A national policy on “insider threats” was developed by the Obama Administration in order to protect against actions by government employees who would harm the security of the nation. But under the rubric of insider threats, the policy subsumes the seemingly disparate acts of spies, terrorists, and those who leak classified information. The insider threat […]
A new report from the Congressional Research Service provides a detailed review of the Defense Production Act of 1950, which “confers upon the President a broad set of authorities to influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense.” “The authorities can be used across the federal government to shape the domestic industrial base so […]
In response to an October 2012 presidential directive on “protecting whistleblowers with access to classified information,” the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy have produced their implementing policies. These would generally prohibit retaliation against individuals who make “protected disclosures” of information to an authorized recipient. The intelligence community may be retreating from its […]
It may be easier for litigants to mount a constitutional challenge to intelligence surveillance programs that gather U.S. data such as telephone and internet metadata now that those programs have been documented through leaks of classified records. Or, says a new report from the Congressional Research Service, it may not be. Unlike previous cases, “the […]
A new report from the Congressional Research Service summarizes for Congress what is publicly known about the two National Security Agency surveillance programs that were disclosed by Edward Snowden and reported last month by The Guardian and The Washington Post. “Since these programs were publicly disclosed over the course of two days in June, there […]
The inspector general of each executive branch agency that classifies national security information is required to produce an evaluation of the agency’s classification program by the end of September, pursuant to the Reducing Over-classification Act of 2010. The goal of the reviews is to identify policies and procedures “that may be contributing to persistent misclassification […]
A long-running personnel dispute at the Congressional Research Service offers up conflicting visions of the proper role of the congressional support agency, which provides policy and legal analysis to Congress. In 2009, then-CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan fired then-CRS Division Chief Col. Morris Davis, a former Guantanamo prosecutor, after Davis publicly criticized the military commission process […]
Government programs to declassify national security information are not meeting public expectations, the needs of historians, or even the requirements of law, said the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee (HAC) in a report last week. A 1991 statute mandated that the State Department publish the documentary record of U.S. foreign policy (known as Foreign Relations […]
New and newly updated publications from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public access include the following. Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations, updated June 27, 2013 Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Plant and Plutonium Disposition: Management and Policy Issues, June 25, 2013 Ballistic Missile Defense in the Asia-Pacific Region: Cooperation and Opposition, June […]
In May 2010, the Department of Defense disclosed that the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal consisted of 5,113 warheads (as of September 30, 2009). This was a disclosure of great significance, the Pentagon explained: “Increasing the transparency of global nuclear stockpiles is important to non-proliferation efforts, and to pursuing follow-on reductions after the ratification and entry […]
Recent disclosures of NSA collection of records of US telephone and email traffic have some unfortunate parallels and precedents in the early history of the Agency that were thought to have been repudiated forever. “After World War II, the National Security Agency (NSA) established and directed three programs that deliberately targeted American citizens’ private communications,” […]
In 2007, Congress passed legislation to grant the Director of National Intelligence “new authority to conduct accountability reviews of significant failures or deficiencies with the Intelligence Community.” Up to now, however, that authority has never been exercised. In 2011, the DNI issued Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 111 on “Accountability Reviews.” That recently disclosed Directive “establishes […]