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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: July 2013

June 2013

• Proposal for Declassification of Size of U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, petition to Department of Energy, June 30. "We request that the Department of Energy initiate the declassification of the total size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the number of weapons dismantled annually as of the end of each fiscal year from FY 2010 through FY 2013."
• Image of NSA leaker Edward Snowden evolves with each revelation by Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers, June 28. "More than three weeks since his revelations about U.S. spying sent ripples around the world, a more nuanced portrait is emerging of Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor who initially was viewed in extremes -- either a hero in the fight against government secrecy or a traitor who jeopardized national security."
• NSA Leaker Edward Snowden: Spy, Patriot, Libertarian, Communist, Or What? The Man Washington Can't Figure Out by Pema Levy, International Business Times, June 28. "Despite near-constant news coverage, and the fact that everyone, it appears, is talking about him, Edward Snowden is well on his way to becoming one of Washington's most enigmatic historical figures."
• Ex-US general under investigation for leaks, Al Jazeera English, June 28. "NBC news channel reported on Thursday that retired General James Cartwright, a former second-highest-ranking officer, was under investigation for leaking information on a covert computer virus, called Stuxnet."
• DOJ investigates former top military leader in cyber attack leak, NBC Nightly News, June 27. "Legal sources tell NBC News Cartwright has been notified he's the target of a Justice Department criminal investigation into a leak about a covert U.S. cyber attack on Iran's nuclear program. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports."
• A Privacy Board Was Supposed to Protect Americans From NSA Spies by Chris Strohm, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 27. "In the weeks since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden exposed government spying into millions of Americans' phone calls and e-mails, the Obama administration has reassured the public that there are restraints on U.S. espionage. One check against Washington's vast counterterrorism efforts is supposed to be the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board."
• WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI by Kevin Poulsen, Wired Threat Level, June 27. "Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. With his cold war-style embassy walk-in, he became something else: the first known FBI informant inside WikiLeaks."
• Congress passed act in 2011 to detect, prevent 'insider threats' by Shaun Waterman, Washington Times, June 25. "Members of Congress tried years ago to raise the alarm about the danger U.S. intelligence agencies faced from 'insider threats' like National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, but officials dragged their feet in implementing mandatory security measures that might have stopped him."
• Government Cuts Creation of New Secrets, At Last by Alex Rogers, TIME Swampland, June 25. "The number of new government decisions to classify information decreased dramatically from 2011 to 2012."
• Offering Snowden Aid, WikiLeaks Gets Back in the Game by Scott Shane, New York Times, June 23. "WikiLeaks once again seized the global spotlight on Sunday by assisting Edward J. Snowden in his daring flight from Hong Kong, mounting a bold defense of the culture of national security disclosures that it has championed and that has bedeviled the United States and other governments."
• For secretive surveillance court, rare scrutiny in wake of NSA leaks by Peter Wallsten, Carol D. Leonnig and Alice Crites, June 22. "Within the past month, lawmakers have begun to ask who the court's judges are, what they do, why they have almost never declined a government surveillance request and why their work is so secretive."
• Feds Cracking Down on Classified Gatekeepers by Adam Klasfeld, Courthouse News, June 21. "A federal contractor pleaded guilty to lying about conducting background checks on government employees -- a crime that prosecutors say is becoming increasingly common."
• Obama's crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S. by Marisa Taylor and Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy News, June 20. "Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans' phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions."
• Letter from AG Holder on Investigations of Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information to the Media, June 19. "This responds to your letter requesting that I provide further explanation of my testimony regarding investigations of unauthorized disclosures of classified information involving members of the news media."
• California Rep. Duncan Hunter wants audit of U.S. secrecy in wake of NSA leak by Shaun Waterman, Washington Times, June 19. "A Republican congressman called Wednesday for an audit of all U.S. government secrecy standards, saying 'classification inflation' is forcing federal agencies to issue more and more clearances, increasing the chances for leaks about vital programs."
• Secrets piling up faster than government can declassify some by Anita Kumar, McClatchy News, June 19. "In the darkened stacks of a nondescript building in the suburbs outside Washington, dozens of federal employees wearing protective gloves spend day after day sifting through millions of pages of secret documents, some of them nearly a century old."
• NSA Fact Sheet on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, June 18. "This authority allows only the targeting, for foreign intelligence purposes, of communications of foreign persons who are located abroad."
• NSA Fact Sheet on Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, June 18. "This program concerns the collection only of telephone metadata. Under this program, the government does not acquire the content of any communication, the identity of any party to the communication, or any cell-site locational information."
