Category: SECRECY NEWS
SECRECY NEWS – NUMBER OF SECURITY CLEARED PERSONNEL GREW IN 2012
The number of people who are cleared for access to classified information continued to rise in 2012 to more than 4.9 million, according to a new annual report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This is only the third official tally of government-wide security clearance activity ever prepared, and it is the…
SECRECY NEWS – INTELLIGENCE BUDGET REQUESTS FOR 2014 DISCLOSED
Nebukadnezar99Some $4 billion is being cut from the National Intelligence Program this year as a result of sequestration, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee at a hearing today. He said that the consequences will be severe. Acquisition programs will be “wounded,” ongoing programs will have to be curtailed, and the…
SECRECY NEWS – PENTAGON MANUAL URGES PRECISION IN CLASSIFYING INFORMATION
The Department of Defense is not particularly concerned with “openness” in the abstract, but it is strongly motivated to conserve resources and reduce discretionary expenditures. That imperative dictates the discriminating use of national security secrecy — at least in theory — because of the costs incurred by classification. “Precise classification guidance is prerequisite to effective…
SECRECY NEWS – DEFENSE DOCTRINE OFFERS INSIGHT INTO MILITARY OPERATIONS
“Reconnaissance assets, like artillery assets, are never kept in reserve,” according to U.S. Army doctrine. In other words, whatever means you may have to gather information about the activities and capabilities of an adversary should be fully deployed, not held back. “Reconnaissance units report exactly what they see and, if appropriate, what they do not…
SECRECY NEWS – A LOOK BACK AT CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF INTELLIGENCE, 2011-2012
Several nuggets of interest are presented in the latest biennial report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, summarizing the Committee’s oversight activities in the 112th Congress: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2013_rpt/srpt113-7.html * The Director of National Intelligence abruptly cancelled a multi-year effort to establish a single consolidated data center for the entire Intelligence Community a year or so…
SECRECY NEWS – DOD INSPECTOR GENERAL HAS UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO CLASSIFIED INFO
A Department of Defense instruction issued on Friday reinforces the policy that the DoD Office of Inspector General (OIG) is to have full access to all records, including classified records, that it needs to perform its function, and that no DoD official other than the Secretary himself may block such access. “The OIG must have…
SECRECY NEWS – NASA Technical Reports Database Goes Dark
This week NASA abruptly took the massive NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) offline. Though no explanation for the removal was offered, it appeared to be in response to concerns that export controlled information was contained in the collection. “Until further notice, the NTRS system will be unavailable for public access. We apologize for any inconvenience this may…
SECRECY NEWS – CLASSIFICATION COMPLAINT ARISING FROM THOMAS DRAKE CASE DISMISSED
In July 2011, J. William Leonard, a former director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), took the extraordinary step of filing a formal complaint with the Office he once led charging that a document used to indict former NSA official Thomas Drake under the Espionage Act had been wrongly classified in violation of the…
SECRECY NEWS – OPM MULLS CHANGES TO SECURITY CLEARANCE QUESTIONNAIRE
The Office of Personnel Management has invited the public to comment on proposed changes to Standard Form (SF) 86, the questionnaire that must be filled out by all persons who are seeking a security clearance for access to classified information. Although critics have argued that the SF-86 is hopelessly out of date and should be…
SECRECY NEWS – BRADLEY MANNING TAKES RESPONSIBILITY
At an open hearing on February 28, Pfc. Bradley Manning said that he was responsible for providing U.S. government documents to the WikiLeaks website, including a large collection of U.S. State Department cables, a video of a brutal U.S. Army helicopter attack in Baghdad, and other records. “The decisions that I made to send documents…
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