Policymakers

The Office of Science and Technology employs just 40 people, down from roughly 130 under President Barack Obama. The president has yet to nominate a head for the office, or a chief technology officer. At 18F, a tech-consulting group for government agencies inside the General Services Administration, two to three staffers per month have departed since the election. Before the election, the department was adding roughly two employees a month, peaking at a little more than 200 employees overall.

“The swing there is about five employees per month, which after a few months you notice real quickly,” one former 18F engineer says. The Obama administration won rare bipartisan praise for bringing more technologists into government. It created the US Digital Service to improve delivery of government services; the agency helped save the troubled healthcare.gov website and digitized services such as veterans’ health records and the immigration review process. Now some fear such gains will be erased.

In a conversation with Peter J. Boyer of The Weekly Standard, Steve Bannon said, “I have my hands back on my weapons,” the most important being his conservative website, Breitbart News — a “machine” he promised to “rev up” for what the site’s editor-at-large Joel Pollak described in a hashtag on Twitter as “#War.” The reported target list included President Trump’s opponents “on Capitol Hill, in the media and in corporate America,” Bannon said. If Bannon does move forward with a rival to Fox News, he will face the herculean task required to get a new channel onto cable systems, especially as people increasingly give up cable for online streaming services. If he were to acquire an existing channel, he would still have to persuade cable operators to carry it as Breitbart TV. Bannon could team up with smaller competitors on cable, Newsmax or One America News Network. This much is certain: With Bannon out, expect more informational chaos, more sound and more fury, but signifying what?

[Commentary] These are not normal times. The man in the White House is reckless and unmanageable, a danger to the Constitution, a threat to our democratic institutions. Republicans and conservatives around the country should be just as concerned as Democrats about President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest, his campaign’s relationship with the Russians and whether he engaged in obstruction of justice. They should call him out when he sows division, when he dog-whistles, when he emboldens bigots. They should stand up for global human rights, for constructive engagement with the rest of the world and for other shared American values that transcend party allegiances.

Stephen K. Bannon, who left his post on Aug 18 as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, has resumed his role as chairman of Breitbart News, the provocative right-wing website that propelled him to national fame. Hours after his departure from the White House was announced, Bannon led the evening editorial meeting of his former publication, Breitbart said on its website. “The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” the editor in chief of Breitbart, Alex Marlow, said in a statement. Bannon’s previous tenure as chairman of Breitbart coincided with the site’s move to the epicenter of the nationalist brand of right-wing conservatism that swept Trump into office last year. His return to the site is likely to reinvigorate Breitbart’s role as a gathering spot for Trump’s most ardent populist supporters.

Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Donald Trump win the 2016 election but clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers, is leaving his post. “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,”said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”

Apparently, earlier on Aug 18, the president had told senior aides that he had decided to remove Bannon. But a person close to Bannon insisted that the parting of ways was his idea, and that he had submitted his resignation to the president on Aug. 7, to be announced at the start of this week. But the move was delayed after the violence in Charlottesville (VA). The loss of Bannon, the right-wing nationalist who helped propel some of President Trump’s campaign promises into policy reality, raises the potential for the president to face criticism from the conservative news media base that supported him over the past year.

In a letter announcing their resignation, several members of President Donald Trump's Committee on the Arts and Humanities called on him to step down as well if he can't vocally denounce white supremacy. The group cites Trump’s “un-American” comments on the violence in Charlottesville (VA) as the last straw for them, but they list multiple other controversies that the president has been involved in before the rally, including "undermining the Civil Rights Act" and his proposed cuts to arts funding.

The first letter of each paragraph in the letter spells out "resist," a reference to liberal efforts to counter Trump's agenda. "Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville," it reads. “The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed."

I have directed that United States Cyber Command be elevated to the status of a Unified Combatant Command focused on cyberspace operations. This new Unified Combatant Command will strengthen our cyberspace operations and create more opportunities to improve our Nation’s defense. The elevation of United States Cyber Command demonstrates our increased resolve against cyberspace threats and will help reassure our allies and partners and deter our adversaries. United States Cyber Command’s elevation will also help streamline command and control of time-sensitive cyberspace operations by consolidating them under a single commander with authorities commensurate with the importance of such operations. Elevation will also ensure that critical cyberspace operations are adequately funded. In connection with this elevation, the Secretary of Defense is examining the possibility of separating United States Cyber Command from the National Security Agency. He will announce recommendations on this matter at a later date.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency may have to find a new chief ventures officer. In June, Federal Communications Commission Chief Information Officer David Bray announced he would fill NGA’s role but changed his mind in recent weeks. “I’ve communicated to the NGA director earlier this week that I will be pursuing a different future career. A big thank you for everything that each of you do to help move FCC forward,” Bray said.

Instead, Bray will pursue private consulting roles in machine learning and data integration strategies, and will become the executive director of the People-Centered Internet, a coalition founded by tech icon Vint Cert. Bray initially accepted the position with NGA in early June, but later deferred his start date to late September after the “sudden arrival” of his adopted son. He has been on family leave since.

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly of the Federal Communications Commission says President Donald Trump was wrong to suggest there were some fine people amongst the racist and neo-Nazi protestors who sparked violence in Charlottesville (VA), and said he was "astounded" by the President's press conference on Aug 16.

"I was not available to comment previously," he said. "But I was just astounded when I got back to town to see what had happened and to see the [President's] press conference yesterday and the transcript from some of that." O'Rielly said he was troubled by the President's comment that there were fine people in both camps. "The President's point I think was wrong. I don't think there are fine people in some of these hateful groups. I don't think you can be a fine person in a hateful group. I don't think those things go together."

The Technology Policy Institute is pleased to announce John Horrigan has joined the Technology Policy Institute as a Senior Fellow. “We are thrilled to have John join TPI,” said TPI President Scott Wallsten. “He is the nation’s leading researcher of barriers to digital inclusion. Not only has he written extensively on this and other issues, his survey work has generated publicly-available data that others, in turn, have used to study many aspects of our digital lives. We look forward to helping John continue his steady production of thoughtful research and data.”

Horrigan was most recently a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, where he focused on libraries, technology, and communities as well as open data and open government. Prior to rejoining Pew Research Center in 2015, he served as research director for the development of the National Broadband Plan at the Federal Communications Commission. He is a nationally recognized expert on research into barriers to home broadband adoption and use, expertise cultivated as a consultant and in his first stint at Pew Research Center from 2000-2009. He has a PhD in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in economics and government from the University of Virginia.