropriate levels and for the shortest durations,” she wrote. See “How to rethink what’s ‘top secret’ for the Internet age,” December 16.

While official attention to classification policy is most welcome, the fact that a senior legislator like Sen. Feinstein would resort to writing an op-ed on the subject might be understood as a tacit signal that a legislative solution is currently out of reach.

But that is not necessarily true. I suggested some (comparatively) easy incremental steps that Congress could take to begin to combat overclassification in a statement presented at a hearing of the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee on December 7.

Nearly half of all federal research and development dollars go to the Department of Defense, a new report from the Congressional Research Service observes. The Pentagon research budget is more than twice that of the next largest recipient, the Department of Health and Human Services.

The structure of the DoD research budget, which has “its own unique taxonomy,” is described in the new CRS report. See Department of Defense Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E): Appropriations Structure, December 13, 2016.

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

Military Construction: Process and Outcomes, December 14, 2016

Women in Combat: Issues for Congress, updated December 13, 2016

Agency Final Rules Submitted on or After June 13, 2016, May Be Subject to Disapproval by the 115th Congress, CRS Insight, updated December 15, 2016

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Incentives: A Summary of Federal Programs, updated December 14, 2016

Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) and Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Compliance, CRS Insight, December 14, 2016

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS): In Brief, updated December 14, 2016

NASA: FY2017 Budget and Appropriations, updated December 13, 2016

Noncitizen Eligibility for Federal Public Assistance: Policy Overview, updated December 12, 2016

The First Day of a New Congress: A Guide to Proceedings on the House Floor, updated December 13, 2016

The First Day of a New Congress: A Guide to Proceedings on the Senate Floor, updated December 13, 2016

Department of Education’s Withdrawal of Its Recognition of ACICS as an Accrediting Agency, CRS Insight, December 14, 2016

Cyprus: Reunification Proving Elusive, updated December 15, 2016

Latin America: Terrorism Issues, updated December 15, 2016

U.S. International Broadcasting: Background and Issues for Reform, updated December 15, 2016

The 2009 executive order 13526 on classification allows for the possibility that — “in some exceptional cases” — the protection of classified information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information so that the information should be declassified (sect. 3.1d).

The order says that “when such questions arise,” they should be referred to the head of the originating agency head for resolution. But there is no formal mechanism for raising such questions. There should be.

As things stand, “properly classified information” is beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act, the mandatory declassification review program, and the internal classification challenge procedures.

Yet because the classification system is permissive, defining conditions under which information “may” be classified, there is much “properly classified” information that need not be classified.

In many cases, this needless classification is of no real significance. There is a vast sea of classified information that has no direct bearing on questions of public policy. But in other cases, it matters a great deal, affecting national decisions on war and peace, the conduct of intelligence and foreign policies, and more. Under those circumstances, there should be a formal procedure to trigger (or at least to consider) the declassification of such properly classified information. Crucially, the decision whether to declassify in such cases must not be left exclusively to the agency that made the original decision to classify.

This was one of the proposals discussed (by me) at a meeting last week of the Public Interest Declassification Board, an official advisory body. Other proposals presented at the meeting are described here.

The premise of the Public Interest Declassification Board meeting was that the incoming Administration is likely to issue its own executive order governing classification policy, as most recent recent presidents have done, and that recommendations for improving classification and declassification procedures should therefore be solicited and developed.

It is not yet known, however, whether the Trump Administration will issue its own revised classification policy. It is not obliged to do so (Bush 41 did not) and may not find it necessary.

And if a new executive order on classification is forthcoming, it may not be an “improvement” from all points of view.

In previous transitions from Democratic to Republican Administrations (i.e. Carter to Reagan, and Clinton to Bush), the Republican presidents took a more expansive view of classification policy than their predecessors, and gave reduced emphasis to declassification.

The Trump transition team has promised vaguely that the incoming Administration will deliver “a seismic and transformative shift in trade policy.”

But executive authority over trade policy exists within a framework of law, as a new report from the Congressional Research Service explains, and there are legal limits to what the President can do.

“The United States Constitution gives Congress the power to impose and collect taxes, tariffs, duties, and the like, and to regulate international commerce. While the Constitution gives the President authority to negotiate international agreements, it assigns him no specific power over international commerce and trade.”

“Through legislation, however, Congress may delegate some of its power to the President, such as the power to modify tariffs under certain circumstances. Thus, because the President does not possess express constitutional authority to modify tariffs, he must find authority for tariff-related action in statute.” See Presidential Authority over Trade: Imposing Tariffs and Duties, December 9, 2016.

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

The Federal Budget Deficit and the Business Cycle, CRS Insight, December 9, 2016

“Fiscal Space” and the Federal Budget, CRS Insight, December 9, 2016

Creating a Federal Advisory Committee in the Executive Branch, updated December 9, 2016

Changing the Senate Cloture Rule at the Start of a New Congress, December 12, 2016

Qatar: Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, December 9, 2016

Commercial Space Industry Launches a New Phase, December 12, 2016

Password Sharing May Be a Federal Crime: Nosal Part I (and II), CRS Legal Sidebar, December 9, 2016

The government mistakenly disbursed more than $137 billion in Fiscal Year 2015, the highest annual level of wrongful spending ever reported, the Congressional Research Service noted last week. Over $1 trillion in improper payments have been made by government agencies since 2004.

Improper payments “are payments made in an incorrect amount, payments that should not have been made at all, or payments made to an ineligible recipient or for an ineligible purpose,” CRS said.

Congress has enacted legislation to improve reporting and recovery of improper payments, but implementation “has been uneven across the government.” See Improper Payments Legislation: Key Provisions, Implementation, and Selected Proposals in the 114th Congress, December 7, 2016.

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

The U.S. Income Distribution: Trends and Issues, December 8, 2016

Has the U.S. Government Ever “Defaulted”?, December 8, 2016

Federal Citations to the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, updated December 6, 2016

EPA’s Mid-Term Evaluation of Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards, CRS Insight, December 6, 2016

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA): Resources for Frequently Asked Questions, December 6, 2016

Terrorist Material Support: An Overview of 18 U.S.C. 2339A and 2339B, updated December 8, 2016

Smith v. Obama: A Servicemember’s Legal Challenge to the Campaign Against the Islamic State, CRS Legal Sidebar, December 7, 2016

Democratic Republic of Congo: Targeted Sanctions, CRS Insight, December 8, 2016

The Trump-Tsai Call and the United States’ “Unofficial” Relationship with Taiwan, CRS Insight, December 8, 2016

Nuclear Cooperation with Other Countries: A Primer, updated December 6, 2016

At the end of a House Oversight Committee hearing on “overclassification” last week (just after the 2:04:00 mark), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) observed that the Federation of American Scientists publishes “bootleg” copies of CRS reports on the FAS website– and he thanked us for it.

“On a weekend I go to your website to find out what the Congressional Research Service has prepared,” he said. “How ridiculous is that?”

The enduring problem of overclassification and the challenge of effective declassification are the subject of two public events this week.

The House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, chaired by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), will hold a hearing on Wednesday, December 7 on “examining the costs of overclassification on transparency and security.” The witnesses include former Information Security Oversight Director Bill Leonard, National Security Archive director Tom Blanton, Scott Amey of the Project on Government Oversight, and myself.

The Public Interest Declassification Board, chaired by Prof. Trevor Morrison, will hold a meeting on Thursday, December 8 to discuss potential changes that could be adopted in a future executive order on classification. More information, including advance copies of several presentations to be made at the meeting, can be found here.