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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: July 2000

June 2000

• "Nuclear Secrets Safety Act" Passes House Armed Services Committee, press release from Rep. Duncan Hunter, June 28. "The Act addresses the basic problems that currently exist and requires the DOE to protect our secrets with the same effort in which they were gained."
• Pentagon Rebuffs Energy Department Proposal to Upgrade Classification of Nuclear Information, letter from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense to DOE, April 1998. "We believe it is premature to ask our DoD components to review the proposals."
• National Archives is "Successor Agency" to the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, from the Federal Register, June 27. "NARA continues to maintain and supplement the collection under the provisions of the Act. NARA is, therefore, the successor in function to this defunct independent agency."
• Newly Declassified OSS Records Shed New Light on World War II, NARA press release, June 26. "The Interagency Working Group release consists of documents previously withheld by the CIA because of the sensitive information they contained on sources and methods."
• Los Alamos Security Lapse Was Minor But Oh, the Outrage by Lars-Erik Nelson, New York Daily News, June 23. "This whole debate has been really degrading," Aftergood says. "You don't want the Congress dictating the details of security policy."
• FAS Letters to Senators Inhofe, Warner Criticize Attack on Hazel O'Leary, June 22. The accusation that former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary leaked classified information to U.S. News and World Report is demonstrably false.
• Talk of the Nation: Security and Openness at Los Alamos, National Public Radio, June 22. "There's such a vast amount of information classified at the secret level that it becomes impractical to control it very strictly."
• Missing Hard Drives Found at Los Alamos National Laboratory by David Kestenbaum, National Public Radio, Morning Edition, June 19. "The real lesson to the Los Alamos episode, he says, is that technology is making it harder and harder to keep secrets secret. One person with security clearance and access to the Web can disclose in a second what it took hundreds of people years to create."
• Security Procedures at Los Alamos Questioned, ABC World News This Morning, June 19. "In 1997, the Energy Department recommended upgrading to the highest level the classification of security information on nuclear weapons,...but the change never happened."
• WWII Intelligence Documents to Open at National Archives, NARA press release, June 19.
• How Well are U.S. Secrets Protected? by David Ballingrud, St. Petersburg Times, June 18. "Despite the new challenges of the high-tech age, Mr. Aftergood said, 'The good news is that it doesn't matter quite as much as it used to. The threat environment is not quite as intense as it was during the Cold War.'"
• CIA Responds to FOIA Appeal... 15 Years Later, letter to Kai Bird and Max Holland from Edmund Cohen of CIA, June 8. "We wish to apologize for the delay in processing your appeal. Despite our efforts to process requests as quickly as possible, on occasion individual cases fail to progress expeditiously."
• US Nuclear Secrets at the Mercy of Information Technology by Jean-Louis Santini, Agence France Presse, June 17. "The common feature of all of these incidents is that they involve large amounts of sensitive data in a very compact electronic form," said Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists.
• Shielding Secrets In A Cyber Age by Francine Kiefer, Christian Science Monitor, June 16. "Last December, the Department of Defense rebuffed a plan by the Energy Department to strengthen nuclear weapons security."
• Secrets Not Monitored Since '92 by Ian Hoffman, Albuquerque Journal, June 16. "Only information classified as top secret — the small amount of nuclear weapons data with the highest classification — remained bar-coded and inventoried."
• Editorial: Leaks, from the Evansville Courier & Press, June 16. "That the Intelligence Committee discussed this bill behind closed doors Wednesday is an indication of its dubious merits."
• Attorney General Janet Reno Press Briefing on Proposed "Leak" Legislation, Weekly Media Press Briefing transcript, June 15. "What we want to do is make sure that the information that is classified is truly classified, and that there is no attempt or that there's no ability of people to overclassify information, to limit what can be truly discussed in the public's domain."
• Secrets Proving More Difficult to Safeguard as Data is Shifted from Paper to Electronic Files by Seth Borenstein and Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, June 15. "Nowadays, even national security secrets are getting lost or left in homes, hotels, taxis and train stations."
• FBI Pursues Answers at Los Alamos, ABCNews.com, June 15. "The FBI is investigating a special nuclear response team as President Clinton deals with Congressional fallout over missing secret data."
• Brevard Retiree is Accused of Espionage by Tamara Lytle, Orlando Sentinel, June 15. "If nothing else, it sends a message about the persistence of our counterintelligence effort," Aftergood said. "Even retirees are not safe from the long, hairy arm of the FBI."
• Missing Nuclear Lab Secrets Spark Call to Tighten Classification Rules by John Diamond, Chicago Tribune, June 15. "Security specialists now say the U.S. government must revisit its classification system to address the vulnerabilities posed by packing vast numbers of secrets into easily portable computer hardware and software."
• Senate Bill Aims To Curb News Leaks-- Revealing Classified Data Would Be Felony by Vernon Loeb, The Washington Post, June 14. "The bill has generated intense opposition from First Amendment groups, a former espionage prosecutor and Attorney General Janet Reno, all of whom argue that criminal prosecutions are not necessarily the best way to stop leaks."
• Law Enforcement, Intelligence Officials Divided Over Criminalizing News Leaks, Fox News, June 14.
• Pentagon Rebuffs Energy Department Proposal to Upgrade Classification of Nuclear Information, letter dated December 17, 1999. "We anticipate that the costs of implementing such a program would be substantial."
• Classified US Nuclear Data Could be Missing Due to Human Error by Leon Bruneau, Agence France Presse, June 13. "This suggests that our security policies are still designed in part to protect paper documents and they are significantly less effective in protecting electronic information."
• Critique of Proposed DIA Operational Files Exemption to the FOIA, June 9. "Pending legislation would dramatically reduce public access to valuable Defense Department records now released under the Freedom of Information Act."
• No More Secrets by Ronen Bergman, Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv, Israel), June 8. "The Federation of American Scientists ... contends that the time has come for Israel to get used to the new rules of the game -- everything is open to observation."
• Sen. Shelby Seeks Referral of the Japanese Imperial Army Disclosure Act, letter to Sens. Lott and Daschle, May 25, from the Congressional Record, June 7. "This legislation ... would permit the release of any portion of any operational file of the Central Intelligence Agency.... Therefore, ... we hereby request that S. 1902 be referred to the Intelligence Committee for consideration."
• Public Interest Group Letter to John Podesta on Proposed New FOIA Exemption, June 6. "We are writing to express our serious concern about various proposals being discussed to create a wholesale exemption from the Freedom of Information Act for information relating to critical infrastructures."
• Navy Seeks More Aggressive Oversight of Secret Programs by Christopher J. Castelli, Inside the Navy, June 5. "Affordability concerns have forced the Navy to question more aggressively than before the need for each Special Access Program, and to ensure these programs, often segregated from other service efforts, are not redundant."
• Letter from White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan endorsing the revised draft of the Public Interest Declassification Act of 1999, April 21, 2000.
• Letter from OMB Director Jacob Lew to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan endorsing the revised draft of the Public Interest Declassification Act of 1999, April 5, 2000.
• Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Annual Report to Congress from Attorney General Janet Reno, April 27. "During calendar year 1999, 886 applications were made for orders and extensions of orders approving electronic surveillance or physical search under the Act."
• National Archives Rule on Records Declassification, from the Federal Register, June 1. "This rule updates NARA regulations related to declassification of national security-classified information in records transferred to NARA's legal custody."

Older News: May 2000

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