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US Secrecy Efforts Hurting Scientific Research
EnlightenmentFan writes "The new, ultra-vague category "sensitive but unclassified" is being used to stop publication of research, according to this
NY Times article (Registration required, but it's free). Bruce Alberts (President, National Academy of Sciences), William A. Wulf (President, National Academy of Engineering), and Harvey V. Fineberg (President, Institute of Medicine) made a joint statement after bureaucrats declared a major NAS report on bioterrorism unpublishable."
Time to change the name to "People's Republic of the United States"...
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Are NY Times articles sensitive but unclassified? Is that why they require a logon?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
partner=cmdrtaco
Seems analagous to losing your virginity to a prostitute. It's an easy way of getting around to the ultimate goal, but in the end, leaves you quite unsatisfied. ...
Not speaking from personal experience of course
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Anyone read the Cookoo's Egg (by Clifford Stoll) lately? He briefly talks about "Sensitive but unclassified" and how it was a problem back then (read the book) when they LACKED such a definition, and the need for one.
So I guess there's another side to the arguement...who would've thought?
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Googlefied NYT article for the No reg types
Ursula Andress, Catherine Deneuve, and Charo, twice...
Any time you limit speech by placing restrictions on access to information you thus are classifying it. It does not matter that you do not stamp it TOP SECRET if you do not make the information available for public comment and use. This would also be a easy way to hide fraud and abuse from the public eye by making it a breech of ethics to release the information on frivolous but sensitive research.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
we just remove them! :)
I can see why the government might want to keep some of that research limited to the US. The government is doing what it believes to be in its (and in ours to some extent) interest. However, our responsibility is to demonstrate that it is not through whatever means are most appropriate. Im thinking something like civil disobedience or "leaks" would be the most appropriate in cases like this.
--Kevin
The most terrifying terrorist act is the threat of a terrorist act.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Bioterrorism Articles? i'm sure you could find some textfiles about it, not to knock textfiles.com or nuthin, but yeah, you could do a lotta damage with a little money and various internet resources /flame>
Stop The Terrorists!, Shut Down The Internet!, Think of the Children!
/flame>
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
There always will be information that is too sensitive for 'general' consumption, either because the posession of this information can cause harm in the wrong hands or because there is a choice between two 'bad' alternatives, where one of the two alternatives is worse and benefits from the suppression of the information.
Case in point, during WWII the British had knowledge ahead of time of the Germans plans for the bombing of certain towns in southern England. If they would have warned the locals of the impending attack they would have given away the fact that they had in fact breached the code that protected the high command's communications. So, they allowed the bombardments to continue without any kind of 'early' response in order not to tip their hands.
This knowledge has been kept secret until very recently...
MP3 Search Engine
the government stopping people from publishing things? Didn't the nazis do this?
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
That's ripe, ... a Canadian referring making a socialist joke about the US.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Reporter: "What has your research proven?"
Scientist: "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!"
Hey, that's not such a bad idea. All the US needs to do now is drop millions of publications of a classified research papers from the sky over any country they want, and soon, WORLD DOMINATION WILL BE OURS!
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The presidents of the National Academies said yesterday that the Bush administration was going too far in limiting publication of some scientific research out of concern that it could aid terrorists.
Specifically, they said, the administration's policy of restricting the publication of federally financed research it deemed "sensitive but unclassified" threatened to "stifle scientific creativity and to weaken national security."
The category of "sensitive but unclassified" was poorly defined, the presidents said in a "Statement on Science and Security in an Age of Terrorism."
"Experience shows that vague criteria of this kind generate deep uncertainties among both scientists and officials responsible for enforcing regulations," the statement said.
Indeed, the policy, experts said, had already resulted in the administration's withdrawing of thousands of reports and papers from the public domain.
The National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine were created by the federal government to advise it on scientific and technological matters. But the academies are private organizations; they do not receive direct federal financing, but appropriations from the federal agencies for whom they conduct their research.
The presidents' statement is at least partly a reaction to the institutions' own clash with the policy. Last month, the National Academy of Sciences published a report on agricultural bioterrorism over the objections of the Bush administration.
In publishing the report, the academy said, it hoped to help American scientists identify ways to bolster the nation's biological defenses.
