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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: August 2006

July 2006

• Judge: Spy satellite budget can be FOIA-ed by Shaun Waterman, United Press International, July 27. "A U.S. judge has ordered the agency that builds spy satellites to process its budget request from last year for release under the Freedom of Information Act."
• NSA strives to plug leaks by Siobhan Gorman, Baltimore Sun, July 23. "The National Security Agency has mounted an increasingly aggressive campaign to root out disclosures to the news media, including a new policy that could require every agency employee to hunt for leaks, current and former intelligence officials said."
• Do you want to know a secret? (Editorial), Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 17. "Far too often, government documents are considered 'secret till proven otherwise.' But in a government of limited powers, delegated and jealously guarded by a 'civilian' populace who remain in overall charge, the default setting must be just the opposite."
• Modern Iraqi Manners by Timothy Noah, Slate, July 17. "For the last two and a half years, the Marine Corps has been equipping troops with a sort of abbreviated Emily Post-style guide to etiquette in Iraq."
• Hug an insurgent: US’s new plan to win in Iraq by Sarah Baxter, Sunday Times, July 16. "The US army has turned years of conventional military thinking on its head in a new field manual for soldiers on counter-insurgency operations in Iraq... obtained by Secrecy News, an intelligence gathering website. A Fort Leavenworth spokesman said it was 'not thrilled' the report had been leaked but was proud of its conclusions."
• GAO Finds Pentagon Erratic In Wielding Secrecy Stamp by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, July 14. "The Government Accountability Office has criticized the Defense Department for sloppy management of its security classification system, including the marking as "Confidential or Secret" material that Pentagon officials acknowledged was unclassified information."
• A Novel-Like Tale Of Cloak, Dagger Unfolds in Court by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, July 14. "The narrative about a veteran State Department official smitten with a younger Taiwanese intelligence officer reads like a John le Carré novel."
• L'armée américaine se dote d'une doctrine pour combattre l'insurrection, Le Monde, July 13. "Pour la première fois depuis deux décennies et plus de trois ans après l'invasion de l'Irak, l'armée américaine a établi une doctrine pour combattre une insurrection... Le document n'est pas public, mais a été diffusé sur le site Internet "Secrecy News" de la Fédération des scientifiques américains."
• Turf war hampers war on terror by Siobhan Gorman, Baltimore Sun, July 13. "For eight months, a quiet battle has raged between two federal agencies that piece together clues of potential terror threats. The feud has left officials without information about potential dangers. And it has persisted despite a White House deadline, which passed last month, to reach a resolution."
• Reining in White House long overdue, Victoria (TX) Advocate, July 11. "Republicans on Capitol Hill are coming late to this endeavor. They should have held this administration accountable earlier, rather than too often acquiescing to its legally and constitutionally questionable actions for too long."
• Fighting Insurgents, By the Book by Fred Kaplan, Washington Post, July 9 (also in Slate, July 8). "Two messages flutter between the lines of the Army's new field manual on counterinsurgency wars. One is that Pentagon planning for the Iraq war's aftermath was at least as crass, inattentive to the lessons of history, and contrary to basic political and military principles as the war's harshest critics have charged. The other is that as a nation we may simply be ill-suited to fighting these kinds of wars."
• U.S.: 40 Years Of The Freedom Of Information Act, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 4. "RFE/RL correspondent Julie A. Corwin asked Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., to explain how the FOIA works."
• DoD Wants $8.6 Billion for New Weapons by Jason Sherman, InsideDefense.com / Military.com, July 4. "This request is part of a massive set of budget documents the Pentagon delivered to Congress on Wednesday night, but refuses to release publicly."

Older News: June 2006

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