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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: June 2008

May 2008

• New judges appointed to secret court, United Press International, May 23. "Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed two new judges to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, according to the Federation of American Scientists."
• Archivist of the United States Establishes "Controlled Unclassified Information Office", news release, May 22. "The Office is being created in response to the Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies on the Designation and Sharing of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) issued by President Bush on May 9, 2008."
• Keeping Secrets: In Presidential Memo, A New Designation for Classifying Information by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, May 19. "The president declared that the purpose of the new classification is 'to standardize practices and thereby improve the sharing of information, not to classify or declassify new or additional information.' But some critics described it as continuing an expansion of secrecy in government and a potential bureaucratic nightmare."
• President orders agencies to simplify data labeling by Ben Bain, Federal Computer Week, May 19. "President Bush ordered federal agencies last week to standardize the labels they use to categorize sensitive but unclassified information. The order requires agencies to adopt three standard labels and drop the more than 100 different markings now in use."
• Cyber Security Plans Assailed by Bradley Olson, Baltimore Sun, May 18. "In a stinging rebuke, members of Congress from both parties are challenging a $17 billion plan that the Bush administration put on a fast track earlier this year to secure the nation's cyber networks from terror threats and foreign spying."
• Excessive Secrecy Harms National Cyber Defenses, Report Says by Thomas Claburn, Information Week, May 16. "The Senate Armed Services Committee believes the government's new National Cyber Security Initiative is too secret to have much value as deterrence."
• Gov't Secrecy and the Mysterious Cyber Initative by Brian Krebs, WashingtonPost.com, May 15. "The secrecy surrounding the Bush administration's updated National Cyber Security Initiative -- designed to improve the government's digital defenses and put forth an offensive information warfare doctrine -- is endangering the deterrent value of the project and appears to be aimed chiefly at supporting spying operations abroad, a key U.S. Senate committee concludes in a new report."
• Let the Sun Shine In by Nat Hentoff, Washington Times, May 12. "So important was an April 30 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution that it should have been on front pages around the country. Titled 'Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government' and chaired by Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat. it focused on an issue ignored by the presidential contenders that has deeply weakened our rule of law."
• Pentagon Report on Iraq Debacle "Remains Classified" by Paul Kiel, TPM Muckraker, May 6. "Donald Rumsfeld had ordered a report by the Joint Warfighting Center of the bungled occupation of Iraq, but when Rumsfeld got the results, he'd ordered it squelched."
• Pentagon Revises Questionnaire for Security Clearances, news release, May 1. "The Department of Defense, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have approved revisions to question 21 on the Questionnaire for National Security Positions, Standard Form (SF) 86, regarding mental and emotional health counseling."

Older News: April 2008

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