The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released a heavily redacted version of its Congressional Budget Justification Book for Fiscal Year 2009 in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Although most of the substance of the document has been withheld, a number of details of interest (to some) have been preserved. So, for example, the glossary explains that “CAPNet is a secure private network permitting electronic connectivity between the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government, principally the intelligence oversight committees, and certain intelligence community personnel, primarily in the legislative liaison offices.”
Budget books for several subsequent years have also been released and will be posted in coming days.
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.