Confronted for the first time by a congressional request to review the classification of two congressional reports, the new Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) has been stymied by doubts over its own authority to proceed.

The PIDB was formally created by statute in 2000 to serve as an advisory body on declassification priorities and policies. Its controlling statute was modified in the intelligence reform legislation of 2004, when its members began to be named, but it first received funding in fiscal year 2006.

In September, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and other members of the Senate Intelligence Committee including its chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), asked the Board to review the controversial classification of portions of two committee reports on pre-war Iraq intelligence, contending that those documents were overclassified. It was the Board’s first such tasking.

Under the terms of the amended statute, the Board now says it cannot act on the congressional request without specific Presidential approval.

“The statute under which we operate provides that [President Bush] must request the board undertake such a review before it can proceed,” wrote L. Britt Snider, chairman of the Public Interest Declassification Board, in a letter to Sen. Wyden.

In effect, it appears, the Bush Administration must authorize the Board’s investigation of whether the Bush Administration overclassified the reports in question.

See “Anti-secrecy panel called ‘toothless’,” by Shaun Waterman, United Press International, October 30.

Some aspects of the dilemma were reported by Tim Starks in Congressional Quarterly on October 20, and elaborated by Nick Schwellenbach of the Project on Government Oversight in “Public Interest Declassification Board: Who’s the Boss?”.

Some recent products of the Congressional Research Service, not made directly available to the public, include the following (all pdf).

“Pakistan-U.S. Relations,” updated October 26, 2006.

“Pakistan: Chronology of Recent Events,” updated October 20, 2006.

“Western Sahara: Status of Settlement Efforts,” updated September 29, 2006.

Keeping secrets from the press and the public may be frustrating and occasionally illegal. But executive branch secrecy directed at Congress is actually subversive to the extent that it undermines the performance of legislative oversight.

Such secrecy was on vivid display at an April 6, 2006 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the Department of Justice, the record of which has just been published.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the sole witness, consistently evaded or deflected a wide range of basic policy questions.

He was so reluctant to give definitive responses to congressional questions that at one point he refused to endorse the well-established requirements of existing law.

Would the Bush Administration ever conduct “purely domestic warrantless surveillance between two Americans?” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) wanted to know.

“I’m not going to rule it out,” the Attorney General replied, unintentionally making headlines the next day.

The answers to many of the Committee’s questions are classified, the Attorney General repeatedly stated, and could not be presented. Eventually, even Republican supporters of Bush Administration policies began to run out of patience.

“Mr. Attorney General, how can we discharge our oversight responsibilities if every time we ask a pointed question we are told that the answer is classified?” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI).

“We need to have answers,” he said. “And we’re not getting them.”

“I am really concerned that the Judiciary Committee has been kind of put in the trash heap,” Chairman Sensenbrenner said at the conclusion of the hearing.

Aside from classification restrictions, AG Gonzales displayed a surprisingly weak grasp of many of the issues raised by the Committee; he said “I don’t know” at least twenty-one times. He also declined to answer questions that touched on internal Administration deliberations. And he adhered to a view that classified intelligence matters are strictly the domain of the congressional Intelligence Committees, not the Judiciary Committees.

The newly published hearing record includes (in the PDF version) nearly 100 pages of somewhat more substantive follow-up questions and answers for the record, transmitted in September 2006. Topics included domestic surveillance, the President’s classification and declassification authority, the possible use of military force against U.S. persons suspected of being terrorists, the use of Presidential signing statements, and so forth. Most of this material seems to restate previously articulated positions.

The hearing transcript features some sublimely obtuse moments.

“Do you have the highest security clearance that is available in the United States Government?” asked Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).

“As far as I know, yes,” the Attorney General said.

See “United States Department of Justice,” hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, April 6, 2006.

“We have legitimate oversight questions, and we’re told it’s classified, so we can’t get to the bottom of this,” a frustrated Rep. Sensenbrenner said.

