21 September 2018

Government Secrecy Was Bad Before - Now It's Good To Get Secrecy News TY Steven Aftergood

It's good to renew an arms-length acquaintance with Steven Good after getting communications from Secrecy News for years delivered to an inbox - that was way before social media got online on the internet.
Now your MesaZona blogger would like to turn-you-on to Steven Aftergood as a way to keep your information overload in balance - no bullshit. What does he do?
Steven Aftergood directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy.
The Project works to reduce the scope of national security secrecy and to promote public access to government information. He writes Secrecy News, which reports on new developments in secrecy policy and provides direct access to significant official records that are otherwise unavailable or hard to find.
You can see his full bio here
Connect on Twitter > https://twitter.com/saftergood?lang=en
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What he writes is not easy light-reading to keep you entertained: here's a recent sample of what is published:
Locomotive Idling: CRS Comes Online
Posted on Sep.18, 2018 in CRS by
The Congressional Research Service launched its new public portal this morning, with an initial installment of 628 reports dating back to January of this year. The back catalog of older reports is supposed to be added over time. The public versions of the reports are lightly redacted to remove the author’s contact information, and to […]
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The Nuclear Weapons Complex, and More from CRS
The Department of Energy has nuclear weapons facilities in seven states including three laboratories, five component fabrication or materials production plants, one assembly and disassembly site, a geologic waste repository, and one testing facility. A new report from the Congressional Research Service summarizes operations at each of the sites. See The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Overview […]
 
USAF: Implementing Arms Control Treaties
The implementation of arms control agreements by the Air Force is detailed in a newly updated directive. The directive addresses Air Force obligations under New START, US-IAEA Safeguard Agreements, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological Weapons Convention. See Implementation of, and Compliance with, Treaties Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, Air Force Instruction 16-608, September 7, 2018. […]
 
Reviving the Role of CRS in Congressional Oversight
The Congressional Research Service once played a prominent role in supporting oversight by congressional committees. Although that support has diminished sharply in recent years, it could conceivably be restored in a new Congress, writes former CRS analyst Kevin R. Kosar in a new paper. In the past, CRS “closely assisted Congress in a myriad of major […]
 
Army Needs Intelligence to Face “Peer Threats”
U.S. Army operations increasingly depend on intelligence to help confront adversaries who are themselves highly competent, the Army said this week in a newly updated publication on military intelligence. Future operations “will occur in complex operational environments against capable peer threats, who most likely will start from positions of relative advantage. U.S. forces will require effective intelligence […]
Post-9/11 Costs of War Exceed $1.5 Trillion
“Since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) has obligated $1,500.8 billion for war-related costs.” That’s the headline from the latest report to Congress on the post-9/11 costs of war, according to the Pentagon’s own reckoning. See Cost of War Update as of March 31, 2018 (FY 2018, Quarter 2). Independent estimates of military spending that use […]
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