The Congressional Research Service took a decidedly skeptical view of the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative in a recently updated report (pdf). The report called into question not only the implementation of the Administration’s transparency policy but also its underlying rationale. “Arguably, releasing previously unavailable datasets to the public increases transparency,” the report granted. “The […]
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will be “reduced in its size and budget,” DNI James R. Clapper Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee last week (pdf). “We, I think, all understand that we’re going to be in for some belt-tightening. And given, you know, the funding that we have been given […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The Nuclear Notebooks Robert Norris and I publish in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are now the most frequently read articles in the magazine, according to their latest announcement. The highlight of the announcement is Senator John Kerry’s use of our estimate of Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons during the Senate […]
Secrecy News reported Monday on strange new guidance from the Air Force Materiel Command declaring that Air Force employees and even their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for accessing the WikiLeaks web site. On Monday night that new guidance was abruptly withdrawn. Lt. Col. Richard L. Johnson of Air Force Headquarters […]
“Aftergood is too close to the center of power,” said Julian Assange. “He is not an independent fighter for freedom of information.” The passing criticism of me (I’m also “jealous”) was the first thing that caught my eye in the new book “Staatsfeind WikiLeaks” by Der Spiegel reporters Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark. But the […]
At the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “The original classification of information is rarely necessary,” according to an October 2010 ODNI Instruction. But that’s because most relevant information is already classified. There is not much need for new classification activity. Several recent ODNI Instructions that govern the administration of the classification and declassification […]
CIA analysts studied data on major floods due to rainfall in North Korea since 1996 in order to devise a framework for evaluating the significance of such floods and their likely consequences for North Korean agriculture. The analysts identified four principal variables: the intensity of the rainfall, the location of the rainfall, the time of […]
Updated below to reflect withdrawal of the new Air Force guidance Americans who have accessed the WikiLeaks web site may have violated the Espionage Act, under an extreme interpretation of the law advanced by Air Force officials last week. Many government agencies have instructed their employees not to download classified materials from the WikiLeaks web […]
“The government routinely overclassifies information,” so the mere fact that something is classified is not sufficient to establish that its unauthorized disclosure is prohibited by law, according to a defense motion (pdf) that was filed last week in the case of former State Department contractor Stephen Kim. Mr. Kim was accused under the Espionage Act […]
Russian experts are persuaded that Iran’s space program is serving to advance development of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could be used against targets throughout the Middle East and Russia, according to a CIA review of open source reporting. “Over the past year Moscow appears to have become more worried about the security implications of assisting […]
Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf). “Political Transition in Tunisia,” February 2, 2011. “National Security Letters: Proposals in the 112th Congress,” February 1, 2011. “Murder or Attempted Murder of a Member of Congress and Other Federal Officials and Employees: Implications in Federal Criminal Law and Procedure of Events […]
In order to help determine the origins of microbial threats in terrorist incidents or epidemics, it would be useful to have a deep archive of various strains of lethal bacteria, the JASON defense advisory panel told the National Counterproliferation Center in a newly released 2009 report (pdf). Because of the natural variation in the microbes […]