From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 1996 09:22:34 +0800
To: hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Subject: Re: NRC Cryptography Report: The Text of the Recommendations
Message-ID: <9606012215.AA24993@rpcp.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 10:55 AM 6/1/96 -0700, watson@tds.com wrote:
>Anybody know who the NRC is and whether they have any influence with anyone?

        They have influence in that their reports have a fair amount of
credibility with the extra boost of NAS's "scientific authority." If one
wanted to distinguish what they do with what the OTA did for instance, one
could say that while the OTA generally had a very smart/competent staff (and
had a turbulent, poorly managed history and political troubles) the NRC has
the strength in that it is non-governmental and has the shroud of
"scientific neutrality" about it it could hope to pull from its parent
organization, the NAS.

        The NAS and NRC have interesting histories, the NAS was an honorary
society that had some fundings for it snuck into an appropriations bill back
in 1863, but generally it was not supported by the government aside from
specific "contract" studies which the Congress might ask for. The NRC (known
as the NDRC) was created as an advisory council under NAS to help the
government with munitions research and development during WWI. Since, they
conduct hoc scientific/policy studies to investigate a topic on Congress's
behalf. Their "Realizing the Information Future" that came out a couple of
years ago was highly regarded. 

For history on these topics I recommend:

Hunter Dupree, Sciene in the Federal Government: A History to 1940, Harper &
Row, 1974.

Bruce L. R. Smith, American Science Policy Since World War II, Brookings
Institution, 1990.

>From their WEB page:

National Research Council

   NRC Logo

   The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of
   Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and
   technology with the Academy's purposes of further knowledge and
   advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with
   general policies determined by the Academy, the National Research
   Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National
   Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in
   providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific
   and engineering communities. The National Research Council is
   administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine.
   Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is the chairman of the National Research Council.


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