Tomorrow Ronald W. Pelton, a National Security Agency communications specialist who was convicted in 1986 of spying for the Soviet Union, will be released from prison.

Like Jonathan J. Pollard, who was convicted of spying for Israel and released last week, Pelton was apprehended in 1985, which became known as the Year of the Spy because so many espionage arrests and prosecutions took place during or around that time.

A search of the Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator indicates that Pelton’s release, which has not been widely noted, is set for Tuesday, November 24. It further identifies Pelton as a 74 year old white male (Register Number 22914-037).

The Pelton case had several distinctive features.

Unlike most spies of the time, he did not steal U.S. government documents and turn them over to a foreign government. Instead, he was able to sell the Soviets information based on his “excellent memory and […] encyclopedic knowledge of intelligence activities.” Among the U.S. intelligence projects he compromised was IVY BELLS, an effort to secretly tap Soviet undersea communications cables.

The Pelton case was also a test of the government’s ability to successfully carry out an espionage prosecution involving highly classified information. “The trial included an extraordinary amount of public testimony by an agency known for its reticence,” the New York Times reported at the time, referring to the NSA.

In 1986, Pelton was sentenced to three life terms plus 10 years in prison (and a $100 fine), with sentences to run concurrently (not consecutively, as has been mistakenly reported). In theory he could have been eligible for early release after ten years, but he has served nearly 30 years in prison instead.

In 1995, Pelton was interviewed by representatives of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy (the Moynihan Commission), who sought his insights into the problems of official secrecy. His contributions to the study, if any, were not identified in the Commission’s final report.

New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that were issued last week — but withheld from public release — include the following.

The Islamic State — Frequently Asked Questions: Threats, Global Implications, and U.S. Policy Responses, November 19, 2015

The “Islamic State” and U.S. Policy, updated November 18, 2015 (and still using the quotation marks that have now been dropped in the titles of other CRS reports)

Coalition Contributions to Countering the Islamic State, updated November 18, 2015

Syrian Refugee Admissions and Resettlement in the United States: In Brief, November 19, 2015

Can States and Localities Bar the Resettlement of Syrian Refugees Within Their Jurisdictions?, CRS Legal Sidebar, November 18, 2015

Immigration: Visa Security Policies, updated November 18, 2015

Paris Attacks and “Going Dark”: Intelligence-Related Issues to Consider, CRS Insight, November 19, 2015

France: Efforts to Counter Islamist Terrorism and Radicalization, CRS Insight, updated November 18, 2015

The recent decision to deploy “fewer than 50” U.S. special operations personnel to Syria is addressed in the latest update of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress, November 19, 2015.

Over time, five countries have actually been removed from the lists of designated sponsors of terrorism, CRS noted in State Sponsors of Acts of International Terrorism–Legislative Parameters: In Brief, updated November 19, 2015.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): In Brief, November 19, 2015

U.S. Agent Orange/Dioxin Assistance to Vietnam, November 13, 2015

Puerto Rico and Health Care Finance: Frequently Asked Questions, November 18, 2015

Malaysia: Background and U.S. Relations, updated November 19, 2015

Air travelers should not expect to catch direct flights between the United States and Iran any time soon, CRS said in Iran-U.S. Air Service Not Imminent, CRS Insight, November 18, 2015.

A new report issued by the Congressional Research Service describes the various procedures that the U.S. government can use “to prevent individuals from traveling to, from, or within the United States to commit acts of terrorism.”

See Legal Tools to Deter Travel by Suspected Terrorists: A Brief Primer, CRS Legal Sidebar, November 16, 2015.

In light of the Paris attacks, CRS also updated its short report on European Security, Islamist Terrorism, and Returning Fighters, CRS Insights, November 16, 2015.

The Director of National Intelligence last month issued a new directive on Controlled Access Programs (CAPs).

CAPs are the Intelligence Community equivalent of what are otherwise called Special Access Programs (SAPs). These are classified programs that involve access restrictions above and beyond ordinary classification controls. CAPs include compartmented intelligence programs, but are not limited to them.

The new directive, Intelligence Community Directive 906, establishes the policy framework for management and oversight of Controlled Access Programs. The directive itself is unclassified.

Last year, 95 secrecy orders barring disclosure of inventions under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 were imposed on new patent applications while 36 prior secrecy orders were rescinded. Three of the newly releasable inventions have recently received patents, decades after the inventors filed their applications.

The three new patents were identified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The formerly secret inventions that received patents this year are:

Patent Number 9057604: Point-ahead laser pointer-tracker systems with wavefront correction in both transmit and receive directions. Filed in April 1989, the patent application was finally granted in June 2015.

