Disrupting Vulnerability Traps and Catalyzing Community Resilience

Summary

The United States needs to radically enhance its efforts to build community disaster resilience. The frequency and cost of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters have increased significantly over the past decade. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s estimates, the direct costs of disasters between 2018 and 2019 amounted to over $136 billion. And 2017 Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria resulted in over $265 billion in damage and displaced many communities. Moreover, accelerated urbanization and climate change continue to exacerbate communities’ vulnerability to climate disasters, rendering the current disaster mitigation, recovery, and emergency response policies untenable in the near future.

Resilience has served as an organizing principle for policymakers, first responders, and businesses in marshalling resources to reduce community vulnerability, stimulate recovery, and ensure reliable access to critical services (e.g., energy, water, shelter, food, health, ecosystems services and mobility) in the aftermath of climate disasters. However, the current set of reactive disaster recovery efforts and resilience policies have proven to be inefficient and costly, contributing to the widening of the `climate gap’ and entrenching vulnerability traps, particularly among marginalized and disadvantaged communities.

The Biden-Harris Administration should invest in information technology, data transparency and convergence research to build data-enabled predictive capabilities that anticipate shifts in communities’ demand for critical services under compound climate disasters, and inform effective resource allocation to equitably mitigate the impacts of climate change. These investments will not only enhance stewardship of taxpayer dollars, create jobs and bolster the economy, but will also shrink the rapidly widening climate gap and save lives.

Recruiting and Retaining Highly Effective Teachers of Color

The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to providing the best possible education to all students. Research has established that students of color experience benefits to social and emotional development and learning outcomes when taught by educators of color. Diverse educators and administrators are particularly important for schools with many students of color. Accordingly, schools across the country should prioritize hiring highly-effective teachers of color. This policy proposal identifies opportunities to recruit—and retain—highly effective K-12 educators of color.

As a first step, the Biden-Harris Administration should create an Under Secretary of Diversity at the Department of Education (ED), charged with organizing a White House Summit to establish the value of a diverse teacher workforce and convene leaders to identify best practices and a strategy for Federal Government support of state, local, and private programs. Following the summit, ED, led by the Under Secretary of Diversity, should revisit current programs that identify high need areas, such as math, science and special education to include the pressing need for diverse educators. Simultaneously, the administration must work with Congress to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, incorporating the previously introduced College Transparency Act to ensure robust data reporting and evaluate the effectiveness of financial incentives.

Challenge and Opportunity

A sense of belonging is widely accepted to be a basic human desire. Academic success can be heavily impacted by a sense of belonging in one’s academic environment. For students who do not feel that they belong, it can affect their mental and physical health, and future criminal activity. Schools have at least four racialized areas potentially affected by teacher composition: content, teaching methods, feedback type, and disciplinary practices. Teachers of color are one piece of the solution. Recognizing similarities between shared attributes and/or social identities of themselves and their teachers, connecting with people they can trust and be open with can help support a sense of belonging, which is critical to academic success.

Even as the demographics of the United States continue to shift, the teacher workforce remains overwhelmingly white, leading to a demand for teachers of color that far outweighs the supply. While certain states have had some success recruiting more teachers of color, individuals pursuing teaching careers face significant obstacles, causing many to leave the profession earlier than their white colleagues. For many first-generation students and students of color, the path to a profession in teaching can be perilous, with unsustainable wages and work conditions. Some federal programs designed to help teachers manage student debt and continue teaching have failed the very people who our students need to stay in the profession. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated current inequalities in educational outcomes, presenting additional challenges to all teachers, and particularly teachers of color.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that college students are very interested in teaching but lack supported pathways and incentives to pursue a career in the field. Many passionate and talented state, local, and private leaders are working to support highly effective teachers of color, and a strong evidence base shows the potential for successful small-scale programs. However, programs and successes are inconsistent and piecemeal across the country. The Biden-Harris Administration should build on these opportunities to create a strong federal infrastructure that establishes teaching career pathways and supports teachers of color in the classroom.

The success of our country in meeting the needs of the future STEM workforce and productive labor market will depend on our ability to effectively educate a diverse population. Technology is the future—and the present. In STEM and other core workforce areas, the United States is trailing behind other industrialized nations. As the workforce of the future continues to evolve, we need to prepare our students. In our memo, we involve the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as they, along with the Department of Education (ED), will want to prioritize the workforce of the future—ensuring that the United States is once again leading the world in breakthroughs in science and technology.

