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Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction December 2014 “SIGAR’s experience in Afghanistan, as well as the experience of other oversight agencies, has shown that there are several sources of risk in implementing reconstruction programs in Afghanistan. These include (but are not limited to): • limited institutional and human-capital capacity in Afghan institutions • operational demands and constraints imposed by an …
DOD Contract Services: Improved Planning and Implementation of Fiscal Controls Needed, GAO-15-115: Published: Dec 11, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 11, 2014. DOE and NNSA Project Management: Analysis of Alternatives Could Be Improved by Incorporating Best Practices, GAO-15-37: Published: Dec 11, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 11, 2014. Federal Subcontracting: Linking Small Business Subcontractors to Prime Contracts Is Not …
Secrecy News – Steven Aftergood: For the next two years, Congress wants to receive quarterly reports from the Department of Defense on how the Pentagon is responding to leaks of classified information. The reporting requirement was included in the pending National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2015 (Sec. 1052). “Compromises of classified information cause indiscriminate and …
Gilens, Naomi, The NSA Has Not Been Here: Warrant Canaries as Tools for Transparency in the Wake of the Snowden Disclosures (April 2014). Available for dowload at at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2498150 “Technology companies are increasingly experimenting with “warrant canaries” as a means of increasing transparency around the national security orders they receive. A warrant canary is …
Matthew Kroenig, Miriam Krieger and Hans Noel – Washington Post: “As diplomats work on a comprehensive nuclear deal to keep Iran from the bomb, Russia’s nuclear saber rattles in ways not seen since the 1980s, and North Korea, China, India and Pakistan expand and modernize their nuclear arsenals, the role of nuclear weapons is returning to the …
“The Department of Defense has released to EPIC documents on the “Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies” Recruiting Database. The database includes sensitive student information, including home address and grade point average. DOD obtains this information from high schools offering military aptitude tests, state DMVs, and commercial data brokers. The documents sought by EPIC shed …
Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News: “The Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG) received a tip last year that the Intelligence Community might have assembled a database containing US person data in violation of law and policy. “A civilian employee with the Army Intelligence and Security Command made an IC IG Hotline complaint alleging an interagency data repository, …
CRS – Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy. Kenneth Katzman, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs. December 2, 2014. “Afghan security forces have lead security responsibility throughout the country, and the United States and its partner countries are in the process of transitioning to a smaller post-2014 mission consisting mostly of training the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF). The number of U.S. …
Private Health Insurance: Concentration of Enrollees among Individual, Small Group, and Large Group Insurers from 2010 through 2013, GAO-15-101R: Published: Dec 1, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 1, 2014. Regional Missile Defense: DOD’s 2014 Report Generally Addressed Required Reporting Elements, but Excluded Additional Key Details, GAO-15-32: Published: Dec 1, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 1, 2014.
Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper, December 1, 2014 – Charles Lister – “Intense turmoil in Syria and Iraq has created socio-political vacuums in which jihadi groups have been able to thrive. The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) had proven to be the strongest and most dynamic of these groups, seizing large swathes of territory in Syria and …
“The Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) base budget grew from $384 billion to $502 billion between fiscal years 2000 and 2014 in inflation-adjusted (real) terms—an increase of 31 percent and an annual average growth rate of 1.9 percent (see figure below). Several factors contributed to that growth. The largest rate of growth was in the costs for military …
DTP 106: Policy Challenges of Accelerating Technological Change: Security Policy and Strategy Implications of Parallel Scientific Revolutions, James Kadtke and Linton Wells II “This paper examines policy, legal, ethical, and strategy implications for national security of the accelerating science, technology, and engineering (ST&E) revolutions underway in five broad areas: biology, robotics, information, nanotechnology, and energy (BRINE), …
