An exceptionally interesting July 12 House Intelligence Subcommittee hearing on national security classification policy, featuring William Leonard of the Information Security Oversight Office, Meredith Fuchs of the National Security Archive, and myself, was recorded by C-SPAN and may be viewed online, at least temporarily, here.
In accordance with new legislative transparency provisions, the Senate Intelligence Committee identified three funding “earmarks” in the pending intelligence authorization bill for FY 2008. See these July 9 remarks of Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller.
The record of a January 2007 hearing on presidential signing statements that was held by the House Judiciary Committee has now been published.
A 1942 U.S. military intelligence document describes “German tactical doctrine” (pdf), based on the accounts of four American officers who were allowed to study at the German General Staff School from 1935-1939. “From their illuminating reports it is possible to learn the trend of German methods and teachings up to Hitler’s attack on Poland,” according to the 1942 Foreword. Originally published in 1989, the document was recently made available online.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.