The Department of Defense has created a new DoD Laboratory Network (pdf) to coordinate existing programs on the assessment of and response to the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The new Network is intended “to provide timely, high-quality, actionable results for early detection, confirmation, response, and effective consequence management of acts of terrorism or warfare involving CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear] agents; infectious disease outbreaks; and other all-hazards agent events requiring a DoD integrated incident response.”

The initiative was set forth in DoD Instruction 6440.03, “DoD Laboratory Network (DLN),” June 10, 2011.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has updated its “Minimum Security Standards for Safeguarding Biological Select Agents and Toxins,” OPNAV Instruction 5530.16A (pdf), 11 May 2011.

The Department of Defense has also issued new guidance on regulating access to classified nuclear weapons information, including the relatively new (2006) category known as “Sigma 20” information, which pertains to improvised nuclear devices.  See “Access to and Dissemination of Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data,” DoD Instruction 5210.02 (pdf), 03 June 2011.

In his new book “Tiger Trap,” veteran intelligence author David Wise turns his attention to the history of Chinese espionage against the United States and the sometimes clumsy, self-defeating U.S. response.

While the subject matter often lends itself to exaggeration or anti-China animus, Mr. Wise generally evades these hazards and sticks close to the facts.  And though at least the outlines of individual episodes described in the book have previously been reported, the author fills in numerous gaps in the public record, including some previously classified details.  The book presents Chinese espionage successes and failures, some brilliant U.S. counterintelligence strokes and some egregious failures, some suspects who were falsely accused and others who got away nearly unscathed.

It all adds up to a lively and surprisingly cohesive narrative, especially since many of the individual stories overlap with one or more of the others.  “Chinese spy cases have tendrils that often seem to reach out and become entangled in other cases,” Mr. Wise writes.

When it comes to espionage, “China may be America’s single most effective and dangerous adversary,” according to Mr. Wise.  “It managed over the years to penetrate both the CIA and the FBI.  It acquired highly classified and guarded nuclear weapons secrets.”

“Without exaggerating the danger of Chinese espionage, or magnifying the threat, it is a fact that China’s spying on America is ongoing, current, and shows no sign of diminishing.  The conflict is no less real for being mostly unseen.”  It goes without saying that U.S. intelligence also collects against China.

“Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War with China” by David Wise was published this week by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Some other newly received books in our “to read” pile include these:

“Abuse of Power: How Cold War Surveillance and Secrecy Policy Shaped the Response to 9/11” by Athan G. Theoharis, Temple University Press, May 31, 2011.

“15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation” by L. Douglas Keeney, St. Martin’s Press, February 2011.

“Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man” by John Coster-Mullen, 2011.

The legitimacy of official secrecy policy that is taken for granted within official circles is increasingly open to question within the press and among many members of the public.

“Government officials must… accept the enduring reality of a media culture that is prepared to publish official secrets and considers such disclosure a patriotic contribution to democratic discourse,” said the Congressional Research Service in passing in a new report.  See “Intelligence Information: Need-to-Know vs. Need-to-Share” (pdf), June 6, 2011.

This is not quite precise, since no U.S. news organization publishes official secrets just because they are secret.  And no one seriously views the publication of a classified technical manual, for example, as a contribution to democratic discourse.  The secrets must also be newsworthy, and even then most news outlets will exercise discretion and will give consideration to national security claims.

But it is certainly true that reputable news organizations of liberal, conservative and other editorial persuasions will publish classified information over government objections.  That is the privilege and the right of a free press.

Strangely, the obverse is also true:  Government officials will sometimes insist that information that is irreversibly public is nevertheless classified and subject to official security controls.

This was demonstrated most recently in a Justice Department policy for habeas attorneys regarding limitations on access to records published by WikiLeaks concerning detainees at Guantanamo, as first reported by the New York Times on June 11.

“While you may access such material from your non-U.S.-Government-issued personal and work computers,” the attorneys were told (pdf), “you are not permitted to download, save, print, disseminate, or otherwise reproduce, maintain, or transport potentially classified information.”

But the idea that information can be “accessed” online without “downloading” it is garbled, and it illustrates the confusion that prevails in government regarding classified information in the public domain.  See “Feds’ policy on reading WikiLeaks docs ‘incoherent,’ critics say” by Josh Gerstein, Politico Under the Radar, June 12.

The gap that separates the two cultures of government and media over official secrecy could be narrowed if not eliminated by a concerted effort to limit secrecy to its least ambiguous, most broadly accepted purposes.  But currently, the Obama Administration is devoting far more effort to enforcing the existing secrecy regime than to fixing it.

With little fanfare, the White House last month transmitted the protocols of two treaties on nuclear weapons free zones in the South Pacific and Africa to the U.S. Senate for ratification.  The Protocols generally commit the signatories “not to use or threaten to use a nuclear explosive device” against any other party to the Treaty.

