Extraordinary Hearing on Extraordinary Rendition
The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing last April on the policy of “extraordinary rendition,” referring to the seizure of suspected terrorists and their transfer to a foreign country for detention and interrogation.
The record of the hearing, which has just been published (pdf), features the volatile Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official involved in the rendition program. It is exceptionally nasty and occasionally funny.
Mr. Scheuer, veering from outrageous to absurd and back again, attacked John McCain, the Washington Post’s Dana Priest and quite a few others in remarkably offensive terms.
See “Extraordinary Rendition in U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: The Impact on Transatlantic Relations,” House Foreign Affairs Committee, April 17, 2007.
“Oftentimes,” Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) delicately observed, “people aspire to a higher percentage of their thoughts going unspoken than this hearing has demonstrated.”
DNA synthesis and export controls remain the primary regulatory safeguards against de novo production of harmful biological agents, yet governance frameworks lack the situational awareness and enforcement capacity to keep pace with rapidly falling technical barriers.
Called today to speak on behalf of U.S. science and technology, Dr. Jedidah Isler, astrophysicist, educator, strategist, policy-maker, and science communicator, will provide constructive, nonpartisan feedback to the House Committee’s hearing “American Global Competitiveness at 250: Legislative Proposals to Secure U.S. Technology Leadership.”
“Federal data and access to it is not a partisan issue. It is a people issue. Our country cannot achieve greatness without access to the data that measure what we value, who we are, and where we’re heading.”
The United States’ biosecurity governance system is structurally incapable of detecting and responding to certain classes of threats. U.S. biosecurity tools have not kept pace with technological advancements or a changing threat landscape.