The number of persons holding security clearances for access to classified information decreased by more than 635,000 (or 12.3 percent) last year, according to a new report to Congress from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

It was the first reported drop in the total security-cleared population since the government began systematically collecting statistics on security clearances in 2010.

The majority of the reductions involved persons who had been cleared for access to classified information but did not in fact have such access. Still, at the end of FY 2014, there were 164,000 fewer individuals with access to classified information than at the beginning of the year, the ODNI report said. Most of the reductions occurred within the Department of Defense, which reported a 15% decrease in clearances (Secrecy News, March 26).

Altogether, there were 4.5 million cleared persons as of October 1, 2014, down from 5.1 million cleared persons a year earlier. Top Secret clearance holders, including government employees and contractors, numbered 1.4 million persons, down from 1.5 million the year before.

What makes the new reductions particularly interesting is that they were not simply a statistical blip or an artifact of changes in the budget. Rather, they were purposefully achieved through a “concerted effort” by agencies seeking to reduce the number of security clearances.

“These decreases were the result of efforts across the USG to review and validate whether an employee or contractor still requires access to classified information,” the ODNI report said.

The implication is that the national security bureaucracy, including the national security classification system, is susceptible to deliberate regulation and is not, as sometimes appears, an autonomous entity driven obscurely by its own internal dynamic. It follows that additional changes in the size and structure of the national security system may be achievable.

The new ODNI report also noted:

*    There was a 14.4% reduction in new and renewed security clearances.

*    The National Security Agency had the highest reported rate of security clearance denials (9.2%), while the FBI had the lowest reported rate (0.1%). The CIA reported a denial rate of 6.5% and a revocation rate of 0.6%.

The ODNI report cautioned, however, that different agency denial rates may not be comparable due to differences in reporting practices.

The unclassified annual report on security clearances was required by Congress in the FY 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act.

A Russian satellite tracking facility in Siberia has produced rarely-seen photographs of a U.S. intelligence satellite.

The U.S. Lacrosse radar satellite was captured in images generated at Russia’s Altay Optical Laser Center, apparently between 2005 and 2010. A selection of images was compiled and analyzed by Allen Thomson. See An Album of Images of LACROSSE Radar Reconnaissance Satellites Made by a 60 cm Adaptive Optics System at the G.S. Titov Altai Optical-Laser Center.

“The images contain enough information (range, angular scale) to perform a bit of technical intelligence (i.e., sophomore high school trigonometry) on the radar antenna size, which is a significant parameter affecting capability,” Mr. Thomson, a former CIA analyst, told Secrecy News.

While provocative, the intent of the imagery disclosure was obscure, he said.

“Why did the Russians release the images?  The US is highly paranoid about releasing resolved images of spysats, ours or others. The Russian paranoia is at least as great, so how did these images get out? What was the purpose?”

The images themselves seem to be mostly just a curiosity. But perhaps they underscore the growing visibility and the corresponding vulnerability of U.S. space-based assets.

“Our asymmetrical advantage in space also creates asymmetrical vulnerabilities,” said Gil Klinger, a defense intelligence official, last year. “Our adversaries recognize our dependence on space and continue to think of ways to respond to our space advantage.”

He testified at a 2014 House Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. national security space activities, the record of which has recently been published. Space protection, orbital debris, the industrial base and related topics were addressed.

Russia’s Altay Optical Laser Center was profiled by Mr. Thomson here.

President Obama this week transmitted to Congress the text of a proposed agreement with the People’s Republic of China concerning cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Known as “123 agreements” based on section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, such accords are intended to regulate international traffic in nuclear materials and technology. The agreements generally provide for physical safeguards on subject materials, require consent for transfers of materials or technology to third countries, and impose restrictions on enrichment and reprocessing.

As of early last year, there were 23 agreements under Section 123 in effect.

