Nuclear Weapons

DHS, CRS on Sensitive Security Information

06.29.06 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

“Sensitive Security Information (SSI) is information that would be detrimental to transportation security if publicly disclosed,” according to a Department of Homeland Security directive released last week under the Freedom of Information Act.

See DHS Management Directive 11056 (pdf), “Sensitive Security Information,” December 16, 2005.

Confusingly, however, SSI is also a control marking used by the Department of Agriculture to mean something quite different, observed information policy expert Harold C. Relyea of the Congressional Research Service in a new report (pdf) on classification and other information controls.

SSI “is both a concept and a control marking used by the Department of Agriculture (USDA), on the one hand, and jointly by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the Department of Homeland Security as well as by the Department of Transportation, on the other hand, but with different underlying authorities, conceptualizations, and management regimes for it,” he wrote.

See “Security Classified and Controlled Information: History, Status, and Emerging Management Issues,” June 26, 2006.

While the number of different designations for “sensitive but unclassified” information has been estimated at over 60, that number approaches 100 if different agency definitions of the same designation are taken into account, according to a Justice Department official.

publications
See all publications
Nuclear Weapons
Report
Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]

05.08.23 | 1 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Video Indicates that Lida Air Base Might Get Russian “Nuclear Sharing” Mission in Belarus

On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]

04.19.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Was There a U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accident At a Dutch Air Base? [no, it was training, see update below]

A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.

04.03.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
STRATCOM Says China Has More ICBM Launchers Than The United States – We Have Questions

In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]

02.10.23 | 6 min read
read more