Corrected below

The White House announced last week that the U.S. inventory of highly enriched uranium (HEU) as of September 2013 has been declassified.

“The newly declassified information shows that, from 1996 to 2013, U.S. HEU inventories decreased from 740.7 metric tons to 585.6 metric tons.  This reflects a reduction of over 20 percent,” according to a March 31 White House fact sheet.

The White House added that “This announcement marks the first time in fifteen years that the United States has declassified and released information of this kind.”

But that assertion is in error.

In 2006, the Department of Energy declassified and released data on US HEU inventories dating from 2004. See Highly Enriched Uranium Inventory: Amounts of Highly Enriched Uranium in the United States, Department of Energy, January 2006.

Moreover, the DOE report from a decade ago shows that almost all of the 20% reduction in HEU inventories cited by the White House last week had already been accomplished by 2004, when the HEU total was 590.5 metric tons. Thereafter, in the period between 2004 and 2013, the total HEU inventory evidently declined by only about 5 additional metric tons (less than 1%) to 585.6 metric tons. [See correction below.]

But the White House added that “further reductions in the inventory are ongoing; the U.S. Department of Energy’s material disposition program has down-blended 7.1 metric tons of HEU since September 30, 2013, and continues to make progress in this area.”

The latest disclosure was made to enhance nuclear transparency so as to encourage reciprocal disclosures by other nuclear weapons states.

“The U.S. commitment to sharing appropriate nuclear security-related information has also been demonstrated by recent actions such as the declassification of information on the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and transparency visits by officials from non-nuclear weapons states to Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories,” the White House said. “These actions show that countries can increase transparency without revealing sensitive information.”

Correction I mistakenly wrote that the inventory of HEU in 2004 was 590.5 Metric Tons. But that number was the amount of U-235. (I read the 2006 DOE report wrong.) The actual inventory of HEU at the time was 686.6 Metric Tons.

Therefore, between 2004 and 2013 there was a reduction in the U.S. HEU inventory of 101 Metric Tons. Thanks to Prof. Alan Kuperman for pointing out the error.

The Central Intelligence Agency has formally rescinded its widely-criticized plan to destroy the email records of all but 22 senior agency officials, the National Archives said last week.

The CIA proposal generated controversy when it became public in 2014 because of its surprisingly narrow scope, which would have precluded preservation of vast swaths of CIA email records. Such records have proved invaluable not only for historical purposes, but also for contemporary accountability and congressional oversight.

“The agency has withdrawn this schedule effective March 21, 2016, due to the agency’s reorganization,” wrote Margaret Hawkins, director of records appraisal and agency assistance at the National Archives and Records Administration, in an email message to the Federation of American Scientists.

“In our last communication on this schedule, it was conveyed that a public meeting would be held to address all comments received. With the schedule’s withdrawal, this meeting will not be held.”

In any case, CIA is still obliged to present a plan to the National Archives to explain how it will preserve or dispose of its email records. CIA can either adopt the standard template known as the Capstone General Records Schedule, or it can devise a specific plan of its own for approval by the National Archives.

“If the agency chooses to submit a new agency-specific records schedule, it will be available for request and comment to the public through the Federal Register process,” Ms. Hawkins wrote.

A new U.S. Army manual addresses the challenges of intelligence support for air and missile defense programs.

“A large number of adversary countries possess or are trying to acquire TBMs [tactical ballistic missiles] and Advanced Air Breathing Threats (ABTs) (i.e. Fixed-Wing (FW) aircraft, Rotary-Wing (RW) aircraft, Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), Anti-Radiation Missiles (ARMs), and Cruise Missiles (CMs)), for prestige and/or military purposes,” the Army manual stated.

“These aerial and TBM threats have the potential to give the adversary a military advantage against the United States (US) and multinational forces. The threat the adversary presents is a complex, multi-dimensional, intelligence problem.”

To meet this emerging threat, the Army prescribes an Air and Missile Defense (AMD) Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) process, as outlined in the manual. See Air and Missile Defense Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, ATP 3-01.16, March 31, 2016.

“AMD IPB identifies facts and assumptions about the battlefield environment and the air and missile defense threat. AMD IPB determines enemy air and missile defense courses of action (COAs), their associated branches and sequels, and describes the operating environment for air and missile defense operations. This supports commander and staff planning and the development of friendly COAs.”

“Applied properly, AMD IPB provides for the timely and effective neutralization and/or destruction of the aerial and TBM threat, while minimizing the requirement for friendly AMD assets. ”

Air and missile defense systems may be vulnerable to attack through cyberspace, the Army manual noted, so consideration should be given to “what mitigations can be put into effect to limit or negate the effects of an attempted cyber-attack on the AMD system.”

