CRS on Terrorist Financing, Army Officer Shortage
A new Congressional Research Service report provides a resume of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program that was recently described in news stories.
See “Treasury’s Terrorist Finance Program’s Access to Information Held by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)” (pdf), July 7, 2006.
News reports on the program elicited furious criticism of the New York Times and other publications from those who believed classified information had been improperly and damagingly disclosed.
But “closely similar” accounts were publicly presented years ago in open congressional hearings, the Washington Post reported today.
See “Watching Finances Of Terror Suspects Discussed in 2002” by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, July 14.
Another new CRS report describes the erosion of the U.S. Army officer corps.
“The Army currently projects an officer shortage of nearly 3,000 in FY2007, with the most acute shortfalls in ‘senior’ captains and majors with 11 to 17 years of experience.”
See “Army Officer Shortages: Background and Issues for Congress” (pdf), July 5, 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.