The annual number of drug overdose deaths in the United States involving opioids has more than quadrupled since 1999, a new report from the Congressional Research Service notes. “CDC estimates that in 2016, more than 63,000 people died from a drug overdose, and more than 42,000 of these deaths involved prescription or illicit opioids.” See […]
The National Declassification Center at the National Archives is looking for a director to help implement its declassification agenda. The National Declassification Center was established by President Obama’s 2009 executive order 13526 “to streamline declassification processes,” and it has had some success in bringing order to an often arbitrary declassification environment. One of the Center’s […]
The U.S. Department of Defense spent $11.3 billion on purchases abroad in 2015, including $1.6 billion worth of goods or services from the United Arab Emirates, according to a newly released DoD report to Congress. The majority of foreign purchases by DoD were for fuel, services, construction and subsistence. The DoD report breaks down the total […]
Iran’s central bank has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that would have transferred Iranian funds to the U.S. and made them potentially available for awards to victims of terrorism. At issue is the legal interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. A new brief from the Congressional […]
The US is no longer complying with the Iran nuclear deal and is poised to re-impose some previously lifted sanctions on Iran and its trading partners. But the legal basis for that action is a bit murky and contested. A new analysis from the Congressional Research Service tries to make legal sense of what has […]
“Pyongyang portrays nuclear weapons as its most effective way to deter the threat from the United States,” the Department of Defense says in a newly disclosed report to Congress on North Korean security policy. “North Korea’s primary strategic goal is perpetual Kim family rule via the simultaneous development of its economy and nuclear weapons program […]
“Lying, or making a false statement, is a federal crime under a number of circumstances,” a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service instructs. “It is a federal crime to make a material false statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of a federal agency or department. Perjury is also a federal crime. Perjury […]
A new report from the Congressional Research Service begins to sort through the implications and the practical consequences of the Trump Administration decision to end US compliance with the Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “The Trump Administration could have used provisions of the JCPOA itself to cease implementation of U.S. […]
In a significant expansion of intelligence record preservation, email from more than 426 Central Intelligence Agency email accounts will now be captured as permanent historical records. A plan to that effect was approved by the National Archives last week. In 2014, the CIA had said that it intended to preserve the emails of only 22 […]
“In the future, NATO might have to rely as much on its agility and capacity for innovation as it has previously relied on its military technological advantage,” says a new report from the Congressional Research Service that reviews NATO’s response to the current threat environment and the changing technological landscape. See Transatlantic Perspectives on Defense […]
For the fourth year in a row, the Department of Defense has asked Congress to legislate a new exemption from the Freedom of Information Act in the FY2019 national defense authorization act for certain unclassified military tactics, techniques and procedures. Previous requests for such an exemption were rebuffed or ignored by Congress. The Defense Department again justified its request by […]
The Central Intelligence Agency can selectively disclose classified information to reporters while withholding that very same information from a requester under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal court ruled last month. The ruling came in a FOIA lawsuit brought by reporter Adam Johnson who sought a copy of emails sent to reporters Siobhan Gorman […]