* This is Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of open government. A National Security Archive survey of agency compliance with the Freedom of Information Act found mixed and uneven progress over the past year.
* With the promotion of Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) director William J. Bosanko to the new position of NARA Agency Services Executive, the ISOO director slot — with its responsibilities for oversight of classification and declassification policy — is open. “We have recently begun a search effort for the ISOO Director position and are committed to filling the vacancy with someone who will maintain the balance between secrecy and openness for which ISOO is known,” wrote National Archivist David S. Ferriero in a March 7 memorandum (pdf).
* Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its latest (2010) unclassified annual report to Congress (pdf) on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional munitions. Unfortunately, the report is minimally informative, with little new information, and less information than is available from other sources (such as the latest IAEA report on Iran [pdf]). The section on conventional weapons, included in the 2009 report (pdf), is missing altogether.
* Contributions in support of disaster relief in Japan can be made through the Red Cross and other organizations.
In anticipation of future known and unknown health security threats, including new pandemics, biothreats, and climate-related health emergencies, our answers need to be much faster, cheaper, and less disruptive to other operations.
To unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence within the Department of Health and Human Services, an AI Corps should be established, embedding specialized AI experts within each of the department’s 10 agencies.
Investing in interventions behind the walls is not just a matter of improving conditions for incarcerated individuals—it is a public safety and economic imperative. By reducing recidivism through education and family contact, we can improve reentry outcomes and save billions in taxpayer dollars.
The U.S. government should establish a public-private National Exposome Project (NEP) to generate benchmark human exposure levels for the ~80,000 chemicals to which Americans are regularly exposed.