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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."
partner=cmdrtaco
Googlefied NYT article for the No reg types
Ursula Andress, Catherine Deneuve, and Charo, twice...
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
The terms republic and democracy are not mutally exclusive. The US is both a republic and a representive democracy (where the voters elect representives to run the place).
Warning: Some ideologies on the Net are smaller than they appear.
Well, I just wanted to clear up that factual thing. Otherwise, I think your point about Bill Joy is an interesting one.
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
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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