The ongoing release of another large collection of classified documents by WikiLeaks concerning Guatanamo detainees creates a new set of challenges and opportunities for the detainees’ attorneys. But the government says the attorneys cannot discuss those matters in the public domain, even though anyone else can. Attorney David Remes petitioned a court yesterday to release […]
Restrictions on the use of published WikiLeaks material remain in effect in much of the government, the New York Times reported yesterday, causing considerable confusion and frustration. See “Detainees’ Lawyers Can’t Click on Leaked Documents” by Scott Shane, April 27. “Add me to the list of grumblers,” said a respected national security analyst at the […]
As of March 2011, Congress had approved a total of more than $1.2 trillion dollars for costs associated with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other post-9/11 “war on terror” operations, the Congressional Research Service said in its most recent update on the subject. See “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on […]
Ten NATO countries recommend increasing transparency of non-strategic nuclear weapons, including numbers and locations at military facilities such as Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Neither NATO nor Russia currently disclose such information. . By Hans M. Kristensen Four NATO countries supported by six others have proposed a series of steps that NATO and Russia should […]
Most executive branch agencies failed to meet a December 2010 deadline set by President Obama to issue implementing regulations for his December 2009 executive order on national security classification policy, dealing a setback to the Administration’s classification reform agenda. Despite last year’s presidential deadline, “As of March 15, 2011, only 19 of 41 agencies have […]
In Freedom of Information Act litigation, courts will almost always defer to a government agency when it asserts that national security requires that certain information remain classified. Judges say they are reluctant to “second guess” agency national security experts, and there is a substantial body of case law that discourages them from doing so. But […]
We were sad to learn, belatedly, of the recent deaths of two familiar figures in the rather small world of government secrecy policy. Jeanne Schauble, the longtime director of declassification at the National Archives, died last October. She helped oversee and implement the declassification of more than a billion pages of historical records since 1995. […]
New reports from the Congressional Research Service on various topics include these (all pdf): “Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in North Korea,” March 25, 2011. “Turkey-U.S. Defense Cooperation: Prospects and Challenges,” April 8, 2011. “FY2011 Appropriations in Budgetary Context,” April 14, 2011. “Judicial Discipline Process: An Overview,” April 7, 2011. “Effects of Radiation from Fukushima Daiichi on […]
The Central Intelligence Agency announced yesterday that it had declassified six World War I-era documents describing the use of “invisible ink” to convey secret messages. The CIA presented the new disclosure as an indication that the declassification process was functioning properly, not that it was dysfunctional. “These documents remained classified for nearly a century until […]
The Department of State is not fulfilling its obligation to produce a “thorough, reliable, and accurate” account of U.S. foreign policy and there is no foreseeable likelihood that it will do so, an official historical advisory committee told the Secretary of State this month. The Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS) series is […]
Some new or newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf). “Privacy Protections for Personal Information Online,” April 6, 2011. “Department of Defense Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background and Analysis,” March 29, 2011. “Iran Sanctions,” April 4, 2011. “Asylum and ‘Credible Fear’ Issues in U.S. Immigration Policy,” April 6, […]
The American public does not have an accurate sense of the threat posed by attacks in cyberspace because most of the relevant threat information is classified, according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who introduced legislation last week to raise public awareness of cyber security hazards. “The damage caused by malicious activity in cyberspace is enormous […]