Background Five years of images from the front left hazard avoidance camera (Hazcam) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover were used to create this time-lapse movie. The inset map shows the rover’s location in Mars’ Gale Crater. Each image is labeled with the date it was taken, and its corresponding sol (Martian day), along with information about the rover’s location at the time.
Author: John Greenewald
Background Excerpt: According to Noah Webster, secret is defined as, “kept from public knowledge or from the knowledge of certain persons•and service is shown to be, employment, especially public employment. This is exactly what the original Secret Service was: an organization of spies which operated during the Civil War at the direction of the United States Government under the ultimate control of the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of State and then Secretary of War. This use of spies during times of confrontation between factions was not a new idea. In fact the idea may have had divine inspiration, as the…
Background The purpose of this policy is to establish a single source of policy information for FBI whistleblower protections and the conditions necessary to invoke the special protections afforded under the law. A whistleblower protection policy is necessary to ensure proper management understanding and compliance with applicable federal statutes, regulations, DOJ policy and FBI management practices. This policy sets forth the specific requirements under the law for whistleblower protections to apply to FBI employees, and clarifies the responsibility for reporting allegations of reprisal taken against any FBI whistleblower. This policy is applicable to all FBI employees. Persons not falling within…
Background The environmental literature recognizes the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the environmental policy development process. Stakeholders include a diverse set of individuals and organizations-local citizens and community groups, consumers, environmental groups, industry; individual companies, shareholders, all levels of government and tribes, etc. In turn, each of these will have various perspectives on environmental risk, priorities, costs and benefits, etc. One area of environmental policy that has not received a lot of emphasis in the past is technology innovation. Because of this, there is limited information on how one of these key stakeholders, industry, views environmental research and technology…
Background The National Archives and Records Administration is releasing documents previously withheld in accordance with the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. The vast majority of the Collection (88%) has been open in full and released to the public since the late 1990s. The records at issue are documents previously identified as assassination records, but withheld in full or withheld in part. The first release consists of 3,810 documents, including 441 formerly withheld-in-full documents and 3,369 documents formerly released with portions redacted. The Black Vault has archived the July release below, and has created a much easier index to use. The documents originated from FBI…