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Security Versus Science
dogfrt writes "According to this Wired News article, post-9/11 homeland security has had a decidedly negative effect on US scientific research. In specific, researchers are self-censoring what they publish, talented foreign students are being denied visas (approximately 20%, according to one source in the article), and researchers are avoiding work with dangerous pathogens, choosing more innocuous micro-organisms."
One could argue that the real risk, at least where pathogens are concerned, isn't so much the scientists using them for terrorist activities, but someone else getting ahold of them who would. No matter what the research is for, the scientists in this modern climate need to maintain an elevated security when dealing with possible/probable bioweapons.
A different world? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bush wasn't elected on Sep. 11, either. Moreover, we had already identified Osama as a threat, and Bush was busy cancelling funds to arrest him. Nothing on 9-11 made the world so different. We had terrorist attacks around the world both before and after. There was war before and after. Bush sold us change the same way a used car salesman might. He told us the the world had changed in a fundamental way, and that we had to give up our freedom because of it. IIRC, the founding fathers had to worry about security, too. Security is not a new concern. The OK City bombing should have shown us that much. Alas, 9-11 was used by Bush to justify a huge expenditure of effort and money, at the expense of freedom.
#define DRM chmod 000
Like what? They'd probably give you three alternatives:
1) Publish and perish - really, perish. Perish as in get-a-bullet-in-the-back-of-your-neck kind of perish.
2) Present your results to the memebers of a classified US military project that helps us to fight the terrorists. This is the best option. You get your research read by the people who really matter.
3) Don't publish.
researchers are avoiding work with dangerous pathogens, choosing more innocuous micro-organisms."
And have you ever considered that the most dangerous kind of research is not the manipulation of known dangerous organisms (and the associated containment precautions), but of supposedly "innocuous" or "harmless" organisms, organisms where there is no need for increased security or containment protocols?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
I lived in the US on an H1B visa before 9/11. I first got it in 10 months, which is considered fast normally. When I applied for a renewal after 9/11, it was denied, although the first renewal was granted to me without problem and reasonably fast, and I never had so much as a speeding ticket in the US. I thought, well, the US of A doesn't want me no more, so I went back to the EC.
...
Now friends who have applied recently told me it's a matter of 2 or 3 years, and that quotas have gone down drastically (read: they can't get one).
I've started my company in France. So are my friends. We're all experiencing huge pains in the rectal area because the taxman in France is voracious, but we have to stay here (or perhaps go to Canada later, but right now we're staying here) because it seems Uncle Sam can do without enterprising people willing to go to great length and make sacrifices to try to succeed, and eventually pay taxes to the IRS.
I think the INS is right : there should be a barrier to entry in the US that's high enough to winnow out slackers and let worthy people in only. But when the barrier is too high, Uncle Sam deprives itself of workers who already have an education that didn't cost a cent to the country, are provably willing to work hard to make it, and willing to play the US economy game and pay their taxes. If I was a decision maker, I'd welcome such a population in the country.
Too bad your current administration doesn't see farther than its nose-tip
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Let's consider the options for a bright enterprising US graduate holding a bachelor's degree and considering further education. (I'm talking about our best and brightest here.) That student could go to top law school, medical school or business school and expect a six-figure salary after graduation. On the other hand, that student could go to a top school for a graduate degree in science. The result is 6 years of poverty as a grad student followed by a two or three year postdoctoral stint making $35K. Why would a newly minted Ph.D. from a place like Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, or CalTech accept that kind of money when they are often expected to live and work in an expensive urban environment? Maybe it's because of the hordes of cheap labor from places like the PRC?
Perhaps a reduction in foreign labor will lead to enhanced salaries for scientists. One might hope that a decrease in supply would shift the salaries up. Unfortunately, since federal funding plays such an important role in domestic scientific output, salaries won't rise significantly unless congress increases funding. Contrary to popular opinion, the government is run by a bunch of cheap bastards, so it could be a while before that happens. If current trends continue, there will be a crunch in US scientific production unless funding increases to recruit domestic talent or the security hawks back down.
The postdoc is the nigger of the scientific world.
I recently started working as a physics Ph. D. student in Innsbruck, Austria. In our group we have a Taiwanese post-doc who is really talented and does a tremendous job, working 12 hours a day, six days a week.
This guy used to be at Stanford, but when he wanted to get his visa renewed he was told he had to go back to Taiwan and renew it there. So he went to Taiwan, where he was told that he could not get a new visa. There he was in Taiwan, with all his stuff left in California, unable to go back! After some time he managed to get a temporary visa so he could at least go back for 14 days, sell his car and take care of his belongings. Then he went working with us in Austria instead.
Good for us, bad for USA.
While I don't work with anything as sexy as pathogens, I am trying to get my grad-level thesis on computer security done. Practically any field of research I want to choose potentially opens me up to criminal prosecution.
As an example:
My university wanted me to do research on LDAP and its related security problems. They wanted me to do this at first on a strawman system, then on the actual system in use on the campus. I objected to this line of research because if I were "caught" probing or attacking the system and the person who discovered me jumped the appropriate chain of command and called the authorities, I would be up shit creek without a paddle.
I also brought up the problem on who owns (or has ultimate authority over) the campus network. It is operated by the university, but owned by the state and to some extent, the feds. What if the university gave me permission but the state or federal authorities decided they didn't like my work? What then?
My professors told me I could do the thesis and "bury" my work. That is, copies would be made for myself, my committee, and a copy in the library under the "restricted section". But if I do so, what's the use?
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
I fear that we are forgetting what we are doing. I read and listen to both sides argue continuously, and never do I hear a good fix, just what is wrong.
It has come to my attention that no one is at fault but us. We take for granted what we see as "our rights", and only when something changes our view, do we jump up.
