Obama Delays Release of Historic Military and Intelligence Reports

Despite pledging to expand governmental transparency, President Obama has granted an open-ended extension to agencies for releasing millions of pages of military and intelligence documents that were scheduled to be declassified by the end of the year.

The documents date from World War II to the early 1980s and cover foreign relations, intelligence activities and military operations with the exception of nuclear weapons data.

The Boston Globe reports Obama delayed the release of the historic documents because his administration has been unable to prod spy agencies into conformance with agencies "engaged in turf battles over how documents should be evaluated" and have reviewed only a fraction of the materials to determine if their release would jeopardize national security.

Get more information here.

U.S. Intelligence Costs Revealed

For the first time, the overall costs of U.S. government and military intelligence has been disclosed - $75 billion a year.

The Washington Post reports:

The $75 billion figure incorporated spending by the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, referred to collectively as the national intelligence program (NIP), as well as amounts spent by the Pentagon on so-called military intelligence program (MIP) activities in support of troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, officials said.

Under pressure from Congress and advocacy groups, the U.S. government has taken some steps in recent years to open its books on some intelligence spending.

Get the article here.

FOIA Request Reveals Contradictory Evidence to ODNI's Statement that Iran is Assisting the Taliban

From the Asia Times Online comes a report from Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, that a statement made by the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, may be incorrect.

The Federation of American Scientists released Blair's February 12, 2009 testimony responses to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence under the Freedom of Information Act on July 30. In support of the assertion that Iran is supporting the Taliban, Blair cited a statement by a Taliban commander attributing military success against NATO forces to Iran.

Gareth's reporting details how the evidence from the U.S. Department of Defense, Canadian forces in Afghanistan, and the Taliban contradicts the Taliban commander, instead suggesting that increased damage to NATO tanks stems from anti-tank mines provided by the U.S. to the jihadi movement against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Please read the full report for more information.

Open Government Advocates Oppose Exempting Terrorist Identity Information from the Freedom of Information Act

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and nine other open government advocates are asking the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to strike a provision from the Intelligence Reauthorization Act of 2010 that would exempt all terrorist identity information (TII) from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The organizations say the provision is redundant of an existing Executive Order and is overbroad in its reach.

Read the full story here.

Mo. official reassigned after 'Militia' report

The director of the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which "collects intelligence from state and federal agencies to combat terrorism and criminal activity," was reassigned after a report, "The Modern Militia," mentioned third-party candidates and abortion opponents, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Through a Sunshine Law request, the Post-Dispatch obtained 11 of the 16 reports that the center has published since its inception. Reports reveal that some unofficial sources such as Wikipedia and religionfacts.com have been relied on to target Islamic groups, anarchists, the National Socialist movement and black separatist movements.

The Missouri Highway Patrol has reassigned the director of a center that produced a report linking third-party candidates and some abortion opponents to militias.

The report, "The Modern Militia," caused a national furor last month after it was released to conservative radio commentator Alex Jones. Conservative groups and some Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, expressed outrage at the report, which they said targeted conservatives.

Documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch show that extremist groups of all kinds have been the subject of reports from the Missouri Information Analysis Center since 2006. Targets of the reports include black separatist movements, Islamic groups, anarchists, the National Socialist movement and "green anarchism."

More here.