According to the calendar of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, at 11:00 am on Wednesday 3 June 2009, there will be a “CLOSED / TOP SECRET / CODEWORD” Hearing on the “Security of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program” under the chairmanship of Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts).

The Washington Post clarifies that “Top Secret /Codeword” refers to information that is “handled as ‘sensitive compartmented information’ [SCI], with special procedures. See Director of Central Intelligence Directive 1/19, ‘Security Policy for Sensitive Compartmented Information and Security Policy Manual‘, Mar. 1, 1995″, which states, inter alia, that:

1.1.18 Sensitive Compartmentalised Information (SCI) [is] classified information concerning or derived from intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes, which is required to be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of Central Intelligence.

2.2 Need-to-Know Policy. The primary security principle in safeguarding SCI is to ensure that it is accessible only by those persons with appropriate clearance, access approval, clearly identified need-to-know, and an appropriate indoctrination.

Meanwhile the Kerry-Lugar bill, introduced in the Senate on 4 May 2009, and referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, does not appear on the Senate calendar or upcoming schedule, and in the view of one analyst, ” looks to be lost in legislative limbo for the time being.”

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