Being an independent, I look to both side of the political scene and see faults in both. Neither side is always right or wrong. For example, something I heard this morning... Democrats are ranting and raving about the Patriot bill taking away the rights of people. This is far from the truth. It just gives the ability to find "problems" before they happen. A point that was brought up was an analogy of "The Boy who cried Wolf". Where the democrats are always the first to jump on the soapbox and scream and holler about something that really is not worth crying about. Problem is that it is too much like crying wolf... Eventually they will get something right and no one will listen.
People complain that the men in Guantanimo Bay have been given no rights. Well, no duh. What is so wrong with locking up foreign nationals and not providing any of the rights that Americans get, when they have no claim to America? I see no problem with that...
Sure we have had to adapt to a New World, but do not ever forget that this is so that you can enjoy your freedom. Without this protection, we would not be here today. Although you might think that your rights are being infringed, look at the constitution and read it. Then see what you can do and cannot do before you start preaching about rights.
These scientists are making a choice to hold back their own research and that really has nothing to do with what the government imposes on them. If they can't look to foreign students, they find them in the US. Why is that so scary? Are the US students less able to work? Honestly, this should be a good thing. The US needs to rebuild it own strength internally, not with the support of external factions.
Look at it this way... If the Research Scientists are forced into using only American students, then maybe there are jobs for the students that they have a chance of keeping. So instead of costing us the unemployment or welfare they would receive, they add back into the economy... And if the Students really want to come to the US and do research, then get a legal visa and move here.
currently, i'm employed at a major research institution as a postdoctoral researcher. One of our research projects currently is examining the factors influencing the transport of microorganisms in porous media (i.e., what happens to the bugs as they go into the groundwater).
One of the bugs we're looking at is Cryptosporidium parvum, a nasty parasite that was responsible for an outbreak in Milwaukee in 1993 that sickened something like 400,000 people and killed at least 100.
Interesting facts about crypto: It can be purchased over the phone with a credit card. With no previous clearance or paperwork or anything (at least as far as we can tell) to ensure that it is going to someone who won't misuse it. And it comes fully viable and capable of infecting individuals (as we accidently discovered a couple months back).
back of envelope calculations say that if we were to find a 1 million gallon reservoir, and dumped our sample in, (and somehow could mix it real well) there'd be near 1,000 particles per gallon. Given that it takes 1-10 to cause an infection, that's enough to infect the entire town i live in.
amazing. and all it takes is a credit card...
My hope is that the situation will improve with the next presidential elections. I can't believe that Americans will not defend their freedom.
For those of you who haven't read Jerry Pournelle's books, they talk about a future where the hypothetical world powers work to suppress Scientific research in order to preserve "Peace & Stability".
Of course amatuer historians can also point the Constantine Roman Empire and see similar trends.
Unfortunately unlike Pournelle's books, we haven't managed inter-stellar travel before the suppression began, there by haven't manage plant the seeds of future civilizations else where, and unlike the time's of Christian Rome, we don't have the seed's planted by a previous empire and barbarian hordes to force us out of stagnation.
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
To many people, it's all been a big success. To a select few, 9/11 was the best thing that's happened in years. Before it, they were worried about getting beat up over a collapsing economy, corruption, and election fraud. Now they're flying high, and all their friends are getting enormous no-bid military procurement and reconstruction contracts. Academic soreheads are easy to ignore.
Umm, no.
If everyone is general is to be trusted with the information to make nerve gas or biological toxins or a large truck bomb or anything that could be used to kill many people at one time, why the hell shouldn't they be trusted to have implements that can only kill a relative few at a time - like a firearm?
"Moreover, we had already identified Osama as a threat, and Bush was busy cancelling funds to arrest him"
Ok, if you are alluding to this to try to state a case that Bush is the problem or a contributing factor behind the September 11 attack on the World Trade center then you are wrong. The attack would have been carried out either way. That's the beauty of a terrorist organisation and nonconventional armies, they are capable of operating efficiently without central leadership.
If you are saying that Bush should have done more to catch Osama, maybe you should rember that Osama was offered to the US Government THREE TIMES during the Clinton administration and Clinton refused to take him into custody or even address the problem.
You state that Bush has curtailed the freedoms of the American people, however, it is difficult to see this as anything more than a personal attack on someone that you have political differences with. The reason is that the "freedoms" of the American people have been being systematically destroyed since "The New Deal." Any decrease in the freedom that you percieve in your daily life now may either be from your own bias, or attributed to a new expression of the same structures that have been circumventing your freedoms since before you were born. From my perspective you are crying wolf after the entire village has already been carried off and eaten. In other words, it's a little late.
You also state that the world had not changed in a fundamental way, but it has. However, it did not change in 2001, but in 1979 when the terrorist attacks directed at the USA started in earnest. The problem that we are experiencing is the result of years of mismanaging and ignoring a growing problem.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The USA, infested with foreign students, may be slightly ahead of Japan in certain areas of high technology, but is the USA 20 years ahead of Japan? No. The temporal difference is closer to 3 years. Reducing the number of foreign students by 99% in the USA in exchange for the USA "falling behind" by about 3 years in scientific development is acceptable for most Americans. The USA of 2000 is almost as good a place to live as the USA of 2003.
Please read "USA is Right: Security before Science".
What is being described is similar to what happened during the second world war and the race create the nuclear bomb. Scientists working for Allied countries were quite concscious about what they did and didn't publish so as not to give too much information to the Germans about the direction they were taking in nuclear fission research. This was even before the Manhattan project was established. Of course, the difference is, back then, Hitler was a clear and present danger. In the present day a lot of the danger is manufactured in order to justify the huge expenditures that go to the American military industrial complex.