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.
The potential implication of these evidence gaps becomes more consequential when you look at how institutions actually make decisions day to day.
Every new institution inherits something – existing incentives, existing staff, decades of prior investment that shaped what’s possible.
This is not the first time Google has agreed to censor imagery at the behest of governments, but be warned: obfuscation at this broad level poses a direct threat to the public’s ability to monitor and scrutinize government operations.
America’s affordability problem is bigger than home prices and rents. The best housing policies make it easier to build homes, and recognize how housing connects to other domains.