“There has been a long-running controversy about the fate of certain U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) and servicemembers missing in action (MIAs) as a result of various U.S. military operations,” a newly updated Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (pdf) on the subject begins.
“While few people familiar with the issue feel that any Americans are still being held against their will in communist countries associated with the Cold War, more feel that some may have been so held in the past in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, or North Vietnam,” according to the CRS author.
There is currently one U.S. Army soldier who is listed as a Prisoner of War following his capture by Iraqi insurgents on April 9, 2004.
See “POWs and MIAs: Status and Accounting Issues,” June 1, 2006.
Some other recent CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News that are not readily available in the public domain include the following:
“Federal Emergency Management and Homeland Security Organization: Historical Developments and Legislative Options” (pdf), updated June 1, 2006.
“Military Airlift: C-17 Aircraft Program” (pdf), updated May 30, 2006.
“F/A-22 Raptor” (pdf), updated May 24, 2006.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
Ask people what worries them most right now, and they’ll say the cost of living and their livelihoods, not climate change. But those concerns are not separate.