The ability of Congress to gain access to classified executive branch information, which is the enabling condition for legislative oversight of national security activities, will be discussed at a public forum on March 30.
“What options does Congress have when the executive branch refuses to provide the information it requests? When is it appropriate for Congress to make national security information available to the public and the press?”
These and related questions will be discussed in a keynote address by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who is now chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence.
Her talk will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Mark Agrast of the Center for American Progress and featuring Eleanor Hill, former staff director of the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11; Suzanne Spaulding, former minority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee; Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times; and myself.
The event, which is open to the public, will be held at the Center for American Progress, which is co-sponsoring the program along with OpenTheGovernment.org.
A convenient analysis of the underlying issues was provided in “Congressional Access to Executive Branch Information: Legislative Tools” (pdf), Congressional Research Service, May 17, 2001.
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.