The next President of the United States could single-handedly do what years of advocacy, investigation, legislation and litigation have yet to fully accomplish, namely to uncover the concealed record of the Bush Administration’s two terms in office on everything from warrantless wiretapping to extraordinary rendition.

In an essay published in the Nieman Watchdog today, I argue that the next Administration might find it advantageous and would clearly have the authority to overcome the Bush-era secrecy that has impeded government accountability and confounded public debate on a whole host of issues.

“By now no one expects the Bush Administration to make itself accountable for its controversial and possibly illegal practices in domestic surveillance, prisoner detention and interrogation, or for its numerous other departures from the norms of American government. But the next President will have a unique opportunity to reveal what has been kept hidden for the last seven years, and to let Americans know exactly what has been done in their name.”

“Although internal White House records that document the activities of the outgoing President and his personal advisers will be exempt from disclosure for a dozen years or so, every Bush Administration decision that was actually translated into policy will have left a documentary trail in one or more of the agencies, and all such records could be disclosed at the discretion of the next President.”

If so, it would make sense to question the presidential candidates now about their willingness to engage in such housecleaning by asking them, for example:

“Will you disclose the full scope of Bush Administration domestic surveillance activities affecting American citizens, including all surveillance actions that were undertaken outside of the framework of law, as well as the legal opinions that were generated to justify them?”

See “The next president should open up the Bush Administration’s record” by Steven Aftergood, Nieman Watchdog, February 7.

The Nieman Watchdog, a project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, aims to invigorate press coverage by framing probing questions on matters of public policy importance.

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf).

“Homeland Security: Roles and Missions for United States Northern Command,” January 28.

“Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues,” updated January 14, 2008.

“Pakistan’s Political Crises,” updated January 3, 2008.

“Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress,” updated January 4, 2008.

“East Asian Regional Architecture: New Economic and Security Arrangements and U.S. Policy,” updated January 4, 2008.

“The United Nations Human Rights Council: Issues for Congress,” updated January 8, 2008.

The DNI Open Source Center, which gathers, translates, analyzes, and distributes unclassified open source intelligence from around the world, is steadily growing in capability and impact, according to Doug Naquin, the Center’s Director.

The Open Source Center, which replaced the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, is doing more analysis and outreach than its predecessor and is also exploring new media, said Mr. Naquin in a recent speech (pdf).

“We’re looking now at YouTube, which carries some unique and honest-to-goodness intelligence,” he said.

“We have groups looking at what they call ‘Citizens Media’: people taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them on the Internet. Then there’s Social Media, phenomena like MySpace and blogs…. A couple years back we identified Iranian blogs as a phenomenon worthy of more attention, about six months ahead of anybody else.”

“But we still have an education problem … both with the folks who are proponents of open source but perhaps don’t know exactly why, and folks internally who are still wondering why I am sitting at the same table they are,” he said.

“All of us have heard the statement by [intelligence community] leaders at one time or another that ‘Our business is stealing secrets.’ Or ‘Our business is espionage.’ While I deeply respect that, and I understand where that’s coming from, from my Open Source perspective, I’m thinking that’s like a football coach saying, ‘Our mission is to pass the ball.’ Or ‘Our mission is to run the ball.’ Well, not exactly. It’s to win football games.”

Mr. Naquin addressed the Central Intelligence Retirees’ Association on October 3, 2007. The text of his remarks is available here.

While the Open Source Center may be thriving, its net value to the general public has actually declined. That is because only a small fraction of its product is normally made publicly available (for a substantial subscription fee), while alternative means of public access to international information sources continue to multiply.

Government agencies are still laboring to devise “common standards for preparing terrorism information for maximum distribution,” in response to a December 2005 directive from the President.

Recently the Program Manager for the ODNI Information Sharing Environment issued a memorandum (pdf) describing the implementation of such common standards. See “Common Terrorism Information Sharing Standards (CTISS) Program,” Information Sharing Environment Administrative Memorandum, October 31, 2007.

“Maximum distribution” of information here means sharing with federal agencies, state and local governments, law enforcement agencies, and the private sector. It does not imply that terrorism-related information will be shared with the general public.

The case of Maher Arar, the Canadian national who was mistakenly identified as an Islamist extremist and deported from the United States to Syria for interrogation under torture, was explored in a Congressional hearing last October. The record of that hearing (pdf) has just been published.

“The refusal of the Bush administration to be held accountable [for its handling of the Arar case] is an embarrassment to many of us,” said Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) of the House Judiciary Committee, who issued his own apology to Mr. Arar.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) endorsed the apology to Maher Arar, but also defended the Bush Administration policy of extraordinary rendition.

“Should we halt every government program that, due to a human error, results in a tragedy?” asked Mr. Rohrabacher. “I challenge anybody to compare the error rate of rendition, this program, with the error rate in any other government program.”

See “Rendition to Torture: The Case of Maher Arar,” joint hearing before subcommittees of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees, October 18, 2007.

President Bush this week ordered executive branch agency heads to respond to dozens of recommendations that were issued earlier this month by the Public Interest Declassification Board, an official advisory group, regarding the declassification of historical records.