Patent Number 9115993: Fused PM fiber single-polarization resonator. It was filed in August 1990 and granted in August 2015.

Patent Number 9181140: Solid propellant bonding agents and methods for their use. It was filed in December 1993 and granted in November 2015.

The factors that led the U.S. government to impose secrecy orders on these particular inventions more than two decades ago (and to release them this year) are not self-evident. But neither do they seem to indicate an obvious abuse of authority.

There were a total of 5,579 invention secrecy orders in effect at the end of fiscal year 2015, the highest number of such secrecy orders since FY 1993.

New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that have been withheld from broad public distribution include the following.

Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2016, November 10, 2015

The Speaker of the House: House Officer, Party Leader, and Representative, November 12, 2015

Fifth Circuit Declines to Lift Injunction Barring Implementation of the Obama Administration’s 2014 Deferred Action Programs, CRS Legal Sidebar, November 12, 2015

Temporarily Filling Presidentially Appointed, Senate-Confirmed Positions, November 10, 2015

Congressional Nominations to U.S. Service Academies: An Overview and Resources for Outreach and Management, November 10, 2015

Researching Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Resources for Congressional Staff, November 9, 2015

Federalism Issues in Surface Transportation Policy: A Historical Perspective, November 6, 2015

Veterans and Homelessness, November 6, 2015

U.S.-Mexico Water Sharing: Background and Recent Developments, November 10, 2015

Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, November 10, 2015

Navy Ship Names: Background For Congress, November 9, 2015

Navy Ohio Replacement (SSBN[X]) Ballistic Missile Submarine Program: Background and Issues for Congress, November 9, 2015

Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)/Frigate Program: Background and Issues for Congress, November 6, 2015

Navy DDG-51 and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs: Background and Issues for Congress, November 6, 2015

Navy TAO(X) Oiler Shipbuilding Program: Background and Issues for Congress, November 6, 2015

Navy LX(R) Amphibious Ship Program: Background and Issues for Congress, November 6, 2015

Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, November 5, 2015

Obama Administration Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline Permit Request: Could Congress Nevertheless Approve It?, CRS Legal Sidebar, November 9, 2015

In a newly disclosed memorandum from 1963, the Director of Central Intelligence advised the Secretary of State that the CIA had “good reproductions” of Soviet satellite imagery.

This puzzling remark appears to suggest a previously unrecognized capability of the CIA.

The declassified memo summarizes a July 3, 1963 telephone conversation between DCI John McCone and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. It was discovered by researchers David M. Barrett and Eric P. Swanson.

According to the memo, McCone said that the U.S. had “for some time tried to determine whether the Soviets were actually photographing and the extent they were from satellites.” The DCI said “it has been determined they have been and we have good reproductions of what they are getting.” The DCI was to brief the President on the subject the following week.

In an article discussing the memo in the journal Intelligence & National Security, Barrett and Swanson wrote that they found “no references in the intelligence literature to the United States having had the capability to see what the Soviet satellites were seeing, much less any treatment of how the CIA obtained the ‘good reproductions’.”

Assuming the McCone statement is accurate, it would seem to imply one of a few possibilities. It could mean that the US was somehow intercepting the Soviet images (which seems improbable), or that it was replicating the images through US overflights, or else that it was simply modeling the images based on the presumed capabilities of the Soviet satellites and their orbital parameters.

Prof. Barrett added that the fact that the matter was to be briefed to the President indicated that it was of more than ordinary significance. He also noted that the 1963 memo was located in State Department records at the National Archives, and was not released by CIA.

The import of the memo remains uncertain.

Reproductions of Soviet satellite imagery were “not anything I ever came across some ten years later,” said former CIA analyst Allen Thomson, “and I was in a decent position to see such (Office of Weapons Intelligence).”

“At a guess, perhaps the ‘reproductions’ were simulations based on the technical state of the art at the time (film) and estimates of the camera aperture. That would have been easy enough to do and useful as an aid to orient consumers to what might be in the imagery. Or it could just have meant looking at the ground tracks to see what the satellites overflew,” Mr. Thomson said.

Dino Brugioni, who was a pioneering figure in U.S. imagery intelligence and a CIA official at the time of the McCone memo, passed away in September with little public notice.

What are the constitutional limits on police use of force? What remedies are available when those limits are exceeded? And in light of recent episodes of police violence, how might the limits and the remedies be modified?

Those questions are addressed in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

“By the very nature of their job, law enforcement officers are tasked with using physical force to restrain individuals and protect themselves and others from harm,” the CRS report states. “Police officers must stop and seize violent suspects, serve search warrants in hostile environments, and maintain the peace and safety of the communities in which they serve.”

