Defense Department makes it easier to obtain court filings in Guantanamo trials

As trials of accused terrorists begin at Guantanamo Bay, the Defense Department released new regulations designed to create better access to court filings. Journalists have objected to the long review processes for obtaining court filings without which they were lost when covering the trials. -db From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, November [...]

Defense Department puts heat on employees to report suspicious information flows

A new directive requires Department of Defense personnel to report suspicious activities and behavior. Personnel could be punished for failing to report the specified activities. Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News writes, “The directive lists numerous actions that are subject to mandatory reporting including ‘attempts to obtain classified or sensitive information by an individual not authorized [...]

WikiLeaks: Defense Department admits responsibility for leaks of classified documents

The Defense Department admitted it made errors that enabled the WikiLeaks release of classified Afghanistan and Iraq war documents but so far there was been no call for an investigation of how the government screwed up. The Defense Department’s Chief Information Officer Teri Taki proposed that classified documents could only be stored in encrypted form [...]

Opinion: Pentagon stonewalls secrecy reform

The Defense Department is out of step with the Obama administration’s efforts to modernize the national security classification system to prevent excessive classification writes Steven Aftergood in Secrecy News. Aftergood notes that Defense has failed to update regulations on information security in spite of a Presidential directive. -db From a commentary in Secrecy News, February [...]

Federal repeals court denies access to information on Guantanamo ‘high value’ detainees

The American Civil Liberties Union lost a round in federal court when the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled that the government did not have to release information about 14 suspected terrorist leaders and operatives held in Guantanamo. -db The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press January 20, 2011 By Rachel Costello [...]

Federal court rules Defense Department not have to release information about Afghanistan prisoners

The American Civil Liberties Union lost a bid to open records about the detention of hundreds imprisoned at the U.S. military’s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. -db American Civil Liberties Union Press Release October 25, 2010 NEW YORK – The Defense Department can continue to withhold key information from the public about the hundreds of [...]

Defense Department clarifies policy on opening fundamental research

To discourage endemic secrecy for military research, the Defense Department reaffirmed a Reagan administration policy that the products of fundamental research should be presumed open unless nation security required them to be classified. -db Secrecy News June 3, 2010 By Steven Aftergood In a move that may help to discourage habitual secrecy in military-funded research, [...]

Defense Department fails to make case for revealing contractors’ quality control information

A federal court sided with defense contractors against the Defense Department in blocking the release of information about quality of control processes that the defense contractors said were trade secrets. -db The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press March 25, 2010 By Nadia Tamez-Robledo A federal appeals court yesterday ruled in favor of two [...]

New Defense Department policy may allow troops to tweet and blog

In the face of a raft of military prohibitions against social networks. a new draft policy recognizes the power of the networks and seeks to balance the risks with the gains. -DB Wired Commentary September 29, 2009 By Noah Shachtman The Defense Department may allow troops and military employees to freely access social networks — if [...]

Army admits using profiles to deny reporters access to fighting units

After repeated denials, the army said it had in fact used profiles to rate reporters and sometimes deny them an opportunity to embed with U.S. troops. -DB Stars and Stripes Mideast edition August 29, 2009 By Leo Shane III WASHINGTON, D.C. — The secret profiles commissioned by the Pentagon to rate the work of journalists reporting [...]

Open government group pushes for release of Defense contractor ratings

Hopeful that President Barack Obama’s early commitment to transparency is genuine, the FOIA Group, Inc. is asking the Defense Department to allow public access to a Defense Department database that rates contractors. -DB NextGov August 14, 2009 By Aliya Sternstein The Obama administration, committed to becoming the most transparent in history, upheld a Bush-era practice of [...]