Last week, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) asked President Obama to expedite the declassification of U.S. intelligence documents pertaining to Argentina’s so-called “dirty war” during the military dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to the mid-1980s. “The substantial backlog at the National Archives and Records Administration and history of unwillingness to declassify by U.S. intelligence agencies has […]
We invite you to help sustain Secrecy News and the work of the FAS Project on Government Secrecy by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Federation of American Scientists. Last week, the Congressional Research Service issued a report about “The Arsenal Act,” a peculiar and little-known law dating back to 1854 that authorizes the Secretary […]
Earlier this week, we noted that it was increasingly unlikely that the budget for the National Intelligence Program (NIP) would be removed from concealment in the Defense Department budget and given its own budget line item, as the Director of National Intelligence and others had proposed. Instead, the status quo is likely to persist, we […]
New article published in Arms Control Today . By Hans M. Kristensen The latest issue of Arms Control Today includes a new article by Robert Norris and myself about the nuclear targeting review that is currently underway in the Obama administration. In ordering the review, formally known as the Post-NPR Review, President Obama has asked the […]
For the first time in more than a decade, the total U.S. intelligence budget declined in 2011, according to budget figures declassified and disclosed last week. Although the National Intelligence Program (NIP) budget increased slightly from $53.1 in 2010 to $54.6 billion in 2011, the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) budget dropped from $27 billion to […]
Corrections added below The budget for the National Intelligence Program will mostly remain hidden in the Department of Defense budget for the foreseeable future and will not be given a separate budget line item or a separate appropriation, despite the efforts of budget reformers and intelligence community leaders. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had […]
A new U.S. Army publication (pdf) invites American soldiers to ponder the role of cultural factors in shaping perception and action. Analyze this statement: ‘The English drive on the wrong side of the road.’ In some Islamic countries women wear burkas. Who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged by this? Why do you think major […]
The 2012 edition of the U.S. Army Weapon Systems handbook provides a concise description of dozens of Army weapon systems and programs. In each case it presents system specifications and indicates the current status of procurement or development. It identifies contractors by name and location as well as foreign military sales, where applicable. “The systems […]
Between January and June 2011, the United Nations documented 1,462 civilian deaths in Afghanistan, which was a 15% increase over the same six months the year before. Anti-government forces, e.g. the Taliban, were responsible for 77% of the casualties and pro-government forces were responsible for 12%. (The remainder were indeterminate.) These and other casualty figures […]
By Katie Colten and Hans Kristensen [Modifed] Today, one of the largest weapons in the United States nuclear weapons arsenal, the B53, will be dismantled at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. Developed during the Cold War and deployed in 1962, this bomb weighs as much as a minivan and has an explosive yield of nine megatons, […]
For two weeks in October 1969, the Nixon Administration secretly placed U.S. nuclear forces on alert. At the time, the move was considered so sensitive that not even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefed on its purpose. Still today, no conclusive explanation for the potentially destabilizing alert can be found. Even […]
At its best, the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series serves as a driver of declassification, propelling it farther and faster than it would otherwise go. But it’s not always at its best. In 1992, Congress enacted a law concerning FRUS that represented one of only a couple of continuing statutory […]