By Hans M. Kristensen The January 2011 issue of Air Force Magazine has a nice spread on the Chart Page where they reproduce a chart I produced of U.S. and Russian nuclear warhead inventories. The chart is the product of the research and public education I do about the status of nuclear forces in collaboration […]
Last week the Senate confirmed Stephanie O’Sullivan to be the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (PDDNI), the number two position in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Ms. O’Sullivan, a longtime CIA employee who is currently Associate Deputy Director of CIA, will be the fourth person to hold that office. A […]
Newly updated reports of interest from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf). “Egypt: The January 25 Revolution and Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy,” February 11, 2011. “Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Set to Expire February 28, 2011,” February 10, 2011 (a three month extension until May 27, 2011 was passed […]
Former Congressman Steve Horn (R-CA), who was a leading congressional defender of the Freedom of Information Act and of public access to government information generally, died last week at age 79. Rep. Horn was a primary sponsor, along with Sen. Patrick Leahy, of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act of 1996, which formally extended the […]
Legislation introduced in the Senate this week would broadly criminalize leaks of classified information. The bill (S. 355) sponsored by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) would make it a felony for a government employee or contractor who has authorized access to classified information to disclose such information to an unauthorized person in violation of his or […]
New reports from the Congressional Research Service on natural gas and miscellaneous other topics include the following (all pdf). “Implication’s of Egypt’s Turmoil on Global Oil and Natural Gas Supply,” February 11, 2011. “Israel’s Offshore Natural Gas Discoveries Enhance Its Economic and Energy Outlook,” January 31, 2011. “Global Natural Gas: A Growing Resource,” December 22, […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The Obama administration has published its budget request for Fiscal Year 2012, which includes its plans for maintaining and modernizing its nuclear weapons arsenal. Due to the extensive debate about the New START treaty last year a great deal of the nuclear plans were already known. And the budget request demonstrates […]
The Director of National Intelligence on Monday did what has never been done before: He disclosed the size of the coming year’s budget request for the National Intelligence Program. For Fiscal Year 2012, “The aggregate amount of appropriations requested for the National Intelligence Program is $55 billion,” according to a February 14 ODNI news release […]
The Central Intelligence Agency invoked the state secrets privilege in 2004 to cover up a case of environmental contamination at a CIA facility that caused illnesses to an Agency employee and his family, according to the employee, Kevin Shipp. The episode was revealed in the Washington Post and the New York Times on February 11 […]
The National Declassification Center (NDC) at the National Archives will declassify the full text of the Pentagon Papers as well as the underlying documentation on which they are based, along with investigative material concerning the 1971 leak of the Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, the NDC said yesterday. “One matter to keep in mind concerning the […]
The General Accounting Office concludes that NNSA lacks the basis for justifying multi-billion dollar modernization projects such as the Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. . By Hans M. Kristensen At a time when the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is asking Congress to authorize […]
The Central Intelligence Agency has taken no action to carry out the Fundamental Classification Guidance Review, a mandatory effort to eliminate obsolete or unnecessary classification practices. The Fundamental Review is a systematic attempt to combat overclassification by subjecting thousands of current classification instructions to critical scrutiny and revision. It was required in President Obama’s December […]