“We want other nations to enter into 123 agreements with the United States because our [nuclear safeguards] standards are the highest in the world,” said Daniel B. Poneman, Deputy Secretary of Energy, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last year. “In our view, the more 123 agreements that exist in the world, the stronger the nonproliferation controls that will apply to all nuclear commerce.” (The record of that January 2014 hearing entitled “Section 123: Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreements” was published last month.)

In practice, the picture is a bit murkier, as such agreements by definition facilitate international transfers of nuclear materials and technology with long-term consequences that cannot always be foreseen. Beneficiaries of prior 123 agreements that subsequently lapsed include pre-revolutionary Iran, Israel, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

The U.S. and China previously reached an agreement on nuclear cooperation in 1985, though its implementation was blocked until 1998. For detailed background, see U.S.-China Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, Congressional Research Service, updated April 20, 2015.

That existing agreement with China expires this year, hence the President’s submission this week of a new proposed text. Among several proliferation-related issues likely to be considered in finalizing the pending agreement are Chinese missile technology exports and its nuclear support to Pakistan.

“China’s expanding civil nuclear cooperation with Pakistan raises serious concerns and we urge China to be more transparent regarding this cooperation,” the State Department’s Thomas Countryman told the Foreign Relations Committee last year.

Meanwhile, Iran is reportedly discussing its research on neutron transport and nuclear modeling with officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency. An extensive bibliography of nuclear research published by Iranian scientists including neutron transport problems and many other topics was prepared by researcher Mark Gorwitz in 2010.

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

Cybersecurity and Information Sharing: Comparison of H.R. 1560 and H.R. 1731, April 20, 2015

FY2016 Appropriations for the Department of Justice (DOJ), April 15, 2015

Domestic Human Trafficking Legislation in the 114th Congress, April 16, 2015

Trade Promotion Authority (TPA): Frequently Asked Questions, April 20, 2015

Mountaintop Mining: Background on Current Controversies, April 20, 2015

FEMA’s Public Assistance Grant Program: Background and Considerations for Congress, April 16, 2015

Cuba: Issues for the 114th Congress, April 17, 2015

“Power and influence are now diffusing to a range of actors, both state and non-state, who have not traditionally wielded it,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), last month.

Under these circumstances, “Traditional approaches to deterrence are increasingly inadequate,” he said. “Adversaries [seek] to maximize their coercive influence while limiting their risk of serious retribution. They are becoming adept at avoiding crossing thresholds that would clearly justify the use of conventional military force.”

“The diffusion of power is decreasing the ability of any state, acting alone, to control outcomes unilaterally.”

The comparative advantage of U.S. Special Operations Forces, Gen. Votel told Congress in his 2015 SOCOM posture statement on March 18, “is built upon three pillars: 1) persistent engagement, 2) enabling partners, and 3) discreet action.”

“Our success in this environment will be determined by our ability to adequately navigate conflicts that fall outside of the traditional peace-or-war construct,” he said.

U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) consist of over 69,000 operators and support personnel deployed to more than 80 countries around the world, the SOCOM posture statement said (compared to “over 75 countries” in last year’s statement). They include Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Air Commandos, Rangers, Night Stalker helicopter crews, Marine Raiders, and others.

A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service discusses the SOF command structure and the FY 2016 US SOCOM budget request.  See U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress, April 9, 2015.

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

Islamic State Financing and U.S. Policy Approaches, April 10, 2015

2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force: Issues Concerning Its Continued Application, April 14, 2015

The War Powers Resolution: Concepts and Practice, April 3, 2015

Iran: Efforts to Achieve a Nuclear Accord, April 9, 2015

Science and Technology Issues in the 114th Congress, April 7, 2015

Military Funeral Honors and Military Cemeteries: Frequently Asked Questions, April 10, 2015

Patent Litigation Reform Legislation in the 114th Congress, April 10, 2015

Funding of Presidential Nominating Conventions: An Overview, April 9, 2015

Recent Changes in the Estate and Gift Tax Provisions, April 13, 2015

El Salvador: Background and U.S. Relations, April 9, 2015

Venezuela: Background and U.S. Relations, April 1, 2015

Cuba: U.S. Restrictions on Travel and Remittances, April 10, 2015

Attempt: An Overview of Federal Criminal Law, April 6, 2015

Barriers Along the U.S. Borders: Key Authorities and Requirements, April 8, 2015

Updated below

The government will no longer refuse to confirm or deny that persons who are prevented from boarding commercial aircraft have been placed on the “No Fly List,” and such persons will have new opportunities to challenge the denial of boarding, the Department of Justice announced yesterday in a court filing.

