biochemwomdterror in dc

[Faustine]

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.