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

Slow Growth in the Current U.S. Economic Expansion, June 24, 2016

Economic Growth Slower Than Previous 10 Expansions, CRS Insight, June 30, 2016

The Economic Effects of Trade: Overview and Policy Challenges, June 29, 2016

Job Creation in the Manufacturing Revival, updated June 28, 2016

U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturing: Industry Trends, Global Competition, Federal Policy, June 27, 2016

Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2017, June 24, 2016

Digital Searches and Seizures: Overview of Proposed Amendments to Rule 41 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, June 29, 2016

Expulsion, Censure, Reprimand, and Fine: Legislative Discipline in the House of Representatives, updated June 27, 2016

Midnight Rules: Congressional Oversight and Options, CRS Insight, June 27, 2016

Senate Action on U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations During the Eighth Year of a Presidency, CRS Insight, June 30, 2016

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the Supreme Court’s 4-4 Split on Immigration, CRS Legal Sidebar, June 24, 2016

Iran’s Foreign Policy, updated June 27, 2016

Financing U.S. Agricultural Exports to Cuba, CRS Insight, June 24, 2016

After Brexit: A Diminished or Enhanced EU?, CRS Insight, June 29, 2016

Possible Economic Impact of Brexit, CRS Insight, June 28, 2016

Zika Virus in Latin America and the Caribbean: U.S. Policy Considerations, June 29, 2016

Nanotechnology: A Policy Primer, updated June 28, 2016

The number of people with security clearances for access to classified information dropped in 2015 for the second year in a row, according to a new report to Congress from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The total number of security-cleared government employees and contractors decreased by 5.9 percent in FY 2015 down to 4,249,053. That follows a 12.3 percent reduction in FY2014, from a recent peak of 5.1 million clearances in 2013. At the beginning of FY2016, there were 1.36 million persons with Top Secret clearances.

See the 2015 Annual Report on Security Clearance Determinations, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, June 2016.

Continuing reductions in the size of the security-cleared population should result in reduced costs, along with more focused and effective use of finite security resources. A smaller security clearance system may also exercise indirect pressure on national security classification policy in favor of reduced secrecy since there will be fewer persons authorized to classify or to handle classified information. For the same reason, however, some officials and contractors are concerned that the availability of fewer cleared individuals could make it harder for them to “surge” to fulfill emerging classified requirements.

“The majority of decreases [in the number of security clearances] resulted from Department of Defense’s successful implementation of data quality initiatives,” said the new ODNI report, apparently referring to DoD efforts to standardize and improve database management.

“However, some agencies indicated that decreases in their overall population were the result of efforts across the USG to review and validate whether an employee or contractor still requires access to classified information.”

The new report also discussed the time it takes for various agencies to process security clearance requests.

“The IC continues to face timeliness challenges in clearing individuals with unique or critical skills — such as highly desirable language abilities — who often have significant foreign associations that may take additional time to investigate and adjudicate,” the report said.

Regular reporting on the operation of the government-wide security clearance system was not performed prior to the Obama Administration (though GAO produced valuable investigative reports over the years). Annual reports on the security clearance system were first required by Congress in the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2010.

The Miranda warning advising detained persons that they have the right to remain silent has counterparts in the legal systems of 108 countries or jurisdictions around the world. These were collected and described in a new staff study performed for the Law Library of Congress.

“The warnings specified in the surveyed jurisdictions vary, but typically include the right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel. A number of countries also specify that a person who is arrested or detained has the right to be informed of the reasons for the arrest or detention or of the charges being brought,” the study said.

See Miranda Warning Equivalents Abroad, Staff of the Law Library of Congress Global Legal Research Center, May 2016.

In Kiribati, “the police officer may ask the suspect to explain the meaning of the caution in his or her own words” to ensure that the suspect understands the matter correctly, the report said.

Between 1973 and 2016, Members of Congress introduced resolutions of censure directed against federal officials on 59 occasions, according to the Congressional Research Service. Of those, 14 were filed against the Obama Administration.

Such resolutions have little or no practical significance, though they may serve a limited political purpose.

“The adoption of a simple or concurrent resolution expressing the House’s or Senate’s ‘censure,’ ‘condemnation,’ or ‘no confidence’ in a particular officer of the federal government does not have any immediate or binding legal import, but does express a particular moral judgment and may have both symbolic as well as political implications,” the CRS report said. See Congressional Censure and “No Confidence” Votes Regarding Public Officials, June 23, 2016.

