A range of presidential transition policy issues — including records management, budget preparation and the role of executive orders — is explored in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.  See “Presidential Transitions: Issues Involving Outgoing and Incoming Administrations” (pdf), October 23, 2008.

Other noteworthy new CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News that were not previously available online include the following (all pdf).

“Status of a Senator Who Has Been Indicted for or Convicted of a Felony,” October 22, 2008.

“Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation: Background and Analysis,” October 22, 2008.

“Would an Influenza Pandemic Qualify as a Major Disaster Under the Stafford Act?,” October 20, 2008.

“The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” updated October 15, 2008.

“The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act: Implementation and Proposed Amendments,” October 22, 2008.

“Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2000-2007,” October 23, 2008.

The Director of National Intelligence today disclosed the 2008 budget for the National Intelligence Program: $47.5 billion.  That figure does not include spending for the Military Intelligence Program, which is at least another $10 billion.

The disclosure marks only the fourth time that the intelligence budget has been officially disclosed.  The aggregate intelligence budget figure (including national, joint military and tactical intelligence spending) was first released in 1997 ($26.6 billion) in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Federation of American Scientists.  It was voluntarily released in 1998 ($26.7 billion).  The National Intelligence Program budget was next disclosed in 2007 ($43.5 billion), in response to a Congressional mandate, based on a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.  And then there was today’s release for 2008.

In recent years, the most passionate opponent of intelligence budget disclosure has been none other than Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), whose own financial non-disclosure practices have recently earned him multiple felony convictions.

In an October 4, 2004 Senate floor debate, Senator Stevens usefully marshaled all of the traditional arguments against disclosure.  Most of them were false at the time.  Others have since been disproven.

“No other nation, friend, or ally, reveals the amount that it spends on intelligence,” Sen. Stevens said then.

In fact, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and other countries have published their intelligence budgets for many years without adverse effect.

“Determining classification is the responsibility and duty of the chief executive of the United States, the President, who is also Commander in Chief,” said Sen. Stevens. “Presidents Truman through Bush has determined that the overall intelligence budget top-line figure is, and shall remain, classified, and I believe we should not overrule that judgment.”

But Congress shares responsibility for defining the terms of the classification system.  And as a factual historical matter, President Clinton approved disclosure of the intelligence budget total.

The hoariest myth of all, renewed by Sen. Stevens, is that “This is a slippery slope. Reveal the first number and it will be just a matter of minutes before there will be a call to reveal more information.”

The notion of a “slippery slope” resulting from disclosure of the top-line budget figure has been asserted for decades even by officials who are not convicted felons. But by now, it has been conclusively disproven.  Disclosure of the intelligence budget total has not led to uncontrolled further disclosures.  The 9/11 Commission’s 2004 recommendation that budgets for “component agencies” should also be disclosed was not accepted and such further disclosures have not occurred despite release of the total figure.

But today the intelligence budget continues to serve as a useful barometer of the incoherence of official secrecy policy.  Thus, even after declassifying the FY 2007 intelligence budget figure last year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded last summer (pdf) that “The size of the National Intelligence Program budget for Fiscal Year 2006 is properly classified.”

It seems unlikely that both positions are correct.

The Director of National Intelligence issued a directive (pdf) this month that will make it easier for a person whose spouse or immediate family is not a U.S. citizen to gain a security clearance for access to intelligence information.

The new policy lowers a barrier that has long impeded intelligence agency hiring of qualified area experts, linguists and others simply because of their family ties.

Under the prior policy (Director of Central Intelligence Directive 6/4), one of the criteria for obtaining access to classified intelligence was that “The individual’s immediate family must also be US citizens.”  Although an exception to that standard could be granted by a senior official, it was only permitted in case of a “compelling need.”

Now, a clearance for those with foreign ties can be granted without a “compelling need,” though it may still involve additional processing.

“Subjects who have immediate family members or other persons who are non-United States citizens to whom the subject is bound by affection or obligation may be eligible for access to SCI and other controlled access program information as the result of a condition, deviation, or waiver from personnel security standards.”

The new policy was presented in Intelligence Community Directive 704, signed by DNI J. Michael McConnell on October 1, 2008.

The new policy is part of a ongoing transition towards “risk management” (as opposed to “risk avoidance”).  This is an approach to security policy which accepts a modicum of increased risk in order to advance mission performance.

Could terrorists use Twitter, the instant messaging and micro-blogging service?  Presumably so, just as they could use credit cards and can openers.

The potential use of Twitter and other communications technologies by terrorists is considered in a new draft Army intelligence paper, based on a review of jihadist web sites and other public sources.

The Army paper on “al Qaida-Like Mobile Discussions & Potential Creative Uses” was dissected by Noah Shachtman in “Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists, Cell Phone Jihadists,” Danger Room, October 24.  A copy of the paper itself, which is more like a student exercise than a finished intelligence assessment, is available here (large pdf, for official use only).

