“Power and influence are now diffusing to a range of actors, both state and non-state, who have not traditionally wielded it,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), last month. Under these circumstances, “Traditional approaches to deterrence are increasingly inadequate,” he said. “Adversaries [seek] to maximize their coercive influence while […]
Noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that have been withheld from public distribution include the following. Islamic State Financing and U.S. Policy Approaches, April 10, 2015 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force: Issues Concerning Its Continued Application, April 14, 2015 The War Powers Resolution: Concepts and Practice, April 3, 2015 […]
Updated below The government will no longer refuse to confirm or deny that persons who are prevented from boarding commercial aircraft have been placed on the “No Fly List,” and such persons will have new opportunities to challenge the denial of boarding, the Department of Justice announced yesterday in a court filing. Until now, the […]
Overwhelmed by the challenge of trying to sort, identify and preserve historically valuable government email, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has devised what it calls the Capstone approach to email management. Under Capstone, government email would be categorized for retention or disposal based on the title or position of the email sender, rather […]
The Department of Justice last week published newly updated regulations on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, with several notable changes made in response to public comments. Fifteen sets of comments were submitted by individual members of the public or public interest organizations after the Department released its draft FOIA regulations in 2011. In […]
The leading cause of railroad-related deaths is not collisions or derailments, but trespassing, explains a neatly argued new issue brief from the Congressional Research Service. See Rail Safety Efforts Miss Leading Cause of Fatalities, CRS Insights, April 2, 2015. Other new and newly updated CRS reports that Congress has withheld from public distribution include the […]
During the last two years, the U.S. intelligence community has faced momentous challenges and experienced extraordinary upheaval, including the Snowden disclosures beginning in June 2013 and the release of a redacted summary of the Senate report on CIA interrogation practices last year. Those episodes and others are reflected in a new report from the Senate […]
“There is too much disclosure,” complained George H. W. Bush, then-Director of Central Intelligence, in a 1976 memo to President Gerald Ford. “We are continually pressed by Congress, by the courts, by the Freedom of Information Act, to give up sensitive material,” DCI Bush added. “We are trying to hold the line but there is […]
The Chief Justice of the United States has named two new judges to the eleven-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Court announced last week. Chief Justice Roberts designated Judge James P. Jones of the Western District of Virginia and Judge Thomas B. Russell of the Western District of Kentucky to serve on the FISC […]
The Department of Homeland Security aims to increase its domestic human intelligence collection activity this year, the Department recently told Congress. In a question for the record from a September 2014 congressional hearing, Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-GA) asked: “Do we currently have enough human intelligence capacity–both here in the homeland and overseas–to counter the […]
“Understanding culture is essential in conducting irregular warfare.” That is the opening sentence in the introduction to a new U.S. Army publication on Cultural and Situational Understanding. “Irregular warfare requires a deliberate application of an understanding of culture due to the need to understand a populated operational environment, what specifically is causing instability, the nature […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Russian deployed strategic warheads counted by the New START Treaty once again slipped below the U.S. force level, according to the latest fact sheet released by the State Department. The so-called aggregate numbers show that Russia as of March 1, 2015 deployed 1,582 warheads on 515 strategic launchers. The U.S. count […]