College Shorts

Author: Andrea Gissing

UC-Davis political

scientist sues CIA for info

Larry Berman, University of California-Davis political scientist and historian, filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after the CIA refused to release Vietnam-era presidential briefings.

Berman's lawsuit is challenging the CIA's "blanket policy" of refusing to release the President's Daily Briefs, the president's daily international news source. Berman alleges that they do not threaten national security, or are completely innocuous, and so should be released. Specifically, Breman wants four briefs released, two from 1965 and two from 1968.

The CIA's Acting Information and Privacy Coordinator Alan Tate responded to Berman in a letter. In it Tate denied the CIA's responsibility to release the brief, claiming that they contained "inherently privileged, predecisional and deliberative material for the president." They denied Berman's request, citing three Freedom of Information exemptions pertaining to information regarding national defense or foreign policy.

Berman wants to use the briefs to gain new insight into how the CIA advised President Lyndon Johnson about the situation in Vietnam.

U-Md receives grant for terrorism research

Using a $12 million grant issued by the department of Homeland Security, the University of Maryland will create a research center to study how people become terrorists, what motivates them to strike and how communities cope with their threat. The university will lead the fourth Homeland Security Center of Excellence, making the institution part of a growing network of university-based programs devoted to aspects of the homeland security mission. Tom Ridge, head of Homeland Security, will solicit applicants for a fifth center, which would study preparation, recovery and resilience in the face of large-scale natural and human-made disasters.

The site at U-Md. will be called the Homeland Security Center of Excellence for Behavioral and Social Aspects of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. Scholars will study forces that create terrorists, how terrorist groups recruit, how targets are chosen and ways to lead the groups' converts from terrorism.

- The Washington Post

Oregon State consulted on tsunami disaster

The O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory at Oregon State University, home to the largest tsunami research facility in the world, was sought out for answers to pressing questions in the wake of the tsunami that hit south-east Asia in December.

Director Dan Cox explained that public outreach is an integral and expected part of the facility.

The lab was questioned by local news teams as well as CNN, NBC's "Today Show," the Discovery Channel and Spiegel TV from Germany on a variety of topics, but most often whether or not such a disaster could happen on the U.S. side of the Pacific Ocean. The researcher's response was that it already has happened, and probably would happen again.

Researches expect another giant wave to strike the Pacific Northwest within the next 300 years.

- U-Wire