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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: January 2001

December 2000

• President's Statement on Signing Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 20001, December 27. "I am pleased that the Act no longer contains the badly flawed provision that would have made a felony of unauthorized disclosures of classified information, and that was the basis for my veto of a previous version of this legislation."
• John Pike: An Intelligence Sleuth in His Own Right by Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, December 25. "Pike's most annoying accomplishment, as far as the NRO and the rest of the intelligence community are concerned, has been building the deepest and most useful intelligence site on the Web."
• Kerrey Rebuffed, Frustrated In Attempt To See Nuclear Targets Plan by David Smalley, Inside the Air Force, December 22. "Kerrey was not only denied in his attempt to learn the targets of the nation's nuclear weapons, sources say, he was also led on a fruitless search to discover precisely whom is permitted access to such information."
• FAS Letter to CIA Inspector General on Intelligence Budget Disclosure, December 20. "The CIA's claim that disclosure of intelligence budget information from 30 or 50 years ago could damage national security is ludicrous. It suggests willful violation of the law."
• A Web Site That Came in From the Cold to Unveil Russian Secrets, by Sally McGrane, New York Times, December 14 (print edition: December 21). "Mr. Soldatov said that Agentura was modeled after an American site, the Federation of American Scientists' Intelligence Resource Program."
• One Year Later, Wen Ho Lee Strives for Normal Life by Leslie Hoffman, Albuquerque Tribune, December 10. "This case will echo long after it has been formally closed."
• The Truth About Polygraphs? by Vernon Loeb, IntelligenCIA, Washington Post, December 11.
• White House Statement on Compensation to Radiation Victims, press statement, December 7. "These individuals, many of whom were neither protected from nor informed of the hazards to which they were exposed, developed occupational illnesses as a result of their exposure to radiation...."
• Executive Order: Providing Compensation to America's Nuclear Weapons Workers, December 7. "While the Nation can never fully repay these workers or their families, they deserve recognition and compensation for their sacrifices."
• State Department to Punish Six Over Missing Laptop by Dan Verton, Computerworld, December 6. "Some security and intelligence experts view the handling of the case as heavy-handed."
• $860,000 DOE Study to Evaluate Polygraphs by Jennifer McKee, Albuquerque Journal, December 5. "The Department of Energy intends to sink almost a million dollars into an upcoming study to determine -- once and for all -- how well widespread lie detector tests work in preventing espionage."
• DOE Agrees to Fund Bingaman-Urged Polygraph Validity Study, press release, December 4. "The distinguished scientists and engineers who work at Sandia and Los Alamos deserve to know whether polygraphs produce valid results and this study will help make that determination."
• State Department Responds to Disappearing Laptops, daily press briefing, December 5. "These proposed actions range from a letter of reprimand through suspension to separation from service."
• Disaster of the Day: The CIA Chat Room by Arik Hesseldahl, Forbes.com, December 1. "It's another embarrassing black eye for an agency that has already had its share of problems concerning computer security breaches, and more evidence that the agency is badly in need of a top-down review of internal computer security procedures."

Older News: November 2000

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