The U.S. military faces an erosion of the skills that it needs to develop and maintain strategic nuclear and non-nuclear strike forces, according to a new study (pdf) by the Defense Science Board (DSB).

“It appears that a serious loss of certain critical strategic strike skills may occur within the next decade” as senior design and operations personnel retire, the DSB study said.

“The strategic strike area most at risk today is ballistic missiles: Current skills may not be able to cope with unanticipated failures requiring analysis, testing, and redesign.”

“Design skills are rapidly disappearing, both for major redesigns of current systems and for the design of new strategic systems.”

“DoD and industry have difficulty attracting and retaining the best and brightest students to the science and engineering disciplines relevant to maintaining current and future strategic strike capabilities,” according to the DSB.

These findings are elaborated in the 89 page report with respect to ballistic missiles, bombers and other strategic strike platforms and systems.

See “Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Future Strategic Strike Skills,” March 2006 (1.9 MB PDF).

This document was password-protected by DSB so as to prevent copying or printing of the report.

Update: Thanks to F, the report is now available in unencrypted format, and can be freely copied and printed.

A House resolution to investigate the so-called Downing Street memo on pre-war intelligence on Iraq was considered and rejected, along with two other resolutions on Iraq and the Valerie Plame case, in a September 14, 2005 markup by the House Committee on International Relations. See the report of that Committee markup (pdf).

Sen. Arlen Specter introduced his “National Security Surveillance Act” on March 16 that would subject the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance program to the adjudication of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Also on March 16, Senator Dewine and three Republican colleagues introduced their “Terrorist Surveillance Act” which would nullify the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and authorize warrantless surveillance for up to 45 days without any judicial authorization.

The Department of Defense withdrew from its web site a DoD inspector general report that was critical of information security in the Missile Defense Agency’s ground-based missile defense system. Federal Computer Week reported on the removal of the document and posted the missing document on its own web site. See “DOD removes missile defense system report from Web site” by Bob Brewin, Federal Computer Week, March 20.

Several critical assessments of the “sensitive but unclassified” information control marking were discussed in “New Reports Raise Questions About Secrecy Stamps” by Rebecca Carr, Cox News Service, March 19.

The consequences of applying espionage statutes not only to leakers but also to unauthorized recipients of classified information were considered by Fred Kaplan in “Spies Like Us: Listening to leakers could land you in jail,” Slate, March 17.

Some notable new reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

“The Middle East Peace Talks,” updated March 16, 2006.

“Terrorism and National Security: Issues and Trends,” updated March 9, 2006.

“North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” updated February 21, 2006.

“Nepal: Background and U.S. Relations,” updated February 2, 2006.

The Director of National Intelligence yesterday announced the public release of Iraqi documents that were captured by U.S. forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The release came in response to pressure from House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum, who had both introduced legislation to compel disclosure of the captured Iraqi documents, and from The Weekly Standard magazine and the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

“The accessibility of these materials represents an important departure from the past when previous document release efforts have taken many years,” the Office of the DNI said in a news release.

But the documents released by the DNI are a decidedly mixed bag.

Illustrating their eclectic nature, one of the captured Iraqi documents (pdf) is a print-out of an article from the Federation of American Scientists web site.

“This file contains document relevant to the Mukhabarat or Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), it explains the structure of the IIS,” according to the DNI synopsis of the document (record number CMPC-2003-006430).

In fact, the document was written in 1997 by John Pike (then at FAS, now at GlobalSecurity.org), except for an added cover page which is handwritten in Arabic.

The newly released documents may be found here.

See also “U.S. Reveals Once-Secret Files From Hussein Regime” by Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, March 17.

The interesting possibility that raw intelligence materials like these could be productively assessed by members of the public working together online was optimistically considered by former intelligence officer Michael Tanji.

“A successful collaborative analysis of Iraqi documents has implications that go beyond just this problem set. Such an endeavor will not go unnoticed by the reform-minded in the intelligence community,” he wrote.

See “An Army of Analysts,” by Michael Tanji, The Weekly Standard, March 14.

Writing in the blog GroupIntel, Mr. Tanji also had a provocative response to the March 13 Secrecy News story on the new intelligence community document marking “RELIDO.”

See his “RELIDO: Why Bother?”

Senate Republicans led by Sen. Mike DeWine yesterday introduced a bill (pdf) that would authorize warrantless intelligence surveillance for up to 45 days, after which it could be renewed upon review by the Attorney General.

The bill would require notification to Congress of various aspects of the program.

But significantly, it would impose no external constraints on domestic surveillance by the executive branch.

The bill (pdf) would also impose penalties of up to $1 million and/or 15 years in prison for unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to such surveillance activity.

Stung by criticism that this approach could be used to punish reporters who write about illegal government surveillance, the Senators declared that the proposed penalty, an amendment to 18 U.S.C. 798, “does not apply to journalists.”

Thus, while the current 18 U.S.C. 798(a) apparently prohibits unauthorized disclosures of certain specific types of classified information by “any person”, the new proposed section 798(b) would only apply to “any covered person,” which means someone who has authorized possession of the classified information, but not a reporter or other recipient of the information.

