FAS Roundup: NATO Security Summit

FAS Roundup: NATO Security Summit

NATO Security Summit in Chicago, NSA declassification blunder, weapons in space and much more.

NATO Security Summit The 2012 NATO Security Summit is underway in Chicago, with heads of state and governments of NATO member states convening to discuss regional and global security challenges. Key items on the summit agenda include a transition plan for NATO forces in Afghanistan after the end of combat in 2014, NATO's defense and security goals, and tactics to enhance NATO partnership with non-member states. For more information on the NATO Summit, visit our policy page here.

From the Blogs NSA Declassifies Secret Document After Publishing It: The National Security Agency last week invoked a rarely-used authority in order to declassify a classified document that was mistakenly posted on the NSA website with all of its classified passages intact. The article is a historical study entitled Maybe You Had to Be There: The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns of U.S. Reconnaissance Aircraft.  It was written by Michael L. Peterson and was originally published in the classified journal Cryptologic Quarterly in 1993. Cleaning Up: Say a dirty bomb goes off in the city where you live. After the dust settles, thoughts will turn towards cleanup. This is the question that the Japanese have been facing for the last year, the question that the neighbors of Chernobyl have been facing for a quarter century, and the question we might someday face if there’s an attack or an accident here. In fact, this could be a trillion-dollar question, depending on the amount and extent of the contamination and the cleanup standards that are decided upon. Understanding China's Political System and More From CRS: Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, China's political system, the NATO summit in Chicago, and job growth. Weapons in Space: Space may be the final frontier, but it’s likely to be the next battleground. In a new post on the ScienceWonk Blog, Dr. Y writes that space has already been militarized and the question is not “if” but, rather, “to what extent” this militarization will occur. DoD Establishes Civil Liberties Program: On May 17, the Department of Defense issued an Instruction which established the DoD Civil Liberties Program. DoD commits itself to considering privacy and civil liberties in the formulation of DoD policies, the non-retention of privacy information without authorization, and the availability of procedures for receiving and responding to complaints regarding violations of civil liberties.

FAS in the News May 17: New York Times, "Bridging the Missile Defense Gap" May 17: Patch.com, "Artist Johnathan Roberson-Beery Sculpts His Part for a Nuke-Free World"  May 16: Der Spiegel, "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Upgrades - Experts Report Massive Cost Increase"

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