Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
FIRED FBI AGENT SAYS TERMINATION SHOWS BIAS
A lawsuit filed on behalf of a Jewish-American FBI agent whose security clearance was revoked based on unspecified charges states that his termination was an improper expression of FBI bias against American Jews, and complains that the agent was unconstitutionally denied a right to confront and rebut the claims against him.
The case appears to have arisen in part from an earlier investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel advocacy organization. The FBI agent, named only as John Doe, says he was questioned about his contacts with AIPAC employees Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were charged in 2005 under the Espionage Act in a case that was later dismissed.
The new lawsuit, filed by attorney Mark S. Zaid, indicates that John Doe had faxed unclassified articles prepared by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service to AIPAC, as well as another unclassified State Department document.
"These documents were directly related to matters on which John Doe worked as an Intelligence Research Specialist and his contacts with AIPAC officials were neither inappropriate nor outside the scope of his employment with the federal government," the lawsuit states.
"The defendants [FBI and Department of Justice] effectively punished John Doe for lawful, proper, and necessary associations with American citizens who are Jewish and/or have association with the country of Israel by revoking his clearance and terminating his employment based on his contacts in violation of his First Amendment right of association," the complaint states.
The FBI action response indicates "an unfounded paranoia far out of proportion to the innocuous and/or professional nature of John Doe's relationships. Defendants have failed to offer any factual evidence indicating John Doe's associations were illegal, suspect, dangerous, deceptive, improper, or even untoward," Mr. Zaid wrote.
A government response was not immediately available, but will be provided at a later date.
The lawsuit has at least a couple of noteworthy aspects. First, it is part of a recurring pattern of conflict between U.S. national security agencies and individual members of the American Jewish community over their relationship to Israel or its advocates. After the Jonathan Pollard case, no one can say that government security concerns on this score are categorically mistaken. But after the misconceived and aborted AIPAC prosecution, no one can say they are consistently well-founded either.
Second, the lawsuit raises a broader question about the constitutionality of security clearance procedures (in Executive Order 12968, section 5.2d, and implementing regulations) that permit revocation of a clearance on national security grounds without any explanation, any chance to respond, or any forum for review.
"By revoking John Doe's security clearance without providing notice of the charges against him and adequate opportunity to refute such charges, the FBI and DOJ violated due process guarantees under the Fifth Amendment. The FBI cannot summarily revoke John Doe's security clearance when such action violates the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution," Mr. Zaid wrote.
Awkwardly for this line of argument, however, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling this week upholding the use of these very procedures. Citing the influential but controversial case of Navy v. Egan, the court affirmed the Department of Energy's revocation of the security clearance of Egyptian-born American scientist Dr. Abdel Moniem Ali El-Ganayni.
Perhaps the good news is that the security clearance system does not single out Jews and Arabs for questionable treatment. John Dullahan, an Irish-born Army veteran and DIA intelligence officer, also had his clearance for access to classified intelligence revoked last year. He challenged that action in another lawsuit, also filed last week by Mr. Zaid.
THE DECLINE OF THE ISRAELI LEFT
A recent book written by two Israeli writers and published in translation by the DNI Open Source Center (OSC) traces what the authors see as the decline of Israel's political left.
"The Left died the day the Six-Day War ended," wrote Shmuel Hasfari and Eldad Yaniv.
"Until 1967, the Left actually managed some impressive deeds -- it took control of the land, ploughed, sowed, harvested, founded the state, built the army, built its industry from scratch, fought Arabs, settled the land, built the nuclear reactor, brought millions of Jews here and absorbed them, and set up kibbutzim, moshavim, and agriculture.... What happened? How come that all that remains of the Zionist Left today is an anarchistic group that harasses the Border Police every Friday near the separation fence or at checkpoints and Women in Black?"
"This is not an academic work," wrote Hasfari and Yaniv. "There are no footnotes and there is no bibliography. It is not a complete work, either. We have written here about some of the things that bother us a lot, matters that give us no peace of mind. We ask you not to read this in one go since that is likely to be confusing. Taste it as you would a plate of appetizers, tapas. Take a little bit. Digest it and stop to think, argue, get angry, and if you want to, curse -- feel free."