Until now, the Government refused to acknowledge whether or not an individual traveler had been placed on the No Fly List and, if so, what the basis for such a designation was. That is no longer the case, the new court filing said:

“Under the previous redress procedures, individuals who had submitted inquiries to DHS TRIP [the Department of Homeland Security Traveler Redress Inquiry Program] generally received a letter responding to their inquiry that neither confirmed nor denied their No Fly status.”

“Under the newly revised procedures, a U.S. person who purchases a ticket, is denied boarding at the airport, subsequently applies for redress through DHS TRIP about the denial of boarding, and is on the No Fly List after a redress review, will now receive a letter providing his or her status on the No Fly List and the option to receive and/or submit additional information.”

If the individual traveler chooses to pursue the matter, DHS “will provide a second, more detailed response. This second letter will identify the specific criterion under which the individual has been placed on the No Fly List and will include an unclassified summary of information supporting the individual’s No Fly List status, to the extent feasible, consistent with the national security and law enforcement interests at stake.”

The new redress procedures were developed in response to legal challenges to the No Fly List procedures, which argued that the procedures were constitutionally deficient or otherwise improper. The notice of the new procedures was filed yesterday in the pending lawsuit Gulet Mohamed v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., which is one of the ongoing lawsuits over the No Fly List.

“A number of travelers who dispute any connection to terrorism have alleged that they have been denied boarding on commercial aircraft,” a recent Congressional Research Service report noted. “A denial of entry can occur, for example, when a person’s name and/or date of birth correspond or are similar to the identity of someone in the government’s watchlist database.”

The CRS report, which predates the newly announced procedures, reviewed many of the legal issues involved. See The No Fly List: Procedural Due Process and Hurdles to Litigation, April 2, 2015.

Update: DHS TRIP has received and processed more than 185,000 redress requests and inquiries — regarding enhanced screening, delays, or denials of boarding — since 2007, DHS told the House Homeland Security Committee in a September 2014 hearing.

Update 2: A similar notice regarding changes in the No Fly List redress procedures was filed in several other pending lawsuits, including Latif v. Holder, in which a court found the previous process unconstitutional. In its filing in that case, the Justice Department added: “The Government will be closely monitoring the initial implementation of these newly revised procedures on an interagency basis, and will, as circumstances warrant, consider whether further revisions to the process are necessary. The revised procedures will be discussed in more depth in Defendants’ upcoming summary judgment briefing.”

Overwhelmed by the challenge of trying to sort, identify and preserve historically valuable government email, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has devised what it calls the Capstone approach to email management.

Under Capstone, government email would be categorized for retention or disposal based on the title or position of the email sender, rather than the contents of the email message. Those officials responsible for agency policy and mission performance would have their emails systematically collected and saved; others would not. In theory, this approach should simplify the task of email management and improve the preservation of historically valuable email.

NARA has prepared a draft “General Record Schedule” (GRS) for agency email that embodies the Capstone approach. The draft GRS along with related explanatory material has recently been published for public comment.

One initial concern is that the General Record Schedule would replace the various individual schedules that agencies have been obliged to prepare up to now. This would make it harder for interested members of the public to monitor the email management practices of particular agencies.

So, for example, it was the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency filed its own email record schedule last year that made it possible to discover that the Agency intended to preserve the email of only 22 senior officials. The ensuing controversy elicited congressional displeasure and led the National Archives to suspend approval of the CIA proposal. If there had been no CIA record schedule available for public review, there would have been no opportunity to challenge the agency’s minimalist record preservation policy.

