From the Blogs
Energy Dept to Review Classification Standards for Clarity: The Department
of Energy will review its classification standards to improve clarity
and eliminate ambiguities, the Administrator of the National Nuclear
Security Administration told FAS in a letter of response to the case of
James Doyle. Doyle is a political scientist who worked at Los Alamos and
published an article on nuclear weapons policy that was initially
cleared for publication, but then was said to contain classified
information. Doyle's employment at Los Alamos was later terminated.
Private Lawsuit Jeopardizes State Secrets, US Says: Greek
businessman Victor Restis filed a lawsuit last year against the private
advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), alleging that the
group had falsely and maliciously accused Restis of engaging in illicit
commerce with Iran. Last week, an unidentified agency within the U.S.
government asserted the state secrets privilege in the case, for reasons
that were not disclosed, and asked the court to dismiss the entire
proceeding. On September 17, the plaintiff's attorney told the Court
that the government acted improperly and misused the state secrets privilege.
PDD 62: Counterterrorism Policy Prior to 9/11: A
newly declassified White House Presidential Policy Directive takes a
look at counterterrorism policy prior to 9/11. Presidential Policy
Directive 62, Protection Against Unconventional Threats to the Homeland
and Americans Overseas was issued by President Bill Clinton in May
1998.
CIA Posts Hundreds of Declassified Journal Articles: The Central Intelligence Agency has posted hundreds of declassified and unclassified articles from its in-house journal Studies in Intelligence,
in an effort to settle a lawsuit brought by a former employee, Jeffrey
Scudder. Until lately, the CIA had resisted release of the requested
articles in softcopy format.
Iraqi and Afghan Immigrant Visa Programs and More from CRS:
Secrecy News has obtained recently released CRS reports on topics such
as diplomatic and embassy security funding before and after the
Benghazi attacks and Iraqi and Afghan special immigrant visa programs.
Court Requires Review of State Secrets Documents: Over the objections of government attorneys, a federal judge said yesterday that he would require in camera review of documents that the government says are protected by the state secrets privilege. The issue arose in the case of Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder,
challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list. The government
had argued that it is “inappropriate” for a court to review such records
to verify that they are validly privileged, and that instead the court
should grant dismissal of case on the basis of official declarations.
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New Report Examines Verification Requirements for Nuclear Agreement with Iran
Negotiations are currently underway with Iran regarding its nuclear
program; as a result, one of the main questions for U.S. government
policymakers is what monitoring and verification measures and tools will
be required by the United States, its allies, and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure Iran’s nuclear program remains
peaceful.
To answer this question, FAS convened a non-partisan, independent task
force to examine the technical and policy requirements to adequately
verify a comprehensive or other sustained nuclear agreement with Iran.
Through various methods, the task force interviewed or met with over 70
experts from various technical and policy disciplines and compiled the
results in the new report, “Verification Requirements for a Nuclear Agreement with Iran.” Authored by task force leaders Christopher Bidwell, Orde Kittrie, John Lauder and Harvey Rishikof,
the report outlines nine recommendations for U.S. policymakers relating
to a successful monitoring and verification agreement with Iran.
Full Report available here.
Report summary and findings available here.
Christopher Bidwell, Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation Law and Policy
and co-author of the report, participated in a podcast with Jeffrey
Lewis on the Arms Control Wonk blog. Listen to the podcast here.
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