On March 9, the President signed into law the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act, which made permanent 14 of the 16 sections of the Patriot Act that were set to expire. A new report from the Congressional Research Service provides a detailed, 74 page analysis (pdf) of the Act, including the various modifications made […]
The threat posed by organized crime networks to national security and international stability, and U.S. policy responses to the threat, are examined by the Congressional Research Service in a new report (pdf) obtained by Secrecy News. “Starting in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and the advent of globalization, many criminal organizations […]
The total amount of U.S. aid to Iraq since 2003 is already comparable to post-World War II U.S. assistance to Germany and nearly double that provided to Japan, according to a new Congressional Research Service analysis (pdf). “U.S. assistance to Germany totaled some $4.3 billion ($29.6 billion in 2005 dollars) for the years of direct […]
Update (February 22, 2007): DTRA announces that Divine Strake has been canceled. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) today confirmed to FAS that the upcoming Divine Strake test widely reported in the media to be a non-nuclear event is in fact a low-yield nuclear weapons calibration simulation against an underground target. A few, including Albuquerque […]
The prosecution of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for mishandling classified information is attracting growing public attention and concern as the anomalous character of the case becomes increasingly clear. It bears repeating that the two defendants, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, are not accused of being agents of Israel […]
Members of the House of Representatives who serve on the Intelligence Committee or the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee should be required to obtain security clearances as a condition of the service, said Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN), who introduced legislation to that end last week. “These two Committees have access to the most closely guarded secrets our […]
The Senate voted last week to end the practice of secret “holds” by which a Senator may anonymously block the consideration of pending legislation. The proposal, advanced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), would still permit Senators to object to legislation, but they could not do so anonymously. “What is unjust […]
The Department of Defense recently published new doctrine (pdf) on the planning and execution of “information operations.” Information operations, including what was formerly known as “information warfare” (a term that has been withdrawn from official doctrine), is comprised of five elements: psychological operations, military deception, operations security, electronic warfare, and computer network operations. Its overall […]
The effects of radio frequency (RF) microwave (MW) radiation on the human nervous system and their potential for use in non-lethal weaponry were discussed in a new summary report (pdf) prepared for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. “Although the Department of Defense is one of the world’s largest developers and users of RF/MW-emitting […]
At a Senate hearing on the foreign aid budget on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice underscored the importance of “…deny[ing] terrorists access to the world’s most dangerous weapons, including conventional weapons like MANPADS,” and pointed to funding increases in the President’s FY07 budget for State Department programs that “help countries counter the proliferation of […]
Must the President of the United States obey the law? Ordinarily, the answer of course is yes, unless the law itself is unconstitutional. It is “uncontroversial,” wrote then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger in a 1994 memorandum for the Clinton White House, that “there are circumstances in which the President may appropriately decline to enforce a […]
The People’s Republic of China is making significant strides in science and technology areas related to national security and commercial enterprise, according to a new “bibliometric” study of Chinese scientific publications (pdf) performed by the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research. “China’s output of research articles has expanded dramatically in the last decade. In terms […]