The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) generates some of the most sensitive and most consequential records in the U.S. Government, along with an enormous volume of ephemeral material. Managing this endless flow of records efficiently and effectively is a challenge.
Close students of OSD records management policy will find useful reference data in two new Pentagon volumes.
General records maintenance policies are spelled out in “Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Records Management Program — Administrative Procedures,” (pdf) Administrative Instruction 15, change 1, April 18, 2008.
Records schedules approved by the National Archives for the disposition of all OSD component records are compiled in “Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Records Management Program — Records Disposition Schedules,” Administrative Instruction 15, volume 2, April 18, 2008.
Modernizing ClinicalTrials.gov will empower patients, oncologists, and others to better understand what trials are available, where they are available, and their up-to-date eligibility criteria, using standardized search categories to make them more easily discoverable.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 4420, the Cool Corridors Act of 2025, which would reauthorize the Healthy Streets program through 2030 and seeks to increase green and other shade infrastructure in high-heat areas.
The current lack of public trust in AI risks inhibiting innovation and adoption of AI systems, meaning new methods will not be discovered and new benefits won’t be felt. A failure to uphold high standards in the technology we deploy will also place our nation at a strategic disadvantage compared to our competitors.
Using the NIST as an example, the Radiation Physics Building (still without the funding to complete its renovation) is crucial to national security and the medical community. If it were to go down (or away), every medical device in the United States that uses radiation would be decertified within 6 months, creating a significant single point of failure that cannot be quickly mitigated.