Tim wrote:
On Monday, August 27, 2001, at 05:39 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> TERRORIST ATTACKS Defense Department (DOD), Office of the Secretary of
> Defense (F.R. Page 42998) Meeting of the Advisory Panel To Assess the
> Capabilities for Domestic Response to Terrorist Attacks Involving
> Weapons of Mass Destruction, to run August 27-28. Location: RAND, 1200
> South Hayes St., Arlington, VA. 12 noon Contact: 703-413-1100, ext. 5282
>>I've been seeing Declan forward a bunch of these terse paragraphs
>>announcing these meetings. I never see any summaries of what was said.
>>Anyone ever attend? (If they're closed to the public or journalists, why
>>forward so many announcements of them?)
Why? Because you're making a tacit admission that the fact that the panel
is being conducted at all is significant--and has a good chance of making a
serious impact on future policy decisions. Since RAND is 100% responsible
for the real meat of any "assessment" going on, you might say the panel is
part of the mechanism by which analysis gets turned into actual policy and
legislation.
I choose to take this (and dozens of similar panels on widely diverse
subjects) as proof that RAND-style policy analysis is alive, well, and more
central to the policy process than ever. Call it a "pale imitation" of the
early days if you want to, but you have to admit you all aren't ignoring
it. And as far as I can tell, you damn sure won't be able to ignore it in
the years to come either.
Given that, maybe encouraging more cypherpunk-friendly people to take the
analysis route isn't such a bad idea after all.
~Faustine.
