FAS | Intelligence | News | 2009 |||| Search | Join FAS

Newer News: June 2009

May 2009 Intelligence News

• White House Fact Sheet on Cyberspace Policy Review, May 29. "Threats to the information and communications infrastructure pose one of the most serious economic and national security challenges of the 21st Century for the United States and our allies. In this environment, the status quo is no longer acceptable, and a national dialogue on cybersecurity must begin today."
• Statement by the President on the White House Organization for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, May 26. "The new 'National Security Staff' will support all White House policymaking activities related to international, transnational, and homeland security matters."
• Experts Say Obama May Need to Classify Photos by Scott Shane, New York Times, May 15. "The Obama administration’s strongest option as it fights to keep hundreds of photographs of prisoner abuse secret may be to classify them and claim they are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, experts on government secrecy said Thursday."
• Pelosi Controversy Suggests Changes to Congressional Briefings Are Due by Tim Starks, CQ Politics, May 14. "The partisan feuding over what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew and didn’t do about harsh interrogation techniques used during the George W. Bush administration has prompted a debate over Congress' authority to receive information on or halt classified executive branch programs."
• Defense Department Official Charged with Espionage Conspiracy, news release, May 13. "A criminal complaint unsealed today in the Eastern District of Virginia alleges that, from approximately Nov. 2004 to Feb. 11, 2008, James Wilbur Fondren, Jr., while serving as an employee of the Defense Department, unlawfully and knowingly conspired with others to communicate classified information to another person who he had reason to believe was an agent or representative of a foreign government."
• Reyes Comments on "Resolution of Inquiry" into DHS Report (pdf), HPSCI news release, May 7. "Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Silvestre Reyes of Texas today issued the following statement regarding the filing of a Republican “resolution of inquiry” into the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) intelligence assessment on the possible resurgence of right-wing extremist groups in the United States."
• US to drop charges against AIPAC pair by Hilary Leila Krieger, The Jerusalem Post, May 3. "The US government has decided to drop charges accusing two former pro-Israel lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of illegally disclosing classified information just weeks before their four-year-old case was set to go to trial."
• Case against AIPAC lobbyists dropped by Eli Lake, Washington Times, May 2. "The Justice Department Friday ended the high-profile prosecution of two former pro-Israel lobbyists suspected of having sought and distributed classified information involving Iran and Iraq — a decision that could strengthen the rights of reporters, lobbyists and social activists to obtain and publicize government secrets."

FAS | Intelligence | News | 2009 |||| Search | Join FAS