By Hans M. Kristensen The issue of the improved military capabilities of the new B61-12 nuclear bomb entered the Dutch debate today with a news story on KRO Brandpunt (video here) describing NATO’s approval in 2010 of the military characteristics of the weapon. Dutch approval to introduce the enhanced bomb later this decade is controversial because […]
The end of the government’s fiscal year 2013 is just weeks away, but an intelligence authorization bill for fiscal year 2014 is nowhere in sight. In past years, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees typically reported intelligence bills in late spring or early summer for House-Senate conference and floor action later in the year. But […]
An introduction to the process for granting security clearances for access to classified information was presented in a new report from the Congressional Research Service. See Security Clearance Process: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, September 9, 2013. A related CRS report on leaks and the law was also updated this week. See Criminal Prohibitions on […]
Over the course of American history, Congress has formally enacted 11 declarations of war, as well as a similar number of statutory authorizations for the use of military force. The differences between these two categories of legislative action, which are quite distinct, are detailed in a Congressional Research Service report that was updated earlier this […]
The rise and fall (and rise) of intelligence spending over the past three decades is traced in a newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service. “Limited publicly available data suggests intelligence spending, measured in constant 2014 dollars, has roughly doubled since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, before declines over the last three […]
Here are some new and updated reports on the conflict in Syria prepared by the Congressional Research Service: Possible U.S. Intervention in Syria: Issues for Congress, September 3, 2013 Syria: Overview of the Humanitarian Response, September 4, 2013 Syria’s Chemical Weapons: Issues for Congress, August 30, 2013
It is generally understood that there is no legally enforceable “right” to be granted a security clearance for access to classified information. And a landmark 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Department of the Navy v. Egan has often been interpreted to preclude judicial review of the merits of an agency decision to deny or […]
Secret intelligence agency budget information was abundantly detailed in the Washington Post yesterday based on Top Secret budget documents released by Edward Snowden. See “U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives detailed in ‘black budget’ summary” by Barton Gellman and Greg Miller, Washington Post, August 29. The newly disclosed information includes individual agency budgets along […]
A comprehensive overview of the still-not-fully explained decline of honeybee and other bee populations is presented in a new report from the Congressional Research Service. “To date, the precise reasons for bee colony losses are not yet known. Reasons cited for bee declines include a wide range of possible factors thought to be affecting pollinator […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Only a few years before U.S. nuclear bombs deployed at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands are scheduled to be airlifted back to the United States and replaced with an improved bomb with greater accuracy, the U.S. and Dutch governments are in a dispute over how to deal with the environmental […]
The subject of offensive cyber action by the U.S. government was classified for many years and was hardly discussed in public at all. Then several years ago the possibility of U.S. cyber offense was formally acknowledged, though it was mostly discussed in the conditional mood, as a capability that might be developed and employed under […]
The Department of Homeland Security “is streamlining classification guidance and more clearly identifying categories of what can be released and what needs to remain classified,” according to a new report from the DHS Inspector General. The Reducing Over-classification Act of 2010 required the Inspector General at each executive branch agency that classifies information to evaluate […]