An unclassified U.S. Army history of military intelligence that was formerly used as a textbook in officer training at the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca is now publicly available online (large pdf). The 1973 volume has been superseded in many or even most respects by subsequent research and publication. But it retains some interest […]
NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen presents the alliance’s new Strategic Concept By Hans M. Kristensen The new Strategic Concept adopted today by NATO represents one step forward and a half step backward for the alliance’s nuclear weapons policy. The forward-leaning part of the nuclear policy pledges to actively try to create the conditions for […]
A $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia — the largest in U.S. history — is poised to proceed despite questions raised by some members of Congress. In a November 16 letter to Congress (pdf), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the deal: “This proposed sale will directly support […]
The Supreme Court will decide next year whether corporations are entitled to “personal privacy” and whether they may prevent the release of records under the Freedom of Information Act on that basis. FOIA advocates say that assigning personal privacy rights to corporations could deal a crippling blow to the Act. The case before the Court […]
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper went a little out of his way to praise the Government Accountability Office at a Senate hearing on security clearance reform on November 16. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t recognize the crucial role that GAO continues to play in keeping the heat on the executive branch for […]
Investment banker Maurice Sonnenberg was appointed this week to the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The most surprising thing about the appointment was its predictability. If national commissions on intelligence were a TV game show, Maurice Sonnenberg would be Kitty Carlisle or Orson Bean. […]
“Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws 2010” is the latest edition of a classic handbook for Freedom of Information Act litigants. It provides an updated summary of the relevant case law and a discussion of many of the most commonly encountered issues and obstacles a FOIA litigator may face. Any FOIA requester or attorney […]
A few Senators are preventing US inspectors from verifying the status of Russian nuclear weapons. By Hans M. Kristensen The ability of a few Senators to delay ratification of the New START treaty is gambling with national and international security. At home the delay is depriving the U.S. intelligence community important information about the status […]
The use of access control markings such as the Transportation Security Agency’s “Sensitive Security Information” (SSI) to limit disclosure of unclassified records has been criticized from time to time as arbitrary and self-serving. But now, due to a subtle change in the recent executive order on “Controlled Unclassified Information,” SSI and other such markings should […]
In a revealing failure of Administration commitments to transparency, an official history of the U.S. government’s post-war pursuit of (or sometimes accommodation with) Nazi war criminals was obtained by the New York Times after the Department of Justice refused to release an unexpurgated version under the Freedom of Information Act. The secret history was reported […]
The rationale for the New START Treaty between the United States and Russia on reductions in nuclear weapons was addressed at length in an October 1 report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On September 16, the Committee recommended ratification of the Treaty, which awaits consideration by the full Senate. The 141-page Committee report (large […]
by Ivanka Barzashka After a year-long stalemate, Iran and the P5+1 seem to have agreed on a day for holding political talks – December 2. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed last week that the meeting “will not include discussions on fuel swap” – the deal with France, Russia and United States, also known as the […]