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Cost of B61 bomb escalating, radioactive smuggling, cyber threats and much more.

From the Blogs

• USAF Drones May Conduct  “Incidental” Domestic Surveillance: U.S. Air Force policy permits the incidental collection of domestic imagery by unmanned aerial systems (drones), but ordinarily would not allow targeted surveillance of a U.S. person.  The Air Force policy was restated in a newly reissued instruction on oversight of Air Force intelligence. Legally valid requirements for domestic imagery include surveillance of natural disasters, environmental studies, system testing and training, and also counterintelligence and security-related vulnerability assessments. Air Force units are authorized to acquire domestic commercial imagery for such validated purposes.

• B61 Nuclear Bomb Costs Escalating: The expected cost of the B61 Life-Extension Program (LEP) has increased by 50 percent to $6 billion dollars, according to U.S. government sources. The escalating cost of the program – and concern that NNSA does not have an effective plan for managing it – has caused Congress to cap spending on the B61 LEP by 60 percent in 2012 and 100 percent in 2013.

• What is a National Security “Partnership” and More from CRS: Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as U.S. nuclear cooperation with India, Japan-U.S. relations and same sex marriage.

• What is a Cyber Threat?: In order to establish a common vocabulary for discussing cyber threats, and thereby to enable an appropriate response, authors of a new report released by Sandia National Laboratories propose a variety of attributes that can be used to characterize cyber threats in a standardized and consistent way.

Investigation into leak prosecutions, nuclear forensics, new CRS reports and much more.

From the Blogs

• Senate Review of CIA Interrogation Program “Nearing Completion”: The Senate Intelligence Committee has been reviewing the post-9/11 detention and interrogation practices of the Central Intelligence Agency for four years and is still not finished.  But the end appears to be in sight. Committee staff are said to have reviewed millions of pages of classified documents pertaining to the CIA program.

• Govt Appeals Court-Ordered Release of Classified Document: On April 29,  government attorneys said that they would appeal an extraordinary judicial ruling that required the release of a classified document in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The document in question is a one-page position paper produced by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) concerning the U.S. negotiating position in free trade negotiations.  It was classified Confidential and was not supposed to be disclosed before 2013.

• Nuclear Forensics: A terrorist attack using an improvised nuclear device would be hugely destructive. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons had a ‘return address’ since the U.S. could trace the trajectory back to the point of origin. Dr. Y investigates the background of nuclear forensics in a new post on the ScienceWonk Blog.

• Patent Office Weighs Patent Secrecy for “Economic Security”: Steven Aftergood writes that in response to congressional direction, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is considering whether to expand the scope of patent secrecy orders — which prohibit the publication of affected patent applications — in order to enhance “economic security” and to protect newly developed inventions against exploitation by foreign competitors. Currently, patent secrecy orders are applied only to patent applications whose disclosure could be “detrimental to national security” as prescribed by the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951.

2012 Nuclear Security Summit,secret drone technology, nuclear limbo and much more.

2012 Nuclear Security Summit

• Listen to the new edition of the FAS podcast series, “A Conversation With An Expert,”  featuring FAS President Dr. Charles Ferguson. In this podcast, Dr. Ferguson discusses the goals of the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, securing fissile materials, and nuclear terrorism.

• Visit our 2012 Nuclear Security Summit policy page on our website which highlights FAS work and resources on nuclear security, fissile materials and much more.

• FAS President Dr. Charles Ferguson examines the national and international efforts to control and secure radioactive materials, and offers suggestions on how to reduce the risk of radiological terrorism in a new paper published by the US-Korea Institute at SAIS. 

Lessons learned from Fukushima, future of nuclear power, Russia’s nuclear forces and much more.

Fukushima: One Year Later

• Listen to the new edition of the FAS podcast series, “A Conversation With An Expert,”  featuring FAS President Dr. Charles Ferguson. In this podcast, Dr. Ferguson discusses the lessons learned from Fukushima, safety of U.S. nuclear plants, future of nuclear power use, and Japan’s new energy policy post- Fukushima.
• FAS President Dr. Charles Ferguson is the executive producer and featured in the Council on Foreign Relations nuclear energy multimedia guide, which explores the past, present and future of nuclear power.

• Fukushima- A Year Later: March 11 marks the one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, setting into motion the events that culminated in multiple reactor meltdowns. Dr. Y reflects on a few lessons we have learned as a result of this accident on the ScienceWonk blog.

• FAS President Dr. Charles Ferguson presented at a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to examine the impact of the Fukushima accident. Dr. Ferguson spoke about the potential implications for the use of nuclear power post Fukushima and implications for safety, education, economics and waste disposal. You can view the slides from his presentation here.

• Japan’s Nuclear Dilemma:  In a new interview with Toni Johnson of the Council on Foreign Relations, FAS President Charles Ferguson spoke about Japan’s future energy program and states that Japan’s economy is taking a huge hit due to loss of significant power generation and high imported energy costs. Yet, Japan is not open to renewable energy as an alternative. Post-Fukushima, should Japan use nuclear power?

Yesterday, I presented at a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to examine the impact of the Fukushima accident.

I spoke about the potential implications for the use of nuclear power post Fukushima and implications for safety, education, economics and waste disposal. You can view my presentation slides here.