Former Justice Department attorney Thomas Tamm, who was one of the early sources for the December 2005 New York Times story on warrantless government surveillance and who is under threat of prosecution for having revealed classified information without authorization, yesterday received the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.
The Ridenhour Prizes, named for the late Ron Ridenhour who exposed the 1968 My Lai massacre, are intended to “foster the spirit of courage and truth,” particularly when doing so involves defiance of official authority at some personal cost.
Other Ridenhour Prizes, presented at a ceremony yesterday, were given to New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, and reporter Nick Turse.
The human cost is measured in deaths. The financial cost is measured in the $52 billion taxpayers pay annually end stage renal disease – double NASA’s budget.
Gilman Louie, Longest Serving Board Chair of the Federation of American Scientists, Named Chair Emeritus
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.