Background On January 13, 2017, Tamara Keith of KRWG/NPR reported the following: The website at the Office of Government Ethics went down Friday afternoon, apparently overwhelmed with traffic, as the agency and its director found themselves at the heart of a growing political fight. OGE website administrator Michael Hanson told NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben the site failure came as a result of the usually sleepy office’s website receiving 1 million visitors in just the last three days. Normally, it gets about 300,000 — in an entire year. There’s a reason the website’s traffic has spiked. The office’s director, Walter Shaub Jr.,…
Author: John Greenewald
Background As part of its continuing research on subnational conflict, The Rand Corporation has compiled a number of chronologies of terrorist and related criminal activity. A reflection of increased concern that terrorists will turn their attention to maritime targets, we have received numerous requests for our list of incidents involving harbors, offshore platforms, and ships at sea. It is certain that the following chronology does not include all incidents that have taken place. Some events are not reported and exchange of information is limited. We would, of course, welcome information about further incidents or activity. Document Archive A Chronology of Terrorist…
Background John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election. Below you will find various communications between Senator McCain and different government agencies. Document Archive Communications between McCain and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGIA), 2010 [17 Pages, 600kb] Communications between McCain and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 2008 [5 Pages, 1.2MB]
Background Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Patriot Act), Public Law 107-56, directs the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) to undertake a series of actions related to claims of civil rights or civil liberties violations allegedly committed by DOJ employees. It also requires the OIG to provide semiannual reports to Congress on the implementation of the OIG’s responsibilities under Section 1001. This report summarizes the OIG’s Section 1001-related activities from July 1, 2016, through December 31, 2016. The Report Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Report to Congress on…
Background The Nuclear Weapon Characteristics Handbook, dated September 1990, was first requested in June of 2009, and it was not until February of 2017 that it was finally released. Nearly EIGHT years passed from the point of requesting, to actually receiving the below document. The following was written by A. Nareth as an introduction to the document found below: For more than forty years, deterrence has been the cornerstone of US defense policy, consisting of a stockpile of nuclear weapons and the missiles} aircraft, and artillery to deliver them. Sandia National Laboratories’ special mission, as part of the Department of Energy,…