Yet “recent law enforcement-related deaths… have prompted a call for legal accountability against the officers involved in these killings, but also, more broadly, for systemic police reform on both the federal and state level.”

A copy of the report was obtained by Secrecy News. See Police Use of Force: Rules, Remedies, and Reforms, October 30, 2015.

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

Is Violent Crime in the United States Increasing?, October 29, 2015

Apportioning Seats in the U.S. House of Representatives Using the 2013 Estimated Citizen Population, updated October 30, 2015

The Iran Hostages: Efforts to Obtain Compensation, updated November 2, 2015

Aiding Israel after the Iran Nuclear Deal: Issues for Congress, CRS Insight, October 30, 2015

Designation of Global ‘Too Big To Fail’ Firms, CRS Insight, October 29, 2015

The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB): Frequently Asked Questions, October 30, 2015

Cargo Preferences for U.S.-Flag Shipping, October 29, 2015

The EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Agreement on Personal Data Privacy: In Brief, October 29, 2015

The Legal Process to Reschedule Marijuana, CRS Legal Sidebar, November 2, 2015

Government Speech, Religious Displays, and Finding Balance in the First Amendment, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 30, 2015

Impeachment and Removal, October 29, 2015

There were 5,579 invention secrecy orders in effect at the end of fiscal year 2015. This was an increase from 5,520 the year before and is the highest number of such secrecy orders in more than a decade.

Under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, secrecy orders may be imposed on patent applications when a government agency finds that granting the patent and publishing it would be “detrimental” to national security.

Most of the current invention secrecy orders were renewals of orders granted in past years. According to statistics released under the Freedom of Information Act by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, there were 95 new secrecy orders imposed last year, while 36 prior orders were rescinded. More information on the newly rescinded orders is forthcoming.

Of the 95 new orders, 15 were so-called “John Doe” secrecy orders, meaning that they were imposed on private inventors in cases where the government had no property claim on the invention. The prohibition on disclosure in such cases therefore raises potential First Amendment issues.

For moral, legal, and tactical reasons, it is U.S. Army policy to protect civilians during military operations, a newly updated Army publication explains.

“To the extent possible, civilian populations (including those loyal to the enemy) must be protected from the effects of combat. In addition to humanitarian reasons and the need to comply with the law of war, excessive civilian casualties create political pressure that limits freedom of action of Army units. Civilian harm creates ill will among the population, with lasting repercussions that impair post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.”

And yet sometimes that policy will fail.

“Leaders anticipate that, despite their best efforts to prevent them, civilian casualty incidents occur. Similarly, mass atrocities may occur even if commanders take all possible steps to preclude them. Systems should be established in advance to respond to civilian casualty incidents; these include reporting, tracking, investigation, public response, and making amends to families and communities through the recognition of harm, appropriate compensation, and apologies and dignifying gestures if necessary.”

The necessity and the near-impossibility of employing violence in a way that minimizes its unintended effects on the civilian population are recurring themes in the new Army document.

See Protection of Civilians, Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-07.6, October 29, 2015.

The 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), one of the “open government” laws, generally mandates that federal advisory committee meetings be held openly, except under certain specified circumstances. But over the past ten years, the number of closed meetings has actually increased, a new analysis by the Congressional Research Service found.

“FY2014 reported the highest percentage of closed meetings (71.1%) during the time period of examination,” CRS found.

Official advisory committees can be an important mechanism for exerting non-governmental influence on the policies of executive branch agencies. So the composition of such committees, their operations and their recommendations are susceptible to political pressures. FACA was intended to help counter abuse of the advisory committee process and ensure a modicum of fairness to competing points of view, in part by requiring that their meetings be conducted openly.

There are normally around a thousand advisory committees subject to FACA. “Generally, around 70,000 people serve as members on FACA committees and subcommittees in any given year. In FY2014, 68,179 members served. In FY2014, 825 federal advisory committees held 7,173 meetings and cost more than $334 million to operate,” the CRS report found.

See The Federal Advisory Committee Act: Analysis of Operations and Costs, October 27, 2015.

Other new reports from Congressional Research Service include the following.

