Nuclear Weapons

OSCE Reports on Access to Information

05.03.07 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

A major new report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) describes government secrecy and public access policies in dozens of countries from Albania to Uzbekistan.

The report surveyed freedom of information (FOI) laws, national security classification policies, penalties for unauthorized disclosures of information, and provisions for protecting journalists’ sources.

There is good news and bad news, the report says.

“The FOI trend in the OSCE participating States is positive. Out of 56 OSCE participating States, 45 started their ‘Copernican revolution’ in favour of the public’s right to know, by adopting national laws on access to information.”

“Unfortunately, many countries retained the right to classify a too wide array of information as ‘state secrets’. In fact, the majority of the OSCE participating States have not yet adjusted their rules of classification to the FOI principles, that is, they disregard the primacy of the public’s right to know.”

The report offers some comparative analysis and proposes a series of “best practices” in promoting public access to government information.

“There should be sanctions for those who deliberately and improperly designate information as secret or maintain excessive secrecy,” the report advises.

See the summary report, entitled “Access to information by the media in the OSCE region: trends and recommendations,” Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 30 April 2007.

The underlying country reports (423 pages) are available here.

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