Former ISOO Director Files Complaint on Overclassification
J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) has filed a complaint with the current ISOO director alleging that the National Security Agency wrongly classified a document, which was then used as a basis for the Espionage Act indictment of Thomas Drake, the New York Times reported. See “Complaint Seeks Punishment for Classification of Documents” by Scott Shane, August 2.
“If you’re talking about throwing someone in jail for years, there absolutely has to be responsibility for decisions about what gets classified,” Mr. Leonard told the Times.
Mr. Leonard had been a volunteer expert witness for the defense in the recently concluded prosecution of Thomas Drake, the former NSA official. The document that is the subject of his complaint is no longer classified, but it is still subject to a protective order. Mr. Leonard requested and received permission from the court to pursue his complaint last Friday.
“A surprising war on leaks under Obama,” an op-ed by Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack, was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 1.
At a time when universities are already facing intense pressure to re-envision their role in the S&T ecosystem, we encourage NSF to ensure that the ambitious research acceleration remains compatible with their expertise.
FAS CEO Daniel Correa recently spoke with Adam Marblestone and Sam Rodriques, former FAS fellows who developed the idea for FROs and advocated for their use in a 2020 policy memo.
In a year when management issues like human capital, IT modernization, and improper payments have received greater attention from the public, examining this PMA tells us a lot about where the Administration’s policy is going to be focused through its last three years.
Congress must enact a Digital Public Infrastructure Act, a recognition that the government’s most fundamental responsibility in the digital era is to provide a solid, trustworthy foundation upon which people, businesses, and communities can build.