At a time when U.S. news organizations are shedding jobs at an alarming rate, the People’s Republic of China has been hiring a growing number of reporters from outside of China.

“Since July of this year, Xinhua’s English-language service– China’s official news service for English-language audiences — has hired several experienced Western journalists to serve as overseas correspondents,” according to a new report (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center (OSC).

“Following Xinhua’s introduction in 2003 of bylines on items filed in English, OSC has observed that the number of non-Chinese correspondents employed by the news agency has grown to more than 80. Most of these new hires, however, have been non-Western reporters.”

The OSC report has not been approved for public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “China — Xinhua’s Growing Ranks of ‘Foreign’ Correspondents,” Open Source Center, November 5, 2009.

Another new OSC report notes that state-owned China Central Television has “dropped a number of talk shows and pre-recorded news magazine programs in favor of a heavy focus on live newscasts and news commentaries.”  See “China — Revamped CCTV-News Channel Increases Live Casts, Commentary” (large pdf), November 5, 2009.

The Director of the Congressional Research Service fired the chief of its Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division after he criticized Obama Administration policy on prosecuting Guantanamo detainees in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month.

Morris Davis, a former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo who has been at CRS for the past year, argued that current U.S. policy on trying detainees amounted to a double standard.  “The administration must choose,” he wrote in the Journal on November 10. “Either federal courts or military commissions, but not both, for the detainees that deserve to be prosecuted and punished for their past conduct.”

This was too radical a statement for Daniel Mulhollan, the CRS Director, who terminated Mr. Davis effective December 21.  It was a surprising move, for several reasons.  First, Mr. Davis’s op-ed did not identify him as a CRS employee and he was clearly not representing that organization.  To the contrary, he is well-known to have independent standing and expertise to discuss military commissions.  Second, U.S. policy on military commissions is not within the purview of Mr. Davis’s division at CRS and so the possibility that his work there might be biased by his public position would not even arise.

The American Civil Liberties Union was expected to issue a letter today [now available here] urging CRS to reverse its action.  See “Top Congressional Researcher on Afghanistan Fired” by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek Declassified blog, December 3.

Mr. Mulhollan has previously punished some of his organization’s most capable experts for publicly expressing their own professional judgments.  In 2006, a clash between him and Louis Fisher, the former CRS constitutional law expert, led to the departure of the latter, who was quickly hired by the Law Library of Congress.  (“More Turmoil at the Congressional Research Service,” Secrecy News, February 9, 2006.)

New CRS reports not previously made available to the public include the following (both pdf):

“China’s Assistance and Government-Sponsored Investment Activities in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia,” November 25, 2009.

“Venezuela: Issues in the 111th Congress,” November 17, 2009.

According to a new U.S. Army field manual, when a soldier is about to throw a hand grenade at any enemy target he should normally follow the specified procedures and assume one of five authorized positions (standing, kneeling, etc.). However, “If a Soldier can achieve more distance and accuracy using his own personal style, he should be allowed to do so….”  See “Grenades and Pyrotechnic Signals” (large pdf), U.S. Army Field Manual 3-23.30, October 2009.

Other noteworthy new U.S. military doctrinal publications include the following (all pdf).

“Marine Corps Space Policy,” Marine Corps Order 5400.53, September 28, 2009.

“Joint Urban Operations,” Joint Publication 3-06, November 8, 2009.

“Counterterrorism,” JP 3-26, November 13, 2009.

Government secrecy is becoming an increasingly popular field of inquiry in academic circles, with several upcoming conferences and journals devoted to the subject.

The journal “Research in Social Problems and Public Policy,” edited by Susan L. Maret, has issued a call for papers on “the problem of government secrecy,” including theoretical and comparative treatments.

The Collaboration on Government Secrecy at American University’s Washington College of Law will address “Transparency in the Obama Administration: A First-Year Assessment” on January 20, 2010.  A webcast of a  program last month on “The State of the State Secrets Privilege” is now available here.

A two-day workshop on “Open Government: Defining, Designing, and Sustaining Transparency” will be held at Princeton University on January 21-22, 2010.

The journal “Social Research” will host a conference on “Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy” (in which I will participate) at the New School in New York City on February 24-26, 2010.

Many of the procedural safeguards that are provided to a defendant in a criminal trial are not available to those tried in military commissions, or are present in attenuated or modified form.  Thus, for example, military commissions offer no right to a speedy trial and may allow hearsay into evidence.

