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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...
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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
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
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.
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.
Marx's economic determinism lacks a model for the Islamic inspired terrorism that is becoming too common. The "Wrongs" that attract recruits to Al Qaeda are the importation of western culture and ideas into Islamic nations. Thety view these as dangrous to thier view of Islamic "purity". Increasing the general wealth of the people in Islamic nations will result in a greater demand for western products and a greater exposure to western ideals. These ideas are a direct threat to the world view of the Wahabist and S'hia Islamic sects.
Western culture is seductive. People find many of it's ideas attractive. Islamic fundementalists consider ther seductive ideas a danger to the faith, and will consider thier faith under attack as long as there is a single person who has a different world view.
This is far more than a "war against terrorism". It's a religous war. On one side you have the free thinking ideals of modern western society. On the other a religion that seeks to return to the dark ages. Theier plans are no secrect. To reestablish the calphite with all Islamic nations placed under the religous and secular power of a fundementalist caliph, and for the new Islamic empire to resume the conquests that were underway in the 8th century.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
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
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."
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.
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.
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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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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.
No it does not. There is clearly an area where taxation has an effect on GDP and also clearly an area where the effects are irrelevant. Even the infamous Laffer-curve used to justify Reaganomics accepted that. Now Economics 101 taught by Phil Gramm might teach that but most genuine economists explain that economics is very complex and that simple minded ideology does not give infallible answers.
Deficit spending can clearly have a negative effect on GDP by raising long term interest rates and hence the cost of capital. So tax cuts that increase the deficit without creating offsetting incentives for greater economic activity can actually reduce GDP. In particular eliminating inheritance tax does not encourage people to die.
The claim that tax cuts cost nothing because every dollar of lost revenue will somehow be made up in increased GDP is clearly a right-wing fairy tale.
The point is that we were told that the tax cuts would not cause or worsen the deficit over and over again. At no point did the administration admit that the tax cut might result in deficit spending. When Gore challenged Bush on this in the debate Bush made his infamous 'fuzzy math' claim. It is very clear now that Bush was the one using fuzzy math.
To take a more clear cut example, Bush has repeatedly asserted that he had said during the campaign that his balanced budget pledge was subject to conditions, it might be necessary to run a deficit for war, a recession or national emergency. Only thing is that this was actually said by Gore, there is no contemporary press record of the conditions, nor can the administration provide any evidence that they were ever made, or any press release of policy statement that mentions them. The oft repeated pledge to balance the budget unconditionally is retrospectively made subject to a condition that was never stated at the time.
One wonders what secret conditions might apply to the numerous other undertakings the Bush administration has made.
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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
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
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.
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.