Documents in the News

President’s Surveillance Program Report

The Inspector General’s Report reveals that the Bush White House pulled in a great quantity of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged. The report, mandated by Congress last year was delivered to lawmakers Friday, July 10, 2009.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has just posted its latest update to the Consumer’s Guide to Intelligence. The new guide” is available at http://www.dni.gov/reports/IC_Consumers_Guide_2009.pdf

This gives a nice overview of the Intelligence Community and intelligence process. Other DNI reports are available from their reports page http://www.dni.gov/reports.htm

The Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age has released their new report – “Nation at Risk: Policy Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country”
http://www.markle.org/events/20090310_nar/20090304_mtf_report.pdf

Greta E. Marlatt, Naval Postgraduate School Librarian, reports:

The report includes 5 recommendations to accelerate creation of an Information Sharing Framework – they are:

• Reaffirm Information Sharing as a Top Priority
• Make Government Information Discoverable and Accessible to Authorized Users by Increasing the Use of Commercially Available Off-the-Shelf Technology
• Enhance Security and Privacy Protections to Match the Increased Power of Shared Information
• Transform the Information Sharing Culture with Metrics and Incentives
• Empower Users to Drive Information Sharing by Forming Communities of Interest

The Bush Administration has issued its new Arctic Region Policy directive as National Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 at
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090112-3.html

The Project on National Security Reform and the Center for the Study of the Presidency has released their review of the national security interagency system. The report, “Forging a New Shield” is an 830 page document and is the result Sec. 1049 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 [PL 110-181]. This PL required a study of the national security interagency system by an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organization.

The members of the committee were unanimous in their sense that the national security of the US is fundamentally at risk. They analyze the problems, the causes, the consequences and proposed a set of reforms.

The report can be found at:

http://www.pnsr.org/data/files/pnsr_forging_a_new_shield_report.pdf