"That's one example," said E. William Colglazier, the executive director of the National Academy of Sciences. "There are others."
The general problem, Mr. Colglazier added, "is not having clear guidelines about what constitutes this sensitive area, because people have different opinions on what should or shouldn't be included. Right now, it's vague and poorly defined. But it shouldn't be just in the eye of the beholder."
More broadly, the academy presidents said, the government should reaffirm a principle laid down in 1985 during the Reagan administration: that no restrictions are placed upon the conduct or reporting of federally financed fundamental research that is unclassified.
A successful balance between security and openness, the presidents said, "demands clarity in the distinctions between classified and unclassified research."
Yesterday's statement was signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences; William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering; and Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine.
Responding to the statement, Gordon D. Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, said: "We continue to work with the scientific community to strike the appropriate balance between national security information that must be held close and scientific information that should be available for research purposes."
The tensions began early this year as the Bush administration began taking wide measures to tighten scientific secrecy in hopes of keeping terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. In January, the administration quietly began withdrawing from public release more than 6,600 technical documents that dealt mainly with the production of germ and chemical weapons.
Then, in a memorandum to all governmental agencies on March 19, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, urged them to redouble security safeguards. Special attention, he said, should be paid to "sensitive but unclassified information."
The need to protect information from inappropriate disclosure, Mr. Card wrote, "should be carefully considered, on a case-by-case basis, together with the benefits that result from the open and efficient exchange of scientific, technical and like information."
Soon afterward, the National Academy of Sciences became entangled in the new policy. The administration asked that an unclassified report it was writing -- "Countering Agricultural Bioterrorism" -- be kept from the public. The report, a two-year, $400,000 study, was being prepared for the Department of Agriculture.
The report warned that inadequate inspections at the nation's borders and gaps in intelligence data on foreign plant and animal pathogens raise the chance that a terrorist armed with, say, the foot-and-mouth virus, could enter the country and spread diseases that might cripple the nation's livestock and plants.
After months of discussions, Dr. Colglazier said, the academy published the report in September. He said a few detailed examples of the threats to the nation's food supplies were removed from the published report and placed in an appendix that was not made public.
"We made our own decision" on what to remove, Dr. Colglazier emphasized.
In their statement yesterday, the academy presidents called for a dialogue among scientists, engineers, health researchers and policy makers to develop criteria for determining when to classify or restrict public access to scientific information.
Among their recommendations, they suggested that a determination be made of what research bears on possible new security threats. Principles for researchers, they said, need to address questions like whether some areas of currently unclassified research should be classified in the new security environment.
The academies, Dr. Colglazier said, "have recognized that it makes sense to restrict public access to some areas of sensitive information that is unclassified," like information about national infrastructures that could be disrupted by terrorist attacks.
"But the concern," he said, "is that there should be clear guidance on what information would fall into this category."
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
This is Action 5 reporter Mike Manlee, we are in front of the Metropolis Water Power Generation complex. In these times of terrorism, we want to inform the public of the possible target the power complex. We are informed that the Security guard takes his stroll around the complex at 5-7pm nightly, while the front desk would be un-supervised. This would be the perfect time for a terrorist to attack the power complex.
Back to you Dan.
-
Facts are stupid things. - Ronald Reagan
There are very few places where "security by obscurity" works to protect anyone but the bad guys. If I were a farmer, I might find that report of great personal interest. If I know of a security problem, I might be able to do something about it. Or at least knowing what's on my farm and its surroundings, to know exactly what kind of help to buy or ask for from the Feds. Some answers might be as close as one's county agricultural agent, if one knows what questions to ask.
Let's put it this way, how would you feel as a netadmin if BugTraq suddenly became "unclassified but sensitive"?
Should the "War on Terrorism" ever become more serious than "The War on Some Drugs", i.e. more than inconveniece for the average American and an excuse to peck away at more civil liberties of the sort that the terrorist also want to see disappear, the front line of the war starts where we are sitting, we're going to have to protect ourselves, and the most important defense in this kind of war is accurate information.
Information, i.e. the stuff that Big Brother has decided is none of the public business.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Plenty of other sites have the news. If the Times hides theirs, they just get fewer eyeballs. (I only buy them for the crossword puzzle anyway. News comes from Google.
