The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is among the most highly regarded members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Not coincidentally, it is also among the most open and accessible. In particular, it is one of the only Intelligence Community organizations that regularly publishes its budget (pdf). (The FBI also discloses much […]
In a stark illustration of how secrecy may undermine rather than reinforce security, the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Defense has omitted many of its most sensitive assets from critical infrastructure protection planning because they are too secret to be identified. “DOD has not taken adequate steps to ensure that highly sensitive […]
The Department of Homeland Security has not adequately addressed the civil liberties concerns associated with the new National Applications Office (NAO) that would promote the use of intelligence capabilities such as overhead surveillance for homeland security and other domestic purposes, three Democratic Congressmen said this week. “Turning America’s spy satellites on the homeland for domestic […]
Updated/Corrected below The cause of the mysterious deaths of large numbers of honey bees across the United States that began in 2006 has apparently been discovered. Scientists from the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center and the University of California at San Francisco identified both a virus and a parasite that are associated with the massive […]
Freedom of Information Act practitioners and advocates will gather in Philadelphia on May 9-10 to compare notes and exchange views at the National Freedom of Information Coalition 2008 FOI Summit.
Last year, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz was convicted of unlawfully disclosing classified information to an unauthorized person, after he provided the names of prisoners secretly held in military detention at Guantanamo Bay to a civil rights organization. He was sentenced to six months in prison and ordered discharged from the Navy. Last week, […]
Financial incentives and external coercion play a diminishing role in motivating Americans to spy against the United States, according to a new Defense Department study (pdf). But divided loyalties are increasingly evident in recent espionage cases. “Two thirds of American spies since 1990 have volunteered. Since 1990, spying has not paid well: 80% of spies […]
Pending legislation to reform the use of the state secrets privilege received a wave of support last week from numerous public interest, professional and civil liberties organizations. While the bill is opposed by the Attorney General, it received strong endorsements from the American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, […]
Prosecutors in the case of two former AIPAC lobbyists who are charged with unlawful transmission of classified information last week asked a court to prevent the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, J. William Leonard, from testifying for the defendants. Mr. Leonard, who was the government’s senior classification policy authority for the past […]
The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memo on interrogation of enemy combatants that was declassified this week “exemplifies the political abuse of classification authority,” Secrecy News suggested yesterday. J. William Leonard, the nation’s top classification oversight official from 2002-2007, concurred. “The disappointment I feel with respect to the abuse of the classification system in […]
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey this week expressed strong Bush Administration opposition (pdf) to pending legislation that would regulate the use of the state secrets privilege in civil litigation. The proposed “State Secrets Protection Act” (S.2533), the Attorney General wrote in a detailed seven-page letter, “would needlessly and improperly interfere with the appropriate constitutional role […]
Noteworthy new publications from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf). “The War Powers Resolution: After Thirty-Four Years,” updated March 10, 2008. “The Federal Grand Jury,” updated January 22, 2008. “Federalism, State Sovereignty and the Constitution: Basis and Limits of Congressional Power,” updated […]