"You can also put it in the bathroom. We will not be offended. On the contrary: There are no cell phones or text messages there, and you can think. Quietly. And read."
The OSC translation has not been approved for public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News. Republication was permitted by the authors within the text. See "The National Left (First Draft)" by Shmuel Hasfari and Eldad Yaniv, Open Source Center, December 31, 2009:
UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S POLITICAL SYSTEM, MORE FROM CRS
New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service obtained by Secrecy News include the following.
"U.S. Periods of War," January 7, 2010:
"Terrorist Watchlist Checks and Air Passenger Prescreening," December 30, 2009:
"Cluster Munitions: Background and Issues for Congress," December 22, 2009:
"Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process," January 8, 2010:
"Desalination: Status and Federal Issues," December 30, 2009:
"Understanding China's Political System," December 31, 2009:
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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DOD "CLARIFIES" DOCTRINE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS
The Department of Defense has issued a new publication to update and clarify its doctrine on "psychological operations."
Psychological operations, or PSYOP, are intended to "convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives."
PSYOP is among the oldest of military disciplines, but the new DoD doctrine continues to wrestle with basic definitional issues.
It endorses a new, negative definition of the term "propaganda," which had formerly been used in a neutral sense to refer to "Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly." From now on, propaganda will refer only to what the enemy does: "Any form of adversary communication, especially of a biased or misleading nature, designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly."
The new doctrine also dictates that the term "perception management" shall be eliminated from the DoD lexicon.
DoD acknowledges that PSYOP is limited by legal constraints, including statutes, international agreements, and national policies. Among other things, the DoD doctrine states, there is a "requirement that US PSYOP forces will not target US citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances." Yet in a near contradiction, the doctrine also states that "When authorized, PSYOP forces may be used domestically to assist lead federal agencies during disaster relief and crisis management by informing the domestic population." Perhaps the PSYOP forces are supposed to inform the domestic population without "targeting" them.
Fundamentally, psychological operations are tethered to the reality of U.S. government actions, for good or for ill. As the new doctrine notes, "Every activity of the force has potential psychological implications that may be leveraged to influence foreign targets." But PSYOP cannot substitute for an incoherent policy or rescue a poorly executed plan.
See "Psychological Operations," Joint Publication 3-13.2, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 7, 2010:
SOME NEW CONGRESSIONAL HEARING VOLUMES
Newly published congressional hearing volumes on national security-related topics include the following.
"Nomination of Leon Panetta to be Director of Central Intelligence Agency," Senate Intelligence Committee, February 5-6, 2009:
"Nomination of David S. Kris to be Assistant Attorney General for National Security," Senate Intelligence Committee, March 10, 2009:
"Nomination of J. Patrick Rowan to be Assistant Attorney General for National Security," Senate Intelligence Committee, September 25, 2008:
"USA Patriot Act," House Judiciary Committee, September 22, 2009:
"Advancing Technology for Nuclear Fuel Recycling: What Should Our Research, Development, and Demonstration Strategy Be?" House Science and Technology Committee, June 17, 2009:
"The Incidence of Suicides of United States Servicemembers and Initiatives within the Department of Defense to Prevent Military Suicides," Senate Armed Services Committee, March 18, 2009:
Worlds seem to collide as I sat in a Chevy Chase synagogue last night waiting to hear Israeli Talmudist Adin Steinsaltz and the ACLU's Art Spitzer discuss Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. Former Bush Administration Pentagon official Douglas Feith, of all people, sat a few rows back. I was reading a 2006 book about information policy called "Change of State" by University of Wisconsin professor Sandra Braman.
"That looks really boring," volunteered an unknown gentleman seated next to me in the packed hall.
In fact, Change of State is a deeply thought, deeply felt (if sometimes quite dense) account of information policy that takes the subject much more seriously than do many practitioners in the field.
"Information policy fundamentally shapes the conditions within which we undertake all other political, social, cultural, and economic activity," the author writes. "And it is information policy that is the legal domain through which the government wields the most important form of power in today's world, informational power."
A central claim of the book is that the very nature of government has been altered and transformed from the bureaucratic welfare state into what may be called the informational state, in which governments "deliberately, explicitly, and consistently control information creation, processing, flows, and use to exercise power."
