Background In a letter dated August 9, 2011, the Honorable Peter King, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, cited concerns involving “ongoing leaks of classified information regarding sensitive military operations.” Chairman King referenced an August 6, 2011, New York Times op-ed column that claims, “Administration officials may have provided filmmakers with details of the raid that successfully killed Usama Bin Laden (UBL).” According to this article, filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal received “top-level access to the most classified mission in history.” Chairman King requested that Department of Defense (DoD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Inspectors General explore related matters and respond to…
Author: John Greenewald
Background According to Wikipedia: The National Program Office (NPO) was an office of the United States Government, established to ensure continuity of government in the event of a national disaster. The NPO was established by a secret executive order (National Security Decision Directive 55) signed on 14 September 1982 by President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War in preparation for a nuclear war, presumably with the Soviet Union. The NPO plan was classified Top Secret, codeword Pegasus. It was also referred to as Project 908 (also known as “Nine Naught Eight”). The only oversight was by a Project Pegasus committee…
Background Space – A Collection of Articles [109 Pages, 12.1MB] The following foreign intelligence papers were received from the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) and were housed at the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) of Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB). It consists of early 1960s intelligence, of papers written by Soviet scientists, in regards to space related questions, such as, interstellar travel, extraterrestrial civilizations and planet atmospheres. The papers included in this release were: Interstellar Flights, by K. P. Stanyuk ovich and V. A. Bronshten Creation of Habitable Medium in Future Space Flights of Man, byA. A. Nichiporovich Astronautics and Extraterrestrial…
Executive Summary Audit of the Handling of Firearms Purchase Denials Through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, September 2016 [66 Pages, 4.3MB] The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is used by Federal Firearms Licensees, importers, and manufacturers (collectively, “dealers”) to determine whether a prospective purchaser is legally prohibited from doing so. The process begins when the person provides a dealer with photo identification and a completed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Form 4473. The form asks questions corresponding to the categories of persons prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms. Providing false information is…
Download the Report Ship Naming in the United States Navy, Published 2013 [76 Pages, 0.9MB] Background The Navy traces its ancestry to 13 October 1775, when an act of the Continental Congress authorized the first ship of a new navy for the United Colonies, as they were then known. The ships of the Continental Navy, and of the Navy later established under the Federal Constitution, were not named in any strictly categorical manner. Ship names in the Continental Navy and the early Federal navy came from a variety of sources. As if to emphasize the ties that many Americans still felt…