In response to a request from the Department of Justice, the Senate yesterday authorized the Senate Intelligence Committee to cooperate with a pending investigation of an unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
“The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, acting jointly, are authorized to provide to the United States Department of Justice, under appropriate security procedures, copies of Committee documents sought in connection with a pending investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified national security information, and former and current employees of the Committee are authorized to testify in proceedings arising out of that investigation,” according to Senate Resolution 600 that was passed yesterday.
The target of the leak investigation was not specified, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it involved “someone not connected with the committee.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently released a copy of Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) Number 700 on “Protection of National Intelligence” (pdf), which was issued on September 21, 2007. Among other things, the Directive mandated the establishment of “fora for the identification and solution of issues affecting the protection of national intelligence and intelligence sources and methods.”
A lack of sustained federal funding, deteriorating research infrastructure and networks, restrictive immigration policies, and waning international collaboration are driving this erosion into a full-scale “American Brain Drain.”
With 2000 nuclear weapons on alert, far more powerful than the first bomb tested in the Jornada Del Muerto during the Trinity Test 80 years ago, our world has been fundamentally altered.
As the United States continues nuclear modernization on all legs of its nuclear triad through the creation of new variants of warheads, missiles, and delivery platforms, examining the effects of nuclear weapons production on the public is ever more pressing.
“The first rule of government transformation is: there are a lot of rules. And there should be-ish. But we don’t need to wait for permission to rewrite them. Let’s go fix and build some things and show how it’s done.”