William J. Bosanko was formally named this week as the fourth director of the Information Security Oversight Offfice, the executive branch agency that is responsible for oversight of national security classification and declassification policy government-wide. A ten-year veteran of the ISOO staff, Mr. Bosanko shares an understanding of the ideals and the realities of classification as well as the scruple and the responsiveness that made his predecessors such remarkable public servants.
“When I am president, the era of Bush/Cheney secrecy will be over,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton in a speech to the Newspaper Association of America on April 15. “I will empower the federal government to operate from a presumption of openness, not secrecy… I will direct my administration to prevent needless classification of information that ought to be shared with the public.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) this week introduced a new bill to increase transparency in government agency expenditures, to provide online public tracking of legislative earmarks, and to require the IRS to provide taxpayers with statements of total taxes paid and projected. “This latest effort will provide taxpayers unprecedented information about how their money is spent, and how their taxes are paid. Increasing transparency in government spending is essential for accountability and fiscal responsibility.”
The CIA today published for public comment a proposed rule modifying its Freedom of Information Act procedures. “The Agency proposes to revise its FOIA regulations to more clearly reflect the current CIA organizational structure, record system configuration, and FOIA policies and practices and to eliminate ambiguous, redundant and obsolete regulatory provisions.”
To empower new voices to start their career in nuclear weapons studies, the Federation of American Scientists launched the New Voices on Nuclear Weapons Fellowship. Here’s what our inaugural cohort accomplished.
Common frameworks for evaluating proposals leave this utility function implicit, often evaluating aspects of risk, uncertainty, and potential value independently and qualitatively.
The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]
According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ August 2023 pulse panel, 60% of public schools were utilizing a “community school” or “wraparound services model” at the start of this school year—up from 45% last year.