On October 23, President Bush named former CIA information officer Herbert Briick to the Public Interest Declassification Board, and also reappointed former CIA general counsel Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker.  The Board will hold its next public meeting at the National Archives on Friday, October 31, where it will discuss how to identify and prioritize “historically valuable” information for declassification.  For details on attendance see this October 14 Federal Register notice (pdf).

What is intelligence?  Kristan J. Wheaton, a professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst College, invites readers to indicate their understanding of the term and its implications in a brief online survey.

The question of whether the United States needs a new domestic intelligence service that is independent of law enforcement was examined by Greg Treverton of the RAND Corporation in a new report for Congress entitled “Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence.”

Josh Gerstein, late of the New York Sun, has done some of the best reporting around on the AIPAC case involving unauthorized dissemination of classified information.  In a new blog posting, he updates readers on the latest developments in the case in advance of a pre-trial appeal hearing on October 29.

On July 16, 2008, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled “How the Administration’s Failed Detainee Policies Have Hurt the Fight Against Terrorism: Putting the Fight Against Terrorism on Sound Legal Foundations.”  The record of that hearing was recently published and is available here.

Executive branch agencies often classify information inconsistently or unnecessarily. But when challenged, they will sometimes modify their practices.

These elementary but important facts were illustrated recently by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, who described the process by which his office’s investigative reports are reviewed by agency officials prior to release.

“We have seen a lot of times where [agency officials] said, well, that is too sensitive, that is classified, and then we will look and in another forum they have publicly released it,” Mr. Fine said at a recent congressional hearing (pdf, at pp. 28-29).

“I have been in situations where the FBI told me you can’t say that, that is classified. I said okay. And then a week later, an FBI employee will come to [to Congress] and say the same thing. And I say to myself why can’t we say it if they can?”

“A lot of times FBI will give a report to one person and they will say this is classified, and then the FBI will give it to another person and different amounts are classified,” Mr. Fine said. “It is not a precise science.”

“I have to say, this is not just restricted to the Department of Justice,” concurred Rep. William D. Delahunt, “it is throughout the executive branch…. I have seen what you just articulated happen time and time again.”

“It is my own belief that the classification process has become a tool, if you will, for the avoidance of embarrassment,” the Congressman said.

The good news is that, at least at the Justice Department, the Inspector General does not simply yield to the whims of the classifiers, but insists on a sensible rationale for secrecy.

“We push for explanations to make sure that it [classification] is not being used as a way to avoid embarrassment,” Mr. Fine said. “And I think generally, in our case, we have been pretty successful.”

The relative success of Mr. Fine’s office in limiting classification of Inspector General reports points to an untapped opportunity for curtailing overclassification more broadly. That is, agency inspectors general could be assigned to conduct regular audits of classification activity and to “push for explanations” of dubious secrets.

The inspectors general are already on site throughout most of the executive branch and they have the security clearances they need to function (though in some cases they may lack adequate funding for this and other purposes). They could provide an enormous force multiplier for the small staff of the Information Security Oversight Office which is nominally responsible for classification oversight government-wide. If the classification system is worth fixing, the Inspectors General could have an important role to play.

Mr. Fine’s remarks on classification appeared in a newly published hearing record entitled “City on the Hill or Prison on the Bay? Part III: Guantanamo–The Role of the FBI,” House Foreign Affairs Committee, June 4, 2008.

Pentagon officials say that the Department of Defense and its contractors are failing to adequately protect “controlled unclassified information” (CUI) that may have significant military or technological value to adversaries or competitors.

“Simply stated, hostile actors can exfiltrate large volumes of unclassified program information in a single attack that can potentially net enough information to enable adversaries to narrow a capability gap,” according to a recent Army information paper (marked “for official use only”).

Digitized information in the hands of Defense Industrial Base (DIB) contractors is said to be particularly vulnerable.

“Exfiltrations of unclassified data from DIB unclassified systems have occurred and continue to occur, potentially undermining and even neutralizing the technological advantage and combat effectiveness of the future force,” the paper stated.

See “U.S. Army’s Concerns with Protection of Controlled Unclassified Information,” (pdf) August 15, 2008.

The paper was obtained by Inside the Army and first reported in “Army Cyber Task Force To Manage Growing Industrial Espionage Risk” by Daniel Wasserbly, Inside the Army, October 20, 2008.

A similar concern about protection of controlled unclassified information was expressed last month by DoD Chief Information Officer John G. Grimes.

He reiterated “the importance of properly protecting controlled unclassified information placed on information systems connected to the Internet, especially those that use file transfer protocol (FTP), peer-to-peer (P2P), and other protocols that are inherently insecure and pose significant security risks.”

“DoD is currently hosting thousands of such sites and, in spite of previous direction, far too much CUI data is still publicly available from these DoD sites,” he wrote.

See “Protection of Controlled Unclassified Information on DoD Information Systems Connected to the Internet” (pdf), September 22, 2008. The Grimes memo was first reported by Sebastian Sprenger in Inside Defense on October 22.