See “DeWine, Graham, Hagel and Snowe Introduce the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006,” news release, March 16.

On March 13, Sen. Russ Feingold introduced a resolution to censure President Bush for what he described as a violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Prepared testimony from a March 14 House Government Reform subcommittee hearing titled “Drowning in a Sea of Faux Secrets” that addressed overclassification, reclassification, and the use of the “sensitive but unclassified” control marking can be found here.

“Congressional Notification of Intelligence Activities, Intelligence-Related Activities, Special Access Programs, and Covert Actions Within the Department of the Navy” (large pdf) is the subject of Secretary of the Navy Instruction 5730.13A, updated February 1, 2006 (badly scanned by the Navy into a 5 MB file).

“All persons who have authorized possession of classified information, and persons who have unauthorized possession, who come into possession in an unauthorized way of classified information, must abide by the law. They have no privilege to estimate that they can do more good with it.”

“So, that applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever. They are not privileged to disobey the laws, because we are a country that respects the rule of law.”

Thus spoke Judge T.S. Ellis, III, in a January 20, 2006 sentencing hearing (pdf) for former Defense Department official Lawrence A. Franklin, who was convicted of unauthorized disclosures of classified information. His remarks were first reported (in slightly truncated form) by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Judge Ellis’ statement was extraordinary because it appeared to endorse the new Bush Administration theory that not only leakers but also unauthorized recipients of classified information can be prosecuted for retaining or disclosing such information to others.

This reading of the law, which has never prevailed before, could now be used against academics, lawyers, newsletter writers, newsletter readers, whatever.

It is currently being tested in the prosecution of two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who are accused of mishandling classified information that was provided to them by Mr. Franklin. Neither of the two AIPAC employees held a security clearance.

A copy of the transcript of the January 20 sentencing hearing (pdf) at which Judge Ellis made his surprising remarks was obtained by Secrecy News.

See, relatedly, “Suppression of witness names underlines battle in AIPAC case” by Ron Kampeas and Matthew E. Berger, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 15, 2006.

The government’s use of the problematic “sensitive but unclassified” (SBU) designation to restrict access to information that does not warrant classification is coming under new scrutiny.

“Federal agencies do not use uniform definitions of SBU information or have consistent policies for safeguarding or releasing it,” a new study from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) observed.

“This lack of uniformity and consistency raises issues about how to identify SBU information, especially scientific and technical information; how to keep it from those who would use it malevolently, while allowing access for those who need to use it; and how to develop uniform nondisclosure policies and penalties.”

The 82-page CRS report presents a comprehensive treatment of this vexing subject. It surveys the origins of government SBU practices; explores “contentious issues” involving SBU; and considers recommendations to improve SBU policy.

CRS does not permit direct public access to its publications, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “‘Sensitive But Unclassified’ Information and Other Controls: Policy and Options for Scientific and Technical Information,” dated February 15, 2006 (published March 14, 2006).

The Government Accountability Office yesterday released a report on SBU policies at the Departments of Energy and Defense to coincide with a House Government Reform Subcommittee hearing. See “Managing Sensitive Information: Departments of Energy and Defense Policies and Oversight Could Be Improved,” Report No. GAO-06-369, March 2006.

The National Security Archive conducted its own survey of SBU policies at federal agencies and released a report entitled “Pseudo-Secrets: A Freedom of Information Audit of the U.S. Government’s Policies on Sensitive Unclassified Information.”

Some other notable publications from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

“Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses,” updated March 10, 2006.

“Homeland Security: Protecting Airliners from Terrorist Missiles,” updated February 16, 2006.

“Military Aviation: Issues and Options for Combating Terrorism and Counterinsurgency,” January 27, 2006.

“Intelligence in the Civil War” is the topic of a new study published by the Central Intelligence Agency (PDF).

The technical challenges facing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and a research agenda to help meet those challenges were described in a new report from the National Research Council. See “Priorities for GEOINT Research at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,” 2006.

President Bush this week said that a newspaper — the Los Angeles Times — had published details of a new technology used to defend against improvised explosive devices, and that jihadists used details from that newspaper story to develop techniques for defeating the new technology. Noah Shachtman of DefenseTech.org argues that there is reason to doubt the President’s account. See “The Enemy is Me,” March 14. (There’s more here.)

“In another sign of increasing government secrecy, the Federal Aviation Administration has removed from its Web site the transcript of a heated public hearing during which pilots ridiculed no-fly zones that have surrounded Washington since 9/11,” writes Lance Gay of Scripps Howard News Service. See “FAA yanks potentially ‘sensitive’ information from Web site,” March 15.

If the New York Times could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for having disclosed the warrantless NSA surveillance activity, as some enthusiasts have proposed, then who else might be guilty of a similar offense? That question was asked and answered by Jack Shafer in “A Gitmo for Journos: Who besides the New York Times could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act?”, Slate, March 14.