These and numerous other distinctions between the two judicial frameworks were helpfully tabulated in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.  See “Comparison of Rights in Military Commission Trials and Trials in Federal Criminal Court,” November 19, 2009.  Related information on the rights of detainees in a criminal prosecution was discussed in “Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues,” updated November 17, 2009.

A comparative study of greenhouse gas control policies in several large industrial nations was presented in another report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service that has not been made readily available to the public.

“All of the countries examined have in place, or are developing, some enforceable policies that serve to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the CRS found.  “Most are at some stage of making their programs more stringent.”  See “An Overview of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Control Policies in Various Countries,” November 30, 2009.

Why do Americans have to pay far more for health care than do citizens of other countries who receive comparable or even superior service?  A new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service does not answer that question, but it does provide some insight into the role of the health insurance industry in generating those high costs.

“Health costs appear to have increased over time in large part because of complex interactions among health insurance, health care providers, employers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, tax policy, and the medical technology industry.  Reducing the growth trajectory of health care costs may require policies that affect these interactions,” the CRS delicately said.

See “The Market Structure of the Health Insurance Industry,” Congressional Research Service, November 17, 2009.

“The only ones who are spending the money and time translating Jihad literature are the Western intelligence services,” wrote Islamic radical Anwar al-Awlaki, “and too bad, they would not be willing to share it with you.” (“Born in U.S., a Radical Cleric Inspires Terror” by Scott Shane, New York Times, November 19).

In fact, a growing number of websites offer jihadist literature and sermons in English.  But it is true that U.S. intelligence maintains a prolific translation activity focused on Islamic extremist literature, and that most of the resulting translations are not intended for public distribution.

The DNI Open Source Center recently translated an Indonesian anthology of four short stories about aspiring young jihadists entitled “Wind From Paradise” (pdf). The stories describe how their protagonists came to take part in jihadist campaigns in Afghanistan, Thailand, and Chechnya, and the ensuing “martyrdom” that they or their fellows found there.

It is not a particularly rewarding collection, on any level– esthetic, theological or political.  But the narrators and their stories have several characteristic features that may be worth pointing out.

Remarkably, their primary conflicts seem to be those of adolescence.  Their Islam is not concerned with the divine will as much as it is with themselves and their own unruly passions.  (“I drowned all my feelings by reading the Koran slowly,” one says.  “So a feeling of happiness and relief runs through my whole body,” writes another.  “I also have the feeling that the guilt that has plagued me all this time has now been uprooted.”)

But above all, the stories portray jihad as an appropriate, even noble response to external oppression by the non-Muslim world.  (“The mujahidin had to fight against the Christian United States, which wanted to control and dominate Afghanistan.”  The Western enemy mercilessly abuses prisoners, “but no matter how cruelly they interrogated and tortured him, [he] kept quiet.”)

The logic of jihad is predicated on the victimization of Muslims by infidel forces, the stories repeatedly insist.  (“So now he was defending his Muslim brothers who had been so cruelly oppressed.”)  The oppression of Muslims by other Muslims is beyond the narrators’ ken.  So is the possibility of confronting oppression by non-violent political means, except perhaps through the propagation of stories like these.

The translated stories have not been approved for public release.  Rather improbably, their “authorized use is for national security purposes of the United States Government only.”  But a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “Indonesia: Translation of Jihadist Book ‘Wind From Paradise’,” Open Source Center, 1 March 2009.

Facing a rising number of suicides in its ranks, the U.S. Army last week published new guidance (pdf) for improving the mental health of soldiers and for preventing or responding to suicide attempts.

“The key to the prevention of suicide is positive leadership and deep concern by supervisors of military personnel and [Army] civilian employees who are at increased risk of suicide,” the new publication explained.

Factors contributing to suicide are said to include loneliness (“an emotional state in which a person experiences powerful feelings of emptiness and spiritual isolation”), worthlessness (“an emotional state in which an individual lacks any feelings of being valued by others”), hopelessness (“a strong sense of futility, due to the belief that the future holds no escape from current negative circumstances”), helplessness, and guilt (“a strong sense of shame associated with actions they believe are wrong”).

The Army directed its commanders to carry out a series of efforts to promote soldiers’ health, to reduce the stigma associated with addressing mental health issues, and to “manage at-risk soldiers, to include processing for separation as appropriate in a timely manner.”

The New York Times last week described the rise of military suicide as a “near epidemic,” and reported that 133 active-duty U.S. Army soldiers committed suicide this year through the end of October, making it likely that last year’s record of 140 will be surpassed.  (“Families of Military Suicides Seek White House Condolences” by James Dao, November 26.)