For the coming decade, the Department of Defense Military Intelligence Program (MIP) will focus its new investments “on space protection, enhancing capabilities that provide intelligence in Anti-Access / Area Denial environments, improving intelligence support to Cyber operations, and improving Security.”

So says the FY 2016 Congressional Budget Justification Book for the MIP, which was released this week in heavily redacted form under the Freedom of Information Act.

Though the majority of the document has been withheld, the released portions nevertheless contain fragmentary observations of interest.

For example, “budget uncertainty impeded efforts to develop and maintain language professionals at the highest levels of proficiency to meet the challenges posed by our adversaries.”

“DoD fell two points short of meeting its FY 2014 target to fill 52% of Defense Intelligence Enterprise government authorized language-required positions with individuals possessing the required language proficiency, with a total fill rate of 49.4%.”

Earlier this month, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also released minimal unclassified portions of its FY2015 Congressional Budget Justification Book.

Luxembourg owns $200 billion worth of U.S. federal debt, making it one of the top ten foreign holders of U.S. debt. China is the leader, with $1.2 trillion in U.S. debt holdings, or 20% of the total.

That information, and its possible significance, is discussed in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service on Foreign Holdings of Federal Debt, March 28, 2016.

Other new or newly updated CRS reports this week include the following.

Additional U.S. Ground Troops to Counter the Islamic State? Five Questions, CRS Insight, updated March 29, 2016

The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Current Developments, March 29, 2016

The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for Congress, updated March 29, 2016

Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): History and Overview, March 28, 2016

Abortion and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, updated March 28, 2016

Pipeline Transportation of Natural Gas and Crude Oil: Federal and State Regulatory Authority, March 28, 2016

Congressional Efforts to Amend Title I of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), CRS Insight, March 30, 2016

Nigeria’s Boko Haram: Frequently Asked Questions, updated March 29, 2016

The Pacific Alliance: A Trade Integration Initiative in Latin America, updated March 29, 2016

Burma’s 2015 Parliamentary Elections: Issues for Congress, March 28, 2016

U.S.-South Korea Relations, updated March 28, 2016

Ukraine: Current Issues and U.S. Policy, updated March 29, 2016

The Obama Administration has begun a systematic examination of its national security classification policies, known as the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review (FCGR), in an effort to eliminate obsolete classification requirements and to reduce national security secrecy.

“The goal of the FCGR is to ensure agency classification guidance authorizes classification only in those specific instances necessary to protect national security,” wrote William A. Cira, Acting Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, in a March 17 memorandum to executive branch officials.

“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,” he wrote.

Indeed, the first FCGR that was conducted in 2010-12 led to the elimination of “approximately 20% of DoD’s non-compartmented SCGs [security classification guides],” according to a Department of Defense report, thereby removing them as authority for further classification.

And the first Review also appears to have contributed to a historic reduction in reported original classification activity (i.e. the creation of new national security secrets), which reached a record low in 2014.

Now, five years after the first Review, the exercise will be repeated. “The scope of this Review needs to be systematic, comprehensive and conducted with thoughtful scrutiny involving detailed data analysis,” Mr. Cira wrote in his memo to executive branch agencies.

Even under the best of circumstances, agency classification guidance tends to become stale over time. The threat environment changes, policy deliberations or international relations demand fuller disclosure, information leaks or documents are declassified in response to FOIA requests, congressional direction, or historical declassification programs. Yet too often, the guidance itself remains static and unresponsive to changes in the external environment.

Faced with this growing disconnect between a realistic threat appraisal and the information security response, the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review represents the secrecy system’s own attempt at self-correction.

*

The FCGR was inspired by the Department of Energy Fundamental Classification Policy Review that was initiated by then-Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary in the mid-1990s, and which had notable success in updating DoE’s classification system. Following a year of deliberations, the DoE reviewers concluded that hundreds of categories of classified information should be declassified, and most of them were. (Some declassification actions proposed by the DoE FCPR — such as those involving historical nuclear weapons locations — were blocked at the time by the Department of Defense.)

“Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this exercise was that it mobilized the DoE bureaucracy itself as an agent of secrecy reform,” I suggested in a 2009 paper on Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works that advocated broader application of this approach.

With the cooperation of William H. Leary at the National Security Council, a requirement to perform a Fundamental Classification Guidance Review throughout the executive branch every five years was incorporated in President Obama’s Executive Order 13526 (section 1.9) in December 2009. Over the coming year, its efficacy will be tested for a second time.

Mr. Cira’s memorandum directed agencies to “obtain the broadest possible range of perspectives” in their review of current classification guidance. He added significantly that “It is not sufficient to have a review conducted only by the pertinent original classification authority.”