It is quite obvious that the US government is trying to keep America on terrorist alert for as long as they can. By having the "terrorists" disrupting the American way of life in every area possible, ensures public support for the Bush war effort.
This is overkill!
Instant Karma's gonna get you - John Lennon
"Sensitive but unclassified" information is not all that new. When I received my initial security briefing in technical school for the U.S. Air Force in 1998, one of the first things we discussed was the nature of sensitive unclassified information. Basically, the category covers things that are not in and of themselves "Secret" or above, but could cause damage to U.S. and allied mission objectives if widely disseminated.
For example, the fact that a particular unit is being deployed to a particular overseas base is not classified. However, if combined with other information, it may enable a hostile nation or group to discover operational intentions, which is why we were "strongly encouraged" not to use open phone lines to discuss troop movement orders.
In some instances, treating certain pieces of unclassified data as sensitive actually helps to protect an individual's personal data. Information gathered by the U.S. Department of Defense on its personnel is covered by the Privacy Act of 1974, which does not inherently make it classified. However, because the data is sensitive, handling and transmitting it with increased care is beneficial for military personnel.
Although I am as upset as the next person (well, the next clueful person) about the gradual erosion of my rights as a citizen -- as a a matter of fact, I had to explain to my father just yesterday about the dangers of the DMCA, Senator Hollings, and the CBPTDA or CDBTPA or CATBAD or whatever the hell it's called -- I really do feel that this article was a bit of unfounded hysteria. The U.S. government, by dint of its mandate to defend the citizenry through its Executive Branch, is always going to have information that could potentially compromise its intelligence-gathering or war-fighting capabilities. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is acknowledge that fact and search for a story elsewhere.
They that would sacrifice their
This is a fallacy. Saudia Arabia, source of the WTC terrorists, is far from a poor country. Poor people have historically been pretty ineffectual except when they banded together in large groups with lots of help from rich people.
There is a _federally financed_ report on bio-terror.
The government doesn't want it published because some someone decided the data may be sensitive/dangerous. (for good reason? for bad reason? we don't know obviously).
There is your dilemma in a nutshell. Is this really a science story? This is a politics story and the person who submitted it had a very misleading lead-in for it. Here is one for you that doesn't imply censorship of private research. "Federal government halts publishing of federally financed report".
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
An important thing to keep in mind is that historically, before any "people's government" was overthrown to allow a dictator to take over, there were always some scapegoats of some sort. Hitler had the bombing of the building (I forget the name, sorry) and the Jews (the Jews are the cause of all of our problems!) and anyone not-aryan. Anyone remember what Caesar had? I only remember that he was declared dictator in a state of emergency, allowed under Roman law at that time.
:( Unfortunately, as much as I love freedom, it might well be what this country needs. A good bitch-slapping police state. Balance must be restored, as the old Jedi prophecy tells us, and before it can be restored, there must first be a period of darkness.
These are very trying times, and the dark cloud is almost upon us. Find Chancellor Palpatine in our own congress, and you will find the future of our country.
It's inevitable.
Lucas may just be milking for money, but the movies really do give an interesting view on the current state of affairs.
According to the NYT article, the report in question WAS eventually published for the public, just without some specific examples of weakensses cited in the agricultural distribution system (that was in a non-public version).
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Haven't we learned by now, that the terrorists already -have- the weapons of mass destruction they need? Faith in their government, ambition, and follow through.
So how much faith in your government, ambition, and follow through do you have?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It IS classified, its classified as sensitive, hence unplublishable.
... all the layers inside the N, i don't think they really make that much of a difference.
If i can't read it then its not available to the public, hence its classified. I don't care about thin layers of differentiation. For me, its a binary field, Can-Read (y/n)
The WHOLE point of terrorist attacks is to make ppl live in fear, terrified.
The attack/act/threat per-se is not the important thing.
That is why the attack on 09-11 (and the post anthrax threat) was SO effective, it shook ppl out of the safety they lived in into a world of terror. It "made" media blow things up out of proportion to feed that fear. More than 1000 times the deaths of the so called "anthrax threat" are killed every month in violent crimes in the US, so which one is a greater threat, and which one got more publicity, and which one made ppl afraid ?
Do you see it ?