In developing her argument, the author covers a tremendous amount of interdisciplinary ground. The bibliographical essays that accompany the text and the standard bibliography at the end are richly informative all by themselves.
Inevitably, there are errors and questionable judgments to be found. Hacker Kevin Mitnick was sent to jail for computer fraud, not because he "publicly released a free and easy method for encryption on the Internet" (p. 131). And on the list of information policy principles that are explicit or implicit in the U.S. Constitution, I would have included the Statement and Account clause (Article I, section 9, clause 7) which requires that "the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time."
"Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power" by Sandra Braman was published by MIT Press. For more information, including the Table of Contents and a sample chapter, see here:
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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EARTHQUAKES, HAITI, AND MORE FROM CRS
Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following.
"Earthquakes: Risk, Detection, Warning, and Research," January 14, 2010:
"Haiti Earthquake: Crisis and Response," January 15, 2010:
"U.S. Immigration Policy on Haitian Migrants," January 15, 2010:
"The Future of NASA: Space Policy Issues Facing Congress," January 14, 2010:
"The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- Responsibilities and Potential Congressional Concerns," January 15, 2010:
CRS LAWSUIT, MARINE MAMMALS, DECLASSIFICATION FUNDING
A federal court yesterday declined to issue an injunction requiring the Congressional Research Service to immediately reinstate Col. Morris Davis, who was fired from CRS after publishing his personal opinions on the subject of military commissions. But DC District Judge Reggie Walton said that, based on the record so far, Davis's claim that his termination by CRS violated the First Amendment appears to be "well-founded." (First reported by by Josh Gerstein in Politico, January 20.) Davis is represented by the ACLU.
A lengthy rule governing the unintentional "taking" of marine mammals by the U.S. Navy, resulting in their harassment, injury, or death, was published in the Federal Register today. The rule does not deal with the use of marine mammals for defense missions that was the subject of a recent Navy Instruction, but with the damage to these animals that is anticipated due to military activities conducted at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. "Although the Navy requests authorization to take marine mammals by mortality, NMFS does not expect any animals to be killed," according to the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service.
The Office of Management and Budget has authorized a $5 million request for funding in next year's budget for the new National Declassification Center that is supposed to coordinate and expedite the declassification of historical records. The budget request, to be presented to Congress next month, was noted yesterday by William H. Leary of the National Security Council in a panel discussion at American University's Collaboration on Government Secrecy on the new Obama Executive Order on national security classification.
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON TORTURE: A ROAD NOT TAKEN
Last year the Senate Judiciary Committee considered a proposal by Senator Patrick Leahy to establish a formal "commission of inquiry" that would investigate the conduct of the post-9/11 war on terrorism, including detention, rendition and interrogation policies. The record of a Senate hearing on the proposal was published earlier this month, but that seems to be all that remains of it.
"It is not enough to say that America is discontinuing the policies and practices of the recent past," said Amb. Thomas Pickering, one of the witnesses who testified in favor of the idea at the March 2009 hearing. "We must, as a country, take stock of where we have been and determine what was and is not acceptable, what should not have been done, and what we will never do again. It is my sincere hope that the commission will confront and reject the notion, still powerful in our midst, that these policies were and are a proper choice and that they could be implemented again in the future."
While commissions are rarely effective in advancing policy changes, they often serve to produce a detailed public accounting and an expanded documentary record, even when the subject matter is otherwise generally classified. From the Church Committee to the 9/11 Commission, such investigations have provided permanently valuable bodies of knowledge. And from that point of view, the failure to pursue a commission of inquiry to ventilate the persistent controversies of the recent past seems regrettable.
Opponents argued that the commission would inevitably turn into a partisan witch hunt; that it was unnecessary, since the Obama Administration had already pledged to chart a different course; that the Justice Department was responsible for ascertaining if any crimes had been committed, and prosecuting them; and that anyway, it was time to move onward.
"We really ought to follow regular order here," argued Senator Arlen Specter. "You have a Department of Justice which is fully capable of doing an investigation. They are not going to pull any punches on the prior administration."
