SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2011, Issue No. 27
March 23, 2011

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

DNI ORDERS "INTEGRATED DEFENSE" OF INTEL INFORMATION

The Director of National Intelligence is calling for the "integrated defense" of intelligence community (IC) information and systems to protect against unauthorized disclosures of intelligence sources and methods.

While every intelligence agency already has its own security procedures, a new Intelligence Community Directive issued by the DNI would require a more coordinated and consistent approach, involving "unified courses of action to defend the IC information environment."

"The IC information environment is an interconnected shared risk environment where the risk accepted by one IC element is effectively accepted by all," the new Directive said. Therefore, "integrated defense of the IC information environment is essential to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all information held by each IC element."

The Directive does not specify the defensive measures that are to be taken, but states that they should address "the detection, isolation, mitigation and response to incidents, which include spills, outages, exploits, attacks and other vulnerabilities." An IC Incident Response Center will maintain "situational awareness of network topology, including connection points among IC element networks; threats, vectors, and actions that could adversely affect the IC information environment; and the overall health and status of IC information environment defenses."

See "Integrated Defense of the Intelligence Community Information Environment," Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 502, March 11, 2011:

Although intelligence agencies are not waiting for security policy guidance from Congress, the intelligence oversight committees seem determined to provide it anyway.

In its initial markup of the FY2011 intelligence authorization bill, the House Intelligence Committee has prescribed the establishment of an Insider Threat Detection Program "in order to detect unauthorized access to, or use or transmission of, classified intelligence."

The Senate Intelligence Committee reportedly wants to require a revised or supplemental non-disclosure agreement for intelligence employees, by which they would consent in advance to surrender their pension benefits if they were found to have committed an unauthorized disclosure.

As far as is known, neither Committee has advanced any new proposals for reducing unnecessary classification or strengthening protections for national security whistleblowers.

REVIEW OF CIA INTERROGATION PROGRAM STILL UNFINISHED

It is nearly a decade since the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on its controversial post-9/11 program of prisoner detention and interrogation, which included "enhanced" procedures that would later be repudiated and that were widely regarded as torture. But even now, an accurate and complete account of that episode remains unavailable.

It is more than two years since the Senate Intelligence Committee belatedly began "a study of the CIA's detention and interrogation program." The Committee reported this month that "the CIA has made available to the Committee over 4 million pages of CIA records relating to its detention and interrogation program."

Yet the Committee said that its two year old review of the nearly decade-old program is still not complete: "The review has continued toward the goal of presenting to the Committee, in the [current] 112th Congress, the results of the review of the extensive documentary record that has been provided to the Committee." There was no mention of presenting the results of the review to the public.

See "Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence Covering the Period January 3, 2009 to January 4, 2001," Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, March 17, 2011.

The Intelligence Committee report presented a number of other noteworthy statements:

A review of electro-optical intelligence satellite collection systems by members of the Committee's Technical Advisory Group in 2010 "found flawed processes and results from the earliest stage of the requirements process... [and] judged the technical justification for the proposed system fell far short of the standard they expected from an investment of this magnitude."

The Committee staff "found that too many [defense] attaches are not sufficiently conversant in the languages, cultures, and traditions of the countries to which they are assigned."

Intelligence agencies continue to fail to produce financial records that can be independently audited. The National Reconnaissance Office "is the only one of the IC agencies required to produce auditable financial statements that has achieved what appears to be a sustainable opinion with no qualifications from its independent auditors.... The CIA has submitted its financial reports to an independent auditor but has received a disclaimer of opinion due to the inability of the auditor to gather certain relevant facts. The NSA, DIA, and NGA are still not even prepared to submit their financial reports to independent audit," the Senate report said.

USE OF MILITARY FORCE IN DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES (1945)

Under extreme circumstances, U.S. military force may be turned against American civilians. An unusually explicit 1945 U.S. military field manual described tactics for suppressing riots or protests when State and local officials are unable to control the situation.

"Domestic disturbances are manifestations of civil unrest or tension which take the form of demonstrations or rioting. These public demonstrations or riots may reach such proportions that civil authorities cannot maintain law and order by usual methods. Such disturbances may be caused by agitators, racial strife, controversies between employees and employers concerning wages or working conditions, unemployment, lack of housing or food, or other economic or social conditions."

"A city held by any organized rioters will be attacked generally in the same manner as one held by enemy troops."

"When small-arms fire is necessary, troops are instructed to aim low to prevent shots going over the heads of the mob and injuring innocent persons not members of the mob," the manual said.

For definitional purposes, "a crowd is a large number of persons in a close body." A "mob is... a crowd whose members, under the stimulus of intense excitement, have lost their sense of reason and respect for law."

"A mob usually is attacked on the flank, opposite the direction in which it is desired to drive it. When it is apparent that those in front cannot retreat because of pressure from the rear, pressure on the front should be eased temporarily while the rest of the mob is attack with chemical grenades," the manual advised.

"Bayonets are effective when used against rioters who are able to retreat, but they should not be used against men who are prevented by those behind them from retreating even if they wish to do so."

The manual, which was originally classified "Restricted," has long been deemed obsolete and has been superseded by other guidance on military support to civil authorities. It was recently digitized by the Combined Arms Research Library at Fort Leavenworth.

See "Domestic Disturbances," Field Manual 19-15, War Department, July 1945:

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

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