“There has been a long-running controversy about the fate of certain U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) and servicemembers missing in action (MIAs) as a result of various U.S. military operations,” a newly updated Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (pdf) on the subject begins.
“While few people familiar with the issue feel that any Americans are still being held against their will in communist countries associated with the Cold War, more feel that some may have been so held in the past in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, or North Vietnam,” according to the CRS author.
There is currently one U.S. Army soldier who is listed as a Prisoner of War following his capture by Iraqi insurgents on April 9, 2004.
See “POWs and MIAs: Status and Accounting Issues,” June 1, 2006.
Some other recent CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News that are not readily available in the public domain include the following:
“Federal Emergency Management and Homeland Security Organization: Historical Developments and Legislative Options” (pdf), updated June 1, 2006.
“Military Airlift: C-17 Aircraft Program” (pdf), updated May 30, 2006.
“F/A-22 Raptor” (pdf), updated May 24, 2006.
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been laying the foundation to expand the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) for energy infrastructure and supply chains.
Get it right, and pooled hiring becomes a model for how the federal government decides what to do together and what to do apart. That’s a bigger prize than faster hiring. It’s a more functional government.
As of March 2026, there were at least nine documented U.S. wrongful arrests tied to face recognition misidentification. Errors like these are as much human as machine.
No one will be surprised if we end up with a continuing resolution to push our shutdown deadline out past the midterms, so the real question is what else will they get done this summer?