SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2018, Issue No. 39
June 12, 2018

Secrecy News Blog: https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/

DHS MOVES TO PROTECT US AGAINST THREATS FROM CANADA

With exquisitely strange timing, the Department of Homeland Security today unveiled a "Northern Border Strategy" to protect the United States against threats originating in Canada.

The new Trump Administration strategy acknowledges that "the Northern Border remains an area of limited threat in comparison to the U.S. Southern Border."

"However," it goes on to say, "the Northern Border is not without safety, security, and resiliency challenges. The most common threat to U.S. public safety along the Northern Border continues to be the bi-directional flow of illicit drugs."

The strategy also warns of "homegrown violent extremists in Canada who are not included in the U.S. Government's consolidated terrorist watch list and could therefore enter the United States legally." (h/t Infodocket.com)

See Northern Border Strategy, Department of Homeland Security, June 12, 2018:

See also Canada-U.S. Relations, Congressional Research Service, updated June 6, 2018:

THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC, AND MORE FROM CRS

The annual number of drug overdose deaths in the United States involving opioids has more than quadrupled since 1999, a new report from the Congressional Research Service notes.

"CDC estimates that in 2016, more than 63,000 people died from a drug overdose, and more than 42,000 of these deaths involved prescription or illicit opioids." See The Opioid Epidemic and the Food and Drug Administration: Legal Authorities and Recent Agency Action, June 5, 2018:

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Increase in Illicit Fentanyl Overdose Deaths, CRS Insight, June 6, 2018:

Capital Markets, Securities Offerings, and Related Policy Issues, June 8, 2018:

The Rise and Decline of the Alien Tort Statute, CRS Legal Sidebar, June 6, 2018:

Intelligence Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Evaluation Process (IPPBE), CRS In Focus, May 30, 2018:

Recent Trends in Active-Duty Military Deaths, CRS In Focus, June 1, 2018:

Expedited Citizenship through Military Service, CRS In Focus, May 11, 2018:

Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations, June 7, 2018:

Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: FY2019 Budget and Appropriations, updated June 8, 2018:

How to Develop and Write a Grant Proposal, updated June 7, 2018:

NATIONAL DECLASSIFICATION CENTER SEEKS DIRECTOR

The National Declassification Center at the National Archives is looking for a director to help implement its declassification agenda.

The National Declassification Center was established by President Obama's 2009 executive order 13526 "to streamline declassification processes," and it has had some success in bringing order to an often arbitrary declassification environment. One of the Center's recent "special projects" involves review of records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense with 1.3 million pages processed and 830 thousand pages declassified.

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

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