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

The European Union: Current Challenges and Future Prospects, updated June 21, 2016 (pre-Brexit)

Does Foreign Aid Work? Efforts to Evaluate U.S. Foreign Assistance, updated June 23, 2016

Salaries of Members of Congress: Recent Actions and Historical Tables, udpated June 21, 2016

Salaries of Members of Congress: Congressional Votes, 1990-2016, updated June 21, 2016

The State of Campaign Finance Policy: Recent Developments and Issues for Congress, updated June 23, 2016

U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production in Federal and Non-Federal Areas, updated June 23, 2016

Trade-Based Money Laundering: Overview and Policy Issues, June 22, 2016

Mileage-Based Road User Charges, June 22, 2016

Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): History and Overview, updated June 22, 2016

Statements of Administration Policy, June 21, 2016

U.S. aid to foreign countries and populations takes many forms in support of a range of objectives, from strategic to humanitarian. A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service illuminates the structure of U.S. foreign aid, and traces the evolution of U.S. spending abroad.

“Adjusted for inflation, annual foreign assistance funding over the past decade was the highest it has been since the Marshall Plan in the years immediately following World War II,” CRS reported.

“Aid objectives include promoting economic growth and reducing poverty, improving governance, addressing population growth, expanding access to basic education and health care, protecting the environment, promoting stability in conflictive regions, protecting human rights, promoting trade, curbing weapons proliferation, strengthening allies, and addressing drug production and trafficking.”

The CRS report provides authoritative data on (or reliable estimates of) foreign aid over time. “Data presented in the report are the most current, consistent, and reliable figures available, usually covering the period through FY2015.” One thing the report does not do is attempt to assess the efficacy of U.S. foreign aid in meeting its declared objectives. (Update: For a CRS report on evaluating foreign aid, see here.)

See Foreign Aid: An Introduction to U.S. Programs and Policy, updated June 17, 2016.

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

The United Kingdom and the European Union: Stay or Go?, CRS Insight, updated June 20, 2016

The First Responder Network (FirstNet) and Next-Generation Communications for Public Safety: Issues for Congress, updated June 17, 2016

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress, updated June 17, 2016

Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Hypervelocity Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress, updated June 17, 2016

State Sponsors of Acts of International Terrorism–Legislative Parameters: In Brief, updated June 17, 2016

FY2017 Defense Appropriations Fact Sheet: Selected Highlights of H.R. 5293 and S. 3000, June 17, 2016

What’s RICO?, CRS Legal Sidebar, June 20, 2016

Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) FY2017 Appropriations: Overview, June 20, 2016

Spending and Tax Expenditures: Distinctions and Major Programs, June 17, 2016

The Appointment Process for U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations: An Overview, updated June 17, 2016

“The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people” who are incapable of understanding or defending their own interests, wrote Justice Louis D. Brandeis in a 1927 concurring opinion (in Whitney v. California).

For Brandeis, the antidote to such inertness is self-education, writes Jeffrey Rosen in his fine new book “Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet” (Yale University Press, 2016).

Brandeis “believed passionately that citizens have a duty to educate themselves so that they are capable of self-government, both personal and political, and of defending their liberties against overreaching corporate and federal power,” Rosen writes.

There are many ways for individuals to pursue such self-education. But on matters of public policy, CRS reports are particularly helpful because of their painstakingly non-partisan character and their often rich factual content.

The longstanding dispute over whether Congress should authorize direct public access to CRS reports was reported most recently in “Should Congressional Research Service Reports Be Kept Secret?” by Charles S. Clark, Government Executive, June 20.

The jurisdiction of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) would be restricted for the second year in a row by the Senate Intelligence Committee version of the FY2017 Intelligence Authorization Act (S.3017). Section 603 of the Act would specifically limit the scope of PCLOB’s attention to the privacy and civil liberties “of United States persons.”

Internal disagreements over the move were highlighted in the Committee report published last week to accompany the text of the bill, which was reported out of Committee on June 5.

“While the PCLOB already focuses primarily on U.S. persons, it is not mandated to do so exclusively,” wrote Senators Martin Heinrich and Mazie K. Hirono in dissenting remarks appended to the report. “Limiting the PCLOB’s mandate to only U.S. persons could create ambiguity about the scope of the PCLOB’s mandate, raising questions in particular about how the PCLOB should proceed in the digital domain, where individuals’ U.S. or non-U.S. status is not always apparent. It is conceivable, for example, that under this restriction, the PCLOB could not have reviewed the NSA’s Section 702 surveillance program, which focuses on the communications of foreigners located outside of the United States, but which is also acknowledged to be incidentally collecting Americans’ communications in the process,” they wrote.

“Over the past three years, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has done outstanding and highly professional work,” wrote Sen. Ron Wyden in his own dissent. “It has examined large, complex surveillance programs and evaluated them in detail, and it has produced public reports and recommendations that are quite comprehensive and useful. Indeed, the Board’s reports on major surveillance programs are the most thorough publicly available documents on this topic. My concern is that by acting to restrict the Board’s purview for the second year in a row, and by making unwarranted criticisms of the Board’s staff in this report, the Intelligence Committee is sending the message that the Board should not do its job too well.”

