For decades, President Reagan’s 1981 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 7 remained entirely classified. According to a 1999 listing of Reagan NSDDs issued by the National Security Council, even the title of NSDD 7 was classified. In 2008, the document was partially declassified, bearing the title “[deleted] Weapons.” It stated: “The production and stockpiling of […]
“The Department of Defense does not conduct electronic or physical surveillance of journalists,” Pentagon press spokesman George E. Little wrote in a September 6 response to reporters who had questioned the scope of official monitoring of their work. The DoD disavowal of active surveillance is almost certainly true, as far as it goes. Even if […]
“In 2011, 46.2 million people were counted as poor in the United States, the same number as in 2010 and the largest number of persons counted as poor in the measure’s 53-year recorded history,” according to a timely new report from the Congressional Research Service. See Poverty in the United States: 2011, September 13, 2012. […]
New reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made available to the public include the following. Whistleblower Protections Under Federal Law: An Overview, September 13, 2012 Post-Employment, “Revolving Door,” Laws for Federal Personnel, September 13, 2012 The Corporate Income Tax System: Overview and Options for Reform, September 13, 2012 Iran Sanctions, updated […]
A new U.S. Army publication provides an introduction to open source intelligence, as understood and practiced by the Army. “Open-source intelligence is the intelligence discipline that pertains to intelligence produced from publicly available information that is collected, exploited, and disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of addressing a specific […]
The House of Representatives voted yesterday to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act for five years. The Act generally authorizes electronic surveillance of non-U.S. persons and U.S. persons who are believed to be outside the United States, while prohibiting the “intentional” targeting of persons in the U.S. without an individualized warrant, seemingly […]
A federal judge this week granted permission to J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, to discuss three documents that were at issue in the trial of former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake. Mr. Leonard, an expert witness for the Drake defense, had sought permission to publicly challenge the […]
Prosecutors in the pending leak case of former State Department contractor Stephen Kim said they had discovered that the classified information Mr. Kim is accused of disclosing to a reporter without authorization had been circulated within the government more broadly than they had realized. That discovery requires further investigation and disclosure to the defense, prosecutors […]
A new annual report on government secrecy discusses the quantitative and qualitative obscurity of government secrecy policy which makes secrecy hard to evaluate and to control. The report was published by OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of some 80 organizations concerned with government transparency. “Measuring what it is we actually know about the openness of the American […]
New reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made available to the public include the following. Pilotless Drones: Background and Considerations for Congress Regarding Unmanned Aircraft Operations in the National Airspace System, September 10, 2012 Global Access to Clean Drinking Water and Sanitation: U.S. and International Programs, September 10, 2012 Automobile and […]
The legality of targeted killing of suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, was examined in a memorandum prepared for members of Congress by the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. practice of targeted killing raises complex legal issues because it cuts across several overlapping legal domains. To the extent that the U.S. is actually at war with […]
“The Department of Defense does not conduct electronic or physical surveillance of journalists” as a way of preventing leaks of classified information, Pentagon press spokesman George E. Little wrote last week. But Department officials do “review media reports for possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” he said. Mr. Little was responding to a July 20 […]