A long-running personnel dispute at the Congressional Research Service offers up conflicting visions of the proper role of the congressional support agency, which provides policy and legal analysis to Congress. In 2009, then-CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan fired then-CRS Division Chief Col. Morris Davis, a former Guantanamo prosecutor, after Davis publicly criticized the military commission process […]
The recent test-launch of a modified Russian ballistic missile has nuclear arms reduction opponents up in arms with claims that Russia is fielding a new missile in violation of arms control agreements and that the United States therefore should not pursue further reductions of nuclear forces. The fact that the Russian name of the modified […]
Government programs to declassify national security information are not meeting public expectations, the needs of historians, or even the requirements of law, said the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee (HAC) in a report last week. A 1991 statute mandated that the State Department publish the documentary record of U.S. foreign policy (known as Foreign Relations […]
New and newly updated publications from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public access include the following. Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations, updated June 27, 2013 Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Plant and Plutonium Disposition: Management and Policy Issues, June 25, 2013 Ballistic Missile Defense in the Asia-Pacific Region: Cooperation and Opposition, June […]
In May 2010, the Department of Defense disclosed that the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal consisted of 5,113 warheads (as of September 30, 2009). This was a disclosure of great significance, the Pentagon explained: “Increasing the transparency of global nuclear stockpiles is important to non-proliferation efforts, and to pursuing follow-on reductions after the ratification and entry […]
Recent disclosures of NSA collection of records of US telephone and email traffic have some unfortunate parallels and precedents in the early history of the Agency that were thought to have been repudiated forever. “After World War II, the National Security Agency (NSA) established and directed three programs that deliberately targeted American citizens’ private communications,” […]
In 2007, Congress passed legislation to grant the Director of National Intelligence “new authority to conduct accountability reviews of significant failures or deficiencies with the Intelligence Community.” Up to now, however, that authority has never been exercised. In 2011, the DNI issued Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 111 on “Accountability Reviews.” That recently disclosed Directive “establishes […]
New and newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online distribution include the following. Science and Technology Issues in the 113th Congress, June 20, 2013 What Is the Farm Bill?, June 21, 2013 Independent Counsels, Special Prosecutors, Special Counsels, and the Role of Congress, June 20, 2013 Transforming Government […]
The creation of new national security secrets dropped sharply in 2012, recently released government data show. While the proper boundaries of official secrecy remain a matter of intense dispute, the secrecy system itself is showing surprising new signs of restraint and even contraction. In 2012, the number of original classification decisions, or decisions to classify […]
By Hans M. Kristensen President Barack Obama’s Berlin speech failed to capture the nuclear disarmament spirit of the Prague speech four years ago. And no wonder. Back then Obama had to contrast with the Bush administration’s nuclear policies. This time Obama had to upstage his own record. The only real nuclear weapons news that was […]
The June 18th arrest of two men for allegedly plotting to build a bizarre yet potentially deadly radiological device once again highlights the potential nexus of non-state actors with so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, much like this year’s troika of ricin-laced letters addressed to government facilities (including one to the CIA) and public […]
Much of the continuing controversy over intelligence surveillance policy revolves around whether the sweeping collection of U.S. telephone data by intelligence agencies violates constitutional norms. But it is also an occasion to assess the quality of intelligence oversight, and to review the performance of oversight mechanisms in representing the public and defending its interests. So […]