Secrecy News

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.

New report on non-strategic nuclear weapons, missing classified document, U.S. nuclear forces and much more.

New Report on Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons

• Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons: A new FAS Special Report written by Hans M. Kristensen comes three weeks before 28 NATO member countries convene in Chicago on May 20-21 to approve the conclusions of a year-long Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). Among other issues, the review will determine the number and role of the U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed in Europe and how NATO might work to reduce its nuclear posture.

From the Blogs

• Counterintelligence Surveillance Under FISA Grew in 2011: In a new report to Congress from the Department of Justice, in 2011 the U.S. Government submitted 1,745 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for authorization to conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The report states that of that number, there were 1,676 requests for authority to perform electronic surveillance. In 2010, there were 1,579 such applications (including 1,511 for electronic surveillance).

• Classified Records Said to be Missing from National Archives: A three-year investigation by the Inspector General found that more than a thousand boxes of classified government records are believed to be missing from the Washington National Records Center (WNRC) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). But there are no indications of theft or espionage, an official said.

• Admin Presses for Renewal of FISA Surveillance Authority: The Obama Administration is urging Congress to renew provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act that are set to expire at the end of this year. One of the key provisions of the act would permit the electronic surveillance of entire categories of non-U.S. persons who are located abroad “without the need for a court order for each individual target.”

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.

New op-ed on diplomacy with North Korea, GAO intelligence review, new CRS reports and much more.

From the Blogs

• GAO Completes an “Intelligence Related” Review: Following years of controversy, the Government Accountability Office this week released an unclassified version of its long-awaited report on FBI Counterterrorism. The report itself comes as an anti-climax, but it is the first GAO report involving intelligence-related matters to be completed since the issuance of an intelligence community directive last summer which authorized GAO to gain access to certain intelligence agency information.  As such, it may herald a growing role for GAO in intelligence oversight.

• Secret Systems Clutter the Electromagnetic Spectrum: The difficulty that the military has in allocating the efficient use of the electromagnetic spectrum for military operations is aggravated by the fact that some of those uses — involving intelligence platforms and sensors — are secret even from military planners themselves, a new Pentagon doctrinal publication notes.

• Another Reason to Avoid the Dentist?: Every so often it seems that dental radiation briefly makes an appearance as something that we wonder if we should be concerned about. Dr. Y investigates the effects of dental x-rays in a new post on the ScienceWonk Blog.

• “Traitor,” A Whitleblower’s Tale: Steven Aftergood writes that Jesselyn Radack’s memoir, Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban presents the moving story of a young attorney’s unexpected encounter with official misconduct, and the excruciating ordeal that ensued when she decided to challenge it. In 2001, Ms. Radack was a Justice Department attorney and specialist in legal ethics.  In response to an official inquiry, she advised that the newly captured John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” should not be interrogated without an attorney present — which he then was anyway.  When Department officials publicly denied having received any such legal advice, and even destroyed evidence to the contrary, she exposed the deception.

• The Evolving Mission of the Secret Service and More from CRS: Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as the mission of the Secret Service, nanotechnology and an overview of U.S. energy supplies.

Publications

• Right Approach for Diplomacy with North Korea: FAS President Charles D. Ferguson writes in a new op-ed published by Kyodo News that with the failed April 13th launch of a North Korean rocket, an opportunity has opened up to form a more realistic and long-term plan to create dialogue and build trust with North Korea. The new North Korean regime may be signaling that it is receptive.

U.S.-Japan Nuclear Working Group Website

• FAS has partnered with the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation to convene a group of approximately fifteen American and Japanese experts and officials representing diverse stakeholder communities in the two countries’ nuclear energy activities.  Between March 2012 and April 2013 the working group will meet four times to discuss shared concerns at stake amidst the shifting political landscape for nuclear energy in Japan and the United States. To learn more about the working group, click here. 

Volunteer This Weekend with FAS

• 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 engage the public with our hands on science activity, which will be explaning the role of science in policymaking. Please contact Melanie Stegman at mstegman@fas.org to volunteer. For more information on our booth and the festival, click here.

FAS in the News

• Apr 17: Huffington Post, “ICBM Coalition of Rural Senators Fights Nuclear Weapons Cuts”
• Apr 17: Wired – Danger Room, “Military Intelligence Gadfly Will Lead All Military Intelligence”
• Apr 17: Examiner.com, “U.S. Army General Michael Flynn Tapped to be Director of Defense Intelligence