Protocols 1, 2, and 3 to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (pdf) had been signed by the United States in 1996, but were not submitted for Senate ratification until now.

Likewise, Protocols I and II to the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (pdf) were signed by the U.S. in 1996, but never ratified.

In each case, President Obama wrote in his transmittal letters on May 2, 2011 that “I am convinced that it is in the best interest of the United States to ratify [the Protocols].  This step will strengthen our relations with our… friends and allies and enhance U.S. security by furthering our global nonproliferation and arms control objectives.”

Entry into force of the Protocols “would require no changes in U.S. law, policy, or practice,” the President wrote.

The Protocol packages transmitted to the Senate provide detailed accounts of the history of each agreement, along with an explanation of the Protocols’ provisions.  The Senate has not yet taken action to consider ratification of the Protocols.

There are five treaty-based nuclear weapons free zones around the world, as noted by the Arms Control Association, including Latin America and the Caribbean, South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central Asia.

In a whirlwind conclusion to the prosecution of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake, Mr. Drake agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “exceeding authorized use of a computer.”

Prosecutors were unable to sustain any of the felony counts against Mr. Drake that were contained in last year’s ten-count indictment, including charges of unauthorized retention of classified material under the Espionage Act of 1917.

A copy of the June 9, 2011 plea agreement is here.

Mr. Drake had been suspected of unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the press, though he was not specifically charged with that offense, and he denied committing it.

Much of the case was conducted behind closed doors and off the public record, so many intriguing aspects of its ultimate resolution remain obscure for the time being.  But it seems clear that the Obama Administration misjudged the merits of its case against Drake, pursuing minor infractions with disproportionate zeal.

Meanwhile, Mr. Drake’s legal team, public defenders James Wyda and Deborah L. Boardman, did a superb job of defending their client in a challenging legal environment.  Drake’s supporters at the Government Accountability Project managed to win a remarkable degree of public sympathy and support for a supposed felon.

Speaking of disproportionate zeal, I wrote last Monday that there was “no possibility” of avoiding trial on June 13.  Consider this a correction.

See related coverage in the Washington Post, Politico, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, AP, MSNBC and Emptywheel.

The National Security Agency announced yesterday that it has declassified a report that is over two hundred years old.

The newly declassified report, entitled “Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing,” dates from 1809.  It is part of a collection of 50,000 pages of historic records that have just been declassified by NSA and transferred to the National Archives.

The NSA said the new release demonstrated its “commitment to meeting the requirements” of President Obama’s January 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.

The bulk of the newly released documents are from World War II and the early post-War era. (NSA itself was established in 1952.)  A list of titles released to the National Archives is here (pdf).

Last April, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified several documents on the use of “invisible ink” that dated from the World War I era.  But those were not even a century old.

Meanwhile, in more recent developments, the case of former NSA official Thomas A. Drake, who is charged with unlawful retention of classified information, is said to be “changing hour by hour.”

On Sunday, the government told the court (pdf) it had decided to withdraw several of its proposed exhibits rather than declassify them for trial, Politico reported (“Feds pare back NSA leak case to shield technology” by Josh Gerstein, June 6).

As a consequence, prosecutors are now seeking a plea bargain, the Washington Post reported, but Drake has twice refused to accept their offer (“Ex-NSA manager has reportedly twice rejected plea bargains in Espionage Act case” by Ellen Nakashima, June 9).

The trial of Thomas Drake is currently still scheduled to begin in Baltimore on Monday, June 13.

The National Security Agency announced yesterday that it has declassified a report that is over two hundred years old.

The newly declassified report, entitled “Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing,” dates from 1809.  It is part of a collection of 50,000 pages of historic records that have just been declassified by NSA and transferred to the National Archives.

The NSA said the new release demonstrated its “commitment to meeting the requirements” of President Obama’s January 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.

The bulk of the newly released documents are from World War II and the early post-War era. (NSA itself was established in 1952.)  A list of titles released to the National Archives is here (pdf).

Last April, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified several documents on the use of “invisible ink” that dated from the World War I era.  But those were not even a century old.

Meanwhile, in more recent developments, the case of former NSA official Thomas A. Drake, who is charged with unlawful retention of classified information, is said to be “changing hour by hour.”

On Sunday, the government told the court (pdf) it had decided to withdraw several of its proposed exhibits rather than declassify them for trial, Politico reported (“Feds pare back NSA leak case to shield technology” by Josh Gerstein, June 6).

As a consequence, prosecutors are now seeking a plea bargain, the Washington Post reported, but Drake has twice refused to accept their offer (“Ex-NSA manager has reportedly twice rejected plea bargains in Espionage Act case” by Ellen Nakashima, June 9).

