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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: June 2000

May 2000

• Secrets and spies: "Echelon" Divides US and Europe by Thomas Catan, Financial Times, May 31. "A surveillance system that intercepts communications has become the latest focus of dispute between the US and Europe."
• Classified Threat List Published on the Web, press release from "American Investigator," May 24. "The classified document contains the 'National Security List' of countries that are considered hostile to US interests and are engaged in 'espionage' against the U.S."
• National Archives Plans to Declassify Japanese War Records, press release, May 23. "The Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) announced today that it will take steps toward the declassification of records related to Japanese war crimes committed during World War II."
• House Rejects Intelligence Budget Disclosure, floor debate on an amendment to the FY2001 Intelligence Authorization Act, May 22.
• Congress Limits Defense Declassification Spending, from the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2001, section 1035, approved in the House May 17.
• Secret CIA Document Spelled Out Intelligence Failures by Pamela Hess, United Press International, May 15. "The CIA's new annual report to Congress says the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 was "a painful wake-up call." What the report does not say is CIA Director George Tenet himself had sounded the alarm a full two months before the bombing."
• National Science Board Issues Statement on Need for Open Communication and Access, May 15. "Rather than contribute to more effective security, policies that restrict ... open communication and exchanges squander human talent and deny American science and engineering the benefits of openness and excellence."
• Deep Security Flaws Seen At State Department by Christopher Marquis, New York Times, May 11. "The State Department suffers from a systemic failure to protect secrets that is longstanding and far broader than the recent series of lapses."
• Agents of Art, Washington Post Bookworld, letter to the editor, May 7. "The CIA continues to exercise a malign influence on scholarship by imposing selective and unnecessarily restrictive controls on access to its archives, especially by independent scholars and members of the public."

Older News: April 2000

https://sgp.fas.org/news/2000/05/index.html
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