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Scientific Research Encountering More Restrictions
vab writes "MSNBC is running an article
that details how the MIT AI Lab, the birth place of the free software movement, walked away from a $404K study because the government wanted to restrict participation by foreign students. The article talks about further restrictions the US Government is trying to impose in the name of homeland security and how other research institutions are reacting."
I'm glad MIT did the right thing and walked away from this study. It is although somewhat difficult to tell whether they did this out of a principled stand or if they did it simply because they have so many foreign students that they wouldn't be able to pull it off unless they used them. That quite possibly could be the case.
There's no reason to believe that some college student from Hong Kong is a terrorist. Sure there are some terrorists out there, but I doubt they're sweating their midterms at some university. To deny foreigners the ability to work on some stuff isn't just slightly racist, it's outrageously stupid since there are some unbelievably bright people who come to the US from other places for school.
In the financial services industry, most people have to be bonded - that is the FBI gets your fingerprints and they do some sort of rudimentary background check on you. Would that placate the "homeland security" wolves? At any rate, it would be more information on foreign students than they have on most Americans.
Sometimes I think that homeland security is the process of a bunch of people staring at a collander and trying to decide which hole to patch first. Sure it's possible to keep the total morons from pullling off something big (or burning you in the same way they did before) but how many people out there really think that with anything less than a fascist state, it's possible to secure the country against someone whose well funded, clever, and out to get the US?
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I don't think it's unreasonable that foreign students be restricted from participating. After all, it's my tax dollars paying for this, and I would expect my government to provide for their own citizens before some foreigners who presumably will take their knowledge back to their home countries.
Like it or not, their are things in this country we restrict non-U.S. citizens from doing, and that is a good thing. They can't work for many government agencies or contractors. They are our guests, and they shouldn't expect that we give them the keys and the kitchen sink.
This summary is just trolling by the submitter and michael to stir some shit up.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
"I mean, the government wants to just "check" research so that no one can use it as a weapon... as an upstanding American who loves his country AND science, I see nothing wrong with that. After all... America owns science that it creates... just look at all the patents."
"Ya pinkos."
(Quickly scurries into patented asbestos-lined flamewar bunker, and braces for incoming fire)
I for one congratulate MIT!!! It was a bold move to stand up to something as blatantly wrong as what the government was trying to do. Security must not be gained at the sacrifice of our morals. What does that say about us as a society, our nation who claims to lead all others in progressive thought. We welcomed these people to our land when no other country would take them. France gave us a statue embodying the princple. Now we want to send them away because we think all people of a race would also wish us harm. Extremists come from all races, and someday a white female American will do something terribly destructive which will result in the loss of thousands of lives. What will happen then? The government steps in and calms us down and tells us that we can't trust each other and will therefore take away every personal freedom we have in the name of making us secure? I'll spend a cold day in hell before I allow that to happen to me. So yeah, GO MIT!!!!
-Never believe in the end of something great, send it to sub-committee for further study!!! - ME
But the National Security Agency refused to budge from a requirement that any foreigners working on a planned project at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory be screened by the government in advance
They didn't want to restrict anybody from working on anything - they just wanted to run backround checks on non-citizens working on the projects. Is that really such a big deal??
slow down there cowboy... when i grew up, i learned that people kill people. then somewhere along the way, that's been converted into guns kill people. and now you want us to believe that information kills people?
i have got to get into a new line of work!
The bottom line is that if you take someone's money - the government's, a corporation's, a foundation's, etc - you are implicitly or explicitly agreeing to the strings attached. Seldom is there a "free lunch". If there is money being offered, there is usually a reason why. I'm not entitled to have free money come raining down on me. Why should a wealthy institution like MIT? They know the game.
If I offer the FSF a $20,000 grant to develop a "Foo" software package for me, provided they design it how I want, the FSF is certainly free to turn that money down and do their own thing (or do without a Foo package). But that doesn't make me an evil man for asking the FSF to write a program that meets my needs if I give them a donation to do so. Similarly for the government.
>Imagine China/Pakistan/North Korea having satellite technology 20 yrs ago. It would have been a very different world.
Yes, imagine it. Satellites would finally be cheap enough today that one of the many freedom groups in China could afford to put one up in the air and the PRC would finally get its eyes opened up. Wouldn't it be nice!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
You know why America still holds its place as a technological leader? Not becoz of just american researchers but a significant foreign nationals working in America, who wouldn't have that same oppurtunity in other countries. AFAIK, America's support for intelligence and research skills over nationality has let it remain supreme.
