Understanding Our Government – serie

Created in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency plays an important part in the nation's intelligence activities, and is currently playing a vital role in the war on terrorism. While the agency is often in the news and portrayed in television shows and films, it remains one of the most secretive and misunderstood organizations in the United States. This work provides an in-depth look into the Central Intelligence Agency and how its responsibilities affect American life.After a brief history of the agency, chapters describe its organization, intelligence/counterintelligence, covert operations, controversies, key events, and notable people.

The Environmental Protection Agency is a young and dynamic federal agency facing the challenges of modern environmental protection. The political controversies and social impacts of the agency are immense, involving courts, legislatures, and elected officials, and the effects of its actions are far reaching, affecting every single person in the United States.After a brief history of the agency, chapters describe its organization, programs, controversies, key events, notable people, and impact on society. Topics covered include the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Three Mile Island, and The Clean Air Act, as well as biographies on administrators Carol Browner, William Ruckelhaus, and Anne M. Gorsuch.

In its more than seventy years of existence, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has emerged as one of the most important and controversial agencies in the United States government. As an independent regulatory commission, the FCC possesses an expansive legislative mandate to formulate a national communications policy. Using its authority, the FCC has done such far-reaching things as setting rates for long distance telephone service, creating rules and standards for broadcast programming, writing regulations for providers of cable television and information services, and, in recent decades, introducing competition in virtually every sector of the communications industry. As the FCC has gone about implementing its statutory mandate, it has frequently been the target of criticism by interest groups and members of Congress. Even these critics, however, would have a hard time imagining how a task as complicated as the formulation of a national telecommunications policy could be accomplished without the expertise and full time attention of an agency such as the FCC.The first work to integrate detailed information on the FCC as an organization—its politics, key policy initiatives, and legal issues—offers students, researchers, and general readers alike easy access to an array of topics related to the FCC. Chapters discuss the agency's origins, organization, programs, controversies, notable people, and significant court cases. Topics include the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Michael Powell, Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, the Fairness Doctrine, telephone-cable competition, and indecency. A comprehensive annotated bibliography lists sources for further research.