“I have grown increasingly concerned that we have become too lax, disorganized, and, in some cases, flat-out sloppy in the way we engage with the press,” said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, explaining why he had issued new guidance to regulate Pentagon interactions with the news media. The new guidance (pdf), issued on July […]
In the planning of military operations, the U.S. Army is giving new emphasis to the environmental impact of its activities. “Environmental considerations need to be integrated into the conduct of operations at all levels of command,” according to a recent Army field manual (pdf). “Planners must consider the effect environmental considerations have and how they […]
The Obama White House has threatened to veto a pending intelligence bill if it includes a provision that would authorize the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to perform audits of intelligence programs at the request of Congress. But a Department of Defense Directive issued last week explicitly allows for GAO access to highly classified special access […]
The intersection of science and national security in the 20th century produced many peculiar phenomena, some of which are illuminated in a new biography of physicist Hugh Everett III (1930-1982). Everett is best known, if at all, as the originator of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. Roughly, this theory holds that whenever a […]
The Journal of Defense Research (JDR) was a classified publication sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to encourage dissemination of classified research on topics of military or national security interest. It began publication in 1969, replacing the former Journal of Missile Defense Research. Many years later, most of the Journal’s contents still seem […]
Congress has forbidden the Congressional Research Service to make its publications directly available to the public, so it is left to others to do so. New CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News include the following (all pdf). “Intelligence Reform After Five Years: The Role of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI),” June 22, 2010. “Questioning […]
The National Reconnaissance Office — the U.S. spy satellite agency — “brings unique core capabilities to bear in support of national security objectives by acquiring and operating the most capable set of satellite intelligence collection platforms ever built.” So begins the text of the newly released and redacted FY2010 NRO budget justification book (pdf). A […]
A new assessment of internal Pakistani affairs and U.S.-Pakistan relations was prepared by the Congressional Research Service in “Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments” (pdf), June 1, 2010. An Inspector General Report on the FBI’s use of so-called “exigent letters” was examined in an April 14, 2010 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee that has […]
In the past week, both the Washington Post and the New York Times have referred to WikiLeaks.org, the web site that publishes confidential records, as a “whistleblower” site. This conforms to WikiLeaks’ own instructions to journalists that “WikiLeaks should be described, depending on context, as the ‘open government group’, ‘anti-corruption group’, ‘transparency group’ or ‘whistleblower’s […]
The Obama Administration has instructed government agencies that classify national security information to review and update all of their classification guides — which specify what information is classified and at what level — and to gather input on classification policy from “the broadest possible range of perspectives,” according to a new official directive. “To the […]
The financial costs of national security classification-related activities continued to rise in 2009, reaching a record high of $9.93 billion for the combined costs of protecting classified information in government and industry, the Information Security Oversight Office reported today (pdf). Classification-related costs include not simply the act of classification, but also everything that follows from […]
One of the simplest and most effective ways to strengthen congressional oversight of intelligence agencies would be to task cleared staffers from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is the investigative arm of Congress, to undertake specific audits or investigations of intelligence programs. Perhaps the clearest indication of the power of this approach is the […]