Secrecy News was sad to learn that Lee S. Strickland, a former Central Intelligence Agency official, died on January 23.
We first encountered him perhaps 15 years ago when he was the head of the CIA Freedom of Information office, where he used to reliably deny our FOIA requests. Over the years he seemed to enlarge his horizons and to admit the possibility of contrasting views. He taught his students at the University of Maryland that information policy could be exciting as well as important. And he was a nice guy.
See this obituary for Lee Strickland from the University of Maryland College of Information Studies.
Yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed revoking its 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases pose a substantial threat to the public. The Federation of American Scientists stands in strong opposition.
Modernizing ClinicalTrials.gov will empower patients, oncologists, and others to better understand what trials are available, where they are available, and their up-to-date eligibility criteria, using standardized search categories to make them more easily discoverable.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 4420, the Cool Corridors Act of 2025, which would reauthorize the Healthy Streets program through 2030 and seeks to increase green and other shade infrastructure in high-heat areas.
The current lack of public trust in AI risks inhibiting innovation and adoption of AI systems, meaning new methods will not be discovered and new benefits won’t be felt. A failure to uphold high standards in the technology we deploy will also place our nation at a strategic disadvantage compared to our competitors.