I think we should close our borders to people who only want to go to school here, and then leave the country when they finish their education!Wrong again, most of the students who come here don't make plans to leave. They settle here. In my past 3.5 yrs in college I have seen 90% of foreign nationals do something or other to stay even overstay their visa time.
Foriegn students are a big security risk! Their loyalties are always in question.
Agreed, but solution is not to close borders. And again you cannot let people walk freely in and out just for the sake of technology or research. Its neither a one line solution nor can be found in a week. May be this is the risk we have to take for the sake of free economy otherwise we have to turn like those chinese closing down thousands of internet kiosks and putting restrictions on our citizens! Not good!
If the government is "by the people, for the people" (with people referring to its citizens), shouldn't its funding be spent in support of its citizens? By giving research contracts to its citizens, it helps support them.
BTW, it's kind of scary that the gov is forcing University researchers to have their papers reviewed for censorship. Research should be made public!
2003: You must use Americans for this important work.
1941:You must use blonde haired, blue eyed Germans for this important work.
Trolling is a art,
You have it backwards: the brain drain doesn't work like that -- smart people from poor countries study for advanced degrees in thhe US, then stay there to make 100 times the income they could back home, or have research opportunities impossible there.
Those that do have their education paid for may often be obligated to return home to benefit their countries -- as a form of foreign aid (teach a man to fish, etc). But many find ways to dodge that to stay in the land of milk and honey.
...was catalyzed by an influx of foreign-national brainpower from abroad during the thirties, forties, and fifties.
Einstein was given a post at Princeton in 1930 but didn't become a citizen until 1935; Enrico Fermi didn't become a citizen until 1944, Werner von Braun didn't become a citizen until 1955...
Meanwhile, Hitler's scientific efforts were hampered by the exclusion of Jews, doubtless for good security reasons.
If the United States had been more cautious in monitoring the politics of scientists and more careful in security concerns, J. Robert Oppenheimer would probably not have been allowed to lead the Los Alamos project. It was certainly his personal leadership as much as Groves' that contributed to the ultimate success of that endeavor. Both Germany and Japan had scientists puttering around on atomic bombs, but only the U.S. had scientific leadership--determined to see the project culminate the production of a weapon.
If the United States starts to discourage participation by foreign students and scientists, we abandon one of the historic sources of our leadership and risk falling behind.
I can think of a lot of other universities that would gladly take that money too. But they are not MIT. It's not a question of to pledge or not to pledge, but a question of having a hard problem to solve and having the intelectual power to do it.
So you can go on living that fairy tail...I'll just rememeber who to contact when I decide to sell my swamp land in Florida.
.. will not be over "weapons of mass destruction". It will be over oil, and then ideas. This administration WILL continue to erode rights until corporate America holds ALL the cards. We can all see this. It is time to do something about it.
Put the chimp out the door in '04.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
...pay attention to who's saying the government is wrong: Sheila Widnall. From 1993-1997, she was secretary of the Air Force, arguably the most technologically advanced of the four branches of the US military. For those not up on US government, the Secretary of the Air Force is the civilian head of the US Air Force. All the generals answered to her; she answered only to the Secretary of Defense, who answers to POTUS. She would have had authority and responsiblity for all the research funded by the Air Force, so she's seen both sides of this (though I don't know to what extent she micromanaged it).
She makes a VERY good point that what the government should do is to determine what's classified research and what's not. It's reasonable to restrict the participation of foreign nationals in classified research, but the concern with this grant was that it was for unclassified research.
For you cynics, note that this grant wasn't for that much money (only half a million) and was probably chosen to send a message because they didn't much want to do it anyway and it wasn't enough money to worry about.
foreign students are dangerous? a,ericans are more than capable of being dangerous. timoty mcveigh was good oll american boy.
...
einstein, godel, bohr, von braun,
all foreingers that you should be grateful for that they used their minds for the usa.
Int
the line between patriotism and fascism is a slipery slope. Everyone needs to look at history closely and realize we're rapidly sliding down that slope unless we pull our collective heads out of our butts. A person's religion, color, language or nationality does not equal their allegiance. The best way to protect freedom isn't to kill all your enemies, but to learn from them. Violent expression doesn't happen overnight. People should realize we making the same mistake our ancestors made and learn from it, not do the same exact thing. I'm sure the founding fathers of America would be more proud if society collectively works to improve freedom democracy. Not colonize a country in the name of democracy. That just smacks of the holy crusades.