His general point (I believe it was his...), that the dissemination and democratization of knowledge and modern technology has made possible super powered individuals who are able to leverage the kind of power that was previously only available to nations, rings true. When Clinton fired cruise missiles at Bin Laden, it was the first time that the US had shot missiles and bombed not a country, but an individual. The anthrax attacks appear to a another example of the intersection of powerful knowledge and destructive intent creating significant dangers and disruption.
Back on the topic of science and this article, I'm not advocating a system that is both useless and obstructing (which the system mentioned in this article might be). But I think we must think about some of these concerns in a reasonable way and think about if there are things to do and not to do which limit dangers while not obstructing useful scientific progress.
When will they learn that in almost no situations security-thtu-obscurity protects no one but the "bad" guys ?
That they will still get the exploitz ? that Saddam has scientists of his own not ? that the publishing of biothreats could make the public more aware to tho them and start taking steps to prevent them?
That it even could work in the gov's favour, like a guy thinking back and saying hmmm this description fits what the guy sitting beside on the plane back from ---- was carrying in his briefcase.
... bureaucrats declared a major NAS report on bioterrorism unpublishable.
Former Arthur Andersen emploees now work for the government. The shredders runs 24 hours a day to make sensitive reports unpublishable.
C'mon people. It's not that hard to use a stupid free registration. The Wall Street Journal has a subscription cost, the Economist has a subscription for some articles... NY Times doesn't HAVE to provide free media content, so don't blatantly disregard the law when it's so incredibly easy to follow.
The USA should be a free country. Just because we experience a terrorist attack, or any other attack we shouldn't have to give up our freedoms.
It sickens me when I heard politicians talking about how they would like to pass this bill or that bill to keep so and so crime from happening again. It is like they use the victim to get more support for laws... laws that don't need to exist. The exiting public agencies should take care of the problem by enforcing existing laws.
Case in point is when I heard a democrat saying we need to pass the bill that will make each gun get "fingerprinted". That would be a total waste of taxpayer money. Once you fire the gun a few times the print changes! They use recent cases like the shooter in Maryland to put more and more restrictions on us.
This article displays how it's used to keep information from getting out. There is a point where lawmakers should stop and think about what they are doing.
Ambition. It takes a lot of ambition to first off step up to the plate, then die so that you can receive the Martyr's reward.
Follow through... How many people do you know that'd plan to die for their religion? Their ideas? Then do it? Albeit you are dead, you did follow through with your plan.
But yes education may help, but is unlikely, if they are raised that way... Look at the various supremacy groups. By and large people think they are wrong, but they were raised that they were right, and everyone else is.
As for acquiring more lethal means to kill us, a report isn't going to help them get the means. Money is. And with enough people, you can easily raise enough money.
Then in the case of what happened over a year ago, it just took -ONE- millionaire (Bin Laden)
to cause enough damage.Who says one person can't change the world?
..., were America becomes supremely nationalist and 'glorious' in all it's travels?..
ehhh.... becomes?
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
so don't blatantly disregard the law when it's so incredibly easy to follow.
/. remember? A place frequented by IP thieves. It's part of the "culture" here. See comments in any article dealing with DRM or Software Piracy for more of the same.
Uh this is
Ursula Andress, Catherine Deneuve, and Charo, twice...
....PDB (Palm HanDbase) files that were online...the ones with all the locations, etc. of every Atomic/Nuclear power plant in North America? I made sure to grab my copy before they disappeared.
...actually, the US is more like a dictatorship and a nonrepresentative "democracy" (where big business electr representatives to run the place).
Are you allowed to withdraw things from PD, or is this another case of the US government abusing its power?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
As other people have mentioned, sensitive but unclassified is NOT new. But, no one has mentioned the checks and balances in place - namely the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It's a tool for use by citizens who can request information the federal agencies have not made public. The information is reviewed and some information is not released. I'm guessing that one of the reasons for this category is the additional costs for something to be handled as classified (assumption on my part). Relating it to something most people here are familiar with, computer networks. Would you want someone to have a list of all of your users, their habits, background information on their family, etc? The passwords could be considered "secret", but the other information isn't. An attacker could definitely use the other information to break into your network. It isn't practical to keep the other information "secret", but you can at least tell people not to make a directory containing all that information and send it to the NY Times. Other good examples of sensitive information are unlisted phone numbers, SSNs, etc. This story is just more media hype. Keith
Why cant the government have a committee consisting of
1. Eminent technical/scientific personalities - say from Universities
2. Representatives of organisations like EFF/OSF
3. Government representatives
to decide whether a particular research result is publishable or not? It is unfair to say that an important result that the world should know about, is placed into a folder and sealed for generations. Universities should have a free will. But then again, given the funding that the gov provides universities, they are bound to act partial towards the government, instead of the research community worldwide. What a pity?
