One way to supplement and improve intelligence oversight would be to employ the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an investigative arm of Congress, to perform routine audits of key intelligence functions. Yet this potentially valuable oversight tool lies dormant due to opposition from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The GAO will not even attempt to […]
Gen. Michael Hayden, who is now the new CIA director, presented himself as a committed proponent of intelligence oversight in an April 2005 hearing on his nomination to become Deputy Director of National Intelligence. But the record of that hearing, which has just been published, takes on a different aspect in light of the NSA […]
In a December 14, 2005 Executive Order, President Bush directed government agencies to review their Freedom of Information Act programs, evaluate their performance, and develop plans to reduce backlogs and improve efficiency. Those plans were due on June 14 and some of them, not all, have now been published by the Department of Justice Office […]
The Department of Justice Inspector General released a newly declassified version of its 2004 audit of the FBI’s handling of intelligence information related to the September 11 attacks, including a newly disclosed chapter (large pdf) on the case of Zacarias Moussaoui. In a previously released version of the report, the entire chapter 4 on Moussaoui […]
Al Qaeda terrorists contemplated an attack on New York subways in 2003 using an “easily constructed” device called a “mubtakkar” to release cyanide gas, according to a story in Time Magazine this week. But there are reasons to question the reliability and significance of the story, suggested chemist George Smith of GlobalSecurity.org. For one thing, […]
“The alteration of official DoD imagery by persons acting for or on behalf of the Department of Defense is prohibited,” advises a new Pentagon Instruction. See “Alteration of Official DoD Imagery” (pdf), DoD Instruction 5040.05, June 6, 2006. “The days of total air superiority by friendly forces are over. Our potential enemies now may have […]
Coverage of the debate in both the House and the Senate on measures to endorse the current policy in Iraq, referred to a mysterious set of talking points, called the Iraq Floor Debate Prep Book. The Washington Post wrote: “Their position was bolstered by a 74-page document drafted by the White House and distributed by […]
Thirty seven Nobel Laureates signed a letter opposing the administration’s proposed nuclear trade deal between India and the United States. The letter was released at a press briefing at the National Press Club yesterday. The Federation of American Scientists was founded by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic […]
The Air Force has published a new report about the threat from ballistic and cruise missiles. The new report, Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat, presents the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center’s (NASIC) assessment of current and emerging weapon systems deployed or under development by Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Syria […]
Congressional oversight of intelligence is “dysfunctional,” according to a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress. Some of the most urgent and fundamental policy issues facing the nation are matters of intelligence policy: What are the proper boundaries of domestic intelligence surveillance? What is the legal framework for interrogation of enemy detainees? Why […]
The National Security Archive filed suit against the Central Intelligence Agency after the CIA began imposing costs to process Freedom of Information Act requests that it said were not “newsworthy” and therefore not entitled to a fee waiver. By interposing its own editorial judgment in the FOIA process, the CIA in effect is “trying to […]
The organization and management of U.S. Air Force space activities from pre-launch to post-operational disposal are described in a new AF Space Command Instruction (pdf) on “satellite operations.” “The objective of satellite disposal is to reduce the potential for spacecraft collisions and frequency interference, to mitigate the creation of additional space debris and to open […]