Contact governance is often framed as a problem of speed. Detect quickly. Interpret quickly. Respond quickly. The real problem may be the opposite.
If a higher-order signal enters through existing infrastructure, the first institution to act will have an enormous procedural advantage. That is exactly why a review structure is necessary. Someone has to be able to say not yet, and that power cannot belong only to the same operator, ministry, or model stack that first touched the signal.
The difficulty is that review boards look slow by design. They are meant to insert friction, redundancy, and hesitation into a process that everyone else will want to accelerate. Politically, that makes them look weak until the moment they become essential.
The first serious governance fight around contact may not be about meaning at all. It may be about whether anyone is allowed to stop a fast, confident, and institutionally convenient misread from turning into policy.