But while the DoE Fundamental Review under Hazel O’Leary allowed for public input and feedback at the beginning and the end of the process, the FCGR does not explicitly provide for any public participation in the Review.

“From 2005 through 2014, China’s official military budget increased at an average rate of 9.5% per year in real terms, allowing the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] to improve its capabilities in many dimensions,” says a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service based on open sources.

“The question of how the United States should respond to China’s military modernization effort is a central issue in U.S. defense planning and foreign policy. Congress’ decisions on this issue could affect U.S. defense strategy, budgets, plans, and programs, and the U.S. defense industrial base,” the CRS report said. See The Chinese Military: Overview and Issues for Congress, March 24, 2016.

Other new and newly updated products from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following.

What’s the Difference? — Comparing U.S. and Chinese Trade Data, updated March 24, 2016

Navy Irregular Warfare and Counterterrorism Operations: Background and Issues for Congress, updated March 25, 2016:

President Obama’s Historic Visit to Cuba, CRS Insight, March 25, 2016

U.S. Trade Concepts, Performance, and Policy: Frequently Asked Questions, updated March 25, 2016

Commemorative Days, Weeks, and Months: Background and Current Practice, March 25, 2016

The Federal Budget: Overview and Issues for FY2017 and Beyond, March 24, 2016

Public Trust and Law Enforcement–A Brief Discussion for Policymakers, updated March 22, 2016

Navy Ship Names: Background for Congress, updated March 23, 2016

European Security and Islamist Terrorism, CRS Insight, March 23, 2016

Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, updated March 23, 2016

The “existence of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)” is Unclassified. So is “the fact that ODNI Headquarters is located within the Liberty Crossing Compound in the Tyson’s Corner Area of Virginia.”

However, “the names and abbreviations of ODNI locations in the Washington Metropolitan Area, both overt and covert” are classified Secret.

These determinations and many others of interest are compiled in a newly released ODNI Classification Guide, Version 2.1, September 30, 2014. The declassified Classification Guide was released by ODNI with limited redactions in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Stephen Revilak.

“The Guide implements ODNI classification policy and procedures for the use and dissemination of ODNI national security information,” the document states.

It covers a wide range of intelligence policy, technology and operational areas involving ODNI that are potentially subject to classification. (Unfortunately, portions of the document released by ODNI are poorly scanned and several pages are cut off at the bottom. Hopefully, a corrected version will soon follow.) [Now fixed.]

“The absence of an item in the Guide does not imply that it is Unclassified,” the reader is cautioned.

Moreover, “The fact that some ODNI information is marked unclassified does not authorize public release,” the Guide states.

New reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public release include the following.

Vacancy on the Supreme Court: CRS Products, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 21, 2016

Justice Antonin Scalia: His Jurisprudence and His Impact on the Court, March 18, 2016

Merrick Garland’s Nomination to the Supreme Court: Initial Observations, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 17, 2016

Argentina: Background and U.S. Relations, March 22, 2016

U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, March 18, 2016

Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, March 18, 2016

Cars, Trucks, and Climate: EPA Regulation of Greenhouse Gases from Mobile Sources, March 16, 2016

Transportation Spending Under an Earmark Ban, March 17, 2016

Aliens’ Right to Counsel in Removal Proceedings: In Brief, March 17, 2016

Federally Supported Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment Programs, March 17, 2016

Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Hypervelocity Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress, March 18, 2016

Can Agencies Take Actions That They Are Not Expressly Authorized by Statute to Take?, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 22, 2016

Access to Government Information In the United States: A Primer, March 18, 2016

The Director of National Intelligence exercises authority and maintains global awareness through a network of DNI Representatives deployed across the intelligence community and around the world.

“DNI Representatives serve as the principal advisors to their assigned organizations for IC matters, as a conduit between the DNI and their assigned organizations, and as the DNI’s personal representatives to a variety of U.S. and foreign partners and international organizations,” according to a declassified December 2009 Intelligence Community Directive that was made public last week. See DNI Representatives, ICD 402, 23 December 2009, amended 06 September 2012.

DNI Representatives help to execute DNI policies and to collect information for reporting back to the DNI.

That is, they both “facilitate and monitor the implementation of DNI direction, policies, and procedures” and they “promptly inform the DNI or his designee of significant issues, operations, or incidents.”

And in language that recalls the broadly permissive statutory provision for CIA covert action, the Directive says that DNI Representatives will also “Perform other duties as the DNI determines.”

“Organizations and locations to be considered for DNI Representatives include U.S. Diplomatic Missions; military organizations; organizations where there is a large IC presence, diverse mission requirements, significant interaction with foreign intelligence and security services or international organizations; and other places deemed appropriate,” the Directive says.

