“The number of unaccompanied alien children arriving in the United States has reached alarming numbers that strain the system put in place over the past decade to handle such cases,” says a new report from the Congressional Research Service. See Unaccompanied Alien Children: An Overview, June 13, 2014. Other new or newly updated CRS reports […]
People who voluntarily share information with a third party are not entitled to an expectation of privacy concerning that information under the so-called “third-party doctrine” that currently prevails in judicial interpretations of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The implications of the third-party doctrine are profound, a new report from the Congressional Research Service explains. […]
Far from being a subject of merely antiquarian interest, military history is an essential tool for training of soldiers and for institutional accountability, according to newly updated Army doctrine. But only if it is done right. In Military History Operations (ATP 1-20, June 2014), the Army discusses what military history is for, its development over […]
Is there any act of overclassification that is so egregious that the classifier would be held accountable for abusing his classification authority? The answer is unknown, since no one has ever been held accountable in such a case. As far as can be determined, no classifier has ever been found to have willfully or culpably […]
In January 2008, the Bush Administration issued the Top Secret National Security Presidential Directive 54 on Cybersecurity Policy which “establishes United States policy, strategy, guidelines, and implementation actions to secure cyberspace.” Despite its relevance to a central public policy issue, both the Bush and Obama Administrations had refused to release the Directive. But last week, […]
In 2012, the number of newly created national security secrets (or “original classification decisions”) dropped by a startling 42% from the year before, according to the Information Security Oversight Office. It was the largest annual drop ever reported by ISOO, yielding the lowest annual production of new secrets since such numbers began to be collected […]
Intelligence community whistleblowers would have been able to submit their complaints to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) under a proposed amendment to the intelligence authorization act that was offered last week by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). This could have been an elegant solution to the whistleblowing conundrum posed by Edward Snowden. It made […]
The population of Syria is 17,951,639, according to the CIA World Factbook. That figure (oddly identified as a “July 2014” estimate) is wrong, according to everyone else. The discrepancy was noted yesterday in the intelligence newsletter Nightwatch. “NightWatch consulted six separate sources for the total population of Syria. They agreed that it is between 22 […]
The Department of Defense prepares and trains for military operations in environments in which communications and surveillance are denied or obstructed, a new report to Congress says. Combatant commanders “spend many man-hours… developing frameworks and procedures for using alternative methods, diversifying communications paths and media, and pursuing the ability to use distributed operations in a […]
New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following. Defense Acquisitions: How DOD Acquires Weapon Systems and Recent Efforts to Reform the Process, May 23, 2014 Defense Acquisition Reform: Background, Analysis, and Issues for Congress, May 23, 2014 U.S. Air Force Bomber Sustainment and […]
Of the many lessons to be learned from the unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence information by Edward Snowden, one of them is that the congressional intelligence oversight process did not function properly in the years leading up to those disclosures. It seems indisputable that the intelligence oversight committees did not accurately comprehend or effectively represent […]
A new report from the Congressional Research Service “provides an analytic overview of the professional experiences and qualifications of those individuals who are currently serving as active U.S. circuit court judges.” See U.S. Circuit Court Judges: Profile of Professional Experiences Prior to Appointment, May 9, 2014. Other recently updated CRS reports include these: Deepwater Horizon […]