Plan of Action

On Day One, the incoming Secretary of Education should: 

Appoint an Under Secretary of Diversity, ED

On Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration should create a new leadership position at ED, an Under Secretary of Diversity. This individual will serve the role of a Chief Diversity Officer, tasked with examining the role of race at the agency, in curricula, teacher preparation and development, and in school and district leadership nationwide, and with ensuring that national education initiatives are inclusive and actively anti-racist. Once in place, the Under Secretary will launch a White House summit, revisit existing programs and practices at ED to increase support for highly effective teachers of color, and support passage of critical legislation.

Launch a White House Summit on how to recruit and retain a highly effective, diverse teacher workforce.

The Biden-Harris Administration should develop an interagency working group to coordinate efforts between ED, NSF, NIH, and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), as well as education funders and business leaders who have named teacher diversity as a clear priority, to convene leaders who have been successful in finding, developing, and retaining educators of color. This effort would be led by the Under Secretary of Diversity at ED and the Assistant Director for the Education and Human Resources Directorate at NSF.

A White House convening would establish that delivering the best education to students of color is a national priority. The broad goal would be to quickly generate new ideas and learn from best practices toward the goal of establishing a teacher workforce that mirrors the diversity of the American student population. The more specific goals would be:

The Department of Education should prioritize supporting highly effective teachers of color.

ED should revisit current programs to include diverse educators in the requirements for high-need areas. The department currently provides incentives for states and school districts to hire and for individuals to pursue teaching. A comprehensive plan to substantially increase the diversity of educators must also consider retention and the professional experience after training. ED should promote retention by providing incentives for school districts to hire cohorts of diverse educators in order to reduce isolation and provide support. A “best-practices” grant program to ensure deep investment in programming also warrants renewed attention.

ED should:

Urge Congress to Reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA), incorporating the previously proposed College Transparency Act (CTA).

Sustained federal investment in achieving diversity of K-12 educators that align with the diversity of our students will lead to improved social and emotional development and learning outcomes of our diverse population. CTA legislation is needed to enable the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to develop and maintain a secure, privacy-protected postsecondary student-level data system in order to accurately evaluate student enrollment patterns, progression, completion, and post collegiate outcomes, as well as higher education costs and financial aid. The Higher Education Act should be reauthorized to expand access, improve affordability, and promote completion for all students, including prospective teachers of color. Reauthorization should include critical protections for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Elevating Science and Technology Policy at the State Department

Summary

Science and technology (S&T) must play a prominent and strategic role at all levels of United States foreign policy. On Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration should reinvigorate and reassert U.S. strength in science, technology, and data-driven decision making. S&T issues at the Department of State (Department) have historically been concentrated into specific offices and personnel, which has constrained the use of S&T as a tool to advance U.S. foreign policy goals. On Day One, the Administration can better identify, allocate, and elevate S&T issues and personnel throughout the Department. Building and rewarding diverse teams with the right mix of skills is good management for any organization, and could create significant progress toward breaking down the silos that prevent the realization of the full benefits of the S&T expertise that already exists among U.S diplomatic personnel.

Compliance as Code and Improving the ATO Process

A wide-scale cyber-attack in 2020 impacted a staggering number of federal agencies, including the agency that oversees the United States nuclear weapons arsenal. Government officials are still determining what information the hackers may have accessed, and what they might do with it.

The fundamental failure of federal technology security is the costly expenditure of time and resources on processes that do not make our systems more secure. Our muddled compliance activities allow insecure legacy systems to operate longer, increasing the risk of cyber intrusions and other system meltdowns. The vulnerabilities introduced by these lengthy processes have grave consequences for the nation at large.

In federal technology, the approval to launch a new Information Technology (IT) system is known as an Authority to Operate (ATO). In its current state, the process of obtaining an ATO is resource-intensive, time-consuming, and highly cumbersome. The Administration should kick-start a series of immediate, action-oriented initiatives to incentivize and operationalize the automation of ATO processes (also known as “compliance as code”) and position agencies to modernize technology risk management as a whole.