• Does Obama really 'welcome debate' on his national security policies? by Adam Serwer, MSNBC, June 18. "President Obama often says he 'welcomes debate' over his national security policies. But, more often, his administration works through classification and the courts to keep secret the very information relevant for such a debate."
• NSA Surveillance Leaks Startle Privacy Board Back to Life by Chris Strohm and Todd Shields, Bloomberg, June 17. "A U.S. board created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to ensure government surveillance doesn't violate citizens' rights is reviving this week in the same secrecy as the programs it will examine."
• Under Obama, 2 governments seemingly at work -- one devoted to openness, the other to secrecy by Calvin Woodward, Associated Press, June 17. "It's as if the United States has two governments, one open and one very much not. President Barack Obama leads both, trying not to butt heads with himself."
• NSA plant in San Antonio shrouded in secrecy by Nolan Nicks, Houston Chronicle, June 16. "Satellite and aerial imagery show that massive air conditioning units and backup generators have been added to the facility, which is now ringed by barbed-wire fencing. City permits and property tax records show that the complex has been dramatically expanded. But details of the project have been shielded by a level of secrecy that is uncommon even for the NSA."
• IC Backgrounder on Two NSA Programs, June 16. "Both of these programs were authorized by Congress on a bipartisan basis, are approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and are rigorously and regularly reviewed by the Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence."
• 'Top secret' is the new 'secret' by Leigh Munsil, Politico, June 14. "In the sprawling national intelligence community where nearly 5 million Americans have security clearances, more and more information is being classified, creating an even more massive secrecy bureaucracy."
• The case for a secrecy beat by Dan Froomkin, Columbia Journalism Review, June 13. "The press has a major role to play in fostering the debate on transparency that the nation needs."
• NSA scandal boosts privacy advocates by Byron Tau and Tarini Parti, Politico, June 13. "The firestorm over National Security Agency snooping has given civil liberties groups, privacy advocates and libertarians new ammunition in their fight against the nation's domestic surveillance regime."
• DOJ planned 'state secrets' privilege in Booz Allen case by Jim McElhatton, Federal Times, June 12. "Last year, one day after the Justice Department signaled plans to invoke the rarely used 'state secrets privilege' in a lawsuit accusing Booz Allen Hamilton of stealing information from a technology firm, the dispute quietly ended."
• Bipartisan Group of Senators Introduce Bill to Declassify FISA Court Opinions, news release, June 11. "This bill would require the Attorney General to declassify significant Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinions, allowing Americans to know how broad of a legal authority the government is claiming to spy on Americans under the PATRIOT Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
• Debate on Secret Data Looks Unlikely, Partly Due to Secrecy by Scott Shane and Jonathan Weisman, New York Times, June 10. "If President Obama really welcomed a debate, there are all kinds of things he could do in terms of declassification and disclosure to foster it. But he's not doing any of them."
• Edward Snowden's NSA leaks are backlash of too much secrecy by Dana Milbank, Washington Post, June 10. "As the administration and some in Congress vent their anger about leaks to The Post and to Britain's Guardian newspaper, officials have only themselves to blame. It is precisely their effort to hide such a vast and consequential program from the American public that caused this pressure valve to burst."
• If past is indicator, ex-NSA contractor may escape long jail term by David Ingram and Joseph Ax, Reuters, June 10. "Americans accused of divulging secrets to the media have escaped long prison sentences, a pattern that may reassure Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who exposed the U.S. government's top-secret surveillance programs last week."
• Snowden, an employee of Booz Allen, one of 500,000 contractors with top security clearance, Associated Press, June 10. "The U.S. government monitors threats to national security with the help of nearly 500,000 people like Edward Snowden -- employees of private firms who have access to the government's most sensitive secrets."
• Snowden leak shines light on US intelligence agencies' use of contractors by Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian, June 10. "The case of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower for the Guardian and the Washington Post who exposed massive domestic surveillance, has opened a window into how a 29-year old IT specialist can access some of the most sensitive secrets in US intelligence."
• Secret Surveillance and the Crisis of Legitimacy by Steven Aftergood, Mother Jones, June 10. "All three branches of government performed badly in this case, by misrepresenting the scope of official surveillance, misgauging public concern, and evading public accountability."
• From obscurity to notoriety, Snowden took an unusual path by Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, June 9. "Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old National Security Agency contractor who admitted that he was behind recent leaks of classified intelligence, has vaulted from obscurity to international notoriety, joining the ranks of high-profile leakers such as Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame."
