The National Reconnaissance Office has published a new Journal in unclassified format.
“National Reconnaissance: Journal of the Discipline and Practice” is intended “for the education and information of the NRO community” and to promote “the study, dialogue, and understanding of the discipline, practice, and history of national reconnaissance.”
The centerpiece of the first issue is a critical article originally published in 2002 by Robert J. Kohler, a former CIA and NRO official on “The Decline of the National Reconnaissance Office.” It is followed by a rejoinder from NRO deputy director Dennis Fitzgerald, a newly updated reply from Mr. Kohler, and a further response from Mr. Fitzgerald.
In what may be a reflection of NRO ambivalence about publishing an unclassified journal, the new publication is not available on the agency web site. Nor would the NRO Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance agree to provide the journal in softcopy.
But a scanned copy of the full text of the journal is now available on the Federation of American Scientists web site (thanks to J).
See “National Reconnaissance: Journal of the Discipline and Practice,” first unclassified issue, 2005.
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.