The Department of Energy this week released its most recent compilation of all decisions to declassify nuclear weapons-related information. The new release (pdf), dated 2002, is the eighth and the last in what had been an annual series of such compilations. Unlike the others, however, it was marked “Official Use Only” and was not made […]
Noteworthy new documents on military doctrine of one sort or another include the following (all pdf). The participation of U.S. armed forces in humanitarian assistance operations abroad is governed by “Foreign Humanitarian Assistance,” Joint Publication 3-29, 17 March 2009, 223 pages. Almost every function or task performed by the U.S. Army is captured and organized […]
Last month, Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana announced the adoption of what it calls a “100 percent shred policy for all paperwork and materials generated on base” as a way of eliminating unauthorized disclosures. “Shredding is vital to the overall security of our base and our mission,” said Eileen Gallagher, 341st Communications Squadron Base […]
When Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last year, it enacted a requirement that the Inspectors General of agencies that participated in the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance program must prepare a comprehensive review of that program, which was conducted from 2001 to 2007 outside of the FISA legal framework that normally regulates intelligence surveillance. […]
The structure and operation of China’s growing news media sector were examined by the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Open Source Center in two previously unpublished reports. “Sweeping social and economic changes triggered by more than two decades of reform in China have led to equally sweeping changes in China’s vast, state-controlled media environment, particularly in the […]
The Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin (MIPB), a U.S. Army journal devoted to intelligence policy and practice, has been removed from online public access and transferred behind a password-protected Army portal. The former MIPB website states that “The MIPB is now being hosted on the Intelligence Knowledge Network (IKN). (AKO account required).” AKO (Army Knowledge Online) […]
In anticipation of future nuclear arms control agreements that would require the dismantlement of nuclear warheads, the Department of Energy undertook a technical study during the Clinton Administration to determine how such dismantlement could be verifiably accomplished. The resulting report, experts say, is still the best available treatment of the subject. A copy of the […]
The U.S. Army’s future ability to combat weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) in the 2015-2024 timeframe is the subject of a new Army doctrinal publication (pdf). “The thrust of current Army CWMD capabilities … is to protect against and recover from WMD attacks,” the document explains. However, “The Army is deficient in the capabilities required […]
The Central Intelligence Agency maintains a regularly updated electronic archive of declassified historical records that have been publicly disclosed, but it has effectively squandered the utility of digitizing these records by refusing to make them available online. The CIA to its credit has done more than any other agency to scan declassified records into digital […]
A skeptical person might presume that the new Freedom of Information Act policy announced by Attorney General Eric Holder on March 19 declaring that agencies should “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” is a rhetorical posture without much practical significance. After all, requesters who used FOIA during the Clinton era know that agencies frequently […]
A survey of the “most wanted” government documents that should be publicly available but are not was recently conducted by OpenTheGovernment.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology. They reported their findings in “Show Us the Data: Most Wanted Federal Documents” (pdf), March 2009. “Where once we [the United States] were seen as the world’s […]
The 2009 Pentagon report shows hardly any changes of Chinese nuclear forces. By Hans M. Kristensen The new annual report on Chinese military forces published by the Pentagon shows essentially no changes in China’s nuclear forces compared with the previous report from 2008. Perhaps most interestingly, the report shows that China has not increased the […]