Last month, in the final days of his Administration, President Trump moved to renew the “national emergency” along the US-Mexico border that he had declared in 2019. “The ongoing border security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border of the United States continues to threaten our national security, including by exacerbating the effect of the […]
The Department of Defense is authorized to use unmanned aircraft systems within U.S. airspace for more than a dozen different types of operations, from search and rescue to counterintelligence. These domestic missions, and the official guidance or legal authority behind each of them, were tabulated in a newly updated manual on military support to civilian […]
The traditional system for granting or denying security clearances for access to classified information is undergoing a significant overhaul as it transitions into what is called Trusted Workforce 2.0. Among other changes, Trusted Workforce 2.0 will ultimately phase out the painstaking periodic reinvestigations of cleared personnel in favor of “continuous evaluation” or “continuous vetting.” This […]
“In a democracy, the public deserves as much transparency as possible regarding the work of our national security institutions, consistent with legitimate needs to protect sources and methods and sensitive foreign relationships,” according to a memorandum issued by President Biden on February 4. “The revitalization of our national security and foreign policy workforce requires a recommitment […]
The declassification process has been overwhelmed by the flood of classified records awaiting review, said Sen. Ron Wyden last week. “I intend to push the Director of National Intelligence to fix a broken declassification system,” he said. One highly effective way to begin fixing the declassification system would be to set a maximum period of […]
Update: National Security Directive 1 was redesignated as National Security Memorandum 1. Amid the whirlwind of White House activity following inauguration last week, President Biden issued his first presidential directive on national security to designate pandemic response as a priority. “My Administration will treat epidemic and pandemic preparedness, health security, and global health as top national […]
In a bureaucratic bombshell, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has asked the White House to rescind a ten-year-old executive order that required a uniform policy for marking and handling “controlled unclassified information” (CUI). CUI refers to information that while unclassified is nevertheless restricted by law or policy from broad distribution. It includes more than 100 distinct categories of unclassified information […]
The procedural steps leading up to inauguration of the next President on January 20, 2021 are described in a recent Congressional Research Service publication. See The Electoral College: A 2020 Presidential Election Timeline, CRS In Focus, October 22, 2020. An updated CRS report describes the joint session of Congress at which electoral votes are certified and […]
Having survived a Pentagon attempt to terminate it, the JASON panel that performs independent technical assessments for government agencies now seems set for a period of relative stability. Last year Mike Griffin, then-Under Secretary of Defense (Research and Engineering), abruptly refused to renew his Office’s sponsorship of the JASONs, and the panel was temporarily taken over by […]
After failing to publicly disclose its proposed legislative agenda, the Department of Defense will soon be required to do so. Each year DoD generates proposals for legislative actions that it would like to see incorporated in the coming year’s national defense authorization act. These may include tweaks to existing statutes, requests for relief from reporting requirements, […]
Classified records that turn 25 years old this year will be automatically declassified on December 31 — despite requests from agencies to extend the deadline due to the pandemic — unless the records are reviewed and specifically found to be subject to an authorized exemption. Mark A. Bradley, the director of the Information Security Oversight […]
On November 8 Donald J. Trump Jr., the President’s oldest son, tweeted: “DECLASSIFY EVERYTHING!!!” adding “We can’t let the bad actors get away with it.” This was not an actual policy proposal and it was not seriously intended for classification officials or even for Trump’s own father, who as President is the one ultimately responsible for […]