The U.S. Navy has issued updated instructions on the use of nicknames to refer to Navy activities, events and other information.
“A nickname is a combination of two separate unclassified words, assigned an unclassified meaning that is employed for unclassified, administrative, morale, or public information purposes. Nicknames may be assigned to actual, real-world events, projects, movement of forces, or other non-exercise activities,” the new policy states.
“Nicknames should not be confused with code words. A code word is a single word assigned a classified meaning by appropriate authority to ensure proper security concerning intentions and to safeguard information pertaining to actual, real-world military plans or operations classified as CONFIDENTIAL or higher once activated.”
The choice of nicknames should not “express a degree of aggression inconsistent with traditional American ideals or current foreign policy.” Nor should it “convey anything offensive to good taste or derogatory to a particular group, sect, or creed.”
See “Code Word, Nicknames, and Exercise Terminology System” (pdf), OPNAVINST 5511.37D, January 30, 2007.
A dictionary of thousands of code words, nicknames and related terms was compiled by Bill Arkin in Code Names, published in 2005.
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.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.