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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: April 2009

March 2009

• Interim Inspector General Report on the President's Surveillance Program, report to Congress, November 24, 2008. "The participating IGs have met to discuss their individual and collective responsibilities in conducting the review, the extent to which work currently underway or already completed addresses the review's objectives, and the scope of additional work that needs to be accomplished to fully meet Title III requirements."
• FAS Asks Army to Restore Public Access to Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin (pdf), Freedom of Information Act request, March 31. "In the past, MIPB was released to the public and posted online, but it has recently been moved behind a password-protected portal (the Intelligence Knowledge Network) and current issues of the publication are no longer publicly accessible through the Army."
• Bush library may be one of last housed in a building by Laura Isensee, Dallas Morning News, March 31. "The George W. Bush Presidential Library in University Park could be one of the last brick and mortar institutions of its kind. Congress is looking for ways to cut the expense of overseeing such buildings, and some researchers say the traditional library setup for keeping presidential documents is outdated in a digital world."
• Media Roundtable with DNI Dennis Blair, March 26. "I’m happy to be having this session to try to communicate with the American people about what we’re about."
• FAS Seeks Disclosure of 2006 National Intelligence Program budget, FOIA Request, March 24.
• Public Interest Declassification Board on Secrecy in Government, letter to President Obama, March 6. "Our Board was heartened by your early statements and actions on openness in Government. Still, we have to sound a note of alarm about how well the Government is doing in this area."
• NARA Seeks Input into the Development of Alternative Models for Presidential Libraries, March 24. "NARA seeks the comments and suggestions of interested organizations and individuals for cost effective ways of modifying the present system for archiving and providing public access to Presidential records."
• Attorney General Issues New FOIA Guidelines to Favor Disclosure and Transparency, news release, March 19. "Attorney General Eric Holder issued comprehensive new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines today that direct all executive branch departments and agencies to apply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA."
• BioSecurity: Public Consultation on Personnel Reliability Issues, Federal Register, March 13. "The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), an advisory committee of the Federal Government, is hosting a public consultation to engage the scientific community and general public in a discussion of personnel reliability, with a focus on optimal characteristics of individuals with access to Select Agents."
• Beneficiaries of Biodefense Dollars May Oppose Increased Oversight by Marcus Stern, ProPublica, March 12. "Biodefense has become a free-wheeling cottage industry since the 2001 anthrax attacks, and any effort by Congress to impose tighter controls is likely to face stiff opposition from those who have been showered in federal biodefense dollars."
• You Can Handle the Truth by Tara McKelvey, The American Prospect, March 9. "How far will Obama take his professed commitment to transparency?"
• President Issues Signing Statement on Omnibus Appropriations Act, March 11. "As I announced this past Monday, it is a legitimate constitutional function, and one that promotes the value of transparency, to indicate when a bill that is presented for Presidential signature includes provisions that are subject to well-founded constitutional objections."
• 15,300 government workers have access to agents of bioterror by Dan Vergano, USA Today Science Fair, March 10. "Nationwide, about 390 labs are certified to work with microbes or toxin that might be used for bioterrorism, and 15,300 people have security clearances to work with these 'select agents', reports a Congressional Research Service analysis."
• Government Printing Office Supports Administration Transparency Initiatives, letter to the President, March 9. "I am attaching for your review five goals and accompanying actions that GPO is prepared to undertake to help implement your initiative for transparency and open Government."
• Lieberman Urges Better Public Access to CRS Reports, news release, March 4. "Given their value to constituents, I strongly believe that we need a system that ensures widespread public access to CRS reports."
• The Really Longest War: U.S. Still Spending on Nazi War Docs by Jeff Stein, CQ Spy Talk, March 3. "Evidently $30 million and 10 years wasn't enough to finish the job of declassifying records on the involvement of U.S. intelligence agencies with Nazi and Japanese war criminals. Congress has just budgeted another $650,000 to finish the job - really, they're serious this time -- of poring through some 8 million postwar pages."
• Dept of Justice Releases Nine Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda and Opinions, news release, March 2. "The Department of Justice today released two previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memoranda and seven previously undisclosed opinions."
• Government Keeping Its .Gov Domain Names Secret by Thomas Claburn, Information Week, March 2. "Asked in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to provide a list of the .gov domains, including the agency registering the domain, the General Services Administration declined, citing 2007 Department of Justice FOIA guidelines."
• Hillary and the State Department Historian’s Office: A Way Forward by Douglas Selvage, History News Network, March 2. "The struggle over the future of the State Department Historian’s Office (HO), my former employer, has entered a new and decisive phase. Nothing less is at stake than the survival and timely publication of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) documentary series, a living monument to U.S. government openness and transparency established by Abraham Lincoln in 1861."

Older News: February 2009

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Updated March 31, 2009