Senator Patrick Leahy, who sponsored the proposal and convened the hearing, said he would only move the idea forward if there was a bipartisan consensus behind it.
"This idea for a commission of inquiry is not something to be imposed," Sen. Leahy said. "Its potential is lost if we do not join together. Today is another opportunity to come forward to find the facts and join, all of us, Republicans and Democrats, in developing a process to reach a mutual understanding of what went wrong and then to learn from it. If one party remains absent or resistant, the opportunity can be lost, and calls for accountability through more traditional means will then become more insistent and compelling."
No such consensus could be achieved, and the proposal was abandoned.
See "Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry," Senate Judiciary Committee, March 4, 2009:
UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS IN JOINT AIR OPERATIONS
Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) like the Predator drone, which are increasingly in demand for U.S. military missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere, involve challenges to mission control, according to a new Pentagon publication on joint air operations.
"Recent operations have demonstrated that UASs can be critical to the success of dynamic targeting missions and prosecution of targets of opportunity (unplanned, unanticipated) or TSTs [time sensitive targets]."
However, "UAS communication links are generally more critical than for manned systems, relying on a nearly continuous stream of communications for both flight control and payload for mission success. Therefore, communications security, and specifically bandwidth protection (from both friendly interference and adversary action), is imperative."
Furthermore, DoD says, "Our adversaries are developing and acquiring UASs, so it is imperative our C2 [command and control] and DCA [defensive counterair] nodes are able to differentiate between friendly and enemy UAs and cruise missiles."
See "Command and Control for Joint Air Operations," Joint Publication 3-30, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 12, 2010:
"Drones are more glitch-prone than traditional planes," wrote Noah Shachtman in Wired's Danger Room on January 25, and a U.S. drone reportedly crashed last weekend in Pakistan.
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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OSC TRANSLATES THE 2009 FATAH CHARTER
Last year, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah in the Arabic acronym) led by Palestinian National Authority president Mahmoud Abbas gathered in Bethlehem and approved a revision of its charter for the first time since the 1960s. That revised charter has recently been translated into English by the DNI Open Source Center.
The document is not particularly conciliatory in tone or content. It is a call to revolution, confrontation with the enemy, and the liberation of Palestine, "free and Arab." Interestingly, it stresses the role of women in the movement. "The leading bodies will work to arrive at 20 percent participation for women, provided this does not conflict with organizational standards or the Internal Charter." And it insists repeatedly on the need to safeguard the movement's "secrets."
But what is perhaps most significant is what is not in the document. The original Fatah charter (or constitution) from the 1960s embraced "the world-wide struggle against Zionism," denied Jewish historical or religious ties to the land, and called for the "eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence." None of that language is carried over into the new charter, which manages not to mention Israel, Zionism, or Jews at all.
The English translation of the new Charter, which does not seem to be available elsewhere, has not been approved for public release by the DNI Open Source Center. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
PROJECT BIOSHIELD, HONEY BEES, AND MORE FROM CRS
Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following.
"Terrorist Attacks on Commercial Airlines: Federal Criminal Prohibitions," January 22, 2010:
"Project BioShield: Authorities, Appropriations, Acquisitions, and Issues for Congress," January 22, 2010:
"Charitable Contributions for Haiti's Earthquake Victims," January 22, 2010:
"U.S. and South Korean Cooperation in the World Nuclear Energy Market: Major Policy Considerations," January 21, 2010:
"Argentina's Defaulted Sovereign Debt: Dealing with the 'Holdouts'," January 21, 2010:
"Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder," updated January 7, 2010:
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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BOMB POWER AND THE ROOTS OF GOVERNMENT SECRECY
In his provocative new book "Bomb Power" (Penguin Press, 2010) historian Garry Wills argues that the rise of the National Security State and the ongoing expansion of presidential authority, including the spread of government secrecy, are rooted in the development of the atomic bomb in World War II.
"At the bottom of it all has been the Bomb," writes Prof. Wills. "All this grew out of the Manhattan Project, out of its product, and even more out of its process. The project's secret work, secretly funded at the behest of the President, was a model for the covert activities and overt authority of the government we now experience."
