SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2008, Issue No. 47
May 19, 2008

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

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BETTER SECRECY FOR OPEN SOURCE INTEL COLLECTORS URGED

U.S. intelligence employees who are collecting open source intelligence online should do more to ensure that they are not identified as intelligence personnel, the House Armed Services Committee said in its new report on the 2009 Defense Authorization Act.

Failure to conceal the identity of open source intelligence collectors could conceivably lead to spoofing, disinformation or other forms of compromise.

The Committee generally welcomed the growing investment in open source intelligence.

See "Non-attribution of open source intelligence research," excerpted from House Report 110-652, May 16:

A copy of the Army field manual on open source intelligence, which has not been approved for public release, was obtained by Secrecy News and is available here:


OPEN SOURCE CENTER KEEPS PUBLIC IN THE DARK

The ODNI Open Source Center has imposed some rather ferocious controls on its unclassified products in order to shield them from public access.

Even when its publications are not copyrighted, they are to be "treated as copyrighted" and in any case they "must not be disseminated to the public."

The following notice was recently posted on the password-protected OSC website:

Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has scheduled a conference on open source intelligence on September 11-12 in Washington, DC which will be open to the public (advance registration required). See:


THE "RED-DEAD" CANAL, AND MORE FROM CRS

Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following.

"Defense Contracting in Iraq: Issues and Options for Congress," updated May 6, 2008:

"The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment," updated April 21, 2008:

"Homeland Security Department: FY2009 Request for Appropriations," May 6, 2008:

"Japan's Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests," May 9, 2008:

"Does Price Transparency Improve Market Efficiency? Implications of Empirical Evidence in Other Markets for the Health Sector," updated April 29, 2008:

"The "Red-Dead" Canal: Israeli-Arab Efforts to Restore the Dead Sea," May 13, 2008:

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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

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