The U.S. Army today restored public access to the Reimer Digital Library, as it had promised to do in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists.
At first glance, the site appears to be complete. Or at least as complete as it was before it was closed to the public last month. But there are some anomalies.
Among the items listed under “New Documents” is Field Manual Interim (FMI) 3-04.155, “Army Unmanned Aircraft System Operations.” Oddly, the link to this document is marked as Restricted, and it cannot be downloaded from the Reimer site. However, Secrecy News obtained a copy independently, and it is posted here (9 MB PDF file). The document is clearly marked “approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.”
Seemingly arbitrary restrictions on public access to online records continue to appear, and we try to swat them down when we can.
Yesterday, the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act request (pdf) asking the U.S. Marine Corps to release all of the unclassified contents of its online doctrine library. That site, which had previously been available to the public, no longer is.
Good information sources, like collections, must be available and maintained if companies are going to successfully implement the vision of AI for science expressed by their marketing and executives.
Let’s see what rules we can rewrite and beliefs we can reset: a few digital service sacred cows are long overdue to be put out to pasture.
Nestled in the cuts and investments of interest to the S&T community is a more complex story of how the administration is approaching the practice of science diplomacy.
Surprise! It’s a double album drop with the release of both the President’s Budget Request (PBR to us, not Pabst Blue Ribbon) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) last Friday.