"Do something man. Right now."
This is not new and it didn't appear yesterday. The sensitive but unclassified data has been around since the end of WWII. Well, it was here before that, but the mood turned crazy after this time. There have been lots of incidents where certain organisations or people used and abused the tactics of information control. In certain cases the incident ended in brutal assassinations of journalists, experts and other people. Such incidents could be frequently seen in Asia, Africa and Latin America during the 60's, 70's and 80's. No I am not talking about wars and coups, but about the secret experiments in certain countries, the secret american base in ex-Zaire, the defoliation in Vietnam, certain aspects of CIA activities in Central America during the Contra's War. We can even note the victims of a few nuclear incidents in ex-USSR, most of them, results of experiments. While a good part of these activities had a top-secret level, other details could not be covered by secrecy (unless you consider people like the Agent Orange victims top secret items). However, agencies tried hard to cover its tracks. Sometimes, in a very harsh manner.
But even Europe was not exempt of such situation. There is a mistery story about some major soviet expert on nuclear war that suddenly vanished in South Europe after a major scientific congress on the effects of Nuclear Winter. For years, no one and nobody could guess where this guy went to. He vaporised in such way, that both soviet and westerners constantly blamed each other for his vanishment. Some may think this was another Cold War incident. However, this guy seems to had worked on a more perfect model to represent the consequences of a major nuclear war. This work was not secret nor confidential and it seems that he was about to show it to everyone in that congress. However someone made him disappear before he could do it.
I wonder what will happen if the vague term "sensitive" becomes an official member of the secrecy levels. We could see such thing like: "Well we could tell you the number of victims of unsuccessful nuclear experiment but that's highly sensitive information."
You can't fix it if some nut job nukes NY or London.
And any sort of classification of military or national security secrets is by definition "security through obscurity".
The reason "security through obscurity" doesn't work for software or CDs is that there are literally millions upon millions of copies of the products for crackers to work on.
That's usually not the case with data any government wants to keep secret.
While CNN provides How-to instructions on making a dirty bomb.
Ok time to move.
| - | - |
I think Bill Joy goes to far as well. The type of information we are talking about is basic science and technology, not specific stuff. The article is really more talking about having clear guidlines of what to publish and what not. Given clear distictions, which the field experts are more qualified to make than the government, people will intelligently self-censor just like we already do with system security issues. That is what happened in the case cited in the article. They pulled a few specific examples to an unpublished appendix. I'm sure that if you have a need to know (i.e. you are in a role where you might encounter the specific threat), you will be able to get the appendix too.
What Joy is proposing is essentially security through obscurity, and it is a losing proposition. All the social progress that has been made comes from openness, not fear. What is important is that people pay attention to what knowledge is being used for, and what people around you are up to. If a 'fundamentalist' of any stripe can learn a destructive technology without anyone ever talking person to person deeply enough to get a real sense of the them, then there is great danger.
What this bungled attempt to censor scientific publishing shows clearly is that the administration does not understand that terrorism and protecting ourselves from it is a social problem, not a technical one. You have to trust that most people are well meaning and intelligent enough to contribute to the solution. We all have the same goal, but there is disagreement about methods.
The FBI doesn't even trust other government agencies enough to share critical information. Their culture is so broken that it is disfunctional, and it is clear to everyone, but nothing happens to change it. It sure would be refreshing to see the director of the FBI say, "We might have been able to stop this. We failed, I'm sorry". I'd trust someone who said this to actually try to fix the problem.
Three of the most-respected US scientists--the heads of three groups that "were created by the federal government to advise it on scientific and technological matters"--have come out with some important and clearcut advice. Let me quote from the story:
Here is what I see as the heart of the story: If researchers know that anonymous bureaucrats can block publication on any grounds they choose, you are going to see self-censorship that is more dangerous than any external censorship could be. Young researchers especially will stay away from "sensitive" areas, because they have a lot to lose if their work disappears into some bureaucratic black hole.
