The implications of the conflict in Iraq for U.S. policy were examined in a new report from the Congressional Research Service. See Iraq Crisis and U.S. Policy, June 20, 2014. The CRS report notably includes open source reporting and translations from the DNI Open Source Center. This sort of material had been routinely available to […]
The Secretary of the Army last week issued a directive specifying that retaliating against someone for reporting a crime is itself a crime. “No Soldier may retaliate against a victim, an alleged victim or another member of the Armed Forces based on that individual’s report of a criminal offense,” the new Directive states. See Prohibition […]
Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) devised an amendment to the 2015 Defense Appropriations bill that would earmark $2 million for investigation of intelligence community whistleblower complaints. The amendment was approved by the House of Representatives on June 18. The money was taken from the intelligence community management account and allocated to the IC whistleblowing and source protection directorate […]
An Intelligence Community Directive that prohibited unauthorized contacts with the news media is overbroad and needs to be corrected, said Sen. Ron Wyden last week on the Senate floor. “I will tell you, I am troubled by how sweeping in nature this is,” Senator Wyden said about the Directive, ICD 119, issued last March. (See […]
“The number of unaccompanied alien children arriving in the United States has reached alarming numbers that strain the system put in place over the past decade to handle such cases,” says a new report from the Congressional Research Service. See Unaccompanied Alien Children: An Overview, June 13, 2014. Other new or newly updated CRS reports […]
People who voluntarily share information with a third party are not entitled to an expectation of privacy concerning that information under the so-called “third-party doctrine” that currently prevails in judicial interpretations of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The implications of the third-party doctrine are profound, a new report from the Congressional Research Service explains. […]
Far from being a subject of merely antiquarian interest, military history is an essential tool for training of soldiers and for institutional accountability, according to newly updated Army doctrine. But only if it is done right. In Military History Operations (ATP 1-20, June 2014), the Army discusses what military history is for, its development over […]
The Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China describes continued broad modernization and growing reach of Chinese military forces and strategy. There is little new on the nuclear weapons front in the 2014 update, however, which describes slow development of previously reported weapons programs. […]
Is there any act of overclassification that is so egregious that the classifier would be held accountable for abusing his classification authority? The answer is unknown, since no one has ever been held accountable in such a case. As far as can be determined, no classifier has ever been found to have willfully or culpably […]
In January 2008, the Bush Administration issued the Top Secret National Security Presidential Directive 54 on Cybersecurity Policy which “establishes United States policy, strategy, guidelines, and implementation actions to secure cyberspace.” Despite its relevance to a central public policy issue, both the Bush and Obama Administrations had refused to release the Directive. But last week, […]
Late at night on Thursday, May 29, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) introduced an amendment to the FY 2015 Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill to provide a near-absolute shield for reporters against compulsory disclosure of their confidential sources. “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to compel a journalist or […]
In 2012, the number of newly created national security secrets (or “original classification decisions”) dropped by a startling 42% from the year before, according to the Information Security Oversight Office. It was the largest annual drop ever reported by ISOO, yielding the lowest annual production of new secrets since such numbers began to be collected […]