An Iranian religious leader reiterated last week that not only is Iran not pursuing nuclear weapons, but that to do so would be a violation of Islamic law.

“Production of nuclear bomb and even thinking on its production are forbidden from Islamic point of view,” said Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani in his Friday sermon at the Tehran University campus.

See “Ayat. Kashani: N-bomb production religiously forbidden,” Islamic Republic News Agency, November 9.

It has previously been reported that a “fatwa” or religious decree against nuclear weapons was issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But as far as is known, no text of such a fatwa has ever been published to substantiate these reports. See “Iran’s Missing Anti-Nuclear Fatwa,” Secrecy News, August 11, 2005.

Meanwhile, open source information on Iran’s ballistic missile programs was surveyed in a brief new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

“Today, there is little disagreement among most experts that Iran has acquired some number of ballistic missiles from other countries and has developed other ballistic missiles indigenously or in cooperation with others,” according to CRS.

“At the same time, however, there has been considerable public disagreement over precisely what kinds of ballistic missile systems Iran has or is developing. This is because there is little transparency in Iran’s ballistic missile programs, which has led to a lack of confidence in Iran’s public assertions.”

“Finally, details about Iranian ballistic missile programs remain classified in the United States. Because of the secrecy inherent in the development of weapon systems, especially in less open societies, open-source analyses reflect a wide range of technical views.”

See “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Programs: An Overview,” November 8, 2007.

The declaration of emergency rule in Pakistan has focused new concern on the status of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. It may also bring renewed attention to the case of Richard Barlow, the former intelligence officer who attempted to warn Congress two decades ago about Pakistan’s clandestine acquisition of U.S. nuclear technology and who was punished for his trouble.

In a classic whistleblower tale, Mr. Barlow’s security clearances were suspended, the state secrets privilege was invoked, and he was personally vilified after he attempted to notify Congress of irregularities and illegalities in Pakistan’s U.S. acquisitions program. Yet his allegations about Pakistani export control violations and official attempts to conceal those violations were ultimately corroborated.

A summary account of Mr. Barlow’s actions and experiences was presented in one of two pending amendments introduced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) last summer to provide belated compensation for his losses.

Mr. Barlow’s story, and much else about the clandestine development of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, is presented in a new book called “Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons” by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark (Walker & Company, 2007).

The Congressional Research Service examined “Pakistan’s Political Crisis and State of Emergency” (pdf) in a new report dated November 6, 2007.

See also “Pakistan-U.S. Relations” (pdf), updated October 18, 2007, and “Direct Overt U.S. Aid to Pakistan, FY2001-FY2008” (pdf), November 8, 2007.

David Isenberg’s Nuclear Underground provides continuing coverage of the nuclear black market, all things related to A.Q. Khan, and the Richard Barlow story.

And see the latest account of the Richard Barlow case in Jeff Stein’s “The Nuclear Bombshell That Never Went Off,” CQ Homeland Security, October 19, 2007.

National Special Security Events (NSSEs) are public events that are deemed to require national-level security planning. They include Presidential inaugurations and nominating conventions, major sporting events like the Super Bowl, and international summits.

Between September 1998 and February 2007, there have been 27 designated NSSEs, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, which helpfully tabulated them and provided as much related background as anyone might want. See “National Special Security Events” (pdf), November 6, 2007.

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

“Managing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Policy Implications of Expanding Global Access to Nuclear Power,” November 1, 2007.

“F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program: Background, Status, and Issues,” updated October 25, 2007.

“Navy DDG-1000 Destroyer Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress,” updated October 25, 2007.

“Operation Iraqi Freedom and Detainee Issues: Major Votes from the 110th Congress,” October 22, 2007.

“Journalists’ Privilege: Overview of the Law and Legislation in the 109th and 110th Congresses,” updated October 18, 2007.

“Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress,” updated September 27, 2007.

“National Emergency Powers,” updated August 30, 2007.

Prosecutors will be permitted to secretly present certain recorded surveillance data to a jury in the forthcoming trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who are accused of unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information, a federal judge ruled (pdf) last week.

Although the closely watched AIPAC case will not go to trial until January, it has already left a distinct imprint on national security law and litigation.