The reporter suggests the statement reflects "at least partly" some trouble over a government-financed report about bio-terror.The NAS spokesman denies that report is the issue.
If the government paid for this research, why can't they suppress it? Most important scientific research is paid for by government--that is, by taxpayers--with the idea that the result of this research could benefit the public. As a taxpayer, I don't want bureaucrats left free to hide any results that don't suit them. I paid for that research, and I'm entitled to know what it said unless there's some very clear reason to keep it secret. Most privately-funded research (Viagra anyone?) is already secret.
"Is this really a science story?" Some major science guys are calling attention to a government policy that hurts science and scientists directly, and the public only indirectly. But I suppose if you consider any criticism of government on any grounds to be political....
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
A perfect demonstration why "sensitive but unclassified" is nonsense.
You don't give any reason why given information should be "sensitive but unclassified", instead you give an example of an information which is not classified, but probably should be.
When it's sensitive enough to cause damage when published, then is should be classified. If the current classification system is not enough, then it should be improved. And when it's not sensitive enough, then it should be public. Once we allow partially-classified information class, it's obvious the gov will try to put everything there, thus controlling all information. `1 + 1 = 2' can be sensitive too -- what if some terrorists don't know it yet.
Life is the slowest way to death.
It's sad, sad, sad when an individual like you takes his 'proper training' from the theology of Slashdot.
Now, go bleat 'security through obscurity is baaaaaad' some more.
which may be the oz view of freedom?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
form a commitee. It'll be like the UN. And just as useful.
I heard Henry Fineberg speak at the University of Minnesota and he told that us that himself, the other authors, and the federal government reached a compromise where the report on agricultural bioterrorism will be published, but sections containing detailed examples of the means of bioterrorism will be left out. Those sections left out will be available to people who contact the Department of Agriculture and request the information. They, of course, must need the information and have a no-red flag background.
Salis
Favorite
Well, there is correlation but not causation there. Basic Macro, the sort we teach to the undergrads, tells us that lowering taxes raises GDP. Reality isn't quite that tidy, but no-one would expect a tax cut to do anything other than reduce the severity of a recession.
Here's the point: the recession, and the busted budget, were coming. They were going to hit no matter what the current administration did. The Bush2 taxcuts lessened the severity of the recession, and might have REDUCED the extent of the deficit [1]. There is a reason they call it the business cycle! If any politician is going to be assigned credit/blame for the timing of the current trough in the cycle, it would have to be one of his predecessors.
There is absolutely nothing an administration can do that is more harmful to national security than to use security classifications for political ends. Unfortunately it is very hard to believe this government when it says 'trust me'.
All very true. All that cynicism wasn't built in a day. Again, Bush2 (and all of us) is reaping the harvest sowed by his predecessors in that office.
Unfortunately, this isn't a Republican or Democratic problem; this is a US problem. We have allowed our government to get away with a lot of secrecy and thus a lot of wrongdoing in the name of National Security. When my parents were young, It was the Germans and the Japanese. Then it was the Godless Commies. For a while it was the War on Drugs. Now it's Rogue States and Terrorists. All very real, and all very convenient for the well intentioned folks who think it would be so much easier to do their jobs if it weren't for the citizens asking all those pesky questions. Convenient, also, for the people who are trying to cover up deliberate malfeasance.
[1] It might also have increased the deficit. I haven't tried to estimate the effects. The point is that it is equally rediculous to ascribe either effect to it.
See what I've been reading.
Sometime in the last 60's or early 70's (?) there was research into the relative effiency of innovation and R&D in the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I believe the research was conducted in response to similar concerns about some research being sequestered in the U.S.
While there were many causes cited, one of the most significant conclusions of the paper was that the U.S. was far more efficient because of the openness of the U.S. R&D community. Specifically, that U.S. military research could benefit significantly by adopting a "no secrets" approach. (As you might imagine, that was quite controversial within the DoD community.) And, while the Soviet Union led in certain areas, cross-discipline pollination suffered, as did application.
