If the Obama Administration wants to advance the cause of open government, one particularly fruitful way to do so would be to share unclassified open source intelligence publications with the public.
The Federation of American Scientists offered that suggestion in response to a White House call for public input into the development of the pending Open Government Plan.
“The U.S. Government should adopt a policy of publishing all non-sensitive products generated by the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center,” we wrote. “Doing so would serve to enrich the online domain with uniquely high-value content on a broad range of national security and foreign policy topics. It would foster increased public awareness and understanding of national security and foreign policy affairs. And it would provide the public with a tangible ‘return on investment’ in this vital area of national policy.”
The U.S. Open Government Plan is being developed as part of the multi-national Open Government Partnership that is to be launched next month. The White House solicited public input to the process in an August 8 blog posting.
The proposed Office will resurrect the long-closed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the archive of which has been maintained by FAS for decades at https://ota.fas.org/.
If Congress needs help understanding the risks and rewards of a piece of technology, they shouldn’t have to rely solely on the sparknotes from a salesman. The rub is much simpler: Congress needs nerds.
If we set up the new OTA to do its job well, members will see it as the first stop to see what issues are lurking around the corner. They will bring their questions early. And they will keep coming back for more.
Even the best-designed policy rests on assumptions about who will staff it, how it will be funded, whether the responsible institutions have ever coordinated, and if the goals are achievable.