Science

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.

Prosecution of accused CIA leaker, new CRS reports, life-sciences research and much more.

From the Blogs

• Navy Submarine Procurement and More from CRS: Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as the effects of Fukushima on U.S. marine environment, policy issues related to China’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, U.S. infant mortality rate and women in combat.

• Prosecution of Accused CIA Leaker Will Face Legal Hurdles: Former CIA officer John C. Kiriakou was indicted on charges of leaking classified information to the press. Kiriakou is accused of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer, and of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly disclosing national defense information to persons not authorized to receive it.

• Harmonize the Oversight of Life-Sciences Research: The Virtual Biosecurity Center, a project spear-headed by FAS, published an editorial by Susan A. Ehrlich who argues that the United States needs to establish a presidential commission charged with collecting, reviewing and synthesizing information into a single, comprehensive framework for the oversight of life-sciences research.

FAS Roundup: February 27, 2012

Status of China’s nuclear forces, strides in DoD classification reform, photos and video from FAS Awards Ceremony and much more.

From the Blogs

• Pentagon Defends Record on Secrecy Reform: The Department of Defense has done a better job of complying with changes in national security classification policy than it has gotten credit for, Pentagon officials told a Senate Committee.  The number of classification guides that are up to date has increased from 30% to over 70%, the officials said, and a new four-volume information security guide that has been under development since 2009 is in final coordination.

• Media Orgs File Amicus Brief in Sterling Leak Case: Dozens of major news media organizations joined together to defend the notion of a reporter’s privilege to protect the identity of a confidential against compulsory disclosure. The brief is an emphatic chorus of support for James Risen (the New York Times reporter who has been subpoenaed to testify in the case of Jeffrey Sterling, the former CIA officer who is accused of leaking classified information to Mr. Risen), and it offers a clear statement that the public interest in free press is at stake in this case. One thing it does not do, however, is simplify the matter for the appeals court or help to devise some kind of resolution of the conflict between the parties.

• Chinese Nuclear Modernization-Smaller and Later: Last week, Congress received its annual threat assessment from the U.S. intelligence community. Hans Kristensen writes that China’s nuclear arsenal is at a size that makes comparison with U.S. nuclear force level meaningless – even at the lowest level feared by the critics. The threat assessment showed that China’s nuclear force modernization has been slower than predicted during the Bush administration.

• DoD Reports “Impressive Strides” in Updating Classification: Steven Aftergood writes that the Department of Defense says it has cancelled more than 300 of its 1800 classification guides as a result of the ongoing Fundamental Classification Guidance Review (mandated by President Obama’s 2009 executive order to identify and eliminate inappropriate classification requirements).  The defunct guides can no longer be used to authorize the classification of national security information.

FAS Roundup: February 13, 2012

New report on future of nuclear power, DoD inspector takes on classification oversight,  freedom of the press and much more.

Events

• On February 8, 2012, FAS honored Dr. Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, and Dr. Richard A. Meserve, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science, at a dinner event in Washington, DC. Secretary Chu was recognized with the Hans Bethe Award and Dr. Meserve received the inaugural Richard L. Garwin Award for distinguished service. The evening’s Master of Ceremonies was John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Adviser to the President. The distinguished guests included Congressman Rush Holt, General Brent Scowcroft, Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Gregory Jaczko, NRC Commissioners Kristine Svinicki, George Apostolakis and William Ostendorff, and FAS Board Members. Stay tuned to our website next week for video of the event.

• FAS also released a new report produced by FAS and Washington and Lee University at a briefing on Capitol Hill on February 8, 2012. The report, on the future of nuclear power in the United States, was written by a distinguished group of experts who provided insights about the safety, security, building, financing, licensing, regulating, and fueling of nuclear power plants.  Speakers at the event included authors Dr. Albert Carr Jr., Mr. Stephen Maloney, Dr. Ivan Oelrich and Ms. Sharon Squassoni. Dr. Charles Ferguson and Dr. Frank Settle, editors of the report, served as moderators of the panel.

New Report on Nuclear Power

• In the wake of the devastating meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, many Americans are now reevaluating the costs and benefits of nuclear energy. If anything, the accident underscores that constant vigilance is needed to ensure nuclear safety. FAS and Washington and Lee University released a new report examining the future of nuclear power power in the United States.

From the Blogs

• Detention of U.S. Persons: What is the Existing Law?: When Congress passed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, it included provisions that authorized U.S. armed forces to detain persons who are captured in the conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces. However, Congress also said that those provisions did not provide any new authority to detain U.S. citizens or others who may be captured in the United States.

• DoD Inspector General Takes on Classification Oversight: In a move that can only strengthen and improve oversight of the national security classification system, the Department of Defense Inspector General has begun a far-reaching review of Pentagon classification policy. Among other things, the Inspector General review will focus on “efforts by the Department to decrease over-classification.”

• A Profession Nobody’s Heard Of: What does a health physicist do? Health physics is the profession that deals with radiation safety for people and the environment. Currently, there is a shortage of health physicists in the United States, and the majority of those running radiation safety programs are not trained radiation safety professionals. Dr. Y writes about what exactly a health physicist does, and their importance to the scientific community.

• Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin Online: The Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin is a quarterly journal published by the U.S. Army to promote awareness and discussion of current topics in military intelligence.  Although unclassified, the Bulletin is not made available online by the Army. Recent volumes can be found on the FAS website.

• Leaks, National Security, and Freedom of the Press:  A new book, “Who Watches the Watchman” by Gary Ross, explores the the phenomenon of leaks from multiple angles, including their history, their prevalence and their consequences.  Most interestingly, he considers the diverse motivations of leakers and of the reporters who solicit, receive and publish their disclosures. Some of these he finds defensible, and others not.

• The Radium Age: A century ago, people used radium to treat diseases (such as cancer) and even consumed to help one’s overall health. Radium was also used in products such as watch dials and fishing tackle. With today’s hypersensitivity to radiation this is hard to believe – but one of the reasons for today’s hypersensitivity to radiation might actually have something to do with the profligacy of earlier decades.

• China’s Vice President Visits the US, and more from CRS: Secrecy News has obtained new CRS reports on topics such as Iran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz and Lebanon and the uprising in Syria.

Volunteer Opportunity for DC Members

• FAS will have a booth at the 2nd Annual USA Science and Engineering Festival which will be held on April 28-29 in Washington, DC. We are looking for volunteers to staff our booth-come share your knowledge and career experiences with festival attendees! If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Melanie Stegman at mstegman@fas.org.For more information on our booth and the festival, click here.     
  

FAS in the News

• Feb 9: PhysOrg.com, “Carnegie’s Richard Meserve Receives Inaugural Richard Garwin Award”
• Feb 9: EurekAlert, ”Carnegie’s Richard Meserve Recieves Inaugural Garwin Award”
• Feb 8: Government Security News, “Study Says Nuclear Plant Designs Need Stepped Up Attention to Security”
• Feb 8: DefenseNews.com, ”IG Reviewing Overclassification at DOD”
• Feb 7: New York Times – The Lede, “Among Liberties Advocates, Outrage Over Expanded Use of Drones”
• Feb 7: Washington Times, “Drones Over U.S. Gets OK By Congress”
• Feb 6: Mother Jones, “Obama’s Golden Nuclear Option”