All this should be intuitively obvious to anyone who's watched ideas spread and grow, which fosters a virtuous cycle, which is inhibited by secrecy. I'm sure other research has been done in this area by now, but this was the first time (at least that I know of) that it was taken beyond the "inutitively obvious" stage.
I can't find the paper on the web (my paper copy disappeared long ago), and I don't remember who conducted or sponsored the research, but the findings caused quite a stir and debate which is why I remember it. If anyone out there has a solid reference, I'd very much appreciate it. Thanks.
I haven't seen it mentioned, but this is a Reagan era classification created by Former Admiral John Poindexter (of Iran-Contra scandal fame). Poindexter was hired back into the government by the current administration in February of this year as the new head of the Information Awareness Office. It's no surprise that this label is being misused again.
Good information about this at Dubya Report, Citizen Times and DS Star
How long for a new iron curtain betwen USA and the rest of the world? :) Are we about to see a major North American firewall alike China in the forge? The question in everyones mind is: how far can the current administration in the USA can go?
P.S: War on Terrorism? Nah.. I smell oil
How about write a novel about International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspecters in Iraq, and include as part of the novel all the hard information you would need to build a nuclear device (and everything from enrichment processes to actual weapons designs found by the fictional detectives in the book). In line with the Supreme Court's generally accepted test of "having political, artistic, or scientific value" it seems that the government could not censor it outright....
;).
Or...
How about a near-future sci-fi featuring LIDAR-based ant-aircraft tracking systems (fully designed of course) coupled with high-wattage anti-aircraft LASER batteries. The beauty of this is that it would be prior art and preempt any patents on the matter
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Just to emphasize what you're saying, according to the CIA World Factbook, both life expectancy at birth and infant mortality are significantly worse in Saudi Arabia than Palestinians in the occupied West Bank . The average oppressed Palestinian can expect to live four years longer than the average Saudi and Saudi babies have twice the infant mortality rate of Palestinian ones. Things are even worse in Egypt, where Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's personal physician and tutor in terrorism and militant Islamic fundamentalism, was born and raised.
While it's true that most of the Islamic Terrorists in the news came from privileged middle-class or wealthy families, they come from countries with tremendous gaps between the rich and poor, and this gap has been found to be one of the best statistical indicators of the level of violence within a society.
...and you know that any data file on Palm is PDB. In this case, the data file is used with HandDbase. C'mon...you can do a better flame than that.
It's not so much the registration, which, as you've pointed out, is free.
...over and over and over again.
It's the fact that the cookie expires in 24 hours, and you have to log in over and over and over again, and the login sends the password in cleartext because they don't use SSL, so you have to have a different password for every service that does this to make sure that one is not compromised by the cleartext of another, and then you have to remember the damn things
They want a registration? Fine. Make the fricking cookies last 10 years, and people will quit bitching.
-- Terry
Thank you for some references to back up my argument that things are not peachy in Saudi Arabia.
One thing to consider: Is it so unusual that many of the publicly recognized terrorists would come from middle class backgrounds? One only has to look inward (I'm in the US) to see that many of those who are politically active, and dare I say, adopting more extreme views are young college students. Many of the protests of the Viet Nam engagement happened there. More recently we can look at the WTO protests in Seattle - while many of the protesters looked rather impoverished, I would say quite a few of them were college students.
So, maybe it isn't so unusual that this would take place elsewhere and in different conditions. Possibly, it makes more sense that someone with a little more affluence would be more politically active and more engaged in a cause - they've met their basic needs (Maslov) of food, shelter, and safety. As they become more aware of the world, they begin to satisfy the needs of belonging, esteem, and even self-actualization through their political activity.
I've been logged in with them for MONTHS, dude.
a simple 'host -l su' does the trick...
O.K. Let's make a list of areas of science that are too dangerous for terrorists to know about.
I'll start with my two biggest areas of concern:-
1:- Fire
2:- Calculus
If you're not allowed to tell someone that a truck is headed at them, all you end up with is a more surprised victim.
I really think that this is an issue that we ran into with the cryptography restrictions. Research is protected speech. period.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
The infant moratality rates in Afghanistan soard after women were cut off from medical care under the Taliban, but that was "Allah's will". Neither the Taliban or Al Qaeda gave a flying fuck what thier policies did for the quality of life for the people. Thier concern was to insure that the people weren't seduced by the temptations that would lead to Hell, to protect the next life, not this one.