In eleven memorandum opinions issued to date, Judge T.S. Ellis, III has significantly reinterpreted the Espionage Act of 1917, broken new legal ground in implementing the Classified Information Procedures Act (which regulates the use of classified information in criminal trials), and set other precedents.

Last week, Judge Ellis approved limited use at trial of the so-called “silent witness rule,” an unconventional tactic that permits prosecutors to withhold evidence from the public and to disclose it only to the parties, the witnesses and the jury. Because this amounts to closing the trial, it runs the risk of infringing on constitutional guarantees that trials will be public.

The silent witness rule “is a novel evidence presentation technique that has received little judicial attention is the context of the use of classified information in trials,” Judge Ellis noted. “No published decision has explicitly approved or endorsed use of the rule in this context.”

But that has now changed. Judge Ellis approved limited use of the rule to secretly introduce evidence — more evidence than the defense wanted, but less than the prosecution asked for.

Prosecutors had initially sought to introduce 18 minutes and 24 seconds of recorded surveillance conversations along with 36 documents under the silent witness rule. But Judge Ellis only approved “silent” introduction of 4 minutes and 6 seconds of recorded conversation (and apparently no documents).

See Judge Ellis’ November 1 Memorandum Opinion here (pp. 10-20).

In the same Opinion, Judge Ellis restated the stringent standard that he has set for the prosecution to win a conviction on charges of conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act by oral disclosure of national defense information (NDI):

“The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that… the defendants (i) knew that the information … was NDI, i.e. knew that the information was closely held by the government and that the disclosure of the information would be damaging to the national security, (ii) knew the persons to whom the disclosures would be made were not authorized to receive the information, (iii) knew the disclosures the conspiracy contemplated making were unlawful, (iv) had reason to believe the information disclosed could be used to the injury of the United States or to the aid of a foreign nation, and (v) intended that such injury to the United States or aid to a foreign nation result from the disclosures.”

“The conspiracy charge fails absent proof of these mental state elements,” Judge Ellis wrote (pp. 9-10).

Also last week, Judge Ellis issued another Opinion approving a defense request for authorization to subpoena testimony from fifteen current and former officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“The government’s refusal to comply with a subpoena in these circumstances may result in dismissal or a lesser sanction,” Judge Ellis warned in that November 2 Opinion (pdf).

A recently revised Defense Department regulation (pdf) provides new detail on the preparation of the annual intelligence budget request, and on the documentation needed to support it.

The U.S. intelligence budget is comprised of two spending “aggregations”: the National Intelligence Program (NIP) and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP). (This configuration replaced the former National Foreign Intelligence Program, Joint Military Intelligence Program, and Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities.)

The NIP budget, which totaled $43.5 billion in 2007 according to last week’s official disclosure, funds intelligence to support national policy makers. The MIP budget, which probably amounts to at least another $10 billion, supports the Secretary of Defense, the military services, and military commanders in the field.

In practice, the distinction between the NIP and the MIP is not crystal clear, and several large “national” intelligence agencies — including NSA, DIA, NGA, NRO — also receive funding through the MIP.

A Defense Department Financial Management Regulation on “Intelligence Programs/Activities,” dated June 2007, presents the definitions of the intelligence budget aggregations, explains their classification levels, and describes the documentation that must be submitted to Congress to justify their appropriations.

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

“Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on Torture,” updated October 12, 2007.

“Director of National Intelligence Statutory Authorities: Status and Proposals,” November 2, 2007.

“Burma and Transnational Crime,” October 25, 2007.

“The Army’s Future Combat System (FCS): Background and Issues for Congress,” updated October 11, 2007.

“Coast Guard Deepwater Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress,” updated October 10, 2007.

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A widely-noted New Yorker article (February 19) on torture and U.S. government policy stated that the Intelligence Science Board had “released a report” criticizing coercive interrogation. In private correspondence, however, author Jane Mayer courteously acknowledged that she merely assumed the Board had released the report and that she had actually read it on the FAS web site after it was posted there by Secrecy News. (It has since been published elsewhere.)

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A federal court authorized issuance of subpoenas to more than a dozen current and former government officials to testify in the case of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are accused of unauthorized receipt, transmission and disclosure of classified information.

According to the defense, the testimony of the subpoenaed officials will show that the defendants did “nothing more than the well-established official Washington practice of engaging in ‘back channel’ communication with various non-governmental entities and persons for the purpose of advancing U.S. foreign policy goals.”

