Polygraph testing is here to stay, judging from a new directive issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The directive governs the use of polygraph testing in vetting executive branch agency personnel for security clearances or determining their eligibility for “sensitive” positions. The new Security Executive Agent Directive 2 on the use of the […]
Noteworthy new products of the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2014, September 15, 2014 American Foreign Fighters and the Islamic State: Broad Challenges for Federal Law Enforcement, CRS Insights, September 19, 2014 Man without a Country? Expatriation […]
The Department of Energy will review its classification standards to improve their clarity and to eliminate possible ambiguities, the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration told the Federation of American Scientists this week. The issue arose in response to the case of James Doyle, a Los Alamos political scientist who published an article on […]
When the government intervened in a private lawsuit to assert the state secrets privilege and to seek dismissal of the entire proceeding (Secrecy News, September 15), it acted improperly and misused the state secrets privilege, the attorney for the plaintiff in the case told the Court yesterday. “The Government has improperly invoked the state secrets […]
The Central Intelligence Agency has posted hundreds of declassified and unclassified articles from its in-house journal Studies in Intelligence, in an effort to settle a lawsuit brought by a former employee, Jeffrey Scudder. Until lately, the CIA had resisted release of the requested articles in softcopy format (Secrecy News, March 17), but the Agency eventually […]
Over the objections of government attorneys, a federal judge said yesterday that he would require in camera review of documents that the government says are protected by the state secrets privilege. The issue arose in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder, challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The government had argued […]
The U.S. Government asserted the state secrets privilege last week in a private lawsuit to which the government is not a party and moved for dismissal of the case. Greek businessman Victor Restis had filed a lawsuit last year against the private advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), alleging that the group had falsely […]
According to a newly declassified White House policy directive, counterterrorism policy has yielded “an increased rate of renditions, apprehensions, and convictions of terrorists,” as well as “a significant expansion of counterterrorism legislative authorities” and “a large increase in counterterrorism funding.” But that White House directive — Presidential Policy Directive 62, Protection Against Unconventional Threats to […]
New products from the Congressional Research Service that have been withheld from online public distribution include the following. Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Programs, September 12, 2014 The Federal Trade Commission’s Regulation of Data Security Under Its Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices (UDAP) Authority, September 11, 2014 Diplomatic and Embassy Security Funding Before […]
The continuing prominence of special operations as an instrument of U.S. force projection is creating requirements for “revolutionary, game changing” new technologies and fostering the development of solutions to those requirements. Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command until last month, told the House Armed Services Committee in two newly published hearing […]
A new report from the Congressional Research Service considers the legal underpinning of U.S. military action against the so-called Islamic State, including the sources and limits of presidential authority, and the relevance of past Authorizations for Use of Military Force. See U.S. Military Action Against the Islamic State: Answers to Frequently Asked Legal Questions, September […]
Most of the national security agencies in the executive branch have now been granted approval to exempt certain 50 year old classified information from automatic declassification. The national security classification system normally requires declassification of classified documents as they become 25 years old, with several specified exemptions to allow continued classification up to 50 years. […]