The Fundamental Classification Guidance Review is the Obama Administration’s most ambitious effort to confront the problem of overclassification. It requires each agency that classifies information to conduct a detailed review of all of its classification guides in order to identify obsolete classification requirements and to eliminate them. As spelled out in section 1.9 of executive […]
The purposes, authorities, and instruments of congressional oversight are described in detail in a newly-expanded Congressional Oversight Manual (pdf) prepared by the Congressional Research Service. “Congressional oversight and investigations can often, though not always, become adversarial,” the CRS Manual observes. “This is especially true when the entity being targeted, whether a private individual, corporation, or […]
The technology for sequencing human DNA is advancing so rapidly and the cost is dropping so quickly that the number of individuals whose DNA has been mapped is expected to grow “from hundreds of people (current) to millions of people (probably within three years),” according to a new report to the Pentagon (pdf) from the […]
A bill in the last Congress “to provide a comprehensive framework for the United States to prevent and prepare for biological and other WMD attacks” was described in a lengthy Senate report last month. The report provided a detailed congressional perspective on a range of biosecurity issues, inspired in part by the Graham-Talent Commission on […]
Following NATO’s strategic concept and expectations that the next round of US-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations will deal with tactical nuclear weapons in some shape or form, Stan Norris and I have published our latest estimate on U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Although the strategic concept states that […]
Corrected below “A review of the Pakistani media during October 2010 indicates that there is less talk of imminent political change.” That is the rather pedestrian conclusion of a brief report (pdf) that was prepared last November by “Open Source Works,” a previously unknown initiative of the CIA Directorate of Intelligence. Open Source Works “was […]
The Obama Administration is preparing to give increased military and economic aid to Pakistan, the Washington Post reported last weekend. (“U.S. to Offer More Support to Pakistan” by Karen DeYoung, January 8.) Nearly $20 billion in civilian and military support has been provided to Pakistan between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2010, according to a newly […]
The diminishing U.S. lead in various scientific disciplines related to national security has posed a particular challenge for U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a newly released 2006 report (pdf) of the Intelligence Science Board. “While the overall effect of a declining S&T [science and technology] position on the United States remains the subject of debate, […]
A new government advisory committee on access to classified information by state, local and other non-federal bodies will hold its first meeting in Washington tomorrow. The State, Local, Tribal, and Private (SLTP) Sector Policy Advisory Committee “will advise the President, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, and other […]
Defense agencies have complied with a recommendation to prohibit the use of military survival training techniques — such as waterboarding — in prisoner interrogation, the DoD inspector general confirmed in a report (pdf) last year. In response to a previous Inspector General report (pdf), a 2008 DoD directive (pdf) stated that “Use of SERE [survival, […]
The Obama Administration yesterday announced an unprecedented fifth prosecution in a case involving unauthorized disclosures of classified information. Former Central Intelligence Agency officer Jeffrey A. Sterling was arrested on charges of disclosing classified intelligence information concerning a foreign nuclear weapons program to an unnamed author. From the context, it is evident that the alleged recipient […]
Although concealment and misdirection of adversaries are primordial acts, the word “camouflage” did not enter the English language until World War I. Author Nicholas Rankin observed in his book “A Genius for Deception” that “the Oxford English Dictionary’s first example of published usage is from the Daily Mail in May 1917: ‘The act of hiding […]