“More and more prosecutions” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act may be expected, said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer last month. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is intended to prevent and punish bribery of foreign officials by U.S. firms. “The executive branch appears to have increased oversight of suspected American businesses for alleged violations,” according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, noting that “there have been a number of settlements and indictments in 2010” involving violations of the Act. See “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA): Congressional Interest and Executive Enforcement” (pdf), October 21, 2010.
Another new CRS report uncovers the history of the mostly forgotten Joint Congressional Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Expenditures, which was in existence from 1941-1974. Its purpose was to generate recommendations for the elimination of non-essential federal spending. Interest in the Committee has been revived because of the possibility that it could serve as a model for restraining federal spending today. But that possibility seems faint, since there is no evidence that the Committee had any tangible effect. “CRS research did not uncover instances [of spending cuts] that could be specifically attributed to a recommendation of the joint committee or documentation that attributed a specific cut in spending to a joint committee recommendation.” See “History of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures (1941-1974), with Observations on Oversight Today” (pdf), October 26, 2010.
CRS updated its recent report on “Criminal Prohibitions on the Publication of Classified Defense Information” (pdf) on October 18, 2010 to correct some minor factual errors and to make various editorial changes.
Copies of these reports were obtained by Secrecy News.
In anticipation of future known and unknown health security threats, including new pandemics, biothreats, and climate-related health emergencies, our answers need to be much faster, cheaper, and less disruptive to other operations.
To unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence within the Department of Health and Human Services, an AI Corps should be established, embedding specialized AI experts within each of the department’s 10 agencies.
Investing in interventions behind the walls is not just a matter of improving conditions for incarcerated individuals—it is a public safety and economic imperative. By reducing recidivism through education and family contact, we can improve reentry outcomes and save billions in taxpayer dollars.
The U.S. government should establish a public-private National Exposome Project (NEP) to generate benchmark human exposure levels for the ~80,000 chemicals to which Americans are regularly exposed.