Declassification Declassified: PRC and the W88 Warhead

In 2006, the Department of Energy formally declassified the already widely publicized fact “That the People’s Republic of China obtained some Restricted Data information on the W88 [nuclear] warhead, and perhaps the complete W88 design.”
Then, in a remarkable display of bureaucratic acrobatics, DOE classified the memo that authorized the declassification of that information. The declassification memo was found to merit classification at the Secret/Restricted Data level.
Five years later, in 2011, the two-sentence memo was reviewed for declassification and DOE has now released it.
As often seems to be the case, declassification here lags behind disclosure rather than leading it. For a convenient summary of issues surrounding China and the W88, see China: Suspected Acquisition of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Secrets, Congressional Research Service, updated February 1, 2006.
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http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/?p=7713

Former Minnesota Gov. and U.S. presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty addresses the Republican National Convention …Tim Pawlenty quit as co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign on Thursday to become one of Wall Street’s top lobbyists in Washington. Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota, will lead the Financial Services Roundtable.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/pawlenty-quits-romney-campaign-co-chair-132022573–election.html

Iran preparing internal version of Internet

By James Ball and Benjamin Gottlieb
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iran-preparing-internal-version-of-internet/2012/09/19/79458194-01c3-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_print.html
The Iranian government, determined to limit Western influence and defend itself against cyberattacks, appears to have laid the technical foundations for a national online network that would be detached from the Internet and permit tighter control over the flow of information.
The concept of a self-contained network has been reverberating within Iran for almost a decade and has often been treated with skepticism, given the significant investment in infrastructure and security that would be required. But Iranian officials and outside experts say that development of the network has accelerated following cyberattacks aimed at the country’s nuclear program.
Last month, Iran’s communications and information technology minister unveiled a plan to take key government agencies and military outfits offline and onto the new network by the end of September. U.S. security researchers say they are for the first time seeing evidence of an operational network that is consistent with Iran’s publicly stated plans.
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