FAS Roundup: September 17, 2012
Summer issue of the PIR, nuclear energy debate, legality of targeted killing of terrorists and much more.
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Up for Debate: Nuclear Energy in the United States
The U.S.
nuclear power industry currently generates about 20 percent of the
nation's electricity. While nuclear plants generate more than half the
electricity in six states, the nuclear power industry's challenges
include high nuclear power plant construction costs, public concern
about nuclear safety and waste disposal, and regulatory compliance
costs.
Will the use of nuclear energy lead to energy independence? In a new edition of the FAS online debate series "Up for Debate,"
Dr. Mark Perry from the American Enterprise Institute and Ms. Ellen Vancko from the Union of Concerned Scientists debate the future use of nuclear energy in the United States.
Read the debate here.
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From the Blogs
House Votes to Reauthorize FISA Amendments Act:
On September 12, the House of Representatives voted to renew the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act for five
years. The Act generally authorizes electronic surveillance of non-U.S.
persons and U.S. persons who are believed to be outside the United
States, while prohibiting the “intentional” targeting of persons in the
U.S. without an individualized warrant, seemingly leaving a wide opening
for unintentional or incidental collection. This and other features of
the Act prompted concerns about the expansion
of surveillance authority and the erosion of constitutional protections.
Court Lifts Gag Order on Former Secrecy Czar:
This week, a federal judge granted permission to J. William Leonard,
the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, to
discuss three documents that were at issue in the trial of former
National Security Agency official Thomas Drake. Mr. Leonard is an expert
witness for the Drake defense and had sought permission to publicly
challenge the legitimacy of the classification of one of the documents
cited in the indictment against Mr. Drake, which was ultimately
dismissed.
Limited Data Makes Secrecy Harder to Monitor:
A new annual report on government secrecy discusses the quantitative
and qualitative obscurity of government secrecy policy which makes
secrecy hard to evaluate and to control. The report was published by
OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of some 80 organizations concerned
with government transparency. The report assembled the quantitative
indicators of government secrecy and disclosure that could be obtained,
and also discussed several categories that should be available but are
not.
Pascal's Wager:
Blair Pascal struggled with religious faith for much of his life,
finally resolving many of his conflicts when he posed religious belief
as a problem in logic rather than of faith. In his thinking, Pascal was
weighing a lifetime of behavior versus an eternity of reaping the fruits
of that behavior. In a new post on the ScienceWonk Blog, Dr. Y
investigates Pascal's Wager, and how this cost-benefit analysis can be
applied to security challenges and threats.
Legality of Targeted Killing of Suspected Terrorists Reviewed by CRS:
The legality of targeted killing of suspected terrorists, including
U.S. citizens, was examined by the Congressional Research Service. The
U.S. practice of targeted killing raises complex legal issues because it
cuts across several overlapping legal domains. In all cases, the
sovereignty of the nation where the strike occurs adds a further layer
of legal complexity. With respect to targets who are U.S. citizens, the
applicability of the U.S. Constitution is yet another urgent issue.
Records of 1940 Katyn Massacre Declassified:
The National Archives announced that it has declassified over a
thousand pages of records pertaining to the 1940 massacre of thousands
of Polish Army officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest in the
Soviet Union. The question of U.S. knowledge of the massacre, and the
possibility of a U.S. coverup designed to protect the World War II
alliance with the Soviet Union, has been a topic of speculation in the
Polish press which some Polish observers hoped might be confirmed by the
newly declassified records.
An Army Introduction to Open Source Intelligence:
A new U.S. Army publication provides an introduction to open source
intelligence, as understood and practiced by the Army. The new manual is
evidently intended for soldiers in the field rather than professional
analysts, and it takes nothing for granted. At some points, the
guidance that it offers is remedial rather than state of the art.
Whistleblower Protections Under Federal Law and More from CRS:
Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such as sanctions on Iran, drones in national air space and an overview of the federal public transportation program.
Kim Leak Prosecution Hits a Bump in the Road:
Steven Aftergood writes that prosecutors in the pending leak case of former State Department contractor Stephen Kim
said they had discovered that the classified information Mr. Kim is
accused of disclosing to a reporter without authorization had been
circulated within the government more broadly than they had realized.
That discovery requires further investigation and disclosure to the
defense, prosecutors said in a recent status report to the court.
Pentagon Says it Does Not Conduct Surveillance of Journalists:
“The Department of Defense does not
conduct electronic or physical surveillance of journalists” as a way of
preventing leaks of classified information, Pentagon press spokesman
George E. Little wrote last week. But Department officials do “review
media reports for possible unauthorized disclosure of classified
information,” he said. Mr. Little was responding to a July 20 letter
from leaders of the Pentagon Press Association, who questioned the
nature of DoD’s intention to “monitor all major, national level
reporting” for evidence of leaks.
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