Washington, D.C., February 14, 2025 - Some 14 years after Anwar al-Awlaki's death in an American drone strike, the Al Qaeda terrorist has become the unlikely subject of a flurry of partisan news and opinion reports attacking the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which the Trump administration is attempting to discredit and shut down.
Washington, D.C., August 28, 2023 – On the 20th anniversary of the Peruvian truth commission’s final report, the National Security Archive posts a core collection of declassified U.S. documents chronicling 20 years of conflict across three presidential administrations along with records relating to the 2001 decision to establish a commission to investigate the violence.
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2012 - A secret exercise in 1986 by a U.S. government counter-terrorist unit uncovered a host of potential problems associated with disrupting a nuclear terrorist plot in the United States. Declassified documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and posted today by the National Security Archive offer the first detailed public look at the inner workings of the agencies, military units and other U.S. entities responsible for protecting the country from a terrorist nuclear attack.
Washington, D.C., January 6, 2022 - The National Security Archive marks the one-year anniversary of the assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, with a meticulously researched timeline of the day's events. The chronology, which will serve as an important tool for investigators, researchers, and the public, is divided into three main parts:
Washington, D.C., September 20, 2021 – Over the four decades since the 1979 Iranian revolution, leaders of both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have repeatedly explored opportunities for either political engagement or simple, transactional arrangements – actions that belie commonly held assumptions about a relationship defined solely by unusual animosity, according to a new volume of declassified records published this month.
Washington D.C., August 20, 2021 - As the world observes the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government and the resurgence of the Taliban, it will also likely witness the targeting and persecution of thousands of Afghans, aided by U.S.-collected biometrics. In a report from The Intercept, a current U.S. military official and former U.S.
Washington, D.C., July 8, 2021 – The Justice Department's recent seizure of more than 30 US-owned web domains accused of disseminating Iranian disinformation is eliciting alarm from free speech advocates and foreign policy analysts alike. On June 22, DOJ announced the seizures related to a violation of U.S.
Washington, D.C. - May 4, 2021 - Some United States Capitol Police (USCP) officers could not access their shields during the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the Capitol because the equipment was locked on a bus. Others had access to their shields, but, because they had been stored in a trailer without climate control, they shattered on impact.
Washington, D.C., March 3, 2021 - Video evidence presented by House impeachment managers during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial shows just how close the violent mob came to physically confronting Vice President Mike Pence and Senators Mitt Romney and Chuck Schumer, and includes footage of the mob rifling through congressional desks and offices. The never-before-seen cell phone and surveillance footage, which members of Congress watched at the same time as the public, makes the Pentagon’s continued silence about its delay in sending in the D.C.
Washington D.C., February 15, 2021 - Since our last posting about exercise Eligible Receiver 97-1, the Cyber Vault project has continued its efforts to unearth more documents and information about the secretive exercise that was so formative in shaping the U.S.