“Maybe there ought to be some declassification,” he mused.

Secrecy in science is the subject of a series of papers in the latest issue of the Duke University Law School journal Law and Contemporary Problems. The authors consider the consequences of secret science and “propose solutions to help balance the costs and benefits of such secrecy.”

See a descriptive news release here.

The full text of the special issue on “Sequestered Science,” edited by David Michaels and Neil Vidmar, is here.

The Congressional Research Service has produced its latest annual report on U.S. arms sales abroad (pdf). The CRS report, authored by Richard F. Grimmett, has become a standard reference in the field since it is based on closely held official data.

“This report is prepared annually to provide Congress with official, unclassified, quantitative data on conventional arms transfers to developing nations by the United States and foreign countries for the preceding eight calendar years for use in its various policy oversight functions.”

Like other CRS products, this report is not made directly available to the public by CRS. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1998-2005,” October 23, 2006.

Further information and analysis are available from the FAS Arms Sales Monitoring Project.

Among other noteworthy new products of the Congressional Research Service are the following (all pdf).

“Weapons of Mass Destruction: Trade Between North Korea and Pakistan,” updated October 11, 2006.

“Extradition Between the United States and Great Britain: The 2003 Treaty,” updated October 10, 2006.

“Russian Political, Economic, and Security Issues and U.S. Interests,” updated October 19, 2006.

“The National Institutes of Health (NIH): Organization, Funding, and Congressional Issues,” October 19, 2006.

“Journalists’ Privilege: Overview of the Law and 109th Congress Legislation,” updated October 3, 2006.

In a report to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission last year, Department of Defense officials selectively withheld data showing that demand for certain DoD research laboratory facilities was likely to increase, not decrease, in coming years.

The suppression of this information on “future excess capacity” appears to have significantly distorted the decision-making process regarding military base closures.

“The [suppressed] data would have made for an awkward situation were it not expunged because it showed that excess capacity will vanish without any BRAC actions taken,” according to a sharply critical November 2005 memorandum (pdf) prepared by Don J. DeYoung, a member of an internal BRAC study group.

A copy of the DeYoung memo as well as the suppressed data on “future excess capacity” at DoD laboratories were independently obtained by Secrecy News.

“It was unethical to expunge critical data from the official process, and then withhold it from the public and the affected DoD workforces,” Mr. DeYoung wrote in his internal memorandum. It may also have been illegal, given a statutory requirement to provide all relevant information to Congress and the BRAC Commission.

Any decision to preserve or to shut down a particular facility is a judgment call that involves consideration of numerous factors.

But because relevant data were withheld, the resulting decisions “lacked integrity,” wrote Mr. DeYoung. “A necessary and appropriate public debate was thereby eliminated.”

The BRAC decision-making process also produced some results that are questionable from a public policy point of view. For example, a decision was made to close a research facility at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey even though it is a leading developer of countermeasures against Improvised Explosive Devices, which are a major threat to U.S. troops in Iraq.

A more detailed account of the DoD suppression of BRAC data on “future excess capacity” is presented in this synopsis.

For links (pdf) to the uncensored version of the report including data on “future excess capacity,” the censored BRAC report as presented to the Commission, the November 2005 DeYoung critique of the process, and a DoD email message suggesting that the suppressed data be classified, see this page.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has produced a revised edition of its “basic doctrine” which generally “explains what geospatial intelligence–or GEOINT–is, how it has evolved and how it contributes to our nation’s security.” See “Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) Basic Doctrine,” Publication 1-0, September 2006 (6.2 MB PDF).

The U.S. Air Force watches the skies by means of the Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) system. An introduction to GEODSS, its structure, history and contributions, was prepared by Allen Thomson in A GEODSS Sourcebook (4.2 MB PDF).

This week the People’s Republic of China successfully launched two satellites into orbit. Earlier this month, China issued a white paper on “China’s Space Activities in 2006” (pdf).