The thesis of the book is not always clear or consistent. Most often, the author refers to the secret creation of the bomb as a "model" or a precedent that would later be exploited in other contexts. But sometimes the bomb project is seen as an integral part of other seemingly unrelated expressions of presidential authority and "the seed of all the growing powers that followed." And sometimes, for Prof. Wills, there is nothing else besides the bomb: "Executive power has basically been, since World II, Bomb Power" (p. 4).
The failure to clearly distinguish or demonstrate the bomb's asserted role -- whether it is the model, the origin or the driving influence behind the growth of executive power -- limits the force of the book's argument. If the bomb project was merely a model for organizing government activity ("the Manhattan Project showed modern Presidents the way"), then it should in principle be subject to replacement by other models. But if it is now inextricably intertwined with the whole machinery of government, then government might be beyond the possibility of reform unless and until the bomb itself can be eliminated.
Prof. Wills, the author of many award-winning books, writes fluently and engagingly on a wide range of topics. But in "Bomb Power," his history is occasionally garbled.
In a chronology of the development of the National Security State, he says that covert action was authorized and defined in 1947 in the National Security Act, "despite misgivings expressed by Dean Acheson and others," and that the 1947 Act also required regular notification to congressional intelligence committees (pp. 82-84). But the original National Security Act was famously silent on covert action, only assigning to CIA "such other functions and duties... as the President... may direct." The statutory definition of covert action that Prof. Wills quotes was not enacted into law until 1991. Likewise, notification to Congress of intelligence operations abroad was not required by law until the Hughes-Ryan Act in 1974.
But what is most disturbing of all is the author's casual, world-weary dismissal of the possibility of change, and especially of efforts to rein in government secrecy. "The hope of decreasing the mountains of secrecy is vanishing or gone," he declares flatly (p. 138). "Consider all of the classified material [now in existence]," he told National Public Radio earlier this week. "To declassify that is immensely time consuming and expensive. So, it's not going to happen."
This is a lazy and destructive message and, I think, a false one.
Though it is hard to reconcile with Prof. Wills' theory of inexorably expanding executive power, the President of the United States last month issued an order imposing significant new limits on national security secrecy. Stating that "No information may remain classified indefinitely," President Obama set maximum classification lifetimes for all records, including intelligence records. He directed that a backlog of 400 million pages of records awaiting declassification will not only be declassified but will also be made publicly available within four years. He established a new internal review process, with public reporting requirements, to eliminate obsolete classification practices in every classifying agency at the front end of the process. Perhaps these and numerous other related steps will all fail. But nothing in Prof. Wills' argument dictates that outcome, and "Bomb Power" does no one any favors by fostering public cynicism and declaring defeat before the battle is over.
The American Physical Society will feature a session of "physics and secrecy" at its annual meeting in Washington DC on February 13. I will be one of the three presenters.
In one sense, the whole enterprise of physics is a contest with secrecy and an attempt to discern the order that is hidden in natural phenomena. But next month's session is devoted to the more mundane form of national security secrecy and its impact on physicists and other scientists.
The search for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe should not only focus on detection of electromagnetic signals, but should also seek evidence of the physical artifacts that an intelligence life form might produce, a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory suggested in a paper last month.
"Searching for signatures of cosmic-scale archaeological artifacts such as Dyson spheres or Kardashev civilizations is an interesting alternative to conventional SETI [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which searches for radio waves]. Uncovering such an artifact does not require the intentional transmission of a signal on the part of the original civilization. This type of search is called interstellar archaeology or sometimes cosmic archaeology."
All of this of course is quite speculative, not to say whimsical. "With few exceptions interstellar archaeological signatures are clouded and beyond current technological capabilities," the author notes.
But the concept and the logic behind it are explained with pleasant clarity in "Starry Messages: Searching for Signatures of Interstellar Archaeology" by Richard A. Carrigan, Jr., Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, December 1, 2009.
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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MOMENTUM GROWS FOR PRIVACY & CIVIL LIBERTIES BOARD
Members of Congress are urging the Obama Administration to activate the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency that is supposed to monitor and defend civil liberties in the development and implementation of counterterrorism policies.
Last week, Rep. Bennie Thompson and Rep. Jane Harman wrote to the President and asked him to appoint members to the vacant Board, which has a budget for the current fiscal year that remains unexpended.