I think one of the most intelligent things a school like MIT can do is look for foreign students. This is mainly because one thing you want to do is achieve more and more scientific results and there are countries where very intelligent people do not have any chance to do something useful. Look at lots of countries in Asia. Local students tend to go to top universities (say MIT) mainly just to become good engineers and leave after receiving their B.S., while foreign students usually come as grads or Ph.D's. And I am sorry to say, but good research is good for US economy as well.
If you are against this think for a while about some great things the US did in the past years that are mainly due to people coming from abroad. Think of space flight, think of Einstein (and this is just a little example).
And I fear good old Europe is starting to smile.
If the gov't wants security checks, and in some cases that's reasonable (remember all the military work MIT has done, most famously during WWII), that should get them on EVERYONE. Stop this xenophobic insult now.
Aside from the philosophical problem with accused foreign citizens mindlessly, need we remind the NSA of all the wonderful homegrown dangers we have managed to grow in the U.S., from Timothy McVeigh (& Nichols) to the Unabomber to the Columbine shooters to John Walker Lindh to this DC sniper bastard Muhammed, and that's just the last ten years. And and those are just the killers; don't forget double agents Aldrich Ames (CIA) and Robert Philip Hanssen (FBI). Even if you are sympathetic to some of these, consider the rest.
My argument is that if you're going to be paranoid, do be equal opportunity about it out of respect for logic and fair play. Look in your own backyard.
Yeah. Like, imagine if someone had gone to Afghanistan 20 years ago and taught a bunch of insane fanatics to build bombs.
Or someone had sold poison gas-making technology to mad Iraqi dictators.
But that would NEVER happen, would it?
I mean, it's only a matter of time before our version of Hitler's 'SS' show up here...with 'HS' (Homeland Security) on their lapels. Think it can't happen? I'll bet that the citizens of Germany in the 1930's thought that too. We have unchecked paranoia in this country..and that's very dangerous, especially when the Government is using it to control its citizens.
Personally, I think your views are shortsighted and, sorry to be so frank, wrong.
It's true that 9-11 was a terrible thing to happen. It's also true that the US has done more damage to itself in the name of "Protecting the Homeland" than any terrorist could ever do. We have restricted the very freedoms that make this country great. We have violated the rights of people because they MIGHT be someone who knows someone who's dangerous. We have detained citizens without trial or charges and forbiden them to speak with anyone, even an attorney, even a government appointed attorney. We strip search grandmothers, and detain people that have funny last names. We listen to the quisling, reporting people that don't leave tips in greasy spoons.
"Those that would trade liberity for security deserve [and will get] neither." - B. Franklin.
As for your assertion that no one thought flight school students could be terrorists, you have your facts wrong. Remember the conflab at the FBI? That's what that's about. Someone DID think there might be terrorists being trained at flight schools.
To protect ourselves from terrorist requires a scalpel, not the howtizer that's being used. The true cancer of a free society are those that would render freedom impossible. The true terrorists are they that wage war on the rights of the people. The real terror is the loosing of the dogs of a police state.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
When the Soviet Union tried to keep its research secret, the research moved overseas. Restrictions on foreign nationals, visa restrictions, and secrecy are the best way for the US to ensure that research moves to Europe, Japan, and China. With secrecy, researchers won't generate the publications that advertise that a country and a lab is first rate. With visa restrictions, educated foreigners will increasingly look for jobs overseas, where they are more welcome than ever, or just stay at home and try to make things work there. Hiring restrictions on foreign nationals for "secret" projects further reduce available jobs and further drive them away.
The enemies of freedom, themselves being quite naive, are always quick to accuse others of naivete.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
just ask the women in afganastan about how their situation has changed. go do a google news search on it. //yes my grammer / spelling is horrible but i've been up for about 40 hours now
"I'll take the money"..." There is no saying it was racist."...what a couple of ignorant, blind, apathetic as*holes.
This is McCarthyism all over again, folks. The Bush adminstration needs to be taken out of office NOW. Land of the free??? Land of the federated, pre-fascist states. The government told MIT that the only way that MIT could get a $404k research grant was to let the NSA do a complete background investigation on all "non-Americans and foreign nationals" only, in the name of "Homeland Security". MIT said to piss off and forfeited the grant.
YEAH MIT!!!
