From the Blogs
Intelligence Oversight in the 113th Congress:
A new report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence describes
oversight activities in the 113th Congress from January 2013 to January
2015. Highlights of the report include: over-control of classified
information continues to hamper information sharing- even in the
intelligence community, efforts to enlist the resources of the
Government Accountability Office to strengthen intel oversight are
continuing and details on the three-volume, still-classified CIA torture
report.
Justice Dept Updates its FOIA Regulations: The
Department of Justice last week published newly updated regulations on
implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, with several notable
changes made in response to public comments. Fifteen sets of comments
were submitted by individual members of the public or public interest
organizations after the Department released its draft FOIA regulations
in 2011. In a lengthy Federal Register notice on April 3, DOJ
addressed all of the comments, and actually adopted a number of the
changes recommended by public commenters.
Two New Judges Appointed to FISA Court:
Chief Justice John Roberts designated two new judges to the
eleven-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Court
announced last week. Judge James P. Jones of the Western District of
Virginia and Judge Thomas B. Russell of the Western District of Kentucky
will serve on the court beginning May 19, 2015. The
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rules on applications for
electronic surveillance and physical search (“and other investigative
actions”) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In recent
years, the Court has also secretly interpreted intelligence surveillance
law in ways that were unexpected and counterintuitive, authorizing the
collection of all domestic telephone metadata records.
Cultural Understanding in U.S. Army Doctrine:
A new U.S. Army doctrine examines cultural understanding in
warfare. The new Army doctrine on cultural understanding emerges from
and builds upon existing Army counterinsurgency doctrine. It is “outward
looking” and does not pause to contemplate the cultural foundations of
the Army itself.
National Archives Tackles Email Management: Overwhelmed
by the challenge of trying to sort, identify and preserve historically
valuable government email, the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA) has devised what it calls the Capstone approach to
email management. Under Capstone, government email would be categorized
for retention or disposal based on the title or position of the email
sender, rather than the contents of the email message. Those officials
responsible for agency policy and mission performance would have their
emails systematically collected and saved; others would not. In theory,
this approach should simplify the task of email management and improve
the preservation of historically valuable email.
FRUS on Investigating Intelligence in the 1970s:
A new collection of executive branch documents on the investigations of
U.S. intelligence agencies in the 1970s was assembled for the State
Department's Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series. The new collection was just published in hardcopy.
DHS Seeks Increase in Domestic HUMINT Collection: The
Department of Homeland Security aims to increase its domestic human
intelligence collection activity this year, the Department told Congress
in a hearing in September 2014. Human intelligence collection in this
context does not necessarily mean that the Department is running spies
under cover. According to a 2009 report from
the Congressional Research Service (footnote 38), “For purposes of DHS
intelligence collection, HUMINT is used to refer to overt collection
of information and intelligence from human sources. DHS does not,
generally, engage in covert or clandestine HUMINT.”
Railroad-Related Facilities and More from CRS: Secrecy
News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as
ballistic missile defense in the Asia-Pacific region, the no-fly list
and net neutrality.
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