Challenge and Opportunity

While the compliance methodologies that currently comprise the ATO process contribute to managing security and risk, the process itself causes delays to the release of new systems. This perpetuates risk by extending the use of legacy—but often less secure—systems and mires agencies with outdated, inefficient workflows. 

To receive an ATO, government product owners across different agencies are required to demonstrate compliance with similar standards and controls, but the process of providing statements of compliance or “System Security Plans” (SSPs) is redundant and siloed. In addition, SSPs are often hundreds of pages long and oriented toward one-time generation of compliance paperwork over an outdated, three-year life cycle. There are few examples of IT system reciprocity or authorization partnerships between federal agencies, and many are reluctant to share their SSPs with sister organizations that are pushing similar or even identical IT systems through their respective ATO processes. This siloed approach results in duplicative assessments and redundancies that further delay progress. 

The next administration should shift from static compliance to agile security risk management that meets the challenges of the ever-changing threat landscape. The following Plan of Action advances that goal through specific directives for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of the Federal CIO (OFCIO), General Services Administration (GSA), Technology Transformation Service (TTS), and other agencies.

Plan of Action

The Office of Federal Chief Information Officer (OFCIO) should serve as the catalyst of several of activities aimed at addressing inefficiencies in the ATO attainment process. 

OFCIO should draft an OMB Compliance as Code Memorandum that initiates two major activities. 

First, the Memorandum will direct GSA to create a Center of Excellence within the Technology Transformation Service (TTS). The goals and actions of the Center of Excellence are detailed under “Action Two” below. Second, the Memorandum should require Cabinet-level agencies to draft brief “exploration and implementation plans” that describe how the agency or agencies might explore and adopt compliance as code to create efficiencies and reduce burden.1

OFCIO should offer guidance for the types of explorations that agencies might consider. These might include:

During the plan review process, the OFCIO should collaborate with the Resource Management Offices (RMOs) at OMB to identify agencies that offer the most effective plans and innovations.3 Finally, OFCIO should consider releasing a portion of the agency plans publicly with the goal of spurring research and collaboration with industry.

The General Services Administration should create a Cybersecurity Compliance Center of Excellence. 

OMB should commission the creation of a Cybersecurity Compliance Center of Excellence at the General Services Administration (GSA). Joining the six other Centers of Excellence, the Cybersecurity Compliance Center of Excellence (CCCE) would serve to accelerate the adoption of compliance as code solutions, analyze current compliance processes and artifacts, and facilitate cross-agency knowledge-sharing of cybersecurity compliance best practices. In addition, OMB should direct GSA to establish a Steering Committee representative of the Federal Government that leverages the expertise of agency Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), Deputy CISOs, and Chief Data Officers (CDOs) as well as representatives from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). 

The CCCE Steering Committee will research potential paths to propagate compliance as code that are not overly burdensome to agencies, deliberate on these initiatives, and guide and oversee agency innovations. The ultimate goal for the Steering Committee will be to devise a strategy and series of practices to increase compliance as code adoption via the Cybersecurity Compliance Center of Excellence and OMB oversight. 

The following sections detail potential opportunities for CCCE Steering Committee investigation and evaluation:

Study IT System Acquisition Rules for Vendor Compliance Information. The Steering Committee should review existing acquisition guidance and consider drafting a new acquisition rule that would require software vendors to provide ATO-relevant, machine-readable compliance information to customer agencies. The data package could include control implementation statements, attestation data and evidence guidance for the relevant NIST controls.4 In addition, the new system and process improvements should be agile enough to allow the incorporation of controls unique to a particular application or service.

Shifting the responsibility of managing compliance information from agencies to vendors
saves time and taxpayer dollars spent in the duplicative discovery, creation, and maintenance
of control implementation guidance for common software. The rule would be doubly
effective in time saved if the vendor’s compliance data package has common reciprocity
between agencies, allowing for faster adoption of software government wide.5 Finally, the
format of the data package should be open sourced, fungible and accessible.

