The National Security Archive filed suit against the Central Intelligence Agency after the CIA began imposing costs to process Freedom of Information Act requests that it said were not “newsworthy” and therefore not entitled to a fee waiver. By interposing its own editorial judgment in the FOIA process, the CIA in effect is “trying to close off use of the FOIA by journalists,” said Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs. See “CIA Claims the Right to Decide What is News,” June 14.
The ACLU filed suit against the Pentagon seeking disclosure of information about the TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice) database, which has been used improperly to store information on domestic political activities. See “ACLU tries to force Pentagon to turn over records on peace groups” by Drew Brown, Knight Ridder Newspapers, June 14.
In almost every lawsuit against the government in which an agency invokes the “state secrets” privilege, the courts end up dismissing the entire case. “But that’s not the way it has to be,” wrote constitutional scholar Louis Fisher of the Law Library of Congress in a new op-ed. “Judges have a constitutional duty to function as neutral referees to allow each side to present its case fairly.” See “Give judges a peek at secrets” by Louis Fisher, Los Angeles Times, June 14.
“The Pentagon has stopped releasing its assessment of the number of Iraqi army units deemed capable of battling insurgents without U.S. military help,” in what appears to be a clear instance of politically-motivated secrecy. “The decision to stop making the information public came after reports showed a steady decline in the number of qualified Iraqi units.” See “U.S. mum on strength of Iraqi troops” by Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers, June 12.
To empower new voices to start their career in nuclear weapons studies, the Federation of American Scientists launched the New Voices on Nuclear Weapons Fellowship. Here’s what our inaugural cohort accomplished.
Common frameworks for evaluating proposals leave this utility function implicit, often evaluating aspects of risk, uncertainty, and potential value independently and qualitatively.
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 […]
According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ August 2023 pulse panel, 60% of public schools were utilizing a “community school” or “wraparound services model” at the start of this school year—up from 45% last year.