In support of the provision, the report said that “The Committee believes it is important for the Board to consider the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. Persons first and foremost when conducting its analysis and review of United States counterterrorism efforts.”

But the PCLOB already considers U.S. person privacy “first and foremost.” And the language of the Senate bill does not appear to permit even “secondary” consideration of the privacy of non-U.S. persons. Last year, the FY2016 intelligence authorization bill barred access by the Board to information deemed relevant to covert action.

On June 16, Sen. Patrick Leahy paid tribute to retiring PCLOB chair David Medine on the Senate floor. “[PCLOB] reports and Mr. Medine’s related testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee have been tremendously beneficial to Congress and the American people in examining government surveillance programs,” he said.

The number of vacancies in U.S. district courts around the country increased by a hefty 71% from the beginning of the Obama Administration (when there were 41 vacancies) until June 1 of the Administration’s eighth year (when there were 70 vacancies), according to a new analysis from the Congressional Research Service.

By contrast, the number of district court vacancies decreased in both the GW Bush and Clinton Administrations during comparable periods, CRS found. See U.S. District Court Vacancies: Overview and Comparative Analysis, CRS Insight, June 15, 2016.

However, the number of circuit court vacancies during the Obama Administration did decrease from 13 in January 2009 to 9 in June 2016, a separate CRS analysis found. See U.S. Circuit Court Vacancies: Overview and Comparative Analysis, CRS Insight, June 15, 2016.

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

The governor of Florida asked President Obama to declare an emergency under the Stafford Act in response to the June 12 Orlando shooting. “The governor’s request is the first instance of [such] a request being made for a mass shooting event,” CRS said. See Stafford Act Assistance and Acts of Terrorism, CRS Insight, June 15, 2016.

Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: Gun Checks and Terrorist Watchlists, CRS Insight, June 16, 2016

Declining Dynamism in the U.S. Labor Market, CRS Insight, June 15, 2016

North American Leaders’ Summit, CRS Insight, June 16, 2016

Judiciary Appropriations, FY2017, June 16, 2016

Trends in Child Care Spending from the CCDF and TANF, June 16, 2016

1st Circuit Green Lights Suit against Mobile App for Violating Video Privacy Law, CRS Legal Sidebar, June 16, 2016

Energy Tax Policy: Issues in the 114th Congress, updated June 15, 2016

Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress, updated June 16, 2016

U.S. military commanders would do well to make use of “red teams” composed of independent experts to evaluate and critique U.S. military operations as they are being planned, according to a new publication from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Red teams can “help commanders and staffs think critically and creatively; challenge assumptions; mitigate groupthink; reduce risks by serving as a check against complacency and surprise; and increase opportunities by helping the staff see situations, problems, and potential solutions from alternative perspectives.” See Command Red Team, Joint Doctrine Note 1-16, 16 May 2016.

This may seem like a common sense approach, and it’s not hard to think of current or past military operations that would have benefited from “alternative perspectives.” But deliberately soliciting a critical evaluation of one’s own efforts is not very common at all, inside or outside of military organizations.

A prerequisite to a successful red team effort is the independence of the red team from the primary planners and from the intelligence staff, said the non-binding Joint Doctrine Note.

“Red teams should be organizationally, physically, and intellectually separate from the intelligence function in order to ensure that products are not shaped by the same institutional factors that influence the output of the intelligence analysts. Even when the red team and the intelligence staff examine the same problem set, their products should be reviewed and approved through different product approval chains,” the Note said.

The theory and practice of red teams were explored last year in the book Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy by Micah Zenko.

Other noteworthy new military doctrinal publications include:

Implementation of, and Compliance with, the Treaty on Open Skies, Air Force Instruction 16-604, updated 31 May 2016

Implementation of, and Compliance with, the New START Treaty, Air Force Instruction 16-608, updated 31 May 2016

Domestic supporters of the Islamic State “have accounted for 67 homegrown violent jihadist plots between 2014 and early June 2016” involving more than 100 individuals, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Research Service.

“In November 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reportedly had more than 900 investigations of IS suspects in the United States.” See The Islamic State’s Acolytes and the Challenges They Pose to U.S. Law Enforcement, June 13, 2016.

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

Sifting Domestic Terrorism from Hate Crime and Homegrown Violent Extremism, CRS Insight, updated June 13, 2016

The Islamic State and U.S. Policy, updated June 14, 2016

When Are Violent Crimes Federal Hate Crimes?, CRS Legal Sidebar, June 14, 2016

Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)/Frigate Program: Background and Issues for Congress, updated June 14, 2016

A Patent/Innovation Box as a Tax Incentive for Domestic Research and Development, June 13, 2016

Runaway and Homeless Youth: Demographics and Programs, updated June 13, 2016

Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons, updated June 14, 2016

Iran’s Nuclear Program: Status, updated June 13, 2016

The House of Representatives yesterday approved the Freedom of Information Act Improvement Act, which had previously been adopted by the Senate. If signed by President Obama, as expected, it will strengthen several provisions of the FOIA and should enhance disclosure of government records.