The European Union (EU): Current Challenges and Future Prospects in Brief, October 27, 2015

Air Force Bomber Contract Awarded, CRS Insight, October 28, 2015

A Survey of House and Senate Committee Rules on Subpoenas, October 26, 2015

Federal Reserve: Dividends Paid to Commercial Banks, CRS Insight, October 28, 2015:

Birthright Citizenship and Children Born in the United States to Alien Parents: An Overview of the Legal Debate, October 28, 2015

Iran’s Central Bank Will Have Its Day in the Supreme Court, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 28, 2015

Congressional Efforts to Reduce Restrictions on Growing Industrial Hemp, CRS Insight, October 29, 2015

Senate Passes Cybersecurity Information Sharing Bill — What’s Next?, CRS Legal Sidebar, October 28, 2015

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence yesterday released a transparency implementation plan that establishes guidelines for increasing public disclosure of information by and about U.S. intelligence agencies.

Based on a set of principles on transparency that were published earlier this year, the plan prioritizes the objectives of transparency and and describes potential initiatives that could be undertaken.

Thus, the plan aims to “provide more information about the IC’s governance framework”; to “provide more information about the IC’s mission and activities”; to “encourage public engagement” by intelligence agencies in social media and other venues; and to “institutionalize transparency policies and procedures.”

The plan does not include any specific commitments nor does it set any deadlines for action. And it is naturally rooted in self-interest. Its purpose is explicitly “to earn and retain public trust” of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Nonetheless, it has the potential to provide new grounds to challenge unnecessary secrecy and to advance a corresponding “cultural reform” in the intelligence community.

Perhaps the most important thing about it is the fact that it has been embraced by the Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, who announced its release yesterday at a conference at George Washington University. The DNI’s endorsement gives it an indispensable bureaucratic potency and creates an expectation that measurable results will follow.

But the text of the plan itself also has several noteworthy features. For example:

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The ODNI plan instructs intelligence agencies to release substantive (though unclassified) intelligence information that could be of use to the public:

“The IC should review and provide appropriate information that is of current public utility, such as certain types of foundational information (including imagery). To facilitate the foregoing, the IC should develop a repeatable process of moving unclassified material not subject to other statutory protections to unclassified systems where it may be released.”

This important guidance points in a direction which is exactly the opposite of where CIA has taken its Open Source Center (now the Open Source Enterprise). After decades of providing open source material to the public through the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and then the OSC, the CIA terminated those public offerings in 2013. That move might now be reconsidered in light of the new transparency implementation plan (though CIA says it has no plans to do so).

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The new transparency policy (in principle 3d) calls on intelligence agencies to “consider the public interest to the maximum extent feasible when making classification determinations.”

This is a remarkable statement that goes beyond any requirement in existing classification policy. In particular, President Obama’s 2009 executive order 13526 on classification does not include the public interest as a factor in original classification decisions at all.

The new plan dutifully states that it does not “modify or supersede” executive order 13526. But it does in fact present a different classification construct, or at least a different emphasis. As the plan says, it “reinforces Executive Order 13526, which governs classification standards, while also guiding the IC to consider the public interest to the maximum extent feasible in conducting declassification reviews in order to make as much information available as possible while protecting intelligence information.”

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The new transparency plan could end up altering the future contours of classification policy throughout the intelligence community because it will inform the upcoming Fundamental Classification Guidance Review. That Review is a government-wide evaluation and recalibration of national security classification policy that is due to be completed by 2017.

“The ODNI should work with the Information Security Oversight Office to provide guidance to IC elements on updating classification guides. This guidance should be aligned with the Principles as appropriate,” the plan says, in what may prove to be a misleadingly bland passage.

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The IC plan does not mention the name of Edward Snowden. It speaks of the need to provide channels for “submitting concerns or observations on potential misconduct by IC offices or employees.” But it does not clearly recognize or grapple with what might be called the Snowden conundrum.

That is the peculiar fact that the telephone metadata collection activities that Snowden and, later, most members of Congress and the interested public found objectionable had been secretly approved by all three branches of government. Within the government, collection of “all” telephone metadata was not considered misconduct, potential or actual. As a consequence, “whistleblowing” about these fully authorized activities using internal procedures would have been inapt and ineffective.

The problem, rather, was that a “lawful” secret government program had exceeded the implicit boundaries of public consent. Under the circumstances, disclosure was the only way to resolve the conundrum. This is a failure of congressional oversight above all, but it ought to be faced squarely by each branch of government involved.

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“We believe transparency is worth the cost,” said DNI James R. Clapper in his October 27 speech announcing the new implementation plan.

“Because if the American people don’t understand what we are doing, why it’s important and how we’re protecting their privacy and civil liberties, we will lose their confidence and that will affect our ability to perform our mission — which ultimately serves them.”

See, relatedly, “Clapper’s transparency plan for intelligence community grinds forward” by Josh Gerstein, Politico, October 27.

A commitment to “Increase Transparency of the Intelligence Community” was included in the Open Government Partnership: Third Open Government National Action Plan that was released by the White House yesterday.