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.”
No one will be surprised if we end up with a continuing resolution to push our shutdown deadline out past the midterms, so the real question is what else will they get done this summer?
Rebuilding public participation starts with something simple — treating the public not as a problem to manage, but as a source of ingenuity government cannot function without.
If the government wants a system of learning and adaptation that improves results in real time, it has to treat translation, utilization, and adaptation as core functions of governance rather than as afterthoughts.
Coordination among federal science agencies is essential to ensure government-wide alignment on R&D investment priorities. However, the federal R&D enterprise suffers from egregious siloization.