The Department of Defense decision not to renew the underlying contract for the independent JASON scientific advisory panel drew criticism from a bipartisan, bicameral group of congressmen and senators.
“We believe that cancelling the JASON contract could damage our national security by depriving not only the Pentagon, but also other national security agencies, of sober and sound advice in confronting some of the Nation’s most complex threats,” the members wrote on May 3.
They noted that the National Nuclear Security Administration had recently intervened to sustain the JASONs for the coming year.
“However,” they wrote, “given the national security interests involved in cancellation of the JASON contract, a permanent solution must be found. We encourage you to work with NNSA and the other agencies that utilize JASON to find an appropriate long-term home for JASON, whether it be Research and Engineering, another office, such as Acquisition and Sustainment, or NNSA.”
If the JASONs’ current sponsor at Defense Research and Engineering is indifferent to or uninterested in the work of JASON, it would be pointless to compel continued sponsorship of the group there. But other agencies such as NNSA have an interest in preserving JASON, as does Congress itself.
“Members of Congress have long counted on their nonpartisan, independent, science-based advice to inform our decisions on a range of national security issues facing our nation, such as nuclear weapons, space, and emerging technologies,” the members wrote. They posed a series of questions about the Pentagon’s handling of the JASON contract and they asked the Acting Secretary of Defense to cooperate in resolving the issue.
Last week a Freedom of Information Act request for a copy of a 2016 JASON report entitled “Counterspace” was denied on appeal by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The unclassified JASON report is exempt from FOIA as deliberative material and because it contains arms export control information, DARPA said.
At this inflection point, the choice is not between speed and safety but between ungoverned acceleration and a calculated momentum that allows our strategic AI advantage to be both sustained and secured.
Improved detection could strengthen deterrence, but only if accompanying hazards—automation bias, model hallucinations, exploitable software vulnerabilities, and the risk of eroding assured second‑strike capability—are well managed.
New initiative brings nine experts with federal government experience to work with the FAS and Tech & Society’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, the Knight-Georgetown Institute, and the Institute for Technology Law & Policy Wednesday, June 11, 2025—Today Georgetown University’s Tech & Society Initiative and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) announce two […]
A dedicated and properly resourced national entity is essential for supporting the development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI to drive widespread adoption, by providing sustained, independent technical assessments and emergency coordination.