"Given the recent events of December 25, 2009, and the prospective policy changes that will be made subsequent to this incident, including potential expansion of watch lists and widespread use of body-scanning technology, we believe that the Board will give an anxious public confidence that appropriate rights are respected," they wrote.
Their letter was reported by Eli Lake in the Washington Times today. See "Liberties oversight panel gets short shrift," February 2.
The White House expects to name the Board leadership "soon," a spokesman told the Times.
First proposed by the 9/11 Commission, the Board was originally set up within the Executive Office of the President. But after concerns about its independence and freedom of action arose, Congress enacted legislation in 2007 to establish it as an independent agency.
For further background see "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board: New Independent Agency Status," Congressional Research Service.
CLASSIFIED OUTREACH TO MUSLIM WOMEN
Senator George V. Voinovich (R-OH) wanted to know: What is the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) doing to improve the status of women in the Muslim world, and to better engage women around the world on counterterrorism issues?
"The response to this question is classified," replied NCTC Director Michael Leiter in a written response that has recently been published.
See the last page of "The Roots of Violent Islamist Extremism and Efforts to Counter It," hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, July 10, 2008 (published December 2009).
SOME MORE NEW CONGRESSIONAL HEARING VOLUMES
At a 2008 Senate hearing, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III was effusively praised for standing by the ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft in his hospital bed in 2004 and helping him to resist White House pressure to reauthorize the Bush Administration's domestic surveillance program.
"It is hard to imagine in America circumstances in which the Director of the FBI has to order agents standing guard over a stricken Attorney General not to leave him alone with the White House counsel and the President's Chief of Staff to make sure that Deputy Attorney General James Comey stayed with him," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in the newly published hearing volume.
"But it is not hard to understand the feeling of pressure, isolation, and consequence that bore down on all of you through that episode. I will disagree with all of you on many things, but I wanted to take this opportunity today to say thank you. Against intense and hostile pressure from the highest offices in the land, you stood for the principle that all public offices have public duties and responsibilities and that honoring those duties and responsibilities, at least as God gives us each of us the light to see them, is a higher public virtue than mere obedience. That is an important lesson in democracy. I hope it is a lasting one, and I thank you for showing us it," Sen. Whitehouse said. (page 30)
At the same hearing, Sen. Arlen Specter scolded Director Mueller for failing to inform the Judiciary Committee of the secret Bush Administration warrantless surveillance program in the first place. The Committee had to learn about it from the New York Times, Sen. Specter complained. "Why didn't you inform me as Chairman and Senator Leahy as Ranking Member about the existence of this program?" (page 14)
See "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Senate Judiciary Committee, September 17, 2008 (published December 2009).
Other noteworthy new hearing volumes include these:
"Exercising Congress's Constitutional Power to End a War," Senate Judiciary Committee, January 30, 2007 (published November 2009).
"The Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States," Senate Armed Services Committee, May 7, 2009 (published January 2010).
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
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LIMITING KNOWLEDGE IN A DEMOCRACY
In testimony this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair declared unequivocally that Al Qaeda would attack the United States within the next six months. "The priority is certain, I would say," he told the Committee.
This recalls nothing so much as the startling August 6, 2001 item in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) that was entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US."
But the 2001 warning to President Bush was classified at the highest possible level and remained secret for years thereafter, until it was finally dislodged at the insistence of the 9/11 Commission. In contrast, DNI Blair's comparable statement was openly presented and was about as public as it could be.
Why should that be so? Clearly the political circumstances for the two warnings are different, as are the venues in which they were delivered. But it is also true that the parameters of official secrecy are subject to change. Yesterday's top secret might not even qualify as today's front-page news.
The boundaries of official secrecy will be examined at a conference at the New School in New York City on February 24-26 on "Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy."
"There is no question that the free access to knowledge and information are the bedrock of all democratic societies, yet no democratic society can function without limits on what can be known, what ought to be kept confidential and what must remain secret," according to the conference overview. "The tension among these competing ends is ever present and continuously raises questions about the legitimacy of limits. What limits are necessary to safeguard and protect a democratic polity? What limits undermine it?"
