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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: September 2001

August 2001

• The Big Chill: Anti-leak Proposal Threatens Good Government by Steven Aftergood, The Washington Times, August 27. "The anti-leak measure would delegate to the executive branch the power both to define a crime and to prosecute it. This is an ominous consolidation of power."
• Gibbons Supports Bill to Deter Leaks of Classified Information by Steve Tetreault, Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 27. "If proposal passes Congress, it would mean prosecution of federal workers who make top-secret matters public knowledge."
• No More Secrecy Bills, The Washington Post (editorial), August 24, 2001. "There is hardly an area where government is more capricious than in its determination of what secrets it needs to keep."
• Classified Silencing, St. Petersburg Times (editorial), August 24, 2001. "A dangerous piece of legislation pushed for the past 50 years by the Central Intelligence Agency is once again on Congress' agenda."
• Keeping Secrets at Too High a Price by Thomas S. Blanton, New York Times, August 22. "At a time when the rest of the world is looking to America for leadership on openness, Congress would make it harder for Americans to know what their government is doing."
• Reviving a Misconceived Secrecy Bill, New York Times (editorial), August 21. "The broad restrictions of the Shelby plan could seriously harm American democracy."
• House Judiciary Committee Asserts Jurisdiction Over "Anti-Leak" Provision, letter from Chairman Sensenbrenner, August 13. "The House Committee on the Judiciary would seek immediate referral of any legislation that incorporates criminal provisions addressing the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."
• The CIA's Secret Files on Greece by Alexis Papakhelas, To Vima (Athens), August 12. "Despite the fact that most documents from the troubled period of 1964 to 1968 have already been declassified, CIA officers and others are blocking the publication of the FRUS volume on Greece, Cyprus and Turkey."
• Stillman v. DOE: Plaintiff's Memorandum in Support of Partial Summary Judgment, filed August 17. Challenges the government's refusal to permit publication of Stillman's book on the Chinese nuclear weapons program.
• CIA's Refusal to Testify on Infosec Prompts Debate on House Rules by Anne Plummer, Inside the Pentagon, August 16. "The CIA's recent decision to withhold information about its computer security practices from a congressional panel has raised legal questions within Congress regarding the jurisdiction of its committees."
• Government's Wen Ho Lee review: Energy Department misled the FBI by Pete Yost, Associated Press, August 13. "The FBI wasted four years investigating nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee because it failed to correct misleading information provided by the Energy Department, according to a report prepared for the government."
• Washington Whispers: Felon Filter, US News and World Report, August 20 and 27. "Nearly a year after Congress and the White House OK'd a law barring felons from winning top-secret clearances, the Pentagon has put the rules into place."
• China channeled donations to US politicians in 1996 by Maxim Kniazkov, Agence France Presse, August 11. "The report went largely unnoticed until Friday, when the Federation of American Scientists publicized it on its website."
• Sen. Bunning Pushes Electronic Locks to the Dismay of Industry, DoD by Hampton Stephens, Defense Information and Electronics Report, August 10. "The defense industry is vehemently opposed to extending the heightened security requirements to contractors. Industry representatives say security risks are not great enough to justify the cost."
• Report: China Had Covert Plan for 1996 Elections by Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, August 10. "Intelligence showed that China funded a covert operation to influence the 1996 U.S. elections, focusing on congressional candidates believed to be sympathetic to Beijing's concerns, a Senate Intelligence Committee report said."
• Wen Ho Lee Under the Red Pen by Daniel Schorr, Christian Science Monitor, August 10. "Now the government is further embarrassing itself, if not the nation, by trying to hinder Dr. Lee from telling his story."
• Lee Not Targeted Due to Race, Review Says by Robert Gehrke, Associated Press, August 8. "Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist once investigated as a possible spy for China, was not targeted because of his race, according to a review of the case."
• Former Secretary of State Kissinger Provides State Department with Documents, State Department press release, August 8. "Henry A. Kissinger this week provided the Department of State with copies of approximately 10,000 pages of documents from his years as Secretary."
• HUAC Records Unsealed, press release, August 8. "Thanks to the efforts made on behalf of a coalition of historians and archivists, the records of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) are now open to the public."
• Appeals Court Rules Against Disclosure of Bosnia War Crime Data, August 7. The DC District Court of Appeals rejected a FOIA appeal from Students Against Genocide for disclosure of classified records on human rights violations committed in Bosnia.
• Russia Snaps Together a New Supercomputer by Elizabeth Wolfe, Moscow Times, August 7. "Calling it a breakthrough research tool, scientists have unveiled the first Russian supercomputer capable of 1 trillion operations per second."
• NSA outsourcing deal seen as key to IT modernization by Dan Verton, Computerworld, August 1. "The $2 billion outsourcing contract that the National Security Agency awarded yesterday is expected to help revitalize the communications intelligence agency's Cold War-era IT infrastructure."
• Defense Security Service Notice on Implementation of the Smith Amendment, July 31. The Smith Amendment prohibits the Defense Department from granting security clearances to certain categories of individuals.

Older News: July 2001

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