New Executive Order Awaits Presidential Decision
A new draft executive order on national security classification and declassification policy is expected to be presented to President Obama this week for his personal resolution of issues which remain in dispute among policymakers and affected agencies, especially intelligence agencies.
This marks the first time since the first Bush Administration, nearly two decades ago, that a President has needed to make a final determination on the contents of an executive order because staffers and agencies were unable to reach a consensus view. (Correction: There is a more recent precedent for such presidential involvement. According to Morton Halperin, President Clinton was presented with a “split memo” in 1995 on the question of whether to include a public interest balancing test for declassification in executive order 12958. President Clinton decided against it.)
The currently disputed issues are believed to include the composition of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, including whether it should include representatives of ODNI or CIA or both, and whether the intelligence agencies should continue to have the veto over Panel declassification decisions that was granted by the George W. Bush Administration.
The final order, which is likely to be issued before the end of December, is expected among other things to direct agencies to conduct a Fundamental Classification Guidance Review in order to eliminate obsolete classification requirements, and to establish a National Declassification Center to coordinate and expedite declassification of historical records, as described in a previous draft dated August 4, 2009.
See “Obama Plan Could Limit Records Hidden From Public” by Pete Yost, Associated Press, December 20, 2009.
Americans are paying too much for almost everything, because the United States has long treated its trucking industry as an artifact to be preserved rather than as an opportunity for innovation.
These ideas aim to advance the detailed policy solutions needed to foster public trust and implement fairness in the adoption of AI across diverse domains, from healthcare and government benefits to rural access, education, and worker protections.
The evidence is clear: algorithmic pay-setting is established in app-based work, and payroll/timekeeping failures show how software can produce systemic wage harm at scale
While a few states have taken steps to implement decision-making mechanisms for certain AI systems, too many leaders are simply accepting narratives about AI’s purported public benefit at face value – jumping to the “how” of AI implementation before thoroughly vetting potential systems and deciding whether they are appropriate to use at all.