Podcast appearances and mentions of daniel schuman

Nicolle Wallace discusses Donald Trump's first major international trip to Saudi Arabia while he faces scrutiny from all sides over his administration's plan to accept a luxury jet from Qatar to be used as Air Force One, his deal with China on tariffs, the growing backlash over his extreme immigration policies, his hostile takeover of the Library of Congress, and more.Joined by: Senator Chris Murphy, Sam Stein, Luke Broadwater, David Gura, Daniel Schuman, Rep. Joseph Morelle, Lee Gelernt, Matt Dowd, Charlie Sykes, and Pablo Torre.

Daniel Schuman joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about his career as a government transparency advocate and his role at the American Governance Institute, where they're working to make a more efficient and transparent government.

The General Services Administration is gathering feedback on how to make the federal government more open to the public. It's getting some of its recommendations from the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee. A mix of federal officials and good government groups serve on the committee, which recently held its first meeting. For a closer look at its work, Federal News Network's Jory Heckman spoke with the committee's chairman and executive director of the American governance Institute, Daniel Schuman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The General Services Administration is gathering feedback on how to make the federal government more open to the public. It's getting some of its recommendations from the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee. A mix of federal officials and good government groups serve on the committee, which recently held its first meeting. For a closer look at its work, Federal News Network's Jory Heckman spoke with the committee's chairman and executive director of the American governance Institute, Daniel Schuman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The topic of this episode is, “Can Congress access classified information?”My guest is Daniel Schuman. He is the Policy Director at Demand Progress, a grassroots, nonpartisan organization that has worked to improve the legislative branch and to make government more transparent to the public. Daniel also is the editor of the First Branch Forecast, an extraordinarily informative newsletter that you can read and subscribe to at no cost at https://firstbranchforecast.com/.We last spoke with Daniel on episode 8 of this podcast, where he enlightened us on the process by which Congress funds itself. This time around, we will dig into the subject of Congress and classified information.Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It's a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be, and that is why we are here to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I'm your host, Kevin Kosar, and I'm a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington DC.Daniel, welcome to the podcast.Daniel Schuman:Thanks so much for having me.Kevin Kosar:I suppose we should start by defining our subject matter: classified information. Pardon the vanity here, but I'm going to refer to a report I wrote some years ago for the Congressional Research Service, where I defined classified information as "information or material designated and clearly marked or clearly represented, pursuant to the provisions of a statute or Executive order (or a regulation or order issued pursuant to a statute or Executive order), as requiring a specific degree of protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security (50 U.S.C. 426(1))." How's that for clarity?Now, let's make this a little more clear. Classified information, put really simply, is government information that only certain people in the executive branch can see. Is that roughly correct?Daniel Schuman:Yeah, it's roughly right. There are folks inside the legislative and judicial branches who have a right to have access as well. And as your excellent report actually indicated, there're two major ways in which you get classification. One is by statutory authority, which is what we did largely for atomic information. Then there's everything else, which was just sort of made up by the President through executive order. But as a general rule, 99.9%—or something pretty close to that—people with access to classified information are people inside the executive branch.Kevin Kosar:Okay, so a listener might be hearing this and saying, “Wait a minute, isn't this inherently problematic for representative government? We, the people, elect the people who are supposed to make the laws and the people who make the laws are supposed to oversee the executive branch, which executes the laws. But if stuff's classified and the public can't see it and people in Congress generally can't see it, do we lose accountability? What do you think?Daniel Schuman:We absolutely do. There're two concepts worth separating. One is whether you have the technical right to see certain information, and the other is whether you actually have the means to see it.Members of Congress and...

How will so-called "generative AI" tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT change our politics, and change the way we interact with our representatives in democratic government? This episode features three segments, with:Kadia Goba, a politics reporter at Semafor and author of a recent report on the AI Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives;Micah Sifry, an expert observer of the relationship between tech and politics and the author of The Connector, a Substack newsletter on democracy, organizing, movements and tech, where he recently wrote about ChatGPT and politics;Zach Graves, executive director of Lincoln Network, and Marci Harris, CEO and co-founder of PopVox.com, co-authors with Daniel Schuman at DemandProgress of a recent essay in Tech Policy Press on the risks and benefits of emerging AI tools in the legislative branch.

For all of its talk about transparency and accountability, Congress itself has a ways to go on these matters. Lately, a group called the congressional data Task Force has expanded its own charter. This as the House moves to fund some overdue technology updates. For what's going on, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to the Policy Director of Demand Progress Daniel Schuman.

The topic of today's episode is, “How does Congress fund itself?” My guest is https://twitter.com/danielschuman (Daniel Schuman). He is the Policy Director at https://demandprogress.org/team/daniel-schuman/ (Demand Progress), a grassroots, nonpartisan organization with over 1.5 million affiliated activists fighting for the rights and freedoms needed for a modern democracy. Daniel has spent many years studying our national legislature, working to reform it, and advocating to better fund it. He also is the editor of the First Branch Forecast, an extraordinarily informative newsletter that you can read and subscribe to at no cost at https://firstbranchforecast.com/ (https://firstbranchforecast.com/). 

The pandemic has scrambled operations of Congress no less than any other governmental entity. Members have had online hearings and meetings by the thousands. But the only remote voting allowed was by proxy. Now the House administration committee has confirmed that a technology for secure, full remote voting exists. One person urging this move for a long time is the policy director at Demand Progress. Daniel Schuman joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to talk more.

