The Department of Justice described its progress towards meeting the December 31, 2006 deadline for automatic declassification of 25 year old historical records in an updated Declassification Plan submitted to the Information Security Oversight Office last year. Significant exemptions to the automatic declassification program have been sought by the FBI and the DoJ Office of […]
Some notable, newly updated reports of the Congressional Research Service, obtained by Secrecy News and published on the Federation of American Scientists web site, include the following: “Conventional Warheads For Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues for Congress,” updated February 13, 2006. “U.S. Nuclear Weapons: Changes in Policy and Force Structure,” updated January 27, 2006. […]
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing,” according to a paper published in the latest issue of Science magazine. Unconscious thought, defined as “thought or deliberation in the absence of conscious attention directed at the problem,” can sometimes yield superior results, University of Amsterdam psychologists […]
Several reports of the Congressional Research Service on nuclear weapons policy have recently been updated, including the following: “Nuclear Weapons: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” updated January 23, 2006. “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” updated January 17, 2006. “Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons,” updated January 13, 2006. “Nuclear Arms Control: The U.S.-Russian Agenda,” updated January 3, 2006.
The Washington Post took further note today of the potentially severe implications for the press of the controversial prosecution of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “The Bush administration said that journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information but that such a step […]
Thinking the President might mention it in his State of the Union Address, I had put up on the FAS website a page on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which includes a plan to restart plutonium reprocessing in the United States after a thirty year hiatus. The President did not, in fact, mention the Global […]
The President has submitted a military budget of $440 billion dollars, with request for more than an additional hundred billion for the Iraq war expected later. It is finally time to say that the Pentagon budget has slipped its leash and is out of control. Not in the sense that the country is splashing money […]
Just after the FAS Strategic Security blog got going, I had to take a little time off for some surgery. Now I am back. Well most of me is back. My gallbladder is not back, but the rest of me is back. I understand that the ethos of the blog world is that everything must […]
U.S. military and intelligence agencies have assigned personnel to review and reclassify declassified historical records at the National Archives where they have withdrawn thousands of records from public access. The seven year old secret program was reported today on the front page of the New York Times. See “U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review” […]
The number of earmarks included in congressional appropriations bills, directing that money be spent in a particular and often self-interested way, has multiplied over the past decade, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service. The CRS study has been widely cited in the press, but has not been readily available online. Now it […]
With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, the U.S. intelligence community gained its fifteenth member. Last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) became the sixteenth member. “This designation does not grant DEA new authorities, but it does formalize the long-standing relationship between the DEA and the IC,” according to a February […]
In its prosecution of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Bush Administration is staking out new legal territory, arguing that it is a crime for a reporter or any other non-government employee who does not hold a security clearance to receive and communicate classified information. “The government respectfully submits […]