Nuclear Terrorism

NATO Security Summit in Chicago, NSA declassification blunder, weapons in space and much more.

NATO Security Summit

• The 2012 NATO Security Summit is underway in Chicago, with heads of state and governments of NATO member states convening to discuss regional and global security challenges. Key items on the summit agenda include a transition plan for NATO forces in Afghanistan after the end of combat in 2014, NATO’s defense and security goals, and tactics to enhance NATO partnership with non-member states. For more information on the NATO Summit, visit our policy page here.

From the Blogs

• NSA Declassifies Secret Document After Publishing It: The National Security Agency last week invoked a rarely-used authority in order to declassify a classified document that was mistakenly posted on the NSA website with all of its classified passages intact. The article is a historical study entitled Maybe You Had to Be There: The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns of U.S. Reconnaissance Aircraft.  It was written by Michael L. Peterson and was originally published in the classified journal Cryptologic Quarterly in 1993.

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.

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. 

FAS Roundup: December 19, 2011

Military intel budget classified, new ScienceWonk blog, CIA to process Open Source Works FOIA request, 7th Session of BWC and much more. 

From the Blogs

• DoD Says Military Intel Budget Request is Classified: Steven Aftergood writes that a Freedom of Information Act request for the amount of money that the Pentagon requested for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) in FY2012 has been denied. The amount- around $25 billion- is classified and will not be disclosed.

• Congress Authorizes Offensive Military Action in Cyberspace: Congress has given the U.S. military a green light to conduct offensive military activities in cyberspace. The blanket authorization for offensive cyber operations is conditional on compliance with the law of armed conflict, and the War Powers Resolution, which mandated congressional consultation in decisions to go to war.

• CIA Will Process Request on Open Source Works: Steven Aftergood writes that in an abrupt reversal, the Central Intelligence Agency said that it will process a Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to the establishment of Open Source Works, the CIA’s in-house open source intelligence organization.

FAS Roundup: November 28, 2011

New CRS reports, petition to assess nuclear threat, Take Action blog featuring Iran’s nuclear program and more. 

From the Blogs

• New CRS Reports: Secrecy News has obtained new reports from the Congressional Research Service; topics of these reports include: U.S. government programs to identify and deport criminal aliens and the U.S. government’s response to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a brutal paramilitary group in Uganda.

• Take Action- Iran’s Nuclear Program: For the past decade, the Iranian nuclear program has been a point of stringent contention among the members of the international community, particularly between Western nations and Iran. Visit the Take Action Blog and learn about FAS’s  recommendations for a peaceful solution to this conflict.

• Leak Prosecutions Inch Forward: The three ongoing prosecutions under the Espionage Act of individuals who allegedly “leaked” classified information to the press are slowly moving forward. Steven Aftergood writes about the cases of Jeffrey A. Sterling, (former CIA officer who is accused of leaking classified information to author James Risen), Army Private Bradley Manning, (the suspected WikiLeaks source), and Stephen Kim, former State Department contractor accused of leaking classified information to Fox News reporter James Rosen.