The Director of National Intelligence last month issued a new directive on Controlled Access Programs (CAPs).
CAPs are the Intelligence Community equivalent of what are otherwise called Special Access Programs (SAPs). These are classified programs that involve access restrictions above and beyond ordinary classification controls. CAPs include compartmented intelligence programs, but are not limited to them.
The new directive, Intelligence Community Directive 906, establishes the policy framework for management and oversight of Controlled Access Programs. The directive itself is unclassified.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.