National Security Agency director Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander answered dozens of questions for the record related to NSA surveillance activities following a September 6 July 26, 2006 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “FISA for the 21st Century.” That hearing record has not yet been published, but General Alexander’s 35 page response to Senators’ questions is available here (pdf).
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office “examines the costs and potential performance of four possible designs for a Space Radar system.” See “Alternatives for Military Space Radar” (pdf), Congressional Budget Office, January 2007.
“Joint Operation Planning” (pdf) is a new publication from the Joint Chiefs of Staffs that “reflects the current doctrine for conducting joint, interagency, and multinational planning activities across the full range of military operations.” See Joint Publication 5-0, December 26, 2006.
A newly released opinion (pdf) from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel advises that the open meeting requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act do not apply when government officials consult non-governmental individuals (as opposed to committees). Nor do they apply to government meetings with non-governmental groups, says OLC, as long as the members of the groups only provide their opinions as individuals, and not as a collective. See “Application of Federal Advisory Committee Act to Non-Governmental Consultations,” Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, December 7, 2001 (released January 3, 2007).
A conference entitled “Covering the New Secrecy: The Press and Public Policy” (pdf) and sponsored by the Knight-Wallace Fellows will be held at the University of Michigan on January 8.
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.