A prior version of Intelligence Community Directive 402 (dated May 19, 2009) generated friction between then-DNI Dennis C. Blair and the Central Intelligence Agency because it asserted that the DNI could appoint his own Representatives in foreign countries to serve alongside the CIA station chiefs in those countries. CIA resisted that assertion and reportedly prevailed.

The revised directive now states that “In all cases the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Chief of Station shall serve as the DNI Representative [classified phrase deleted].”

However, “In instances where the DNI believes that a Chief of Station is not performing effectively his essential functions as a DNI Representative, the DNI shall convey his concerns directly to the Director of the CIA, and may recommend that the individual be removed if those concerns have not been resolved to the satisfaction of the DNI within a period of six months.”

“We do not have the full picture of who is working for the Intelligence Community as contractors, or why,” said Senator Thomas Carper at a June 2014 hearing, the record of which was just published last week.

See The Intelligence Community: Keeping Watch Over Its Contractor Workforce, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, June 18, 2014, published March 18, 2016.

The hearing record is of particular interest as a reflection of the revived intelligence oversight role assumed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) following the issuance of 2014 Intelligence Community Directive 114, which authorized GAO access to intelligence information under certain circumstances.

“That new Intelligence Community Directive, I think that did establish a good framework for us to move forward,” said GAO’s Timothy J. DiNapoli at the hearing. “It gave us an approach for a presumption of cooperation. It prevented the categorical denial of information, and access to much of the information on a more formal basis.”

And the Intelligence Community apparently responded to the GAO engagement constructively.

“We thought the responses to the draft report and the recommendations were solid,” Mr. DiNapoli said. “I actually thought that the Director [of National Intelligence] provided cogent responses saying here are some specific steps we are going to take with regard to improving information on the methodology; we are going to ask for that information so we will have a better handle on it.”

For her part, ODNI Principal Deputy Director Stephanie O’Sullivan also testified in support of the GAO role in intelligence oversight.

“The only way to really approach this–and this is what I tell my management organization–is by looking at this as an opportunity to see that which you are missing. It is that old adage of when you are in college and you typed a term paper, you could read that paper 50 times and read right over the typo every time. You just simply cannot see that which is the norm to you.”

“You need outside eyes to help you find problems,” Ms. O’Sullivan said, “and that is about the basic credo of IGs and GAO, to make the function of government more efficient and effective.”

A series of Questions for the Record appended to the newly published hearing volume addressed the issue of “Why have the number of contractors and the cost of contracts been classified?”

The government’s proposed FY2017 budget would increase spending on benefits for former Presidents by 17.9% (to $3,865,000) over the previous year’s level. “The increase in requested appropriations for FY2017 anticipates President Barack Obama’s transition from incumbent to former President,” according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

“This report provides a legislative and cultural history of the Former Presidents Act. It details the benefits provided to former Presidents and their costs.” See Former Presidents: Pensions, Office Allowances, and Other Federal Benefits, updated March 16, 2016.

President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court “is unique, at least among nominations to the Supreme Court since 1946, in that it is the only nomination made by a Democratic President with a Republican majority in the Senate,” another CRS report noted. “The last time this particular political configuration (a Democratic President and Republican Senate) existed at the time a nomination was made to the Court was in 1895.” See Nominations to the Supreme Court During Years of Divided and Unified Party Government, CRS Insight, March 16, 2016.

See also Nominations to the Supreme Court During Presidential Election Years (1900-Present), CRS Insight, updated March 16, 2016.

“Not long ago, Justice Scalia, who regularly expressed the view that capital punishment is constitutional, speculated that a majority of the Court might soon decide otherwise. Should that occur, it would be ironic if it happened that Justice Scalia had written the last opinion upholding the death penalty before its demise.” See Justice Antonin Scalia’s Last Opinion, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 15, 2016.

“The House may soon consider H. Res. 639, which would authorize the Speaker to appear as amicus curiae on behalf of the House and file a brief in United States v. Texas, supporting the position that the federal government acted in a manner inconsistent with federal law.” See The House May Vote to File an Amicus Brief: Is this Unprecedented?, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 16, 2016.

There are a number of recent law enforcement actions that indicate increased Department of Justice interest in prosecuting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits corporate bribery of foreign officials. See Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA): Congressional Interest and Executive Enforcement, In Brief, updated March 15, 2016.

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

Wartime Detention Provisions in Recent Defense Authorization Legislation, updated March 14, 2016

Cuba: Issues for the 114th Congress, updated March 15, 2016

Five Years of the Budget Control Act’s Disaster Relief Adjustment, March 15, 2016

U.S. Immigration Policy: Chart Book of Key Trends, updated March 14, 2016

The March 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, CRS Insight, March 14, 2016