On closer examination, however, this may be less of a problem than it first appears to be. That’s because the Capstone General Record Schedule would positively require the capture of email from a much broader cross-section of officials than were included in the CIA proposal. If CIA or any other agency wished to narrow the list of required officials specified in the draft GRS (in item 010), it would still have to prepare its own separate record schedule.

Even so, the draft GRS grants individual agencies considerable discretion in how they would implement the Capstone approach. Among other things, agencies would notably be responsible for determining “the extent of inclusion of classified email,” a provision that might easily lend itself to abuse.

Inevitably, there will have to be trade-offs made in order to achieve a government email management regime that is practical and effective. But agencies that have a history of problematic records management practices — not only CIA — should arguably be required to demonstrate a degree of competence and good faith before they are granted unsupervised discretion in managing the disposition of official email. In such cases, a requirement for individual agency record schedules might still be appropriate.

The Department of Justice last week published newly updated regulations on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, with several notable changes made in response to public comments.

Fifteen sets of comments were submitted by individual members of the public or public interest organizations after the Department released its draft FOIA regulations in 2011. In a lengthy Federal Register notice on April 3, the Department addressed all of the comments, and actually adopted a number of the changes recommended by public commenters.

Among the changes that were approved:

*    The revised regulations explicitly include news organizations that operate solely on the Internet as “representatives of the news media,” making them exempt from search fees.

*    “The revised fee schedule includes a decrease in duplication fees due to advances in technology.”

*    The revision adds language specifying that “in responding to requests for classified information, the component [of DoJ to which the request is addressed] must determine whether the information remains currently and properly classified.”

Some other new provisions should make it easier to use the FOIA, including a procedure for consulting with the Department’s FOIA Public Liaison in advance of making a request. The revised regs also incorporate a statement of policy that would “encourage discretionary releases of information whenever disclosure would not foreseeably harm an interest protected by a FOIA exemption.”

It nevertheless remains true that in order to take full advantage of the tools provided by the Freedom of Information Act, it is often necessary for requesters to litigate over information that is withheld or denied.

According to The FOIA Project, there were 422 Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed in federal district court last year, up from 372 the year before and 342 the year before that.

The leading cause of railroad-related deaths is not collisions or derailments, but trespassing, explains a neatly argued new issue brief from the Congressional Research Service. See Rail Safety Efforts Miss Leading Cause of Fatalities, CRS Insights, April 2, 2015.

Other new and newly updated CRS reports that Congress has withheld from public distribution include the following.

Net Neutrality: Selected Legal Issues Raised by the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order, April 6, 2015

Ballistic Missile Defense in the Asia-Pacific Region: Cooperation and Opposition, April 3, 2015

An Overview of Unconventional Oil and Natural Gas: Resources and Federal Actions, April 7, 2015

U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production in Federal and Non-Federal Areas, April 3, 2015

Marijuana: Medical and Retail — Selected Legal Issues, April 8, 2015

Social Media in the House of Representatives: Frequently Asked Questions, April 2, 2015

The No Fly List: Procedural Due Process and Hurdles to Litigation, April 2, 2015

During the last two years, the U.S. intelligence community has faced momentous challenges and experienced extraordinary upheaval, including the Snowden disclosures beginning in June 2013 and the release of a redacted summary of the Senate report on CIA interrogation practices last year.

Those episodes and others are reflected in a new report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence describing its oversight activities in the 113th Congress from January 2013 to January 2015.

Highlights of the new report include these:

**    Efforts to make U.S. intelligence agencies financially auditable are progressing slowly. “The CIA, NGA, NRO, and NSA conducted audits of their fiscal year 2014 financial statements,” but only the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) completed the process successfully. The CIA, NGA, and NSA “received disclaimers of opinion,” meaning that their financial statements could not be validated by the auditors. “While the DIA and ODNI did not conduct an audit, both plan to do so in 2015,” the report said.

