Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs articles from July 2004

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs archives from July 2004

Homeland security: Coast Guard operations--background and issues for Congress.
July 1, 2004... Summary The Coast Guard's FY2005 budget request includes $101 million to begin implementing the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees, in their reports (H.Rept. 108-541 of June...

South Korea-U.S. economic relations: cooperation, friction, and future prospects.
July 1, 2004... Summary South Korea is a major economic partner for the United States. Korea is the U.S.'s seventh-largest trading partner--ahead of Western European countries such as France and Italy--and its sixth-largest export market. Korea has also...

Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: a survey of options.
July 2, 2004... Summary Increasingly, Congress and the Administration are looking to utilize nonproliferation assistance programs, including cooperative threat reduction, to help reduce the risk of terrorist access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In...

Terrorism and national security: issues and trends.
July 6, 2004... SUMMARY International terrorism has long been recognized as a serious foreign and domestic security threat. This issue brief examines international terrorist actions and threats and the U.S. policy response. Available policy options range...

Internet privacy: overview and pending legislation.
July 6, 2004... Summary Internet privacy issues generally encompass two types of concerns. One is the collection of personally identifiable information (PII) by website operators from visitors to government and commercial websites, or by software that is...

The Middle East peace talks.
July 6, 2004... SUMMARY After the first Gulf war, in 1991, a new peace process was begun, with Israel and the Palestinians discussing a five-year period of interim self-rule leading to a final settlement. Israel and Syria discussed Israeli withdrawal from...

Israeli-United States relations.
July 9, 2004... SUMMARY Israeli-U.S. relations are an important factor in U.S. policy in the Middle East, and Congress has placed considerable emphasis on the maintenance of a close and supportive relationship. The main vehicle for expressing support for...

Military tribunals: historical patterns and lessons.
July 9, 2004... Summary After the terrorist operations of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush authorized the creation of military tribunals to try individuals who offered assistance to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. The...

India's 2004 national elections.
July 12, 2004... Summary U.S. relations with India depend largely on India's political leadership. India's 2004 national elections ended governance by the center-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and brought in a new center-left...

Commemorative observances: a chronological list.(Chronology)
July 12, 2004... Summary Historically, national commemorative observances were often recommended by Congress through the legislative process. This practice was for the most part discontinued by the House of Representatives in January 1995, although the...

Israel: U.S. foreign assistance.
July 12, 2004... SUMMARY Israel is not economically self-sufficient, and relies on foreign assistance and borrowing to maintain its economy. Since 1985, the United States has provided $3 billion in grants annually to Israel. Since 1976, Israel has been the...

Executive Branch power to postpone elections.
July 14, 2004... Summary Because of the continuing threat of terrorism, concerns have been raised about the potential for terrorist events to occur close to or during the voting process for the November 2004 elections. For instance, the question has been...

HIV/AIDS international programs: appropriations, FY2002-FY2005.
July 15, 2004... Summary The Administration's FY2005 request for international HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria programs totals about $2.8 billion, as compared with $2.4 billion appropriated for FY2004. The FY2005 request includes a large increase for...

Campaign financing.
July 16, 2004... SUMMARY Concerns over financing federal elections have become a seemingly perennial aspect of our political system, long centered on the enduring issues of high campaign costs and reliance on interest groups for needed campaign funds. ...

Campaign finance: constitutional and legal issues of soft money.
July 21, 2004... SUMMARY Prior to enactment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), P.L. 107-155, the term "soft money" generally referred to unregulated funds, perceived as resulting from loopholes in the Federal Election Campaign Act...

India: chronology of recent events.
July 28, 2004... Summary This report provides a reverse chronology of recent events involving India and India-U.S. relations. (1) For a substantive review, see CRS Issue Brief IB93097, India-U.S. Relations. This report will be updated regularly. ...

Why certain trade agreements are approved as congressional-executive agreements rather than as treaties.
July 28, 2004... Summary Trade agreements such as the NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements have been approved by majority vote of each House of Congress rather than by two-thirds vote of the Senate--that is, they have been treated as...

India-U.S. relations.
July 29, 2004... SUMMARY The end of the Cold War freed India-U.S. relations from the constraints of global bipolarity, but New Delhi-Washington relations continued for a decade to be affected by the burden of history, most notably the longstanding...

Proposals for intelligence reorganization, 1949-2004.
July 29, 2004... Summary Proposals for the reorganization of the United States Intelligence Community have repeatedly emerged from commissions and committees created by either the executive or legislative branches. The heretofore limited authority of...

The position of Director of National Intelligence: issues for Congress.
July 29, 2004... Summary The 9/11 Commission, in its recent report on the attacks of September 11, 2001, criticized the U.S. Intelligence Community's (IC) fragmented management structure and questioned whether the U.S. government, and the IC, in...