Secrecy and Security News
Newer News: June 2010
May 2010
- Justice Dept. cracks down on leaks by Josh Gerstein, Politico, May 25. "The Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a blogger."
- Former FBI Contract Linguist Sentenced for Leaking Classified Information to Blogger, FBI news release, May 24. "U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams sentenced former FBI contract linguist, Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, aka Samuel Shamai Leibowitz, age 40, of Silver Spring, Md., today to 20 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for unlawfully providing classified documents to the host of an Internet blog who then published information from those documents on the blog."
- Sheryl Jasielum Shenberger Named Director of the National Declassification Center, NARA news release, May 20. "Ms. Shenberger brings unique qualifications to the position of director of the NDC. She comes to the National Archives from the intelligence community where she served both as an analyst and desk officer."
- William A. Burck Appointed to the Public Interest Declassification Board by the Senate Minority Leader, May 18.
- Pentagon to Tape Interrogations by Peter Spiegel and Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal, May 18. "The Pentagon last week ordered the videotaping of all detainee interrogations conducted by military and defense personnel if the questioning is aimed at gathering 'strategic intelligence' and is conducted on major U.S. military bases."
- Full Disclosure by Fred Kaplan, Slate, May 7. "Why President Obama revealed how many weapons are in the U.S. nuclear stockpile."
- Public Interest Group Letter to Defense Secretary on Nuclear Transparency, May 4. "We write to thank you for your outstanding leadership in promoting increased transparency in nuclear weapons policy, including the recent publication of the Nuclear Posture Review Report in an entirely unclassified format and the disclosure of the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile."
- U.S. releases declassified U.S. nuclear stockpile numbers by Laura Rozen, Politico, May 3. "As the Obama administration seeks to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime as a month-long conference reviewing the issue gets underway in New York, it has released for the first time newly declassified information on the U.S. nuclear stockpile."
- DOD Background Briefing on Declassification of U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, May 3. "The United States is showing that it is being increasingly transparent with respect to its own nuclear-weapons program and as part of our commitment to set the stage for strength and nonproliferation and for further arms control in the future."
Older News: April 2010