A new U.S. Army publication provides an introduction to open source intelligence, as understood and practiced by the Army. “Open-source intelligence is the intelligence discipline that pertains to intelligence produced from publicly available information that is collected, exploited, and disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of addressing a specific […]
The House of Representatives voted yesterday to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act for five years. The Act generally authorizes electronic surveillance of non-U.S. persons and U.S. persons who are believed to be outside the United States, while prohibiting the “intentional” targeting of persons in the U.S. without an individualized warrant, seemingly […]
A federal judge this week granted permission to J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, to discuss three documents that were at issue in the trial of former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake. Mr. Leonard, an expert witness for the Drake defense, had sought permission to publicly challenge the […]
Prosecutors in the pending leak case of former State Department contractor Stephen Kim said they had discovered that the classified information Mr. Kim is accused of disclosing to a reporter without authorization had been circulated within the government more broadly than they had realized. That discovery requires further investigation and disclosure to the defense, prosecutors […]
A new annual report on government secrecy discusses the quantitative and qualitative obscurity of government secrecy policy which makes secrecy hard to evaluate and to control. The report was published by OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of some 80 organizations concerned with government transparency. “Measuring what it is we actually know about the openness of the American […]
New reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made available to the public include the following. Pilotless Drones: Background and Considerations for Congress Regarding Unmanned Aircraft Operations in the National Airspace System, September 10, 2012 Global Access to Clean Drinking Water and Sanitation: U.S. and International Programs, September 10, 2012 Automobile and […]
The legality of targeted killing of suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, was examined in a memorandum prepared for members of Congress by the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. practice of targeted killing raises complex legal issues because it cuts across several overlapping legal domains. To the extent that the U.S. is actually at war with […]
“The Department of Defense does not conduct electronic or physical surveillance of journalists” as a way of preventing leaks of classified information, Pentagon press spokesman George E. Little wrote last week. But Department officials do “review media reports for possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” he said. Mr. Little was responding to a July 20 […]
New reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made publicly available include the following. The Purple Heart: Background and Issues for Congress, September 7, 2012 The National Labor Relations Act: Background and Selected Topics, September 7, 2012 Federal Public Transportation Program: An Overview, September 6, 2012 Unemployment Compensation (UC): Eligibility for Students […]
The National Archives announced that it has declassified over a thousand pages of records pertaining to the 1940 massacre of thousands of Polish Army officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest in the Soviet Union. The Katyn massacre has been a subject of intense interest and controversy in Poland, as well as a perennial irritant […]
“The prospect of drone use inside the United States raises far-reaching issues concerning the extent of government surveillance authority, the value of privacy in the digital age, and the role of Congress in reconciling these issues,” says a new report on the subject from the Congressional Research Service. “This report assesses the use of drones […]
The Department of Defense should focus on increasing the autonomy of drones and other unmanned military systems, a new report from the Defense Science Board said. DoD should “more aggressively use autonomy in military missions,” the Board report said, because currently “autonomy technology is being underutilized.” See “The Role of Autonomy in DoD Systems,” Defense […]