Examine and Improve the Utility of System Security Plans (SSPs). System Security Plans are the baseline validator of a system’s security compliance and a comprehensive summary of an IT system’s security details.6 OMB and the CCCE Steering Committee should direct agencies to investigate the reusability and transmutability of System Security Plans (SSPs) across the Federal Government. A research-focused task force, composed of federal data scientists, compliance subject matter experts, auditors, and CISOs, should research how SSPs are utilized and draft recommendations on how best to improve their utility. The research task force would collect a percentage of agency SSPs, compare time-to-ATOs for various government organizations, and develop a common taxonomy that will allow for reciprocity between government agencies.

Create a Federal Compliance Library. The Steering Committee should investigate the creation of an inter-agency Federal Compliance Library. The library, most likely hosted by NIST, would support cross-agency compliance efforts by offering vetted pre-sets, templates, and baselines for various IT systems. A Federal Compliance Library accelerates the creation and sharing of compliance documentation and allows for historical knowledge and best practices to have impact beyond one agency. These common resources would free up agency compliance resources to focus on authorization materials that require novel documentation.

Explore Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL). The Steering Committee should explore the value added by mandating the conversion of agency SSP components to machine readable code such as Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL).7 OSCAL allows for the automated monitoring of control implementation effectiveness while making documentation updates easier and more efficient.

Conclusion

Federal compliance processes are ripe for innovation. The current system is costly and perpetuates risk while trying to control for it. The Plan of Action detailed above creates a crossagency collaborative environment that will spur localized innovations which can be tested and perfected before scaling government wide.

Frequently Asked Questions
Why is this recommendation important?
Current compliance processes are slow, costly and ineffective. They result in bureaucratic inertia that stalls the adoption of new technologies and exacerbates risk. The compliance-as-code recommendations outlined in this text dovetail with conclusions drawn from the Federal Cybersecurity Risk Determination Report and Action Plan to the President of the United States (2018). Compliance-as-code solutions match core actions that are necessary to address cybersecurity risks across the federal enterprise.
Why are OFCIO and TTS best positioned to lead these efforts?
OFCIO and TTS have been successful in guiding and monitoring agencies through a number of technology transformation initiatives including Data Center Consolidation Initiative, the HTTPSOnly Standard, and the FITARA Scorecard among many others. OMB OFCIO has the ability to direct agencies to develop exploration plans, as described above, and GSA TTS is well situated to stand up a new Center of Excellence to facilitate pilot initiatives and cross-agency collaboration. In addition, a Steering Committee for the Cybersecurity Compliance Center of Excellence (CCCE) that leverages the expertise of CISOs, Deputy CISOs, and CDOs as well as representatives from NIST and DHS CISA can ensure that GSA and OMB are developing guidance based on the actual situations within agencies. Greater participation and representation from agencies will ensure greater transparency, collaboration and adoption of new innovations.
How will these proposals make the ATO compliance process more efficient?
ATO processes have been a known encumbrance for some time. A handful of agencies have begun to explore automation and compliance as code, including, but not limited to, the Defense Digital Service Rapid ATO12 and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid “Simplified and Guided Authorization for Rapid ATO” pilot. While many agencies recognize the need, most lack the resources to explore innovations and automate processes. These proposals aim to elevate the issue and proposed solutions to the White House level and align the most promising innovations with support and funding. Once solutions are identified and tested, they can be scaled for government-wide adoption.
Are there risks to centralizing all IT compliance in one library? Are there security concerns?
Published data formats provide greater security than proprietary counterparts. While the reference implementations and data formats must be open, the data collection and analysis of an operational system is fully protected by encryption. If required, certain SSPs can be delivered to new agencies on a by-request basis instead of being made publicly available.
Is it overly burdensome to ask agencies to convert their SSPs to OSCAL?
OSCAL integration across the Federal Government should be evaluated for burden and agencies’ current technical capacity to support OSCAL integration must be considered. Agencies should consider smaller-scale integrations of OSCAL as a starting point. Research should also be focused on potential time saved from automating compliance checks, streamlining the review process, and increasing the speed of adopting new technologies.
Are there any legal requirements or obstacles for agencies that may prevent them from participating in these reforms?
The request that software vendors provide machine-readable security documentation is to their own benefit. It is currently cumbersome and repetitive for a software vendor to provide information to support the ATO process on an individual basis every time their software is evaluated or implemented. Vendors already decide what information to share and are likely careful about what they choose to provide. A shared SSP library or reciprocity of SSP statements across agencies should not introduce any new legal obstacles or concerns into the process. Vendors should be made aware that any information they share is eligible for a cross-agency shared repository.
What exactly is the scope of the term “compliance as code”? in technical terms?
‘Compliance as Code’ is the automated implementation, verification, remediation, monitoring and reporting of compliance information and status. In technical terms, compliance as code can be facilitated by migrating the static SSP from Microsoft Word to OSCAL, including front matter, control implementation statements, and appendices. Additional examples of compliance as code include: evidence gathering and verification code, commit and pull-request automated testing, and DevOps context aware notifications and documentation. Developer tools such as an RMF and OSCAL-Aware GRC plugin for VS Code and continuous monitoring plugins can also be included.

