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Last week, the Congressional Research Service issued a report about “The Arsenal Act,” a peculiar and little-known law dating back to 1854 that authorizes the Secretary of the Army to “abolish any United States arsenal that he considers unnecessary.” If you wanted to read that report you could purchase a copy for $29.95 from a commercial vendor. Or you could write to your Congressman to request that a copy be sent to you. Or you could simply read the report right now for free on the Federation of American Scientists web site.
We do not charge anyone for access to this or thousands of other valuable, hard-to-find government records that are highlighted in nearly every issue of Secrecy News. The whole point of our work is to make such records more easily available.
But we do incur costs in gathering and publishing the records. We also invest time and resources in probing the boundaries of the national security secrecy system and reporting our findings to the interested public. We engage in advocacy to promote a real, measurable reduction in the scope of secrecy through the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review and other mechanisms. And we assist reporters and researchers dealing with questions of access to government information.
If you derive any benefit from these activities, please help us to maintain and expand them. Donations can be made online here (specify that your donation should be directed to “government secrecy”). If contributing via Paypal, send us a separate email to let us know you want your contribution allocated to the FAS Project on Government Secrecy. Checks payable to FAS may also be mailed to:
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Without a robust education system that prepares our youth for future careers in key sectors, our national security and competitiveness are at risk.
The Federation of American Scientists applauds the United States for declassifying the number of nuclear warheads in its military stockpile and the number of retired and dismantled warheads.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) takes its role as a beacon and voice of the scientific community very seriously. We strive for a world that is both more inclusive and informed by science, and are committed to the idea that the path to that world starts by modeling it within our organization.
To understand the range of governmental priorities for the bioeconomy, we spoke with key agencies represented on the National Bioeconomy Board to collect their perspectives.