Some recent reports of the Congressional Research Service which have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“The War Crimes Act: Current Issues,” updated October 2, 2006.

“Honduras: Political and Economic Situation and U.S. Relations,” updated October 13, 2006.

“Argentina: Political Conditions and U.S. Relations,” updated October 12, 2006.

“Arsenic in Drinking Water: Regulatory Developments and Issues,” updated October 5, 2006.

“Defense: FY2007 Authorization and Appropriations,” updated September 5, 2006.

“North Korea: Terrorism List Removal?,” updated August 12, 2004.

“Chemical Facility Security,” updated August 2, 2006.

A new U.S. Army Field Manual (pdf) presents a vision of excellence in military leadership and articulates principles by which such excellence may be achieved.

“It is critical that Army leaders be agile, multiskilled pentathletes who have strong moral character, broad knowledge, and keen intellect.”

But in America, the “warrior ethos” is not an independent value, the Army manual explains. Rather, the value of military leadership derives from the constitutional order that it serves and supports.

“The Army’s military and civilian leaders are instruments of the people of the United States.”

Furthermore, the effectiveness of Army leadership is dependent on the quality and wisdom of the elected leaders of the country.

“The elected government commits forces only after due consideration and in compliance with our national laws and values,” the manual says. “Understanding this process gives our Army moral strength and unwavering confidence when committed to war.”

The 200 page manual presents extensive theoretical as well as inspirational material and a bibliography for further study.

See U.S. Army Field Manual FM 6-22, “Army Leadership: Competent, Confident, and Agile,” October 12, 2006 (4.4 MB PDF).

Several recently updated reports from the Congressional Research Service, not readily available to the public, provide an introduction to the subject of conventional arms sales and the proliferation of weapons technology (all pdf).

“International Small Arms and Light Weapons Transfers: U.S. Policy,” updated October 2, 2006.

“Military Technology and Conventional Weapons Export Controls: The Wassenaar Arrangement,” updated September 29, 2006.

“Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures,” updated September 25, 2006.

“Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process,” December 20, 2002.

Some more reports from the Congressional Research Service on diverse topics include the following (all pdf).

“Freedom of Information Act Amendments: 109th Congress,” updated September 22, 2006.

“The Endangered Species Act and ‘Sound Science’,” updated October 5, 2006.

“Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2007,” updated October 10, 2006.

“Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: A Survey of Options,” updated October 5, 2006.

“Iran’s Influence in Iraq,” updated September 29, 2006.

“Project BioShield,” updated September 27, 2006.

The U.S. intelligence community can and should form a more integrated whole without its member agencies sacrificing their individual character, according to a Five Year Strategic Human Capital Plan (pdf) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

“A truly integrated IC is the only answer to the myriad threats that we face,” the newly disclosed June 2006 Plan states.

But “a national intelligence ‘service’ does not depend on or require a monolithic, homogeneous institutional culture, or a one-size-fits-all set of personnel rules and procedures (although some uniformity will undoubtedly be necessary).”

“I absolutely respect the cultures and traditions of the individual agencies,” Ron Sanders, the ODNI Chief Human Capital Officer told Secrecy News. “But this is one team, one fight. We have to come together in an integrated way.”

The 47 page Human Capital Plan accordingly outlines an approach to achieving what it calls “unity without uniformity.”

The term “human capital” (now used in place of “human resources”) encompasses all aspects of personnel management, from recruitment, hiring, salary and benefits, to training, promotion and termination. While it is not an intelligence function per se, it cuts to the core of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy.

The Plan also provides new insight into a host of challenging intelligence community personnel matters, including workforce diversity, competition with the commercial sector, “generation gaps” within the intelligence community and security clearance policy.

A copy was released today in response to a request from Secrecy News.

See “The US Intelligence Community’s Five Year Strategic Human Capital Plan,” June 22, 2006 (released October 18, 2006).