FAS | Intelligence | News | 2005 ||||

November 2005 Intelligence News

• NGA to Go Forward with Proposal to Remove Aeronautical Data from Public Access, news release, November 29. "The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) will go forward with its previously announced proposal to remove its Flight Information Publications (FLIP) and Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File (DAFIF^TM) from public access."
• It's no secret: CIA scouting for recruits by John Diamond, USA Today, November 23. "The CIA has launched a crash program to clear a backlog of job applicants and hire recruits who can speak Arabic, Korean and other languages critical to national security priorities."
• Top Secret Cronies by Robert Bryce, Salon, November 17 (sub. req'd.). "No discussion of cronyism in the Bush administration would be complete without talking about PFIAB, short for the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board."
• X Files Opened: The National Security Agency's UFO Investigations Unearthed by Leonard David, Space.com, November 16. "If the government has nothing to hide, UFO fans often ask, then why is it keeping so many UFO records under lock and key?"
• Leak probe on intelligence budget slip by Shaun Waterman, United Press International, November 14. "Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has asked one of his deputies to look into the circumstances under which another of them may have accidentally revealed the classified size of the annual U.S. intelligence budget."
• Intelligence budget is $44 billion by Stephen Losey, Federal Times, November 8. "The revelation of one of the government's best-kept secrets -- the total size of the intelligence budget -- shows that information is overclassified and should be regularly reported, one secrecy expert argues."
• Official Reveals Budget for U.S. Intelligence by Scott Shane, New York Times, November 8. "In an apparent slip, a top American intelligence official has revealed at a public conference what has long been secret: the amount of money the United States spends on its spy agencies."
• ODNI Announces Establishment of Open Source Center, news release, November 8. "Based at the CIA, the Center will advance the Intelligence Community�s exploitation of openly available information to include the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos and commercial imagery."
• Levin Says Newly Declassified Information Indicates Bush Administration's Use of Pre-War Intelligence Was Misleading, news release, November 6. "Specifically, newly declassified information from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from February 2002 shows that, at the same time the Administration was making its case for attacking Iraq, the DIA did not trust or believe the source of the Administration's repeated assertions that Iraq had provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."
• Rockefeller Calls for Thorough Credible and Prompt Phase II Report on Iraq Intelligence, news release, November 4. "Today, we are sending a letter to Majority Leader Frist and Minority Leader Reid that sets forth our expectation that the Phase II investigation will be thorough, as promised by the Chairman, and that the Committee findings in all five areas of inquiry will be released as promptly as possible."
• New NCTC Principal Deputy Director Named, news release, November 3. "Scott Redd (VADM, USN-ret.), Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), announced today that he has selected Kevin R. Brock, a 22-year veteran of the FBI, to be the Principal Deputy Director of NCTC."
• Classified article in journal raises questions on Vietnam War by Katherine Shrader, Associated Press, November 1. "The National Security Agency has been blocking the release of an article by one of its historians that says intelligence officers falsified documents about a disputed attack that was used to escalate the Vietnam War, according to a researcher who has requested the article."