The global war on terror has cost the U.S. $437 billion since September 11, the Congressional Research Service estimated last month, including $319 billion for the war in Iraq. (The Pentagon claims the latter figure should be $210 billion.) The CRS cost estimate has been widely reported, but the underlying report has not been widely […]
The government’s increasing use of the “state secrets privilege” to resist civil litigation on national security matters has often been met by courts with uncritical, even abject deference to the executive agencies that invoke the privilege. But another, more assertive response is possible. “The state secrets privilege is absolute,” wrote Judge Royce C. Lamberth categorically […]
One of the most vivid allegations made by the U.S. government regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the claim that Iraqi had developed mobile laboratories for the production of biological weapons. The allegation, based on reports from a source known as “Curveball,” proved to be false. But the U.S. intelligence assessment of the supposed […]
“Sensitive Security Information (SSI) is information that would be detrimental to transportation security if publicly disclosed,” according to a Department of Homeland Security directive released last week under the Freedom of Information Act. See DHS Management Directive 11056 (pdf), “Sensitive Security Information,” December 16, 2005. Confusingly, however, SSI is also a control marking used by […]
In a somewhat gruesome but unblinking new publication (pdf) prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. military prescribes doctrine for the recovery, identification, handling and burial of deceased soldiers, enemy combatants and civilian detainees. The violent, horrible death of combatants and non-combatants is of course a defining characteristic of war. And the strange […]
One way to supplement and improve intelligence oversight would be to employ the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an investigative arm of Congress, to perform routine audits of key intelligence functions. Yet this potentially valuable oversight tool lies dormant due to opposition from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The GAO will not even attempt to […]
Gen. Michael Hayden, who is now the new CIA director, presented himself as a committed proponent of intelligence oversight in an April 2005 hearing on his nomination to become Deputy Director of National Intelligence. But the record of that hearing, which has just been published, takes on a different aspect in light of the NSA […]
In a December 14, 2005 Executive Order, President Bush directed government agencies to review their Freedom of Information Act programs, evaluate their performance, and develop plans to reduce backlogs and improve efficiency. Those plans were due on June 14 and some of them, not all, have now been published by the Department of Justice Office […]
The Department of Justice Inspector General released a newly declassified version of its 2004 audit of the FBI’s handling of intelligence information related to the September 11 attacks, including a newly disclosed chapter (large pdf) on the case of Zacarias Moussaoui. In a previously released version of the report, the entire chapter 4 on Moussaoui […]
Al Qaeda terrorists contemplated an attack on New York subways in 2003 using an “easily constructed” device called a “mubtakkar” to release cyanide gas, according to a story in Time Magazine this week. But there are reasons to question the reliability and significance of the story, suggested chemist George Smith of GlobalSecurity.org. For one thing, […]
“The alteration of official DoD imagery by persons acting for or on behalf of the Department of Defense is prohibited,” advises a new Pentagon Instruction. See “Alteration of Official DoD Imagery” (pdf), DoD Instruction 5040.05, June 6, 2006. “The days of total air superiority by friendly forces are over. Our potential enemies now may have […]
Congressional oversight of intelligence is “dysfunctional,” according to a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress. Some of the most urgent and fundamental policy issues facing the nation are matters of intelligence policy: What are the proper boundaries of domestic intelligence surveillance? What is the legal framework for interrogation of enemy detainees? Why […]