“Torture and the OLC,” and Other New Hearing Volumes
By authorizing extreme interrogation methods and defining them as legally permissible, the Bush Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel enabled “our country’s descent into torture,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) last year at a contentious hearing of a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that he chaired. The hearing presented contrasting views on a range of related issues, including whether or not the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation” program constituted torture under international law. The 695 page record of the hearing was published late last month, with voluminous attachments and submissions for the record. See “What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration,” May 13, 2009.
Other noteworthy new congressional hearing volumes include the following (both pdf).
“The Proposed U.S.-UAE Agreement on Civilian Nuclear Cooperation,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 7, 2009 (published March 2010).
“The Impact of U.S. Export Controls on National Security, Science and Technological Leadership,” House Foreign Affairs Committee, January 15, 2010 (published March 2010).
For International Year of the Woman Farmer and International Women’s Month, we spoke to five women farmers in America about planting the next generation.
It’s a busy time and you have things to do. Here are three things worth tracking in science policy as Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) wraps and we head into FY27.
We’re asking the U.S. government to release holds on Congressionally-appropriated funding for scientific research, education, and critical activities at the earliest possible time.
It is in the interests of the United States to appropriately protect information that needs to be protected while maintaining our participation in new discoveries to maintain our competitive advantage.