Al Qaeda's problem with the Royal Family is that some of it's members use the money to lead "wanton impure lives", that the royal women change out of thier Islamic dress on Planes flying out of the Kingdom, that the princes drink alcohol and chase the "western harlots" while they are outside the Kingdom.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Fear Mongering + Uninformed (Uneducated) Society = Control
Control + Force = Access to resources
Access to resources = Power
Power = Ignorance
Ignorance = American government
Veni, vidi, vici.
Other than the vagueness of the definitions, the concept of restricting publication of scientific articles for national security purposes isn't anything new. In the 1940's, there were a number of papers relating to radar and nuclear weapons that could have been published in US-based journals, but which were suppressed until the end of WWII. Sometimes it's a good idea. One of the problems now, however, is it's not clear there will be any "end" to the "war" that would allow these "sensitive" things to be published again!
Energy: time to change the picture.
If this sniper wanted to kill people as his primary goal then why would we not have thousands dead? It is terrorism by its very tactic, regardless of the source behind it (meaning Al'Qaeda or not) Stop living in fear like animals and be humans.
What really get me is this sniper. Hes killed almost a dozen, maybe more by tonight because i dont follow it every day.
Yeah, and about 40 people murded with guns every day in the united states. His shootings aren't even a blip in the statistic.
And jesus christ if they are going to be that safe they better not get NEAR a car.
A-Fucking-Men.
We could have a 9/11 event once each year and still be 17 times more likely to die in a car accident than by an act of terror. But of course we aren't have a 9/11-style attack each year.
These people are hateful, and they can scare us. Hatred, determination, and ruthlessness are appropriate in finding and exterminating such vermin,. so long as it is done within the law and within the consitution. Fear is neither reasonable or appropraite, as these people really can't do us any signficant materia harm (though we certainly can and are hurting outselves by behaving so irrationally). Fear is what is allowing our government to abridge the constitution in such an irresponsible manner with hardly a voice raised in protest, and what allows a congress to capitulate with hardly a debate in giving the president unilateral power to wage war, with no formal declaration, no accountability to the UN, nothing.
Fear. It isn't just the great mind killer, it is the great Democracy Killer, starting right here at home.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The very existence of e=mc^2 is a testament to the benefit of releasing scientific research. Einstein did not recognize the harmful possibilities until much later, however the progress it provided was amazing. A fundamental shift in the understanding of physics occured.
I don't mean to take away from your point, but I don't think relativity has had a significant impact on our current non-military technology, beyond nuclear power, which is only roughly about 10% of the world's power supply anyhow.
Table-ized A.I.
...what I wanted to because
"reproduction in any form is FORBIDDEN by federal law"
(actually the ABOVE line should be all capitalized but
SlashDot's "Lameness filter" prevented a faithful
reproduction of a Federal Warning)
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
Indeed.
One of the handful of times that I agreed with the first Bush was his comment during the primary debates with Reagan when he called it "Voodoo Economics". It was then, and it is now.
What Reagan and Congress did the in the 1980s was to drive up the deficit to unconscionable levels.
With the current environment of tight sound monetary policy every one of us taxpayers and citizens will end up subsidizing the 1980s by increased taxes and/or less services in the future.
It used to be that only wartime emergencies justified such a binge.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
"We recognize that it makes sense to allow the Government to sodomize us whenever they like, we're just concerned that there's no clear guidance on what types of lubricant they should use.
This is my World Wide Web of Whatever
Do you fear falling in the bathtub while taking a shower and cracking your head open so much that you stop taking showers?
Do you fear that a passing asteroid could wipe out the planet at any moment?
Do you fear that the sun won't rise tomorrow?
No? Didn't think so.
Hmmm, let's see, we tried to impeach Clinton because he lied about getting a blowjob.
King George stole the election, is lying to the American public about the threat posed by a certain middle-eastern country, is locking up American citizens without charging them of a crime and denying them access to legal counsel, and now he's looking to censor security documents that the public paid for and could use to help secure themselves, or at least educate themselves as to the risks.
Could someone tell me why we haven't started impeachment hearings against this warmonger? Didn't we declare our independence from him a little over 200 years ago?