To keep legislative work from grinding to a halt because of the pandemic, several good-government groups have called on Senate leadership to adopt remote voting that the House has considered, but isn't yet doing. For more on that idea, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with the policy director for Demand Progress, Daniel Schuman.

As the pandemic drags on, House leadership is pushing a rules change to allow members to vote in-person on behalf of members not there. But some say that plan doesn’t go far enough and have pushed to hold votes, hearings and markups through online video platforms. To test the idea, former members of Congress and good-government groups tried mock hearings. For more Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with Marci Harris, the CEO and co-founder of PopVox. But first you’ll hear from the policy director at Demand Progress, Daniel Schuman.

On April 16, former members of Congress participated in a "Mock Remote Hearing" via Zoom to test the viability of online congressional proceedings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Former General David Petraeus testified, along with representatives from Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other experts; a Member of the UK Parliament testified about how the UK Parliament is innovating to meet the demands of social distancing. Margaret Taylor talked with former Congressman Brian Baird—who chaired the mock hearing—and Daniel Schuman, a lawyer, technologist and government transparency advocate who testified. They talked about Congress’s rather timid efforts so far to innovate in the age of social distancing, and ways Congress could continue to do hearings, markups and floor votes in a live, digital, remote format. They talked about the constitutional underpinnings of remote work by Congress and the importance of robust legislative and oversight work in a representative democracy—especially in the midst of a national crisis.

Join us as Daniel Schuman, Pastor of North Church in Albuquerque, delivers a sermon about faith.

The founding fathers could never have imagined the technologies that drive today's United States. Many current members of Congress still don't get it. But a lot is happening and happening fast on that front. Joining Federal Drive with Tom Temin in studio, Zach Graves, policy chief at the Lincoln Network and Daniel Schuman, policy director at Demand Progress, had the latest details.

Once upon a time, there was something called the Office of Technology Assessment, charged with the critical if unenviable task of educating members of congress about issues related to technology. Since that seems like a pretty good thing to have, recently some people have been pushing to re-establish the office. This week, we're joined by two of those people — Daniel Schuman from Demand Progress and returning guest Zach Graves from the Lincoln Network — for a discussion about bringing back the OTA.

Building Tomorrow isn’t in the business of encouraging government bloat, but in this episode we consider whether, sometimes, eliminating a government agency might be a penny wise, pound foolish decision. In particular, Paul and Will are joined by Zach Graves and Daniel Schuman as they discuss proposals to resurrect the Office for Technology Assessment, which had advised Congress on tech policy until getting the axe in the mid-1990s. Just as the Congressional Budget Office provides ostensibly non-partisan estimates of the cost of proposed legislation, the OTA would provide non-partisan reports weighing the costs and benefits of tech related legislation.Do we lobby more than we use to? Why do employees leave their work at Capitol Hill? What is the purpose of executive orders? Which Congressional agencies focus on technology policy? What is the economic cost of not having privacy legislation now? How much power does the Congressional Budget Office have?Further Reading:How Congress Got Dumb on Tech—and How It Can Get Smart, written by Grace GedyeInside GAO’s Plan to Make Congress More Tech-Savvy, written by Jack CorriganMomentum builds for Congress restoring Office of Technology Assessment, written by Jory HeckmanHouse members call for Office of Technology Assessment revival, written by Katherine Tully-McManusRelated Content:Decentralization and Privacy Are Inevitable — in Tech and in Government, written by Aaron Ross PowellEmerging Tech (with Matthew Feeney), Free Thoughts PodcastOn Innovation: Don’t Ask for Permission, Building Tomorrow Podcast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Congress killed off the Office of Technology Assessment in the mid-90s but several lawmakers have taken the first step toward bringing it back. The House Appropriations Committee, in a draft of one of its spending bills, looks to give OTA a 6 million dollar budget for fiscal 2020. Daniel Schuman is the policy director of Demand Progress and a former attorney at the Congressional Research Service. He told Federal News Network's Jory Heckman what OTA could use those funds for if approved.

As Congress starts the appropriations process for fiscal 2020, one of the questions it's facing is how much to spend on the legislative branch itself. And after years of funding cuts, a coalition of good government groups and former members of Congress say it's long past time for lawmakers to start investing in the Article I branch's institutional capacity. One of the authors of a new letter to the House Appropriations Committee, Daniel Schuman, the policy director at Demand Progress, talked to Federal News Network's Jared Serbu about it. Hear more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

We know from the Snowden leaks that the NSA and other intelligence agencies are watching us. But who watches the watchers? Congress is responsible for overseeing intelligence practices, but is it doing its job effectively? A growing number of experts thinks not. What can be done to strengthen oversight and protect journalists and whistleblowers? Nathan Leamer, Outreach Manager at the R Street Institute, and Daniel Schuman, Policy Director at Demand Progress, join the show to discuss. For more, see their report.

What do citizens need to know when they publicly address legally challenging or dangerous topics? Journalists have always had the privilege, protected by statute, of not having to reveal their sources. But as more investigative journalism is conducted by so-called amateurs and posted on blogs or websites such as Wikileaks, what are the legal dangers for publishing secrets in the crowdsourced era? We convene an engaging group law scholars to help outline the legal challenges ahead, suggest policies that might help to protect citizens, and describe what steps every civic media practitioner should take to protect themselves and their users. David Ardia is director of the Citizen Media Law Project which provides legal resources for those involved in online journalism and citizen media. Daniel Schuman is the policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation, where he helps develop policies that further Sunlight’s mission of catalyzing greater government openness and transparency. Moderator: Micah Sifry is a co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum. Co-sponsor: The MIT Center for Future Civic Media