The members of the Electoral College who formally enact the election of the President are expected or even required to represent the wishes of the voters who elected them, but sometimes they don’t! “Notwithstanding the tradition that electors are bound to vote for the candidates of the party that nominated them, individual electors have sometimes […]
Updated below The New York Times reported last week that the Congressional Research Service had withdrawn a report that found no correlation between reduced tax rates and increased economic growth after some Republican Senators took exception to it. (“Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest” by Jonathan Weisman, November 1.) But “withdrawn” here means withdrawn […]
The U.S. electric power system is vulnerable to a variety of threats, from natural disasters to operational errors to sabotage or terrorist attack, a newly disclosed report from the Congressional Research Service says. Over the years there have actually been tens of thousands of recorded attacks on electric power targets, CRS notes, but usually due […]
For the second year in a row and for only the second time in the post-9/11 era, total intelligence spending declined last year to $75.4 billion, according to figures released yesterday by the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense (Bloomberg, Wash Times, Reuters). Total spending had peaked in FY2010 at $80.1 billion, […]
As often happens, the Federal Bureau of Investigation invoked national security a few years ago to justify withholding certain information from a Freedom of Information Act requester named Deirdre McKiernan Hetzler. But as rarely happens, a court last month critically assessed the FBI national security claim and ordered the Bureau to release some of the […]
The U.S. Army has just published the 2013 edition of its annual Weapon Systems Handbook, which is filled with updated information on dozens of weapon systems, the military contractors who produce them, and the foreign countries that purchase them. So one learns, for example, that the RQ-11B Raven Small Unmanned Aircraft System is marketed to […]
The long-dormant Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) announced that it will hold its first public meeting next week and it invited members of the public to provide input to help shape the Board’s near-term agenda. “In anticipation of setting the agenda of issues on which the Board will focus its attention, the Board […]
Newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has not made publicly available include the following. Federal Support for Academic Research, October 18, 2012 Unfunded Mandates Reform Act: History, Impact, and Issues, October 22, 2012 Terrorism and Transnational Crime: Foreign Policy Issues for Congress, October 19, 2012 Managing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Policy […]
This morning former CIA officer John Kiriakou pleaded guilty to one count of disclosure of information identifying a covert agent, a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. “When KIRIAKOU disclosed the identity of Officer A to Journalist A, KIRIAKOU acted willfully in that defendant knew the disclosure was illegal,” according to a Statement of […]
In the world of security clearances for access to classified information, the term “reciprocity” is used to indicate that one executive branch agency should ordinarily recognize and accept a security clearance that has been granted by another executive branch agency. This is not just a nice, cost-efficient thing to do, it is actually a requirement […]
Newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service which Congress has not made publicly available include the following. Congressional Oversight, October 17, 2012 Contemporary Developments in Presidential Elections, October 18, 2012 U.S. International Trade: Trends and Forecasts, October 19, 2012 President of the United States: Compensation, October 17, 2012 Peru in Brief: Political and Economic […]
A massive quantity of historical intelligence satellite imagery from the KH-9 HEXAGON program is being declassified and will be made public in a series of releases that are scheduled over the coming year, intelligence community officials say. Declassification of intelligence satellite imagery languished for years after President Clinton ordered the release of product from the […]