Enabling Federal Agencies to Tackle Complex Problems with the Help of Makers-In-Residence

Summary

Across the U.S., there are approximately 2,000 makerspaces and Fab Labs where makers with a broad and diverse set of skills have developed innovative approaches to solving pressing problems in their communities. The next administration should implement a Maker-In-Residence (MIR) fellowship program that allows federal agencies to leverage the incredible skills and knowledge of the American maker community to address complex problems specific to their missions.

Implementation of the MIR fellowship program would enable American makers and innovators to:

  1. Contribute their knowledge and unique and diverse skill sets to fulfilling the missions of federal agencies while learning first-hand about federal policy and the policymaking process
  2. Utilize their learnings to solve complex societal problems and affect policy change in their local communities.

Building Thriving Local Economies by Leveraging the Maker Movement to Close the Skills Gap

Summary

The Federal Government should further invest in, support and scale four existing approaches to building local skills and vibrant, self-sufficient local economies by coupling localities’ needs with workforce development and small-scale manufacturing. This is achieved by scaling local programs and initiatives which harness the Maker Movement, a community-driven, grassroots effort to enable people to design, prototype and manufacture projects, solutions and products.

Specifically, the Federal Government should:

By harnessing early successes from across the country, these policy solutions can rapidly stand up localized programs to immediately support more American communities grappling with skills shortages. This need is exponentially more critical in the face of COVID-19, as 80% of U.S. manufacturers have articulated that their business will be financially affected by the pandemic and 53% require a change of operations, including the increased use of automation technologies.

Advancing Astrobiology: The Search for Signs of Life Elsewhere in the Universe

Summary

NASA should invest in a comprehensive program to answer one of humanity’s biggest questions: “Are we alone?”

The United States has the scientific and technological prowess to find possible evidence of past or present life in our solar system. Over the last decade, the space science community has discovered Earth-like planets around other stars. The United States has launched Mars 2020—its first astrobiology mission to Mars. The Perseverance Rover will seek signs of ancient life and is part of the initial Mars Sample Return campaign. And, in the coming decade, we are poised for exponential growth in the technology, planetary science, and astrophysics components of the search for life.

Establishing a formal Astrobiology Program Office at NASA would better elevate, coordinate, and guide what could be the agency’s most important mission. Notably, there are currently no NASA programs on astrobiology that integrate across the Astrophysics and Planetary Science divisions in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate along with the technology investments of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA has no astrobiology czar.

Astrobiology is a relatively modern scientific field of study that has been enabled by a suite of robotic space missions and next-generation telescopes. We now have the potential to reveal new insights into the fundamental nature of life across the universe and our own planet.

Transition Document for the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Summary

This transition document provides over 25 actionable recommendations on the future of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), in order to support future federal leadership and enable their success. The document is the result of collaboration between the Day One Project and a group of veteran policymakers who convened virtually to produce recommendations related to the following three categories:

  1. Identifying specific policy and governance ideas that can be pursued in the first days and months of the next administration.
  2. Gathering “lessons learned” from those who have previously served in government to learn from past challenges and better inform future initiatives.
  3. Understanding key science and technology staffing and “talent” needs, and related challenges for the USPTO that can be addressed in the next administration.

The document also includes a cover memo which highlights some of the overarching key considerations for the future of the USPTO.

Contributors

Creating a Digital Work Projects Administration

Summary

To address the massive unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden-Harris administration should establish a Digital Work Projects Administration (D-WPA), creating government-funded jobs that people can perform from their own homes or other safe locations. Inspired by the Depression-era Work Projects Administration, or WPA, the modern D-WPA would put millions of unemployed Americans to work serving the public good and speeding the country’s economic recovery.

