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Secrecy and Security News

Newer News: July 2009

June 2009

• Obama Seeks Input on Classification of Records by Kim Hart, Washington Post, June 27. "President Obama wants your advice on how the government should keep its secrets."
• The Mystery of the Blind Spy Satellite by Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor, June 27. "A Navy missle shot it down when it started to fall from the sky. But the cause of the satellite's failure is still unknown."
• Transparency: A Shrill Message for Whistleblowers by Nick Schwellenbach, PaperTrail, Center for Public Integrity, June 25. A government whistleblower review board has upheld the firing of a federal air marshal for disclosing "sensitive security information", even though the information had not been marked as "sensitive" at the time. And in an ironic twist, the board's decision was itself labeled "sensitive security information" and posted on a publicly accessible government website, due to a "computer glitch," the board says.
• ISOO/PIDB to Hold Public Meeting on Revisions to Executive Order on Classification, Federal Register, June 23. "To solicit public input concerning recommendations and proposed revisions to the classification and declassification policies found in Executive Order 12958, as amended, 'Classified National Security Information' (the Order)."
• Senator Slams General's Torture Testimony by Justin Rood, ABC News The Blotter, June 17. "Obama's new pick to oversee U.S. forces in Afghanistan misled Congress about his role in the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation" by U.S. Special Operations forces in 2003 and 2004, a senior Democratic senator has charged."
• DHS resists security clearance improvements by Alice Lipowicz, Federal Computer Week, June 15. "Homeland Security Department executives are resisting some recommendations from the agency's inspector general to consolidate their handling of security clearance applications."
• CIA Stance On Torture Tape Docs Suggests Obama's New Open Government Era Won't Materialize by Zachary Roth, TPM Muckraker, June 9. "It's looking more and more like Barack Obama's pledge to usher in a new era of openness in government may well go unfulfilled."
• Critics Blast Obama Classification Review by Justin Rood, ABC News The Blotter, June 3. "When President Obama announced his administration would attempt to reform government secrecy, he called it part of an effort to conduct the nation's business with 'unprecedented' openness. But government secrecy experts and openness advocates have another word for the effort, which Obama outlined in a memo released late last week: 'superficial'."
• Senator Bond concerned by online posting of civilian nuke sites by Steve Walsh, Missouri News, June 3. "The inadvertent online posting of U.S. civilian nuclear sites has Missouri's senior U.S. Senator very much concerned about this lapse in security. Senator Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO) says this is the kind of thing that can only aid terrorists."
• List of U.S. Nuclear Sites Inadvertently Posted Online by Joby Warrick, Washington Post, June 3. "A U.S. document containing sensitive details about hundreds of civilian nuclear sites across the country was posted online Monday, an apparently inadvertent security breach that had federal officials scrambling yesterday to remedy the mistake."
• Nuclear Sites Posted Online Accidentally by Stephen Power and Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal, June 3. "A government office accidentally made public a report that gives detailed information about the nation's civilian nuclear sites and programs, but the disclosure didn't jeopardize national security, the Obama administration said late Tuesday."
• 'Confidential' U.S. nuke info posted on Web by Sara A. Carter and Eli Lake, Washington Times, June 3. "The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) published last month a detailed 268-page dossier disclosing the addresses and specifications of hundreds of U.S. nuclear-weapons-related facilities, laboratories, reactors and research activities, including the location of fuel for bombs."
• U.S. Accidentally Releases List of Nuclear Sites by William J. Broad, New York Times, June 3. "The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked "highly confidential," that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation's civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons."

  Older News: May 2009

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Maintained by Steven Aftergood
Updated June 29, 2009