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. […]
When the internal history of the Manhattan Project was written in 1944, officials still believed — mistakenly — that the atom bomb program had evaded the threat of foreign espionage. “Espionage attempts were detected but it is felt that prompt action and intensified investigative activity in each case prevented the passing of any substantial amount […]
It is entirely proper for a court to conduct in camera review of documents and testimony that the government asserts are subject to the state secrets privilege, said the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The Justice Department had argued that judicial review of privileged documents was “inappropriate” and […]
The so-called Take Care Clause in the U.S. Constitution (requiring that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed….”) “would appear to stand for two, at times diametrically opposed propositions–one imposing a ‘duty’ upon the President and the other viewing the Clause as a source of Presidential ‘power’,” according to a new […]
NASA’s orbiting James Webb Space Telescope will be “the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide, and studying every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to […]
As Congress plumbs new depths of futility and irrelevance, analysts at the Congressional Research Service continue to churn out policy-relevant studies that are informative and free of partisan embellishment. How long can it be until they are punished? The latest CRS products that Congress has withheld from online public access include the following. Pakistan Political […]
The current outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa has infected and killed more people than all previous outbreaks combined. A new report from the Congressional Research Service provides detailed background on the spread of the disease, the weaknesses of the health care infrastructure in the affected countries, and related policy issues for congressional […]
It is “not appropriate” for a court to conduct its own independent review of evidence that the government asserts is protected by the state secrets privilege, attorneys for the government argued last week. They were objecting to an order that was issued in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list in the […]
New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. Climate Change and Existing Law: A Survey of Legal Issues Past, Present, and Future, updated August 20, 2014 The “Militarization” of Law Enforcement and the Department of Defense’s “1033 Program”, CRS Insights, August 20, 2014 […]
The Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb during World War II was among the most highly classified and tightly secured programs ever undertaken by the U.S. government. Nevertheless, it generated more than 1,500 leak investigations involving unauthorized disclosures of classified Project information. That remarkable fact is noted in the latest declassified volume of […]
The threat of domestic terrorism is receiving greater attention at the Department of Justice with the reestablishment in June of the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, the Congressional Research Service noted last week. “The reestablishment suggests that officials are raising the profile of domestic terrorism as an issue within DOJ after more than a decade of […]