In another sign of shifting ground in the post-election Congress, Senators Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy yesterday introduced the “Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2006,” which would reinstate federal court jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees and other suspected enemy combatants. The bill would repeal two provisions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 enacted in September […]
U.S. Air Force doctrine on space operations is elaborated in a new publication. See “Space Operations” (pdf), Air Force Doctrine Document AFDD 2-2, November 27, 2006. The threat posed by debris in Earth orbit is the subject of a recent Master’s Thesis, which provides a convenient introduction to the subject and a review of recent […]
Recent publications of the Congressional Research Service include the following (all pdf). “Taiwan: Major U.S. Arms Sales Since 1990,” updated November 9, 2006. “Panama: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations,” updated November 16, 2006. “Thailand: Background and U.S. Relations,” updated October 2, 2006. “Iraqi Police and Security Forces Casualty Estimates,” November 16, 2006.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting an annual survey of intelligence community employees to lay a foundation for future reforms of personnel practices. The survey (pdf) asks IC employees to evaluate a range of issues from workplace environment and job satisfaction (“How satisfied are you with the policies and practices of […]
In what may be a harbinger of new rigor in Congressional oversight, four Democratic members of Congress told the Environmental Protection Agency to cease and desist (pdf) from closing public document libraries and dispersing or destroying their contents unless and until EPA obtains specific approval from Congress. Public interest groups including the Union of Concerned […]
A federal judge ordered (pdf) the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency to respond within 30 days to a Freedom of Information Act request from reporter Joshua Gerstein for a copy of records regarding unauthorized disclosures of classified information (“leaks”). Gerstein, a reporter with the New York Sun, had requested all “criminal referrals” […]
A newly updated Department of Defense Instruction sets forth Pentagon policy on interactions with the Government Accountability Office, the congressional investigative agency. “It is DoD policy that the Department of Defense cooperate fully with the GAO and respond constructively to, and take appropriate corrective actions on the basis of, GAO reports,” the new Instruction (pdf) […]
“The USSR is publicly discussing an ambitious array of manned and unmanned space missions … planned over the next quarter century,” the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service reported in a 1987 internal assessment (pdf). “Recent items in the Soviet press and scientific literature… have provided new details on Soviet space plans from the present through […]
A key uncertainty affecting our confidence in the long-term reliability of nuclear weapons is the stability of the plutonium in the core, or “pit.” The pit is a sphere or shell of plutonium that is compressed by conventional explosives to create the supercritical mass required to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. In hydrogen bombs, this […]
Habeas corpus refers to the right of a person who has been detained by the government to challenge his detention in a court of law. Although the U.S. Constitution does not permit the suspension of habeas corpus except in case of invasion or rebellion, last September Congress did so anyway at the behest of the […]
The elite JASON defense science advisory panel, most of whose deliberations and conclusions are classified, surfaced publicly for a moment with two new releases. One new JASON report addresses the feasibility of reducing Defense Department dependence on fossil fuels. “In light of an increasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, as well as rising fuel costs […]
U.S. Navy research on “mind control techniques” cannot be performed on human subjects without the authorization of the Under Secretary of the Navy, according to a new Navy Instruction (pdf). “The Under Secretary of the Navy (UNSECNAV) is the Approval Authority for research involving … severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human […]