The implications of the expanded use of “national security letters” by the FBI and other agencies to compel disclosure of business record information will be explored in a hearing tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
For an introduction to the subject see “National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: Legal Background and Recent Amendments” (pdf), Congressional Research Service, updated March 28, 2008.
Next week on April 30, Sen. Russ Feingold will chair a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government.”
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.