The trial of Thomas Drake is currently still scheduled to begin in Baltimore on Monday, June 13.

The prosecution of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake under the Espionage Act “smacks of overkill,” said the Washington Post in an editorial today (“A case that could be overkill against a whistleblower,” June 6).

The Post editorial tends to ratify a growing consensus that the prosecution of Drake on charges of unauthorized retention of classified information is a mistake, and that the Obama Administration has mishandled the case.  That view was crystallized by a widely-read New Yorker article written by Jane Mayer (“The Secret Sharer,” May 23), and reinforced by a 60 Minutes profile (May 22), as well as a Ridenhour whistleblower award.

There is no evidence that Mr. Drake intended to cause harm to the United States or that he actually did so, even inadvertently.  The prosecutors themselves do not claim that any classified information that might have been in Mr. Drake’s possession appeared in the press as a result of his actions.  Yet he faces the possibility of multiple decades in prison.

“The question here is whether the indictment and proposed punishment are proportionate to the alleged infraction,” the Post editorial said.  Clearly, they are not.

When former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was found to have unlawfully removed classified records (pdf) from the National Archives — in circumstances that were far more egregious and much less susceptible to an innocent interpretation than anything Mr. Drake did — Mr. Berger was not charged under the Espionage Act.  He pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material” under 18 USC 1924, and was sentenced to two years of probation.  He also had to pay a fine, to perform 100 hours of community service, and to forego access to classified material for three years.

There is no possibility at this late date that the Obama Administration will acknowledge its error and change course before Mr. Drake’s trial begins on June 13.  But one may still hope that a sensible jury will discern the injustice in the Administration’s pursuit of Mr. Drake and draw the only appropriate conclusion.

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the U.S. intelligence agency that builds and operates intelligence satellites, has just released unclassified portions (pdf) of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for Fiscal Year 2011.  The large bulk of the document remains classified and unreleased, but the newly disclosed portions reveal a few scraps of new information.

“The NRO brings unique capabilities to bear in support of national security objectives by… acquiring and operating the most capable set of satellite intelligence collection platforms ever built,” the NRO told Congress.

“In times of heightened tension, crisis, or even humanitarian or natural disasters, the value of NRO systems is even greater,” the budget document said.  “NRO systems are not only the first responders of choice for the DoD, IC [intelligence community], or policy decision makers, but also they are often the only source of information.”

However, the NRO complained that its “financial flexibility has been lost due to a steady proliferation of budget control lines, more restrictive reprogramming limits, and greater external involvement in resource decisions” (p.2).  The NRO has a massive annual budget that is probably on the order of $10 billion.

The 2011 NRO budget document introduced some new unclassified code names and programs such as “Ardent Gunslinger” (a “three tiered replacement next generation CORE backbone replacing existing ATM [asynchronous transfer mode] network”) (p. 451) and “Puppet Master” (a “replacement to the Future Architecture for Command and Telemetry Services”) (p. 455), among other curious bits and pieces.

“The NRO acquires and operates satellites that provide constant global access to critical information otherwise unavailable to the President, his cabinet, other national leaders and numerous customers in the Defense and Intelligence communities.  These satellites provide services in three broad categories:  GEOINT [geospatial intelligence], SIGINT [signals intelligence], and Communications (COMM).”

The FY 2011 NRO budget book was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists.  As recently as 2006, the NRO had argued that its budget documents constituted “operational files” that are exempt from search and review under the FOIA.  We challenged that claim in a FOIA lawsuit and, remarkably enough, the court ruled (pdf) in our favor and against the agency.  Since that 2006 ruling by Judge Reggie B. Walton, the NRO has agreed to provide redacted versions of its budget book.  So have all other U.S. intelligence agencies except the National Security Agency, which uses a broad statutory exemption to withhold even unclassified agency information from public disclosure.

In a small but momentous shift in national security secrecy policy, President Obama personally ordered the declassification last month of a short paragraph regarding the Soviet space program that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief dated November 26, 1968.  The move came in response to a researcher’s request that had been blocked by the Central Intelligence Agency for more than a decade.

The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) is a compilation of intelligence that is presented to the President each day. It has long been considered sacrosanct by intelligence officials and has been effectively beyond the reach of Freedom of Information Act requesters and other researchers.

“The PDB is a unique intelligence product prepared specifically for the President of the United States to provide him with the most important current intelligence on critical issues relating to the national security of the United States,” a CIA official wrote (pdf) in 2006.

“In the PDB, the intelligence community assembles the most sensitive intelligence information and the best analytic judgments in a complete, accurate, and timely package intended to inform the President and his most senior advisors as they make and implement the nation’s defense and foreign policies…. The PDB is the most sensitive intelligence report produced by [the U.S. intelligence community].”

