FAS Roundup: January 14, 2013 New debate on cyber security, sailors sue TEPCO and much more.

FAS Roundup: January 14, 2013  New debate on cyber security, sailors sue TEPCO and much more.

Up for Debate: U.S. Cyber Policy The United States has incorporated cyber security into its foreign policy, using the Stuxnet worm to destroy nearly 1,000 Iranian centrifuges in June 2012. Countries such as Iran are also using  cyber technologies to cause disruptions such as the October 2012 cyberattacks on U.S. banks. With the growing threat of cyber attacks, how should the U.S. operate in this arena? Has cyber warfare made the United States more or less safe? In a new edition of the FAS online debate series “Up for Debate,” Mr. Joe Costa of the Cohen Group, Dr. James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS),and Dr. Martin Libicki of the RAND Corporation debate how the United States should operate within the cyber domain. Read the debate here.

From the Blogs Surveillance Court Orders Prove Hard to Declassify: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which authorizes intelligence surveillance activities, acknowledged in 2007 that it has issued “legally significant decisions that remain classified and have not been released to the public.” In 2010, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice undertook to declassify those Court rulings, but since then none has been released. Why not? Sailors Sue TEPCO: Eight sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan are suing the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on the grounds that TEPCO had covered up the severity of the Fukushima accident and that, as a result, the sailors had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. In a new post on the ScienceWonk Blog, Dr. Y discusses the dangers and symptoms associated with exposure to radiation. New Procedures for Intelligence System Acquisition: Last month, the Director of National Intelligence issued a directive prescribing procedures for major system acquisitions by elements of the intelligence community. The directive, obtained by Secrecy News, defines a multi-phase process for identifying critical needs, evaluating alternative paths to meet those needs, and so forth. Reaching the Debt Limit and More from CRS: Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as the fiscal cliff and U.S. relations with North Korea, military medical care, and the definition of homeland security.

FAS President's Book in Top 25 Outstanding Academic Books of 2012 CHOICE, the flagship review outlet for academic research libraries and librarians has selected Dr. Charles Ferguson's book, Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know, as one of the top 25 outstanding academic books of 2012.

FAS in the News Jan 11: New York Times: "A Trail of Bullet Casings Leads From Africa's Wars to Iran" Jan 11: The Sydney Morning Herald, "We Have Created a World of 'Civilised Savages'" Jan 9: Homeland Security Today, "Surveillance, Protection and Detection: DHS Fails to Align and Prioritize its Many Varied Missions, Congressional Report Finds" Jan 7: Wall Street Journal, "Obama Expands Whistleblower Protections Amid Aggressive Enforcement" Jan 5: Defense News, "New U.S. Law Seeks Answers on Chinese Nuke Tunnels"