The bill “reaffirms the public’s right to know and puts in place several reforms to stop agencies from slowly eroding the effectiveness of using FOIA to exercise that right,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC).

“The most important reform is the presumption of openness,” according to Rep. Meadows. “Before claiming an exemption [from disclosure under FOIA], agencies must first determine whether they could reasonably foresee an actual harm.”

“The bill would also put a 25-year sunset on exemption 5 of FOIA, the deliberative process exemption,” added Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). “It would modernize FOIA by requiring the Office of Management and Budget to create a central FOIA Web site for requesters to submit their request, making it more efficient and accessible to the public.”

“This bill would strengthen the independence and the role of the Office of Government Information Services [the FOIA ombudsman]. OGIS has served a critical role since it was formed in response to the last FOIA reform Congress adopted in 2007,” she noted.

The bill does not address structural challenges facing FOIA, which is designed to serve individual requesters, not the public as a whole. Nor does the bill provide any additional resources for implementing FOIA, which currently consumes hundreds of millions of dollars per year with ambiguous results.

“We have a whole process and money and people devoted to FOIA and I just don’t think it’s getting to the heart of what FOIA’s about,” said Meredith Fuchs, former General Counsel of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, last March. “I don’t think it’s the real way to keep government accountable.”

Such criticism from a government official would be unremarkable, except that Ms. Fuchs used to be a litigator for FOIA requesters against government agencies (and years ago she contributed an amicus brief for one of my own lawsuits). She spoke at a fascinating session of the Freedom of Information Day 2016 conference at the Newseum that featured former non-governmental FOIA advocates who have gone into government service.

Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive presented a ringing endorsement of the FOIA’s efficacy as a tool for government accountability at a recent Columbia Law School conference on the fiftieth anniversary of FOIA (beginning around the 50′ mark).

Passage of the FOIA Improvement Act was hailed yesterday by Senator Patrick Leahy, the National Security Archive, Openthegovernment.org, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Sunshine in Government Initiative, among other supporters of the measure.

The use of the “overseas contingency operations” budget construct to circumvent limits on discretionary spending was examined in a report from the Congressional Research Service published yesterday.

“Some DOD officials argue that this funding approach is essential to enable a timely military response to a dynamic enemy operating in a complex battlespace,” the CRS report said. “Critics however, have described the DOD’s continued use of the OCO/GWOT account as creating a ‘slush fund’ for military spending.” See Overseas Contingency Operations Funding: Background and Status, June 13, 2016.

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

Athletic Footwear for the Military: The Berry Amendment Controversy, CRS Insight, June 10, 2016

The Open Skies Treaty: Issues in the Current Debate, CRS Insight, June 10, 2016

FY2017 Appropriations for the Department of Justice, updated June 9, 2016

Membership of the 114th Congress: A Profile, updated June 10, 2016

Mass Shootings and Terrorism: CRS Products, June 13, 2016

The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review (FCGR) that was launched by President Obama’s 2009 executive order 13526 would be written into statute by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its version of the FY intelligence authorization act (S. 3017), released this week.

The FCGR has become the primary mechanism for systematically updating agency classification rules and deleting obsolete secrecy requirements. Performed every five years, it entails the review of thousands of individual classification guides. After the first FCGR in 2012, hundreds of such guides were eliminated.

“A reasonable outcome of the review overall, though not necessarily in the case of each program or guide, is to expect a reduction in classification activity across government,” wrote William Cira, acting director of the Information Security Oversight Office, in a March 17 memo to agencies initiating the second FCGR, which is to conclude by June 2017.

The FCGR can advance “our shared goals for greater openness and reduced classification activity while protecting legitimate national security interests,” wrote DNI James Clapper in a March 23 addendum, embracing the FCGR and adding some new requirements to it.

The Senate bill (section 809) does not modify the existing FCGR process, but would enshrine it in statute.

The new bill includes several other reporting requirements that appear uncommonly assertive, if not intrusive. For example, the Committee would expect the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to keep it informed of all the Board’s activities, “including any significant anticipated activities.” The Committee would require submission of copies of all memoranda of understanding between U.S. intelligence agencies. And the Committee would require notification of all classified and unclassified presidential directives to intelligence agencies, and their implementation.

In short, the bill would reset the terms of the congressional intelligence oversight relationship, seemingly dispensing with comity and imposing mandatory disclosure to Congress of various categories of records. Executive branch resistance may be anticipated.

For the first time in living memory, the SSCI bill was reported out of Committee on June 6 without a written report to publicly explain and expand upon its provisions. (Update: The Committee report on the bill was published on June 15.) It did, however, include a classified annex.