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Air Force Updates Procedures for Handling Nuclear Weapons

The U.S. Air Force last week issued revised procedures (pdf) for securely maintaining and transporting nuclear weapons. The move follows an incident last August in which crewmen at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota mistook missiles armed with nuclear weapons for unarmed missiles and flew them across the country without authorization. Though the Minot […]

01.24.08 | 1 min read
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Pressure Grows to Limit the State Secrets Privilege

A rising tide of criticism of the use of the state secrets privilege to derail litigation against the government has yielded new legislation introduced in the Senate to define the privilege and to limit its use. The state secrets privilege has been invoked with growing frequency to deflect claims of unlawful domestic surveillance, detention, and […]

01.24.08 | 2 min read
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The Need for a New Law Against COMINT Leaks (1944)

There is a “great need” for legislation that will specifically prohibit and punish unauthorized disclosures of communication intelligence (COMINT), the U.S. military argued in a newly-released 1944 report (pdf). Such a law was in fact enacted in 1950. “Unauthorized disclosures… have jeopardized, on several occasions, the results of many years of arduous research and have […]

01.24.08 | 1 min read
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Tsien Hsue-shen and the Secret of Time Travel

Tsien Hsue-shen, the 96-year-old architect of China’s ballistic missile program, was once a promising student of aeronautics in the United States, a protégé of Theodore von Kármán, and then a leading expert in the field, until he came under suspicion of espionage and was deported in September 1955. According to a declassified 1998 Defense Intelligence […]

01.22.08 | 2 min read
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CIA on Prepublication Review

“The CIA requires all current and former Agency employees and contractors, and others who are obligated by CIA secrecy agreement, to submit for prepublication review to the CIA’s Publications Review Board (PRB) all intelligence-related materials intended for publication or public dissemination,” according to a 2007 regulation (pdf) on the subject. The scope of the requirement, […]

01.22.08 | 1 min read
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Malaysia Ratifies the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Last week, Malaysia ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), bringing the total number of Treaty ratifications to 143, according to a CTBT Organization news release. Among Southeast Asian nations, “Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam have now ratified the CTBT, whereas Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand have […]

01.22.08 | 1 min read
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Pentagon Tackles Controls on Unclassified Information

In a small step that could nevertheless have far-reaching consequences for government information policy, the Department of Defense is preparing to eliminate various markings such as “For Official Use Only” and “Limited Distribution” that regulate disclosure of unclassified documents and will replace them with a new standardized marking. The DoD move (pdf) anticipates near-term Presidential […]

01.16.08 | 3 min read
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Nuclear Weapons News

The United States intervened to block South Korea from developing nuclear weapons in the 1970s, according to newly declassified Korean government documents. South Korea was seeking to acquire nuclear reactors from Canada and nuclear reprocessing technology from France in support of a weapons program, but U.S. pressure led to cancellation of the latter purchase. See […]

01.16.08 | 1 min read
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U.S. Arms Sales to the Gulf, and More from CRS

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf). “The Gulf Security Dialogue and Related Arms Sale Proposals,” January 14, 2008. “Foreign Ownership of U.S. Financial Assets: Implications of a Withdrawal,” January 14, 2008. “Laos: Background and U.S. Relations,” January 7, […]

01.15.08 | 1 min read
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An Inside View of “Dysfunctional” Information Restrictions

Much of the criticism directed at government secrecy is predicated on the idea that secrecy impedes government accountability and degrades public participation in the deliberative process. But the secrecy system is also subject to growing internal criticism on altogether different grounds (pdf): namely, that it “has become dysfunctional in the face of current needs of […]

01.14.08 | 2 min read
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Confronting the State Secrets Privilege

The growing use of the state secrets privilege could threaten basic constitutional rights, according to one recent critical analysis. If current trends in government reliance on the state secrets privilege are allowed to continue, “it is questionable whether any constitutional complaint against the government involving classified information will ever be allowed to be adjudicated,” concluded […]

01.14.08 | 1 min read
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Emerging Trends in Asian Security, and More from CRS

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service obtained by Secrecy News include the following (all pdf). “Emerging Trends in the Security Architecture in Asia: Bilateral and Multilateral Ties Among the United States, Japan, Australia, and India,” January 7, 2008. “Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress,” January 10, 2008. “Perjury Under Federal […]

01.14.08 | 1 min read
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