In the D-WPA, work will be digital instead of physical. Digital tools allow many jobs to be done from anywhere good internet access is available. D-WPA participants could work safely and effectively no matter how long the pandemic limits in-person employment. Working remotely, D-WPA participants could help combat the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its economic and societal impacts. At the same time, participants would learn, practice, and improve digital skills of increasing value in the modern workforce.

The D-WPA should be established within the Department of Labor, with sufficient funding to put up to 4 million Americans back to work quickly and safely. Funds for this program should be requested in the next COVID-19 recovery package. In the meantime, existing DOL employment and training programs could be used to support an initial cohort of workers for the D-WPA, demonstrating proof of concept while efforts are underway to secure full funding. The D-WPA should create both public- and private-sector positions supporting the national response to the pandemic’s health and economic impacts.

Democratizing Police Adoption of Surveillance Technology

Summary

The next administration should help local communities reassert control over police use of surveillance technology. It should support legislation requiring that the use of all federally- funded surveillance technology be approved by local elected representatives through a public process, and that this use be constrained by a formal policy delineating the situations in which it will be used, how the data it generates will be handled and secured, and how its effectiveness will be evaluated. If new legislation is not forthcoming, then the next administration should empower local initiatives through a pledge program in which leading local law enforcement authorities voluntarily agree to take these steps.

Today local law enforcement agencies obtain cutting edge — and potentially intrusive — surveillance equipment without the knowledge of elected leaders and the general public, sometimes leading to a rejection of the technology once the public discovers it. In Oakland, for example, following a council review that lasted only two minutes, the city created a data integration center that networked together all of its existing surveillance infrastructure. Once the public learned of the center, protests broke out and council meetings were flooded with angry residents. The backlash was so severe that the city ultimately largely gutted the center, even though millions in federal funding had already been spent on its development.

Federal funding is a major driver of uninformed and undemocratic adoption of surveillance technology at the local level. The Federal Government funds billions of dollars in grants to local law enforcement agencies, money that can then be used to purchase surveillance equipment. But the government does not take steps to ensure that local elected representatives and members of the public are involved in decisions about what technologies are acquired, or that protocols are developed to constrain how the technologies are used.

The Federal Government has a responsibility to intercede to make sure that local elected representatives are aware of and have control over how federally-funded surveillance equipment is used in their communities. Transparency is particularly important for surveillance technology because this equipment is often invisible. People cannot challenge deployment of surveillance technology in court or through public processes if they do not know about it. Moreover, surveillance technologies can be invasive, with potentially harmful effects on civil rights and liberties. Particularly given today’s high level of concern over policing practices, the Federal Government should not be undermining the ability of local communities to assert democratic control over their police departments.

Some cities and counties have passed ordinances requiring that their law enforcement agencies seek approval to deploy surveillance technology, demonstrating the feasibility and desirability of such measures. But with some 18,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, only the Federal Government can implement a solution at scale.

Privacy Laws Should Help, Not Harm

Summary

American society urgently needs to address structural disparities in the criminal-justice system. One important disparity—which is both easily mitigated and generally unrecognized—is the asymmetry of information access granted to prosecutors and defendants. Prosecutors can easily access digital records that establish guilt. But defendants are far less empowered to access digital records that prove innocence.

Privacy laws are a key source of this disparity. The Stored Communications Act (SCA), for instance, permits law enforcement—but not defense investigators—to access certain evidence from Internet companies. Fortunately, there are two straightforward policy solutions to this problem. First, new federal privacy legislation should include language requiring symmetric information access for defendants. Second, the Department of Justice should adopt a new interpretation of the SCA to protect fairness in criminal proceedings.

Re-architecting Our National Security Space Strategy

Summary

The current Administration has adopted a high-profile approach to space issues. It established a National Space Council, chaired by the Vice President and including various senior members of the Executive Branch. The Council authored multiple Space Policy Directives for Presidential signature on a variety of topics—NASA’s exploration efforts, bolstering the commercial space sector through regulatory streamlining, space traffic management, and the establishment of a Space Force. These efforts were individually laudable but lacked the cohesion of a grand strategy for envisioning America’s future in space.

Several cases illustrate this point: