GovBlog: UC Berkeley » Military

United States Congressional Serial Set Now Available through LexisNexis Congressional

Jesse Silva — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:38:56 +0000

UC Berkeley has recently acquired full-text access to the United States Congressional Serial Set (1789-1969) through LexisNexis Congressional. The Serial Set contains the legislative history of United States, and also includes many historic agency annual reports, House and Senate Reports, and many other official government documents (for a more complete summary of what is contained in the Serial Set, click here). Prior to this acquisition, citations to the Serial Set found in LexisNexis Congressional had to be searched in the Readex United States Congressional Serial Set database. With this purchase, you can now search LexisNexis Congressional for all your congressional research needs. Off-campus access to LexisNexis Congressional is restricted to current UCB student, faculty and staff, though anyone in the Library may access the database.

National Security Archive Posts Declassified Evidence Used in Fujimori Trial

Susana Hinojosa — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:39:42 +0000

The National Security Archive recently posted key declassified U.S. documents that were submitted as evidence in the former President Fujimori’s trial which began on December 10, 2007, in Peru. Fujimori was Peru’s president from 1990 to 2000 when he was forced to resign. The declassified records contain intelligence gathered by U.S. officials on the secret creation of “assassination teams” that were part of Fujimori’s counterterrorism operations. Six of the 21 declassified U.S. records are provided on the NSA website. These were originally obtained through the Freedome of Information Act (FOIA).

New Database: LexisNexis Statistical Datasets

Jesse Silva — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:25:29 +0000

The Library has just subscribed to LexisNexis Statistical Datasets. The database provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Datasets allows you to customize the data by selecting subjects, variable(s) of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps. Datasets also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news, and when you download or print, you are given citation information from where the data originated. Anyone may access LexisNexis Statistical Datasets from the public computers in the Library, however, off-campus access to is restricted to current UCB faculty, staff and students through the proxy server or VPN.

Rice admits to White House Talks on “harsh interrogation methods”

Jesse Silva — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:21:10 +0000

According to an article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice participated in meetings at the White House from 2002-2003 to discuss the use of “harsh interrogation methods on Al Qaeda detainees.” This news comes from a written statement Rice provided to Senate Armed Services Committee investing the use of torture. Present at these meetings were Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David S. Addington, the vice president’s counsel. According to the article, the State Department “would not comment on correspondence between Rice and members of Congress.”

GAO Report Faults Post-’Surge’ Planning

Tim Dennis — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:48:24 +0000

From the Washington Post:

The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the “surge” of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the “New Way Forward” strategy remain unmet.

How to train death squads and quash revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq

Tim Dennis — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:40:13 +0000

Wikileaks has posted a US Army Special Forces Manual titled Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces

From the Slashdot user HeavensBlade23:

“The document, which has been verified, is official US Special Forces doctrine. It directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates bribery, employing terrorists, false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it directly advocates the extensive use of ‘psychological operations’ (propaganda) to make these and other ‘population & resource control’ measures more palatable.”