The State Department today invited public comment on its proposed revision of regulations on the control of classified national security information. See this January 3 Federal Register notice.
The People’s Republic of China published a new edition of its annual White Paper on national defense on December 29. Boasting of increased transparency, the document features a new section on defense expenditures. See “China’s National Defense in 2006.”
A comprehensive overview of records management in the U.S. Army is presented in “Guide to Recordkeeping in the Army” (pdf), Pamphlet 25-403, December 20, 2006.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently provided over 100 pages of answers (large pdf) to Senate questions for the record from a May 2, 2006 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI Oversight. The responses on diverse topics concerning FBI operations were completed in July, but were only cleared for release to Congress on November 30, and were recently published in a Committee hearing volume. See the FBI responses here (147 pages, 7 MB PDF).
In recent months, we’ve seen much of these decades’ worth of progress erased. Contracts for evaluations of government programs were canceled, FFRDCs have been forced to lay off staff, and federal advisory committees have been disbanded.
This report outlines a framework relying on “Cooperative Technical Means” for effective arms control verification based on remote sensing, avoiding on-site inspections but maintaining a level of transparency that allows for immediate detection of changes in nuclear posture or a significant build-up above agreed limits.
At a recent workshop, we explored the nature of trust in specific government functions, the risk and implications of breaking trust in those systems, and how we’d known we were getting close to specific trust breaking points.
tudents in the 21st century need strong critical thinking skills like reasoning, questioning, and problem-solving, before they can meaningfully engage with more advanced domains like digital, data, or AI literacy.