Secrecy News: Directory of Russian Defense Agencies
Secrecy News: Directory of
Russian Defense Agencies
About
Secrecy News
SECRECY NEWS is an email publication of
the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Project on Government Secrecy. It provides
informal coverage of new developments in secrecy,
security and intelligence policies, as well
as links to new acquisitions on the Federation
of American Scientists web site. It
is published 2 to 3 times a week, or as events
warrant. Secrecy
News Article Index
The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) of the Central
Intelligence Agency has inadvertently disclosed its "Directory
of Russian Federation Defense-Related Agencies and Personnel."
The FBIS Directory provides open source information on Russian
military structure, installations, intelligence agencies, and
leadership, including English and Russian biographies of
selected individuals.
Although all of the information is unclassified and does not
reflect clandestine collection, such data is nevertheless
typically withheld from public disclosure by the Central
Intelligence Agency.
A few years ago, the CIA refused to confirm or deny the mere
fact that it had prepared biographies of certain foreign
leaders. The Agency goes so far as to claim that disclosing
the amount of money spent by FBIS on open source collection
and analysis would damage the security of the United States.
(Selected FBIS translations are made available to the public
through an online subscription service.)
The FBIS Directory, updated as recently as December 2003, was found
on a publicly accessible portion of an otherwise restricted web site.
A copy is posted
here.
