India-Pakistan nuclear competition on display again . By Hans M. Kristensen If Indian news reports (here, here, and here) are any indication, India has once again discovered that Pakistan might possess a few nuclear weapons more than India. This time the reports are based on an article Robert Norris and I published in the Bulletin […]
The current dispute between the Obama Administration and some members of Congress over whether to strengthen oversight of intelligence programs by the Government Accountability Office is rooted in a 1988 opinion from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which held that GAO access to intelligence information is actually barred by law. In 1988, […]
For one year following their employment, all former government employees are prohibited by law (18 U.S.C. 207c) from contacting employees of their former agency for the purpose of influencing their official actions. A 2006 legal opinion (pdf) from the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) said this means that former CIA employees cannot contact current CIA […]
“Several events this past year — the Fort Hood Shooting and the attempted bombings on Christmas Day and in Times Square — highlight challenges, successes, and gaps in our ability to effectively share and access information,” wrote Kshemendra N. Paul, the program manager of the ODNI Information Sharing Environment (ISE) in a new annual report […]
The Obama Administration’s aggressive pursuit of leakers who disclose classified information to the press or to other unauthorized persons is moving forward on multiple fronts. Shamai Leibowitz, a former FBI linguist who pleaded guilty to the unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence information to an unidentified blogger, reported to prison this week, his attorney said (pdf). […]
Two civil liberties organizations said they will file a legal challenge against the government’s suspected targeting for assassination of an American supporter of Al Qaeda, arguing that under the U.S. Constitution no citizen can be “deprived of life… without due process of law.” The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights first […]
Sixty-six American troops died in Afghanistan in July, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the Afghanistan War thus far, the Washington Post and others reported. Casualties of the Afghanistan War have recently been tabulated by the Congressional Research Service, including statistics on American forces, of whom around 1100 have been killed, as […]
The vulnerabilities of critical energy infrastructure installations to potential cyber attack are normally treated as restricted information and are exempt from public disclosure. But a recent Department of Energy report was able to openly catalog and describe the typical vulnerabilities of energy infrastructure facilities because it did not reveal the particular locations where they were […]
The Wikileaks publication of tens of thousands of classified U.S. military records last week is inevitably prompting a review of information security practices to identify remedial steps. I have been arguing that one of those steps ought to be a rethinking of classification policy. “The reform that may be needed more urgently than any other […]
by Ivanka Barzashka and Thomas M. Rickers Coaxed by Turkey and Brazil, Iran seems to be actively pursuing fuel talks. France, Russia and the U.S. (also known as the Vienna Group) claim that they, too, are interested in a deal, even as the U.S. and EU passed their own tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic […]
Congress should eliminate the classification category known as “Formerly Restricted Data” in order to simplify and streamline classification policy, the Public Interest Declassification Board was told last week. While most national security information (NSI) is classified by executive order, information related to nuclear weapons is classified under the Atomic Energy Act. And such classified nuclear […]
In response to a request from the Department of Justice, the Senate yesterday authorized the Senate Intelligence Committee to cooperate with a pending investigation of an unauthorized disclosure of classified information. “The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, acting jointly, are authorized to provide to the United States Department of […]