• Leak investigations so far: Just a warm-up act by Josh Gerstein, Politico, June 9. "The investigations that seized Associated Press phone records and dug into the email account of a Fox News reporter labeled a co-conspirator are just a warm-up act for what's coming next."
• DNI Statement on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, June 8. "Over the last week we have seen reckless disclosures of intelligence community measures used to keep Americans safe. In a rush to publish, media outlets have not given the full context--including the extent to which these programs are overseen by all three branches of government--to these effective tools."
• Facts on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Director of National Intelligence statement, June 8. "Under Section 702 of FISA, the United States Government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers. All such information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence."
• As Obama defends counterterrorism tactics, he finds himself in Bush territory by Greg Miller, Washington Post, June 8. "This past week's disclosures punctured that veil, adding new pressure on Obama to defend his administration's counterterrorism policies and the secrecy surrounding them. It is a position that in some ways resembles the second-term posture of his predecessor, George W. Bush."
• Reporters say there's a chill in the air by Dylan Byers, Politico, June 8. "President Barack Obama said recently that the Department of Justice's monitoring of reporters as part of national security leak investigations could 'chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.' As far as many journalists are concerned, the president couldn't have been more right - despite last week's leaks to the media about secret NSA surveillance programs."
• What the NSA costs taxpayers by Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Money, June 7. "The budget of the National Security Agency, located in Fort Meade, Md., is classified but experts say it's likely to be at least $10 billion a year."
• President Obama's let's-have-a-debate defense by Josh Gerstein, Politico, June 7. "The Obama administration has a familiar refrain on the surveillance of Americans' telephone records: the president and his team are eager to have the debate. Eager, that is, only after others have brought the tactics to light and the administration has spent years employing them."
• DNI Statement on Recent Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information, June 6. "The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation."
• DNI Statement on Activities Authorized Under Section 702 of FISA, June 6. "Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States."
• White House Press Gaggle: Excerpts on FISA Leak and Surveillance Policy, June 6. "The intelligence community is conducting court-authorized intelligence activities pursuant to a public statute with the knowledge and oversight of Congress and the intelligence community in both houses of Congress. There is also extensive oversight by the executive branch, including the Department of Justice and relevant agency counsels and inspectors general, as well as annual and semi-annual reports to Congress, as required by law."
• With Verizon surveillance case, Wyden hits a high mark in his jousts with intelligence agencies by Jeff Mapes, The Oregonian, June 6. "The news that U.S. intelligence agencies captured millions of phone records from Americans may give Sen. Ron Wyden an important victory in his long -- and often lonely -- struggle to curb what he sees as over-reaching government surveillance. "
• Reno, Holder approaches to leak investigations differ by Kevin Johnson, USA Today, June 5. "With few exceptions, it seems that (during Reno's tenure) involving the press in leak investigations was categorically off-limits," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "At some point, obviously, that all changed."
• NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily by Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, June 5. "The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April."
• Report: Leon Panetta revealed classified SEAL unit info by Josh Gerstein, Politico, June 5. "A source close to Panetta said Wednesday evening that he was unaware anyone without the proper security clearances was present at the event, which included both CIA and military personnel."
• Organization and Duties of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Federal Register, June 5. "The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has two primary purposes: (1) To analyze and review actions the executive branch takes to protect the United States from terrorism, ensuring that the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties; and (2) to ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism."
• Unreleased: Probe Finds CIA Honcho Disclosed Top Secret Info to Hollywood by Adam Zagorin and David Hilzenrath, Project on Government Oversight, June 4. "The Defense Department Inspector General's office has been sitting on a report that former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed 'TOP SECRET' information and other sensitive details two years ago at an event attended by a 'Hollywood executive' working on the movie Zero Dark Thirty."
• DoD Releases Joint Publication 3-07.3 on Peace Operations, via letter dated May 30.
• DoJ Defends Policy on Investigations Involving Members of the Media, letter to Congress from DAAG Peter J. Kadzik, June 3. "Prior to seeking charges in a matter, prosecutors evaluate the facts and the law and make decisions about who should be prosecuted. We are unaware of an instance when the Department has prosecuted a journalist for the mere publication of classified information."
• Manning Supporters Are Loud and Online by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, June 3. "As the widely anticipated trial of Private Manning -- the former Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking classified government documents -- opened at a military base in Maryland on Monday, a grass-roots activist network has already blossomed in his support."

Older News: May 2013

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Updated July 3, 2013