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From the Blogs
Defense Science Board Urges Expanded Global Monitoring:
A new report by the Defense Science Board urges the U.S. government to
expand and accelerate global monitoring for the purposes of detecting
nuclear proliferation. The report also emphasized the need for increased
openness and transparency to strengthen international confidence and
stability and to simplify the challenge of global monitoring of
proliferation.
Sen. McCain Blasts Secret Legislation on Drone Policy:
Steven Aftergood writes that in a striking new example of secret
lawmaking, a classified provision in the consolidated appropriations
bill passed by Congress last week prohibited the transfer of CIA drone
operations to the Department of Defense. The term “secret law” is most
often used to refer to executive branch actions that mandate national
policy without public notice, or that reinterpret existing statutes in
dubious or counterintuitive ways that are not disclosed to the public.
But in this case, an important national policy measure was literally
written into law by Congress in secret.
General Confirms Enhanced Targeting Capabilities of B61-12 Nuclear Bomb: Former
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, has confirmed
that the B61-12 nuclear bomb planned by the Obama administration will
have improved military capabilities to attack targets with greater
accuracy and less radioactive fallout. Hans Kristensen writes that this
confirmation is important because it violates the 2010 Nuclear Posture
Review which states that Life Extension Programs will not provide for
new military capabilities. Additionally, this confirmation contradicts
the goals of the United States and NATO to reduce the role of nuclear
weapons.
GAO to Issue Report on Intelligence Contractors: The
Government Accountability Office will issue a long-awaited report on
intelligence community contractors in the next few weeks, a
congressional official said. The GAO report is an unclassified version
of a classified assessment that was completed last year. By its nature,
GAO tends not to deal with intelligence operations, or with sources and
methods. Rather, it is mainly concerned with workforce management, human
capital, and similar issues in which it has particular expertise.
Hiroshima Survivor Shares Perspectives:
In the first of a series of posts, Adjunct Fellow for Emerging
Technologies Michael Edward Walsh, writes about his trip to Kakehashi,
Japan as part of the Japan Foundation's Kakehashi Young Public
Intellectuals Trip and the delegation's meeting with one of the
survivors of Hiroshima and the lasting impacts on his life.
Privacy Board Urges New Criteria for Secrecy:
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board released a new report
on January 23 which states that the government needs to develop new
criteria for secrecy and openness in the wake of the NSA collection of
telephone records. However, implementing the report recommendations may
pose a challenge.
Shadow Banking and More from CRS:
Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such
as the energy-water nexus and policy issues related to shadow banking.
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