"Aftergood, Steven" <saftergood@fas.org> -----
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:26:23 -0400
From: "Aftergood, Steven" <saftergood@fas.org>
Reply-To: "Aftergood, Steven" <saftergood@fas.org>
Subject: Secrecy News -- 03/22/07
To: secrecy_news@lists.fas.org
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 32
March 22, 2007
Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
Support Secrecy News:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp
** CRS CLAMPS DOWN ON PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
** A MEMOIR OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS RESEARCH
** EVALUATING CLASSIFIED BIODEFENSE RESEARCH
CRS CLAMPS DOWN ON PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
In what is being characterized by subordinates as an act of "managerial
dementia," the Director of the Congressional Research Service this week
prohibited all public distribution of CRS products without prior approval
from senior agency officials.
"I have concluded that prior approval should now be required at the
division or office level before products are distributed to members of the
public," wrote CRS Director Daniel P. Mullohan in a memo to all CRS staff.
"This policy is effective immediately."
While CRS has long refused (with Congressional concurrence) to make its
electronic database of reports available to the public online, it has still
been possible for members of the press, other researchers, and other
government officials to request
specific reports from the congressional support agency.
But now, "to avoid inconsistencies and to increase accountability, CRS
policy requires prior approval at the division level before products can be
disseminated to
non-congressionals," Director Mullohan wrote.
The new policy demonstrates that "this is an organization in freefall,"
according to one CRS analyst. "We are now indeed working for Captain
Queeg."
"We're all sort of shaking," another CRS staffer told Secrecy News. "I
can't do my work."
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't talk to someone in another
agency, another organization, or someone else outside of Congress and we
share information," the staffer said. "Now I can't do that?"
A copy of the March 20 memorandum from Director Mullohan, entitled
"Distribution of CRS Products to Non-Congressionals," was obtained by
Secrecy News and is available here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/crs032007.pdf
It was also reported by Elizabeth Williamson in the Washington Post today.
None of the CRS personnel contacted by Secrecy News was able to explain
exactly what propmpted CRS Director Mulhollan to issue the policy
memorandum this week.
While other parts of government strive to eliminate unnecessary obstacles
to information sharing, the new CRS policy may be seen as an experiment in
what happens when barriers to information sharing are arbitrarily
increased. It probably won't be good.
With some frequency, CRS analysts contact FAS with requests for information
or documents. (A recent CRS report on Chinese naval modernization
reprinted a large excerpt of an analysis of Chinese submarine patrols by
FAS analyst Hans Kristensen.) We
haven't been shy about requesting information or documents in return. And
both sides seem to have benefitted.
"More important, Congress has benefitted," a staffer said. But
<law-lib@ucdavis.edu>now such working relationships may be jeopardized.
A MEMOIR OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS RESEARCH
Beginning in the mid-1950s, the U.S. Army conducted research
involving thousands of human subjects on various chemical
agents, including LSD, BZ and marijuana derivatives, to assess
their utility for chemical warfare applications.
Now one of the leading participants in that enterprise, Dr. James
S. Ketchum, has published a memoir entitled "Chemical Warfare:
Secrets Almost Forgotten."
"It is a detailed autobiographical reconstruction of the Edgewood
Arsenal program of evaluating possible incapacitating agents in
human volunteers (enlisted men) during the 1960s," he told
Secrecy News. "It reveals facts buried in restricted archives
for many years and includes a voluminous appendix of research
data acquired, much of which has not previously been released to
the public."
The self-published volume is a candid, not entirely flattering,
sometimes morbidly amusing account of a little-documented aspect
of Army research.
"I had early misgivings that my [manuscript] might raise some red
flags in [the Army] Security Office, but was pleasantly
surprised when none appeared," he writes.
Among other things, Dr. Ketchum co-authored the chapter on
incapacitating agents in the CBW volume of Textbook of Military
Medicine.
"Definitely someone to take seriously," a colleague of Secrecy
News wrote. "Although I expect to disagree with much of his
opinion, the historical information will be very useful, much of
it not available elsewhere."
Further background and book order information is available here:
http://www.forgottensecrets.net/
EVALUATING CLASSIFIED BIODEFENSE RESEARCH
"Classified research constitutes a much smaller portion of the
U.S. biodefense program than many might suspect," according to
Gerald L. Epstein, a specialist at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
"Nevertheless, classified DHS biodefense research will constitute
one of the most controversial parts of the U.S. biodefense
program," he observed in Congressional testimony earlier this
month.
"Even more so than in other areas of science, the biological
sciences have enjoyed a tradition of openness and international
collaboration--and this heavy presumption of openness should
continue. Since disease continues to kill millions of people
around the world each year, any restrictions on relevant
scientific knowledge could have serious consequences," he told a
House Science Subcommittee.
"Yet the existence of hostile, witting adversaries that are
determined to wreak devastation and that are known to be
interested in biological weapons mandates that this openness not
be absolute."
In March 8 testimony, Dr. Epstein presented his views on how to
reconcile these conflicting imperatives. See (at pp. 6-8):
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2007/030807epstein.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691
Tom Baxter
Fiat justitia; ruat coelum
USAV 1967-69
http://tombaxter.livejournal.com
Tallahassee, Florida
Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor." --infidel to every church that
compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the
people.
Wendell Phillips
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why?
Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid
injustice without anger, you are
immoral as well as unjust."
Aquinas
Tom Baxter
Reference Librarian
Office of the Attorney General of Florida
PL-01 The Capitol
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-9752
850-414-3376
FAX 850-921-5784
Tom_Baxter@oag.state.fl.us
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