Last October the Environmental Protection Agency closed five of its libraries, including the headquarters library in Washington DC, and limited public access at four others. EPA said the closures were part of an ongoing restructuring and that public demand for EPA records would be increasingly satisfied online. Public interest groups and librarians warned that valuable […]
Some other recent products of the Congressional Research Service that are not readily available in the public domain include the following (all pdf). “U.S. Army and Marine Corps Equipment Requirements: Background and Issues for Congress,” December 20, 2006. “U.S. Arms Sales: Agreements with and Deliveries to Major Clients, 1998-2005,” December 15, 2006. “‘Terrorism’ and Related […]
National Security Agency director Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander answered dozens of questions for the record related to NSA surveillance activities following a September 6 July 26, 2006 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “FISA for the 21st Century.” That hearing record has not yet been published, but General Alexander’s 35 page response to Senators’ questions […]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation advised Congress last month that it will no longer seek to recover classified information that may be contained in the collected papers of the late Jack Anderson. The FBI “is not seeking to reclaim any documents,” the Bureau said in response to a question from Senator Arlen Specter. The FBI […]
A new internet initiative called Wikileaks seeks to promote good government and democratization by enabling anonymous disclosure and publication of confidential government records. “WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis,” according to the project web site. “Our primary targets are highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia, central […]
Foreign efforts to gather information on defense-related U.S. technologies are characterized in a 2006 report (pdf) by the Defense Security Service (DSS) Counterintelligence Office. “In 2005, DSS identified 106 countries associated with suspicious activities based on U.S. cleared defense industry reporting, up from 90 countries in 2004.” Information systems, lasers, sensors and aeronautics were among […]
The State Department today invited public comment on its proposed revision of regulations on the control of classified national security information. See this January 3 Federal Register notice. The People’s Republic of China published a new edition of its annual White Paper on national defense on December 29. Boasting of increased transparency, the document features […]
The Department of Energy’s search for inadvertent disclosures of classified nuclear weapons information in declassified government files seems to have reached the point of diminishing returns. In its latest quarterly report to Congress (pdf), DOE noted that it had examined 719,040 pages of declassified public records at the National Archives and found 38 pages containing […]
The State Department said today that it will modify the latest Nixon-era volume of the official Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series to include the amount of the 1970 U.S. intelligence budget after Secrecy News pointed out that this number had previously been disclosed in an earlier volume of FRUS. According to an […]
“Not since World War II has this nation relied so heavily on its Special Operations Forces,” according to Gen. Bryan D. Brown, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Special operations are military actions “conducted in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to achieve military, diplomatic, informational, and/or economic objectives employing military capabilities for which […]
Some notable newly-updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that are not readily available in the public domain include these (all pdf). “Coast Guard Deepwater Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress,” December 18, 2006. “Radioactive Waste Streams: Waste Classification for Disposal,” updated December 13, 2006. “Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border,” […]
(Updated January 3, 2007) North Korea may have gotten all the attention, but all the nuclear weapon states were busy flight-testing ballistic missiles for their nuclear weapons during 2006. According to a preliminary count, eight countries launched more than 28 ballistic missiles of 23 types in 26 different events. Unlike the failed North Korean Taepo […]