**    Over-control of classified information continues to hamper information sharing even within the intelligence community, the report said. “The Committee has been concerned about the IC’s misapplication and overuse of the originator control marking (ORCON), which can impede the complete and timely dissemination of intelligence, as the agency that originates the information retains control over its dissemination…. Committee staff concluded that the use of the ORCON marking by certain IC elements had increased substantially, and that in some cases classification and control marking policies had been violated.”

**    Efforts to enlist the resources of the Government Accountability Office to strengthen intelligence oversight — a move long advocated by outside observers — are continuing, as the Committee encourages “open lines of communication and collaboration” between ODNI and GAO. The new report reveals that the classified annex of the FY 2014 authorization bill “directed the development of a specific GAO review to bolster intelligence oversight and reduce unnecessary fragmentation, overlap, and duplication.”

**    The report provides some new details of the three-volume structure of the still-classified CIA “torture report”. The first volume addressed the history of CIA’s interrogation program in 1,539 pages. The second volume devoted 1,858 pages to intelligence acquired through the program and CIA’s representations of its effectiveness. And the third volume, in 2,855 pages, focused on the detention and interrogation of 119 CIA detainees.

**    The Committee report said that “Financial intelligence has emerged as a significant are of IC activity, aiming to ‘follow the money’ of adversaries. It has proven to be a powerful tool confronting a range of challenging threats including terrorism, weapons proliferation, and narcotics trafficking.”

**    “The Committee also devoted significant time and attention to lethal operations against counterterrorism targets…. The Committee has worked with the Executive Branch to understand the legal basis for these operations.”  Likewise, “The Committee seeks to ensure that covert action programs are consistent with United States foreign policy goals, and are conducted in accordance with all applicable U.S. laws.”

**    With seeming condescension, the report noted that “The Committee annually receives hundreds of phone calls, facsimiles, mail, and email communications from self-identified whistleblowers on matters they believe to be of urgent concern. Committee staff reviewed and investigated these communications.” If these investigations yielded any actionable findings, they are not mentioned in the report.

**    The report pointedly observed that “Since 1994, the Committee has held annual open hearings to review the Intelligence Community’s assessment of the current and projected national security threats to the United States.” That twenty-year tradition came to an end this year when the new Chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, decided to hold the Committee’s annual threat briefing in closed session.

The new Senate Intelligence Committee report does not contain any note of critical self-examination or any suggestion that congressional oversight itself might have been complicit in the errors and excesses of intelligence agencies. Accordingly, the report does not address any potential changes that might be made to improve the intelligence oversight process.

“There is too much disclosure,” complained George H. W. Bush, then-Director of Central Intelligence, in a 1976 memo to President Gerald Ford.

“We are continually pressed by Congress, by the courts, by the Freedom of Information Act, to give up sensitive material,” DCI Bush added. “We are trying to hold the line but there is a continuous erosion which gives away classified information at home and complicates our liaison relationships abroad. I am frustrated by our inability to deal with the leaking of classified information.”

His memo to President Ford was presented (as document 78) in a fascinating new collection of executive branch documents on the investigations of U.S. intelligence agencies during the 1970s. The collection was assembled for the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series (1969-1976, volume XXXVIII, part 2), which has just been published in hardcopy. It was posted in full last December on the website of the State Department historian.

In the aftermath of the Senate Church Committee investigation, “I find no degradation in the quality of intelligence analysis,” said Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at a Top Secret meeting of the National Security Council in January 1977 (document 83 in the FRUS collection).

“The opposite is true, however, in the covert action area,” Kissinger told the NSC. “We are unable to do it anymore.”

“Many things are not even proposed these days because we are afraid to even discuss them much less implement them,” Kissinger said then.

Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., who was the chief counsel of the Church Committee, has written a new book of his own on secrecy in the broad sweep of American history up to the present day. Democracy in the Dark: The Seduction of Government Secrecy (The New Press, 2015) was published this week. The book was welcomed by Katrina vanden Heuvel writing in the Washington Post on April 7.