The Department of Defense Inspector General recently reported that defense contractors had failed to properly manage, recover or revoke thousands of Common Access Cards that permit the holder to access controlled defense information on DoD information systems.

This presents “a potential national security risk that may result in unauthorized access to DoD resources, installations, and sensitive information worldwide,” the DoD IG said.

See “Controls Over the Contractor Common Access Card Life Cycle” (large pdf), DoD Inspector General, October 10, 2008.

Among other things, a failure to reliably protect restricted information that is unclassified may produce an undesirable incentive to classify such information.

“Why are Docs From the Bailout Being Redacted?” by Ben Protess, ProPublica, October 22.

“U.S. Army delays, alters medical studies under little-known scientific censorship program” by Bryant Furlow, EPINews, October 21.

“GeoEye’s New Satellite Offers Unprecedentedly Sharp Images” by William Matthews, Defense News, October 20.

“IG: Army is lax in overseeing issuance of contractor ID cards” by Bob Brewin, Government Executive NextGov, October 16.

In August 2005, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were indicted under the Espionage Act on the extraordinary charge that they had improperly received and transmitted classified information that was provided to them by a government official. More than three years later, their case has still not gone to trial.

But next week a federal appeals court will hold a hearing on a government motion to reverse certain lower court rulings concerning the disclosure of classified information at the still unscheduled trial, if and when it does finally occur.

Both the law and the facts of the case are in significant dispute.

From the prosecution’s perspective, the two defendants “conspired to obtain classified information from government sources and passed that information to a foreign government, journalists and others, in violation of [the Espionage Act].”

Yet in an August 20 response (pdf) that was redacted and unsealed last week, the defense not only denied guilt but also said it would prove that no crime had been committed:

“Defendants will demonstrate, among other things, that they acted with innocent states of mind, believing they were acting in the national interest, that officials were authorized to disclose the information to them, and that their conduct was lawful and necessary to save both American and Israeli lives. They will demonstrate that the information at issue was in the public domain, was not damaging to national security, and was not even classified.”

At the hearing next week on October 29, prosecutors will argue that Judge T.S. Ellis, III, who presides over the case in the lower court, “erroneously authorized the disclosure of irrelevant classified information at trial.” Furthermore, they said in a September 12 reply brief (pdf), Judge Ellis “improperly grafted on to Section 793 [of the Espionage Act] several additional intent elements that are nowhere to be found in the statute and [he] repeatedly misapplied the test by which the government’s classified information privilege is adjudged.”

The government’s harsh assessment of Judge Ellis’s handling of the case is remarkable since he is an extremely cautious and deliberate judge (and a Reagan appointee). In an additional complication for the government, Judge Ellis himself sometimes sits on the court of appeals as a designee, making it perhaps a bit less likely that his holdings will be easily overturned by his sometime colleagues.

Adding to the prosecution’s disarray, the U.S. Attorney who has been in charge of the case, Chuck Rosenberg, recently resigned. The lead prosecutor, Kevin DiGregory, quit several months ago.

Given the unusual charge, the questionable factual basis for the prosecution, and the unfavorable judicial reception so far, some observers wonder why the government continues to pursue the case.

In fact, “defendants in the classified-information case involving two former pro-Israel lobbyists are hoping a change in administrations next year will bring a fresh review of their prosecution, according to sources on the defense team,” writes Nathan Guttman in the Forward.

New reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“Economic Development Assistance for Communities Affected by Employment Changes Due to Military Base Closures,” October 16, 2008.

“Financial Turmoil: Comparing the Troubled Asset Relief Program to the Federal Reserve’s Response,” October 8, 2008.

“Administering Green Programs in Congress: Issues and Options,” October 6, 2008.

“U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians,” October 8, 2008.

On October 7, the first I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence was awarded to John Walcott, now of McClatchy Newspapers. As the Washington bureau chief for Knight Ridder, Mr. Walcott led a team of reporters including Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel who distinguished themselves for thoughtful, critical and skeptical news coverage of the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

The award ceremony served as an occasion for an assessment of the state of journalistic independence, and an attempt to derive the lessons of the recent past. The highlights of the ensuing discussion were presented by Dan Froomkin of the Nieman Watchdog in “The Lessons of our Failure,” October 17.

The I.F. Stone Award is administered by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University along with the Nieman Watchdog.

A rich archive devoted to the life and work of I.F. Stone may be found here.

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

U.S. Nuclear Cooperation With India: Issues for Congress, updated October 2, 2008.

Iraq’s Debt Relief: Procedure and Potential Implications for International Debt Relief, updated October 2, 2008.

NATO Enlargement: Albania, Croatia, and Possible Future Candidates, October 6, 2008.

Navy DDG-1000 Destroyer Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress, updated October 9, 2008.

Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, updated October 2, 2008.

Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler Aircraft: Background and Issues for Congress, updated October 2, 2008.

Direct Overt U.S. Aid, Export Assistance and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002-FY2009, updated October 16, 2008.