The Board’s report, “Improving Declassification” (pdf), presented 49 recommendations to increase the utility and productivity of declassification, such as establishment of a National Declassification Center, creation of a public database of declassified documents, expedited declassification of presidential records including the President’s Daily Brief, and new procedures for declassification of closed congressional hearing records and other documents.

“Please submit in writing no later than April 15, 2008… your views on each of the recommendations, including with respect to each recommendation your view of whether and to what extent it should be implemented,” President Bush told the agency heads on January 29.

The Board’s report hardly made a ripple when it was released earlier this month. And since it is purely advisory, it could easily have been ignored.

But the President’s response increases the likelihood that the Board’s recommendations will now receive serious consideration, inside and outside of the executive branch.

A coalition of historians is petitioning a federal court in New York to release sealed grand jury records from the 1951 indictment of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and executed in 1953.

The Rosenberg case, a crucible of atomic secrets, American communism, Soviet spying, U.S. counterespionage, and more, remains a landmark in the history of the Cold War. But after decades of debate and disclosure, some of the basic records of the case still remain inaccessible. The historians’ initiative aims to change that.

The National Security Archive, one of the petitioners, has published the petition along with a diverse collection of declarations here.

Russia’s Okno and Krona space surveillance systems are profiled in a newly updated open-source documentary collection (pdf) by former CIA analyst Allen Thomson.

The precise location of the Okno facility, which is in Tajikistan, has not been publicly identified.

But last year, observed Mr. Thomson, a new “Krona-N radar site near Nakhodka was found in Google Earth (not by me) and the head of the Russian Space Forces says it’s going to be put into operation starting this year.”

“Like Krona Classic in the Caucasus, this is going to be an imaging radar,” he said. “Together with the 3-meter adaptive optics telescope being built in Siberia, the Krona radars will give Russia an excellent, all-weather capability to get high-resolution images of foreign satellites of interest. The new National Reconnaissance Office spysats scheduled for launch in the next few years seem likely to be among those.”

The new documentary collection is mostly in Russian, with selected translations and some nice images. See “Sourcebook on the Okno and Krona Space Surveillance Sites” by Allen Thomson.

A new U.S. Army Field Manual presents an introduction for soldiers to “the warrior ethos” (large pdf).

“Modern combat is chaotic, intense, and shockingly destructive,” the document states. “In your first battle, you will experience the confusing and often terrifying sights, sounds, smells, and dangers of the battlefield–but you must learn to survive and win despite them.”

“The Warrior Culture, a shared set of important beliefs, values, and assumptions, is crucial and perishable. Therefore, the Army must continually affirm, develop, and sustain it, as it maintains the nation’s existence.”

The warrior ethos (or any other) is not instilled simply by reading about it. But the new Army publication provides a common vocabulary and framework of reference for the aspiring warrior, along with basic survival and combat techniques.

See “The Warrior Ethos and Soldier Combat Skills,” U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-21.75, January 2008 (316 pages in a very large 28 MB PDF file).

Espionage remains “a very real threat to U.S. national security,” a House Judiciary Committee panel was told this week.

“Since the end of the Cold War, there have been 78 individuals arrested for espionage or espionage-related crimes and since the 21st century began, there have been 37 individuals arrested in the US as agents of foreign powers,” according to David G. Major, a former senior FBI official who is now President of the private Counterintelligence Centre.

In his January 29 testimony (pdf), Mr. Major presented a convenient tabulation of “Agents of Foreign Powers Arrested in the United States in the 21st Century.”

But his list erroneously includes Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who are charged with unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information.

They are not accused of espionage, nor does the U.S. Government argue that they are agents of a foreign power. To the contrary, prosecutors acknowledged in a January 30, 2006 court filing (pdf) that it is a “fact that the defendants were not agents of Israel, or any foreign nation.”

Recent espionage cases were also reviewed at the House Committee hearing by J. Patrick Rowan of the Department of Justice and Larry M. Wortzel of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Author Max Holland takes an advance peek at a new, not-yet-published book about the 9/11 Commission.

“In a revelation bound to cast a pall over the 9/11 Commission, [New York Times reporter] Philip Shenon will report in a forthcoming book that the panel’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, engaged in ‘surreptitious’ communications with presidential adviser Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials during the commission’s 20-month investigation into the 9/11 attacks,” Mr. Holland writes. See “Commission Confidential,” January 30.

Noteworthy new and newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf).

“Presidential Transitions,” updated December 27, 2007.

“Engineered Nanoscale Materials and Derivative Products: Regulatory Challenges,” January 22, 2008.

“NATO in Afghanistan: A Test of the Transatlantic Alliance,” updated January 7, 2008.

“The Changing U.S.-Japan Alliance: Implications for U.S. Interests,” updated January 10, 2008.

“Does the Army Need a Full-Spectrum Force or Specialized Units? Background and Issues for Congress,” January 18, 2008.

“Security Classified and Controlled Information: History, Status, and Emerging Management Issues,” updated January 2, 2008.