Could you imagine how f*cked we would have been in WWII if the Department of Homeland Security wouldn't let Einstein work on research in our country because he was German (and a supporter of Communism)?
"Homeland Security" = xenophobia and racism. Period.
Mistakes of our past are meant to be lessons in which we learn from to not make again, they are not meant to be repeated. One of my favorite quotes in the world..."They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety -- Benjamin Franklin." That is exactly that the Bush administration is.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So you're saying you're apathetic about apathy?
:)
Millions of us do vote, and almost exactly half of those who voted did not choose this President, nor were they apathetic about their choice.
Voting is technically irrational, that is, the benefits do not outweigh the trouble of doing it. But as the last election demonstrated, sometimes it's a good thing to be irrational. (OK, Florida sort of showed that your vote does AND doesn't count, but do show up.
BTW, an easy way to get involved is to simply donate some money to one of the many orgainzations that worry about watching gov't 24/7, or merely doing good things where gov't does not. They won't think you're apathetic.
And even arguing here is political involvement...
After reading through the posts so far, it seems like the discussion is more or less centered around nationalism, which is often confused/intermixed with racism. I suppose I'll throw in my $0.02 in that bin.
I am a foreign student in the US from Malaysia, and I can only give you my personal perspective, but I think many foreigners from third world countries can find some agreement in my experiences.
The golden goose is the US academic research. Here is the 10000ft view: People come to US to do research for three main reasons, very good economic standard of living, amazing varieties/opportunities in research, and in a lesser sense, some personal freedom. This is a great deal for the US. How? Well, the foreign countries pay (not just money wise!) for the education up to about 20 years old, then US reap the reward. Not only does US get to pick the best that those countries have to offer, she also gets them at the most productive age of 20-30. There can be no better deal than what the US is getting. Anyone who thinks that US is disadvantaged by admitting so many foreign students is mistaken.
This is one of the main reasons USA can maintain her supremacy.
Recently, things are changing for the worse for US. It will probably hurt US if this dumb nationalism continues for a long time. How are things changing? It is changing in the sense that it is getting harder for foreigners and students to come in. Things have been getting progressively worse over the years, usually after an attack on US like the Kenya US embassy bombing. However, it got a _lot_ worse after 9/11, _and_ after the INS had been creamed in the press for issuing a VISA to one of the dead 9/11 hijackers.
What happened is that INS went into paranoia/PR overdrive. Before that, the attitude is just arrogance "you gonna stay illegally and steal a piece of our hard earned economic pie!!" Now, it is arrogance with paranoia "you freedom-hating terrorists gonna kill us freedom loving people!!!!!!"
I must clarify that this arrogance I only detect at the US embassy in my country and at the LAX immigration line. I will give more specific examples.
Going to the US embassy in my country to get a VISA pretty much means that you will have to swallow your pride completely (and pass it out through the rear orifice), lower yourself to the social level of a diseased pariah dog on the street, and prepare to beg for a VISA. The experience is completely humiliating. Does it make one angry? Hell, yes. This is not good. My sister is still peeved that she was denied a VISA to come to visit me (this was before 9/11). For those knee-jerks who are about to say "why come to US then? we don't need you": your wisdom and understanding is beyond reproach, so just can it.
As for the LAX immigration check point experience that I had, this asshole was asking me for a certain piece of document that I did not need to have, I said I didn't have it and I didn't know at that time that I did not need to have it (my H1-B employer had it), and he kept asking me where it was! WTF? He let me through anyway (because I did not need to have that document, and he damn well knew it), but needless to say it was not a fun experience for me. WTF? WTF? Why generate this ill will? (This was before 9/11 also.)
Not all people associated with INS is anal like that! Not at all! Remember that anthrax incident? Well, I happened to send in my passport for VISA renewal at that time, and lady luck hated me because my passport arrived at the huge government mail sorting center the day anthrax was discovered in one of the 10^6 letters. My passport, along with a lot of other letters, went nto a black hole and "should be considered lost." During this time, the INS peeple that contacted me were very, very courteous. Although they couldn't do much--I think they have no control over the documents anymore, probably something like FBI is doing the "disinfecting." But the INS people were surprisingly pleasant given the circumstances.
