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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
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?
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http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
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)"
The most terrifying terrorist act is the threat of a terrorist act.
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Crudely Drawn Games
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
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
The problem is not existance of sensitive information, the problem is who and how defines what is sensitive. Everybody (well, most) are OK with existance of classified information (created by military or intelligence, as in your case). But when not classified information (i.e. one that was obtained without access to any military secrets or other classified info) becomes "sensitive" and prohibited from publishing, this is an issue.
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
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?
Unfortuantely, for many academic institutions, even private ones, federal funding provides a significant chunk of operating revenue (at my school, a major private research university, it's 25% or so).
If the feds didn't like what you were publishing, maybe it couldn't censor it directly without going to great legal lengths, but what it could do and probably would do is withhold federal funding. That would mean financial disaster for any institution. It's almost virtual financial blackmail.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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 ?
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 problem here is not that the government classifies material for national security, but the 'sensitive, but unclassified' categorization and attempts to browbeat the independent scientific community into not publishing results.
I'm not so sure about this. It is true that Saudi Arabia has a vast oil wealth and generates a great deal of income. But this money is hoarded by the royal family and their close associates. The common man, on the other hand, lives a rather poor and meager existence.
It doesn't help when all these poor, unhappy people see their rich princes and king associating so much with the West, and particularly the US. It isn't a hard case to make; "you're miserable because the royal family is hoarding the money - see, they have been corrupted by the contact with the West".
I realize that the Saudi hijackers from 9/11 were mostly well-off and not particluarly poor. But, I would imagine that most of the "foot soldiers" of groups like the Taliban and Al Qua'ida are coming from very poor situations, and they can easily (at least in their minds) trace the cause of their poverty to the US and the West.
Their poverty not a valid reason to kill people, and I'm not in any way justifying their acts of terrorism. But it's very important to try to understand what THEY see as a valid reason and justification.
Going back to Saudi Arabia and its wealth... That country (and much of the region) is only one tech-revolution away from being destitute. Once somebody figures out how to economically use hydrogen, or develops a workable fusion reactor, the need for oil as a a fuel source will quickly diminish, and much of the Middle East will lose its relevance in a geopolitical sense. Of course, we'll (probably) always need petroleum for lubrication, petro-chemicals, plastics and some fuel, but definitely not in the volumes it is produced and consumed now.
In that situation, you'll have even more destitute people who will have old hatreds of the West, which will only be fueled by its prosperity and affluence.
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
I think that the underlying problem is that many people are now as cynical of government motives as during the Watergate crisis.
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'.
They said 'trust me' over the tax cut which would not break the budget, guess what it did. Then again it still claims that the names of the energy companies that paid to take part in Dick Cheney's 'energy taskforce' are privilleged.
Federal government research that is inconvenient to the administration simply disappears.
I am less worried by this report than the fact that the director of the CIA is unable to support the claims made by the administration concerning Iraq.
I am less concerned about the actions of the administration than the fact that the 'liberal-press' appear determined not to ask the obvious questions.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
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