With the war against Islamist fighters drawing to a close, Somalia’s transitional government and its foreign allies now face several Herculean tasks: bringing to heel the warlords and militias that have terrorized the country for fifteen years, winning over the various clans and sub-clans that dominate Somali politics, rebuilding the nation’s devastated infrastructure, etc, etc, […]
The December 31, 2006 deadline for automatic declassification of historically valuable 25 year old classified records has come and gone. Was anything automatically declassified? Yes, said Bill Leonard, director of the Information Security Oversight Office. “Hundreds of millions of pages of records were automatically declassified at the FBI alone,” he said yesterday. Numerous other records […]
In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the National Reconnaissance Office last week released to the Federation of American Scientists the unclassified portions of the NRO Congressional Budget Justification Book for Fiscal Year 2006. “You have joined a very exclusive club of people who not only win FOIA cases but actually get some […]
Several noteworthy pieces of legislation on intelligence and national security have already been introduced (or in some cases re-introduced) in the new Congress, including these. A Resolution to Enhance Intelligence Oversight (H.Res. 35) by Rep. Obey, January 5. Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007 (H.R. 1), January 5. NSA Oversight Act (pdf) (H.R. […]
The Department of Energy has published a new draft manual to help authorized personnel identify information that is classified by executive order or under the Atomic Energy Act. See “Manual for Identifying Classified Information” (draft), DOE M 475.1-1B, published January 8, 2007 (1.3 MB PDF).
Some recent reports of the Congressional Research Service that are not readily available in the public domain include the following (all pdf). “Department of Homeland Security Grants to State and Local Governments: FY2003 to FY2006,” December 22, 2006. “International Crises and Disasters: U.S. Humanitarian Assistance, Budget Trends, and Issues for Congress,” December 21, 2006. “Cuba: […]
Declaring that the need to protect government secrets overrides all other considerations, a federal court yesterday dismissed (pdf) a lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency filed by family members of a former CIA clandestine officer who alleged injuries that are largely classified. The CIA invoked the state secrets privilege in its motion for dismissal, and […]
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 […]