“Torture and the OLC,” and Other New Hearing Volumes
By authorizing extreme interrogation methods and defining them as legally permissible, the Bush Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel enabled “our country’s descent into torture,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) last year at a contentious hearing of a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that he chaired. The hearing presented contrasting views on a range of related issues, including whether or not the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation” program constituted torture under international law. The 695 page record of the hearing was published late last month, with voluminous attachments and submissions for the record. See “What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration,” May 13, 2009.
Other noteworthy new congressional hearing volumes include the following (both pdf).
“The Proposed U.S.-UAE Agreement on Civilian Nuclear Cooperation,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 7, 2009 (published March 2010).
“The Impact of U.S. Export Controls on National Security, Science and Technological Leadership,” House Foreign Affairs Committee, January 15, 2010 (published March 2010).
The emerging federal metascience community is asking fascinating questions that are equally vital for democratic legitimacy: beyond “did this program work” to “how does the federal R&D enterprise itself work, and how could it work better?”
If you’re new to the climate intervention space, welcome! The TL;DR: if we can’t stop the most catastrophic impacts of climate change with current tools quickly enough, then we need a bigger toolbox.
After months of delay, the council tasked by President Trump to review the FEMA released its final report. Our disaster policy nerds have thoughts.
FAS and FLI partnered to build a series of convenings and reports across the intersections of artificial intelligence (AI) with biosecurity, cybersecurity, nuclear command and control, military integration, and frontier AI governance. This project brought together leaders across these areas and created a space that was rigorous, transpartisan, and solutions-oriented to approach how we should think about how AI is rapidly changing global risks.