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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: April 2001

March 2001

• Pollution Study at Lab Resumes by Jennifer McKee, Albuquerque Journal, March 29. "A federal study into 50 years of radioactive pollution at Los Alamos National Laboratory resumed last month -- almost a year after security fears at the lab forced out the team of government investigators conducting the project and nearly canceled the study altogether."
• CIA Inspector General on Historical Intelligence Budget Secrecy, letter to FAS, March 27. "Classification of 50 year old budget data does not constitute official misconduct or willful violation of the FOIA."
• National Archives to Open More Nixon NSC Materials, NARA press release, March 23. The Archives will open approximately 100,000 pages of materials from the Nixon Presidential Materials Project on Thursday, April 5.
• Pentagon Press Briefing: Excerpt on FOIA and SecDef's Finances, March 22. "Why do we have to have a FOIA request for a public document like this involving the secretary's personal investments?"
• Former Adversaries Meet to Discuss Bay of Pigs, National Security Archive press release. At an international conference in Havana, former combatants, covert operatives, policy makers and Cuban government officials gathered to discuss one of the most infamous episodes in the Cold War�the April 1961 invasion at the Bay of Pigs.
• An Open Letter from Whistleblowers. "We ask for your help to resurrect one of the most important good government measures approved by Congress in this generation."
• Meeting of the DoD Historical Records Declassification Advisory Panel (HRDAP), Federal Register, March 21. The next meeting of this Pentagon advisory group will be held on March 30.
• Meeting of the Advisory Committee on the U.S. Nuclear Command and Control System, Federal Register, March 20. The first meeting will be held in closed session on April 5.
• Israeli author questioned on nuclear security by Dan Ephron, Boston Globe, March 14. "Authorities questioned an Israeli scholar for more than eight hours yesterday on suspicion that he committed security breaches by publishing a book on the history of the country's nuclear weapons program."
• Letter from Avner Cohen on Israeli nuclear secrecy, March 8. "When all factual discourse regarding nuclear issues is not allowed publicly, citizens cannot have even a semblance of an informed discussion. And informed discussion is the essence of democracy. I am convinced that the time has come to update the unwritten contract that Israelis signed with nuclear secrecy some two generations ago."
• The Spying Game Sometimes a Circle by Nancy Benac, Associated Press, March 6. "The list of classified information that FBI agent Robert Hanssen is accused of selling to the Russians is long on details about spies spying on spies.
• Establishment of the Federal Advisory Committee for the End-to-End Review of the U.S. Nuclear Command and Control System (NCCS), Federal Register Notice, March 6. "This advisory committee will provide advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Defense regarding the full range of U.S. Nuclear Command and Control System (NCCS) policies, responsibilities, functions, management structures and capabilities.
• New Files Tie U.S. to Deaths of Latin Leftists in 1970's by Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, March 6. "A recently declassified State Department document shows that Latin American officers involved in Operation Condor, the joint effort in the 1970's by right-wing governments to crush left-wing opposition, used an American communications installation to share intelligence."
• Speaker Rates Polygraphs as Unreliable by Roger Snodgrass, Los Alamos Monitor, March 4. "Conventional lie-detecting is an outdated and dubious practice that is inherently biased against innocent people. That is the conclusion of William Iacono, who spoke Thursday at Los Alamos National Laboratory."
• First Bush National Security Directive Reorganizes the NSC by Dan Dupont, InsideDefense.com, March 2. "In his first national security directive, President Bush has abolished his predecessor's system of National Security Council working groups and replaced them with eleven committees that will oversee key policy areas for the new administration."
• DoD's "Flirtation with Nuclear-Powered Satellites Ends, Analyst Says by Amy Butler, Inside the Air Force, March 2. "Budget constraints and recent advances in solar cell technologies have ended what one industry analyst calls the Defense Department's longstanding 'flirtation' with developing nuclear power sources for spacecraft."
• Attorney General Ashcroft on Polygraph Testing, excerpts from press conference, March 1. "I believe that there are applications for polygraph that are important, and ... that we should elevate the use of polygraph in certain cases as it relates to the Bureau."

Older News: February 2001

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