The Congressional Commission on the strategic posture report released yesterday is what the Air Force calls a “target rich environment.” There is a lot to shoot at. This essay follows up on the post that Hans Kristensen and I published yesterday. I want to continue the theme I discussed yesterday that the recommendations of the […]
The final report from the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission seems focused on hedging rather than leading. By Ivan Oelrich and Hans M. Kristensen The Congressional Strategic Posture Commission report published today is definitely not the place that the President or the nation should look for new ideas on how to reduce the role of nuclear […]
It is possible to discern potentially significant patterns in terrorist activity through an analysis of geospatial intelligence information concerning terrorist incidents, the DNI Open Source Center (OSC) says. A recent OSC study of terrorism in Afghanistan (large PDF) illustrates the growing sophistication of geointelligence analysis tools. By analyzing parameters such as location, timing, frequency, lethality […]
“Tactics in Counterinsurgency” (pdf), a new U.S. Army Field Manual, expands upon the Counterinsurgency doctrine of the best-selling December 2006 manual (pdf) on that subject. The new manual was previously circulated in an interim, draft form and then abruptly withdrawn from public access. (“‘Tactics in Insurgency’ Again Online,” Secrecy News, April 6, 2009). Now it […]
Algeria is one of the Middle Eastern North African nations that has the scientific and technological capacity to develop nuclear weapons if legal, political and other barriers to nuclear weapons proliferation decline and lose their efficacy. “Algeria has the expertise and the means to produce nuclear weapons” should it decide to do so, said independent […]
To the shock and bewilderment of those who knew him, Christopher Bolkcom, a distinguished analyst at the Congressional Research Service, died suddenly May 1 at age 46. Twenty years ago, Christopher was a research assistant working for John Pike here at FAS. He quickly went on to become a national expert on military aviation and […]
Prosecutors today filed a motion for dismissal (pdf) of the controversial case against two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were charged under the Espionage Act with unlawful receipt and transmission of classified information. “The landscape of this case has changed significantly since it was […]
Last January 30, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz disclosed a secret Israeli government database on settlements in the occupied West Bank, and posted the Hebrew text (pdf) of the database on their website. Last month, the ODNI Open Source Center completed an English translation of the 200-page document. Secrecy News obtained a copy of the translation […]
Today at 1pm EST HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and acting Director of the CDC Richard Besser will be webcast answering questions about Swine Flu from the American people. The webcast will be available at www.hhs.gov and questions can be emailed to hhsstudio@hhs.gov. The World Health Oraganization has now raised the Pandemic […]
The government’s use of the state secrets doctrine to shut down litigation on certain sensitive national security topics could be sharply curtailed by a new federal appeals court ruling (pdf). The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against a company called Jeppesen DataPlan and filed on behalf of several plaintiffs who said […]
There is practically a universal consensus that the national security classification system has become dysfunctional and counterproductive. (Just what to do about it remains up in the air–more on that shortly). That consensus was articulated again earlier this month in a speech by Joan Dempsey, formerly a senior Pentagon intelligence official, a Deputy Director of […]
The U.S. Army last year blocked online public access to the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin (MIPB), an Army intelligence journal, and moved the publication archive to the password-protected “Intelligence Knowledge Network.” (“Army Blocks Public Access to Intel Journal,” Secrecy News, March 31, 2009). But in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the […]