The latest annual report on secrecy (pdf) from the pro-transparency coalition Openthegovernment.org finds some positive signs of increasing openness amidst a continuing expansion of secret government. “We are not as yet at the level of ‘unprecedented transparency’ the Obama Administration promises, but we are beginning to see signs that at least some of the Administration’s […]
Most people can vaguely recall that there was once no U.S. Department of Homeland Security and that there was a time when you didn’t have to take your shoes off before boarding an airplane or submit to other dubious security practices. But hardly anyone truly comprehends the enormous expansion of the military, intelligence and homeland […]
Last month Sandia National Laboratories published an unlikely account of the thought of C.S. Peirce (1839-1914), the American pragmatist philosopher. See “Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Right Way of Thinking” (pdf) by Philip L. Campbell of the Sandia Networked Systems Survivability and Assurance Department, Sandia Report SAND2011-5583, August 2011. What is the connection between Peirce’s philosophy […]
By Igor Khripunov According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nuclear security culture is “the assembly of characteristics, attitudes and behavior of individuals, organizations and institutions which serves as a means to support and enhance nuclear security.”[1] The concept of security culture emerged much later than nuclear safety culture, which was triggered by human […]
Prosecutors in the case of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of leaking classified information to author James Risen, have asked a federal court to reconsider (pdf) the July 29 ruling that narrowly limited Risen’s obligation to testify at the trial of Mr. Sterling. (“Reporter Risen Will Not Have to Identify Source in […]
The Department of Justice refused this month to declassify a 2001 legal Office of Legal Counsel opinion by John C. Yoo concerning the legality of the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The redacted information in the OLC opinion “is classified, covered by non-disclosure provisions contained in other federal statutes, and is protected by the deliberative […]
The Pentagon’s new report on China’s military forces significantly reduces transparency of China’s missile force by eliminating specific missile numbers previously included in the annual overview. . By Hans M. Kristensen The Pentagon has published its annual assessment of China’s military power (the official title is Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of […]
A federal court yesterday rejected (pdf) multiple defense motions to dismiss Espionage Act charges against former State Department contractor Stephen Kim, who is accused of leaking classified information to a Fox News reporter. Mr. Kim’s defense team had marshalled a series of seemingly ingenious arguments for dismissal. The use of the Espionage Act to punish […]
On August 22 (“Some New Wrinkles in Nuclear Weapons Secrecy”), Secrecy News mistakenly wrote that the SILEX uranium enrichment process is “a unique case in which information that was privately generated was nevertheless classified by the government. As far as could be determined, the decision to classify this non-governmental information under the Atomic Energy Act […]
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds, launches and operates the nation’s intelligence satellites, has been unusually active over the past year. “We are nearly through the most aggressive launch campaign in over 25 years,” said Betty J. Sapp, the NRO Principal Deputy Director, at a March 15, 2011 hearing of the House Armed Services […]
If the Obama Administration wants to advance the cause of open government, one particularly fruitful way to do so would be to share unclassified open source intelligence publications with the public. The Federation of American Scientists offered that suggestion in response to a White House call for public input into the development of the pending […]
The battle for public access to open source intelligence may have been lost before most people even knew it began, judging from the new book, “No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence” by Hamilton Bean (Praeger, 2011). “No More Secrets” is an academic work, not an expose. But it is […]