In its new publication, the Army said it is not always possible to detect or predict suicidal intent, and that eliminating suicide altogether was not a realistic objective.  “Some suicides may be expected even in units with the best leadership climate and most efficient crisis intervention and suicide prevention programs.  Therefore, it is important to redefine the goal of suicide prevention as being suicide risk reduction [which] consists of reasonable steps taken to lower the probability that an individual will engage in acts of self-destructive behavior.”  See “Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention,” Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-24, November 24, 2009.

Development of a new executive order on classification of national security information is now proceeding at an accelerated pace in order to preempt a deadline that would require the declassification of millions of pages of historical records next month.

A revised draft executive order was circulated to executive branch agencies by the Office of Management and Budget on November 16, with agency comments due back today, November 23.  A final order is likely to be issued by the end of this year.

There is an incentive to complete the development of the executive order before December 31, 2009 because of a deadline for declassification of historical records that falls on that date.  Under the current Bush executive order, classified records that are at least 25 years old and that have been referred from one agency to another because they involve multiple agency interests are supposed to be automatically declassified at the end of this year.  (See E.O. 13292, section 3.3(e)(3)).

But in order to meet this December deadline, several agencies would have to forgo a review of the affected historical records, which they are unwilling to do.  And so it seems they will simply be excused from compliance.  But in order to modify the deadline in the Bush order, it will be necessary to issue another executive order.  If the comprehensive new Obama order on classification policy (which would assign processing of such records to a National Declassification Center that does not yet exist) is not ready for release by December 31, then another stand-alone order would have to be issued, canceling or extending the looming deadline.  And officials are reluctant to issue such an order since they say it would be awkward for the avowedly pro-openness Obama Administration to relax or annul a declassification requirement that was imposed by the ultra-secret Bush Administration.

In fact, the whole process has become an awkward mix of exaggerated and deflated expectations.  The failure of the Bush Administration’s declassification deadline to take hold this year does not augur well for new, more ambitious efforts to advance classification reform.  If the “automatic declassification” procedures that were prescribed in prior executive orders are not “automatic” after all, and if binding deadlines can be extended more or less at will, then any new declassification requirements in the Obama order will be similarly subject to doubt or defiance.

The latest draft executive order has not yet become publicly available, though officials said they expected it to leak, as did a previous draft dated August 4.  “It includes some notable differences” from the earlier draft, said one official.  But another official said “It’s basically the same as the draft you already have.” (See “Draft Order Would Set New Limits on Classification,” Secrecy News, September 29, 2009.)

Ironically, today’s classification system seems to function more effectively in preventing public access to aging archival records than it does with respect to certain present-day information.

Thus, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters on November 12, “I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on” about classified Administration deliberations on Afghanistan policy and other matters.

But from a different point of view, others may be appalled that Secretary Gates’ own Department still retains classification restrictions on historical records dating back to the Korean War, and even from World War II, and that it otherwise resists modernization and correction of the cold war classification system.

Some general background on the national security classification system from the Congressional Research Service can be found in “Security Classification Policy and Procedure: E.O. 12958, as Amended” (pdf), November 3, 2009.

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

“Status of the Copenhagen Climate Change Negotiations,” November 5, 2009.

“An Overview of the Nonprofit and Charitable Sector,” November 17, 2009.

“Advertising Industry in the Digital Age,” November 9, 2009.

A new report (pdf) from the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence describes Iran’s naval order of battle, as well as the Iranian Navy’s history, strategic options, and favored tactics.

“Today, Iran’s naval forces protect Iranian waters and natural resources, especially Iran’s petroleum-related assets and industries.  Iranian maritime security operations guard against the smuggling of illegal goods (especially drugs) and immigrants, and protect against the poaching and stealing of fish in territorial waters.”

“Additionally, Iran uses its naval forces for political ends such as naval diplomacy and strategic messaging.  Most of all, Iranian naval forces are equipped to defend against perceived external threats.  Public statements by Iranian leaders indicate that they would consider closing or controlling the Strait of Hormuz if provoked, thereby cutting off almost 30 percent of the world’s oil supply.”

The unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment was published on the Office of Naval Intelligence website, but last week it was abruptly withdrawn, along with another ONI report on China’s navy. [Update: Both documents have now been restored to the ONI website, here and here.]  A copy of the report was obtained by Secrecy News.  See “Iran’s Naval Forces: From Guerilla (sic) Warfare to a Modern Naval Strategy,” Fall 2009.