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 […]
The term “overclassification” is used in two distinct senses: The classification of information that should not be classified at all, and the classification of information at a higher level than is justified. Both are problematic, though in different ways. The second form of overclassification, which unnecessarily limits the sharing of information by cleared persons, is […]
China recently opened to the public a massive underground former nuclear weapons facility known as Project 816 in Chongqing, and video footage of the site was featured in a recent report (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center. The Chongqing facility, which began construction in 1967 (some say 1966), was originally intended to house plutonium […]
One thing that is even more impressive than China’s nuclear history is its emerging green energy future. “China has set ambitious targets for developing its… renewable energy resources with a major push of laws, policies and incentives in the last few years,” according to a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service. “The wind […]
The role of scientific research in weapon development was explored through four case studies written in 1984 by arms control scholar Milton Leitenberg. The case studies examine the development of anti-satellite weapons; weather modification; Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs); and biological weapons research. Military research does not cause arms races, Leitenberg argued, nor is it […]
Missile Watch A publication of the FAS Arms Sales Monitoring Project Vol. 3, Issue 2 June 2010 Editor: Matt Schroeder Contributing Author: Scoville Fellow Matt Buongiorno Contents: Global News: Survey of black market prices for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles reveals large differences in missile prices Afghanistan: No shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in seized Afghan arms caches, confirms […]