Anyway, about the current state of affairs with INS... The numbers of rules that are being released from that tower is amazing. Every month there is a new rule. The problem is that the rules are pretty much useless. It is trying to treat the symptoms of terrorism, like shooting at anything that seem to move, in complete darkness. In fact, I would guess that it is excabating the situation by brewing ill-will. Last year, 150 returning students were denied VISAs, from my country alone. It used to be that getting a VISA, besides the humiliation, was just a three day wait (before that, it was a half-day wait). Now, it will take over a month. Few would want to return home for month long breaks because you might not return in time for the next semester, if at all. Is this helping anything in any sense? Besides, the airlines is losing your business. :-)
After all that, guess what happened to me? I requested for a transfer of status from H1-B to F1 because I was going back to school to finish what I started 10 years ago, and the transfer was stalled with a request for more information. Even though I had given all the info that was normally requested, INS requested for more info. To show the level of intelligence that was behind my case, one of the questions I had to answer was "how do you plan to go to school 3000 miles away in state B when you are in state A (where I was working under H1-B then)." Dunno, I suppose I had to quit my job if I didn't want to commute and/or work illegally after the termination of my H1-B? 8^) Anyway, after screwing a few things up for me and giving me some heart warming reassurances that my future is up in the air, my request for transfer was just approved. One semester late. And they totally left out my surname (last name to you Americans) in the approving document. LOL. So they are "screening" with that level of competence? Good luck catching anything real, and try not to shotgun too many innocents in the process. :-)
Completing the circle... It is getting harder for a foreigner to come here as student. Remember the golden goose? I suppose that means it is being harassed more and more. So what is happening now is probably not good for the USA. Will it affect US competitiveness in the future? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe if this gets much worse, or continues much longer (I think we are talking about decades time frame for any measurable effects), US will suffer. Maybe not. But I think it doesn't solve or help in the problem of terrorism. I think the problem lies else where and is much more complicated. So in conclusion I think this is just a lot of pain for hardly any gain, fueled by an INS with eggs in her face, and sustained by various factors (general paranoia, ignorance, and un-wisdom).
As a side note:
For those people who keep harping about the "Golden Rule: He who holds the gold makes the rule." This statement is only used to explain reality, don't mistake it as a moral justification (unless that's the level of your morality). Why? Just because a person has the upper hand and can make the rules, doesn't mean he will make a good rule. Also, you might have to go deeper to ask how did he get the upper hand in the first place? Is he making good rules? Are people squirming under him? Is he thinking for everyones best interest? Or is he just maintaining the status quo at the expense of general improvement? Don't be unwise.
Cheers,
e.
I admit to not reading the entire thread, but it seems to me that the basic point is being entirely missed: What is the federal government doing offering to spend 400 million dollars on a research project at a university. This is really my tax dollars at work? I'm appalled (though to be honest not surprised). This is why we have debt, taxes, and this is how the constitution gets trampled every day. Article I, Section 8 provides a list of the powers of the congress, and the 10th Amendment closes the door on anything else. The racism, nationalism, terrorism, blah blah blah issue would be not terribly relevant if the federal government stuck to its own business.
Um, dude? You do know that Soviet archives do show that McCarthy was correct in his assertions about Communists trying to control content in Hollywood? (You do also know that Richard Nixon proved Alger Hiss to be a Communist working for the Soviet Union? Soviet archives showed him to be correct also.)
That was not my point.
Just thought I would point these things out to your biggoted white liberal ass. Oh, sorry, did I make a wrong assumption there?
Yes, you did.
Perhaps you are just one of the decadant Americans which must be converted to Islam or killed. Whoops, that would just be another biggoted statement on my part.
Yes, it was.
You can also be pretty damn sure the FBI did investigate Einstein before bringing him into any research. Just as they did for all the people on the Manhatten Project.
That was not my point.
You do know that to get a security clearance, you need to get a background check, right?
Yes, I used to have one.
Or are you just professionally ignorant?
I am professional, yes, ignorant, no. I am simply not blinded by our current nationalism and so-called patriotism because of 09/11/2001. What needs to happen is to judge each person's actions individually, not just because they are from outside the US. The solution lies in fixing the cause of terrorism, nothing else. I could full well support the fall of Israel myself, and I am a full (born in the US) citizen and an educated, self-thinking man (read: educated atheist). What makes me any less dangerous than someone who is here on an education grant studying at MIT and follows Islam? Nothing. I can kill you just as much as them. Therefore the logic being followed by our government is wrong. You solve problems by solving the source of the problem. Why do people hate the US? And then solve that problem. That problem does not have a race, a face, or a nationality. People both inside and outside the US hate the US. Why? That is what is important. Not racial, national, or religious discrimination in a futile attempt to solve a much larger problem.