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."

Comments

Re:Paging Mr. Kettle...

[shepd]

>People sure seem to hate your sig. And it's not even political! Nice work.

I aim to please!

[I'm glad _someone_ gets the point of my sig... Although comments like these do hurt, it's worth it! I mean, where else am I going to safely release my pent up troll energies? Another letter to CmdrTaco? ;-) ]

Tax cut != deficit

[RealAlaskan]

They said 'trust me' over the tax cut which would not break the budget, guess what it did.

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.