Late last year the Attorney General approved revised guidelines for the use of confidential informants by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (pdf).
The guidelines require that confidential human sources be subjected to a new validation process to help ensure that their information is reliable.
The guidelines also generally require that the FBI and prosecutors inform responsible law enforcement authorities if they discover that an FBI source is engaged in “unauthorized criminal activity.”
“The FBI does not have any authority to make any promise or commitment that would prevent the government from prosecuting a Confidential Human Source for criminal activity that is not authorized…..”
See “Attorney General Guidelines Regarding the Use of FBI Confidential Human Sources,” approved December 13, 2006.
The Guidelines were included in voluminous FBI answers to questions for the record of a recently published Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “FBI Oversight,” December 6, 2006 (14 MB PDF file).
These recommendations can catapult the Advisory Committee structure into one that continues providing the government with the best advice.
Without the permitting workforce needed for implementation, the American public will not reap the benefits of rural broadband access, resilient supply chains, and clean, accessible water.
Improving public awareness of FDA Advisory Committees would improve public trust and deter misinformation related to the approval of medical products.
FAS has been a leading voice for action on this topic, and has developed a compendium of 150+ heat-related federal policy recommendations.