FBI agent Terry J. Albury was charged last week with two violations of the Espionage Act statutes for disclosing classified information to a reporter for the Intercept. The charges, including unauthorized disclosure and unauthorized retention of national defense information, were formally presented by the Justice Department in a March 27 “Information.” See also “Minneapolis FBI agent charged […]
Public transportation systems across the United States are losing riders. Excluding gains in New York City, national ridership decreased by 7% over the past decade. A new report from the Congressional Research Service examines the causes and consequences of this decline. See Trends in Public Transportation Ridership: Implications for Federal Policy, March 26, 2018. Other new […]
The total number of persons holding security clearances for access to classified information dropped to just over 4 million at the end of FY 2016, according to a long-delayed government report that was partially released on Wednesday. But the backlog of clearances awaiting investigation and adjudication has continued to grow. See FY 2016 Annual Report on Security […]
All non-confidential reports of the Congressional Research Service must be made publicly available online through a Government Publishing Office website within 90 to 270 days under a provision of the 2018 omnibus appropriations act that was passed by Congress and signed by the President last week. The move is the culmination of more than two […]
Threats to the U.S. electric power grid in recent years, including actual attacks on transmission substations, have prompted utilities and regulators to adopt various steps to enhance grid security. A new report from the Congressional Research Service reviews the observable changes in security practices to date and discusses the current threat environment. See NERC Standards […]
The number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile dropped to 3,822 as of September 30, 2017, down from 4,018 a year earlier. (Retired weapons awaiting dismantlement are not included in the totals.)The totals do not include weapons that are retired and awaiting dismantlement.) Meanwhile, 354 nuclear weapons were dismantled in 2017, up from 258 […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The US nuclear weapons stockpile dropped to 3,822 warheads by September 2017 – down nearly 200 warheads from the last year of the Obama administration, according to new information released by the Department of Defense in response to a request from the Federation of American Scientists (see here for full document). […]
The US Constitution leaves many basic questions of constitutional law unanswered, whether because they could not be anticipated or because the text is broadly worded or ambiguous. Consequently, “Interpretation is necessary to determine the meaning of ambiguous provisions of the Constitution or to answer fundamental questions left unaddressed by the drafters,” a new report from the […]
Last year, the Congressional Research Service generated more than 1,100 new products and and updated 2,100 others, according to a new CRS annual report to Congress. The annual report describes the Service’s structure, operation, recent activities and new initiatives. It scarcely mentions thorny issues such as the adequacy of the CRS budget, or the challenges posed […]
The National Declassification Center released a listing of 134 record collections that have undergone declassification review in the past five months. The collections include records on the Weapons System Evaluations Group (discussed here), a compilation of records assembled by Judge Merrick Garland when he was special assistant to the attorney general in 1979-81 (discussed here), embassy files from Indonesia, Iraq, and […]
Updated below The US Air Force is suspending media embeds, base visits and interviews “until further notice” and it “will temporarily limit the number and type of public engagements” by public affairs officers and others while they are retrained to protect sensitive information, according to guidance obtained by Defense News. “In line with the new National […]
House Democrats have introduced two resolutions in the current Congress to censure the President. Neither resolution is expected to advance. But a new memo from the Congressional Research Service considers whether such resolutions are permissible in practice, and concludes: “It would appear that Congress may censure the President through a simple (one chamber) or concurrent (two chamber) resolution, or other […]