“Important aspects of the DOD basic research programs are ‘broken’,” according to an assessment performed by the JASON defense science advisory panel earlier this year, and “throwing more money at the problems will not fix them.” But that rather significant conclusion was deliberately suppressed by Pentagon officials who withheld it from public disclosure when a […]
Updated below The Pentagon’s Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) last month announced the creation of a new password-protected portal where authorized users may gain access to restricted scientific and engineering publications. “DTIC Online Access Controlled… provides a gateway to Department of Defense unclassified, controlled science and technology (S&T) and research and engineering (R&E) information,” according […]
Newly disclosed Department of Defense annual budget documents reveal the structure and some of the contents of the Military Intelligence Program that supports DoD operations. The U.S. intelligence enterprise as a whole is funded through two separate budget constructs: the National Intelligence Program (NIP), which supports national policymakers, and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP). The […]
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence last month published a revised “Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book” (pdf), updated through May 2009. The 950-page document, which is more than 250 pages longer than the 2007 edition, includes basic intelligence-related legal materials such as the text of the National Security Act and various executive orders […]
Most of those who have heard of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw during World War II probably think of it in connection with the uprising of a small number of Jewish fighters prior to the final liquidation of the Ghetto by German forces. Dr. Marek Edelman, who led the uprising, died last Friday at age […]
The mysterious DF-41 missile did not appear at the Chinese National Day parade on October 1st, but the Chinese Ministry of National Defense says the DF-31A did. But did it, or was it in fact the DF-31? . By Hans M. Kristensen The military parade at China’s 60th National Day celebration last week was widely […]
“Without reform in [declassification] policy and process, agencies will continue to spend millions of dollars each year perpetuating an ineffective and inefficient declassification system, while the backlog of records waiting to be processed for the open shelves continues to grow,” according to a newly obtained National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) white paper. The best […]
The Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will review a Freedom of Information Act ruling requiring the Department of Defense to disclose certain photographs of alleged detainee abuse to the American Civil Liberties Union. If it declines to do so, a federal appeals court order (pdf) that directed release of the photographs will […]
by: Alicia Godsberg This past Thursday and Friday marked the 6th bi-annual Article XIV Conference, the Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This year’s conference was held at the United Nations in New York and was met with a measure of cautious optimism – most states […]
“No information may remain classified indefinitely,” according to a draft of an Obama Administration executive order on national security classification policy. As a statement of principle, this may seem tame and self-evident. But until now, no Administration has been willing to make such a categorical statement about the temporal limits of national security secrecy, and […]
The government’s assertion of the state secrets privilege in a pending lawsuit brought by a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent will not be affected by the new Attorney General policy limiting the use of the privilege, the Justice Department said last week, because it is already in compliance with the new policy. In a September […]
On Friday, President Obama announced that the United States knows of a new, undeclared, and hidden underground gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Iran, near the city of Qom. Some news reports suggest that 3000 centrifuges will be housed there. How significant is this discovery? Well, just in time, our crack FAS researcher, Ivanka Barzashka, has […]