Based on that assessment, intelligence officials have successfully resisted and rebuffed FOIA requests, lawsuits and other public attempts to gain access to PDBs.

In the late 1990s, researcher Peter Pesavento identified several PDBs located at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library concerning the Soviet space program that were of interest to him and he filed a mandatory declassification review (MDR) request for their release.  When his requests were denied by the CIA, he appealed the matter to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), an executive branch body that considers appeals of MDR requests that have been denied.  Remarkably, in 2003 the ISCAP granted Mr. Pesavento’s appeal with respect to the one paragraph of the five-page PDB that discussed Soviet space (and even so one of the three sentences in the paragraph was partially redacted).

But then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet vetoed the ISCAP disclosure decision, making use of the new veto authority that had been granted to the DCI in President Bush’s 2003 executive order on classification to block release of the PDB.  Two members of the ISCAP appealed to the President to overturn the Tenet veto in 2003, but no action was taken on the appeal, until now.

“Please be advised that the President has directed the declassification and release of portions of the President’s Daily Brief of November 26, 1968, that had been declassified by the Panel in its decision of September 2, 2003,” wrote William A. Cira, executive secretary of the ISCAP in a May 26, 2011 letter (pdf) to Mr. Pesavento.

The declassified PDB paragraph, which will be released by Mr. Pesavento in a forthcoming article, is not very interesting to a non-specialist.  It predicts that “the Soviets will not attempt a flight around the moon in December [1968]” but will probably wait until early 1969.

What makes the new disclosure significant is that it represents a decisive break from the intense and unyielding secrecy that with few exceptions has surrounded this class of documents.

In 2004, under pressure from the 9/11 Commission, President Bush released the famous PDB passage entitled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” (pdf).  But even in that case, DCI Tenet declared in his written declassification decision that the 2004 release to the 9/11 Commission “shall not be deemed to constitute any precedent concerning any future declassification or release of any other PDB.”

By contrast, President Obama’s declassification decision in this case does create a precedent that is all but certain to initiate a cascade of further releases of historical PDBs, beginning with several others on Soviet space that were also requested by Mr. Pesavento.

“In the coming months the Panel [ISCAP] will be adjudicating several similar President’s Daily Brief appeals from you that the Panel has held in abeyance pending a decision on this issue,” wrote Mr. Cira of ISCAP last month.

The declassification decision also gives new substance to two provisions in the Obama executive order on national security classification that were in danger of becoming mere rhetorical flourishes.

“[N]o information may be excluded from declassification… based solely on the type of document or record in which it is found,” the President directed in executive order 13526, section 3.1g.  That provision was presumed to apply to PDBs, and now we finally know that it does.

Also, the order stated in section 1.5d, “No information may remain classified indefinitely.”  Though this principle may seem like common sense, it has all too rarely been applied in practice.

A handful of other PDB texts have become public informally or inadvertently and have been published by the National Security Archive.

A status report on the Navy’s development of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as of late last year is given in a Selected Acquisition Report (pdf) that was sent to Congress in April.

The word “littoral” means near the shore.  The LCS is intended to counter small boat threats, mine laying vessels and coastal submarine threats.

Additional background on the LCS is available in a Congressional Research Service report entitled “Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Background, Issues and Options for Congress” (pdf).

The precise number of persons who hold security clearances for access to classified information was supposed to be reported to Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the first time in February 2011.  But that total number, which is believed to be around 2.5 million, remains elusive and it still has not been provided.

At a December 1, 2010 hearing of a House Intelligence Subcommittee, John Fitzpatrick, director of the ODNI Special Security Center, told Rep. Anna Eshoo that the precise number of clearances would be revealed early this year.

“We have a special data collection to provide a definitive answer on that in the February 2011 IRTPA report,” he said, referring to a report required under the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.  (“How Many People Have Security Clearances?”, Secrecy News, December 14, 2010).

But when the February 2011 IRTPA report (pdf) was publicly released this month, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the promised number was not included.

It seems that compiling an accurate and complete figure for all security clearances is more challenging and time-consuming than had been anticipated.  An ODNI spokesman said that the number will still be provided, but it will be transmitted in a different report pursuant to the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010 (section 367), which specifically required disclosure of the total number of clearances.

“The Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010, which was signed into law in October, includes new Executive Branch accounting requirements for the collection and reporting on the aggregate number of security clearances held, and we continue to keep Congress informed on the status of these reports,” the ODNI spokesman told Secrecy News.

A copy of the report on the number of security clearances is said to be in draft form.

The new IRTPA report, meanwhile, states that “the government has continued to show a significant improvement in security clearance processing times.”  The average processing time for an initial clearance was 79 days in FY 2010, down from 86 days in FY 2009.  For the fastest 90% of initial security clearances, processing time was down to an average of 53 days, the report said.