The government disputes that claim and says such testimony is irrelevant to whether the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified information.

The court, however, ruled (pdf) that circumstantial evidence of the official use of “back channel” communications could be probative of the defendants’ state of mind and could show a lack of criminal intent.

Judge T.S. Ellis III therefore authorized issuance of subpoenas to the following officials:

Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State (then-National Security Advisor)

Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State

William Burns, U.S. Ambassador to Russia

Marc Grossman, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs

Lawrence Silverman, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy to the Slovak Republic

Matthew Bryza, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State

Marc Sievers, Political Officer, U.S. Embassy to Israel

David Satterfield, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and Coordinator for Iraq (then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs)

Stephen Hadley, National Security Advisory (then-Deputy National Security Advisory)

Elliot Abrams, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisory for Global Democracy Strategy Affairs

Kenneth Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf Affairs for the National Security Council

Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Secretary of Defense

Douglas Feith, former Undersecretary of Defense

Michael Makovsky, former employee of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of Near East and South Asia

Lawrence Franklin, former Department of Defense employee

A copy of the November 2, 2007 Memorandum Opinion in the case of United States of America v. Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman is available here.

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

“Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security Policy: Past, Present, and Prospects,” October 29, 2007.

“National Strategy for Combating Terrorism: Background and Issues for Congress,” November 1, 2007.

“China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress,” updated October 18, 2007.

Broad classification restrictions on the disclosure of historical intelligence information are making it difficult or impossible to accurately represent the record of U.S. foreign policy, an official advisory committee warned in a report (pdf) to the Secretary of State last summer.

By law, the Department of State is obliged to publish “a thorough, accurate and reliable documentary record” of United States foreign policy in its official Foreign Relations of the United States series.

But due to official secrecy, “the credibility of the series… remains in the balance,” according to the newly disclosed report of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation.

For example, “The blanket denial by the CIA of the right to quote or cite from the President’s Daily Briefs of the Nixon years and beyond will make it difficult to give a full and accurate rendering of the effect of intelligence assessments on the foreign relations of the United States…. [T]he continued exemption of the President’s Daily Briefs may cause serious harm to the intellectual integrity of the Foreign Relations series.”

Similarly, the Committee complained, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board “has not allowed the historians of the [Foreign Relations] series access to its records [which] need to become accessible to the staff of the [State Department] Office of the Historian and be made available for inclusion in appropriate volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States.”

In short, “Committee members believe that unless policies consistent with respect for the right of the American people to be fully informed about their government’s conduct of foreign policy are adopted and implemented by the Executive Branch, it may become impossible for The Historian [of the State Department] to carry out his duties or for the committee to carry out its Congressionally mandated obligations.”

See “Report of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, January 1-December 31, 2006,” transmitted to the Secretary of State on June 19, 2007.

Although summary accounts of several National Intelligence Estimates have recently been declassified and published, this should not become standard practice, the Director of National Intelligence declared last week.

“It is the policy of the Director of National Intelligence that KJs [the Key Judgments from National Intelligence Estimates] should not be declassified,” DNI J. Michael McConnell wrote (pdf).

“No predisposition to declassify KJs should exist in drafting an NIE or its KJs. Any decision to declassify will be made by the DNI and only after he and other National Intelligence Board principals have reviewed and approved the entire NIE.”

“There is both a real and a perceived danger that analysts will adopt less bold approaches, or otherwise modify the way they characterize developments, and that the integrity of the NIE process could be harmed by expectations that all or portions of the NIE are likely to be declassified,” the DNI asserted.

See “Guidance on Declassification of National Intelligence Estimate Key Judgments,” memo to the Intelligence Community Workforce, October 24, 2007.

The new policy was first reported by Pamela Hess of the Associated Press.

Robert Jervis, the distinguished political scientist who advises the CIA on declassification policy, said that he supported the DNI’s position.

With declassification, “you make the pressures of politicization that much greater,” he told the Associated Press. “When you are writing an executive summary it’s hard not to ask ‘How is this sentence going to read in The New York Times?'”

But Michael Tanji, a veteran U.S. intelligence employee, disputed that view. “Having contributed to more than one of these in my career, I’m here to tell you, public opinion does not enter into the calculus,” he wrote in the Danger Room blog.