I will be speaking on February 26 on "National Security Secrecy: How the Limits Change."
TWITTER IN CONGRESS, AND MORE FROM CRS
Some new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not previously been made available to the public include the following.
"Social Networking and Constituent Communications: Member Use of Twitter During a Two-Month Period in the 111th Congress," February 3, 2010:
"Metropolitan Transportation Planning," February 3, 2010:
"Veterans Health Care: Project HERO Implementation," February 3, 2010:
THE STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE, AND MORE HEARINGS
Several noteworthy new hearing volumes on national security policy have recently appeared. In most cases, the published volumes include valuable new supplementary material for the record.
"Examining the State Secrets Privilege: Protecting National Security While Preserving Accountability," Senate Judiciary Committee, February 13, 2008 (published December 2009) (large PDF):
"Coercive Interrogation Techniques: Do They Work, Are They Reliable, and What Did the FBI Know About Them?", Senate Judiciary Committee, June 10, 2008 (published December 2009) (large PDF):
"Protecting National Security and Civil Liberties: Strategies for Terrorism Information Sharing," Senate Judiciary Committee, April 21, 2009 (published January 2010):
"Chinese Interrogation vs. Congressional Oversight: The Uighurs at Guantanamo," House Foreign Affairs Committee, July 16, 2009 (published December 2009):
< name="4">OSC VIEWS DEFENSE WEBSITES IN TAIWAN
Websites and blogs dealing with military issues in Taiwan were surveyed in a recent report from the DNI Open Source Center that has not been publicly released. See "Taiwan: Unofficial Military Websites," Open Source Center Media Aid, January 12, 2010:
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
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SENATE HOLDS, FILIBUSTERS AND THE "NUCLEAR" OPTION
Last week, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) placed a "hold" on all of the Obama Administration nominations that are pending before the Senate, thereby preventing a vote on their confirmation. There are said to be at least 70 such nominations awaiting Senate action, including those of several senior defense and intelligence officials. Sen. Shelby, a man of flexible principles who has served as both a Democrat and a Republican, reportedly adopted the blanket holds in an attempt to compel the Administration to award certain defense contracts to his home state of Alabama.
Shelby's action is "outlandish," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on the Senate floor last Thursday. But that was as far as he was prepared to go, or perhaps farther than he intended to go. Striking a tactical retreat, he immediately added: "I can't imagine this is the right thing to do."
The new obstructionism has the potential to cripple the U.S. government, warned Paul Krugman today in the New York Times, and to do so in a particularly pointless and humiliating way: "Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland," he wrote.
Confronted with rampant irresponsibility and procedural abuse, the White House and the Majority party are not -- or should not be -- helpless to respond. In theory, their options include recess appointments to circumvent the Senate confirmation process, and the so-called "nuclear" option to alter existing Senate procedures. These alternatives, along with related background, have been usefully described in a series of reports from the Congressional Research Service.
"Recess Appointments: Frequently Asked Questions," updated March 12, 2008:
"'Entrenchment' of Senate Procedure and the 'Nuclear Option' for Change: Possible Proceedings and Their Implications," March 28, 2005:
"Cloture Attempts on Nominations," March 30, 2009:
"'Holds' in the Senate," May 19, 2008:
"Senate Policy on 'Holds': Action in the 110th Congress," March 14, 2008:
"Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate," March 28, 2003:
"Minority Rights and Senate Procedures," August 22, 2005:
Several recent reports from the Congressional Research Service provide descriptive profiles of the present and past composition of Congress by race, ethnicity, gender, education, religion and occupation.
"Membership of the 111th Congress: A Profile," February 4, 2010:
"Women in the United States Congress: 1917-2009," December 23, 2009:
"Asian Pacific Americans in the United States Congress," February 1, 2010:
"African-American Members of the United States Congress: 1870-2009," February 2, 2010:
CRS ON AL QAEDA AFFILIATES, RUM TAXES
Other new reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following:
"Al Qaeda and Affiliates: Historical Perspective, Global Presence, and Implications for U.S. Policy," February 5, 2010:
"The Rum Excise Tax Cover-Over: Legislative History and Current Issues," January 20, 2010:
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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
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To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to:
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