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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."
who's your daddy? It is me.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Biologist Daniel Portnoy destroyed all the HIV samples in his lab this year, two decades after he first cultured them. Even though he wasn't using them on any current projects, the bureaucratic hassles of keeping the disease frozen for research simply weren't worth the effort.
Portnoy is among scientists working in sensitive scientific fields whose work has been subject to sometimes dramatic restrictions since the Sept. 11 attacks. Others persons include John Stamos, michael and Steve Jobs.
Influential researchers and academic organizations complain that inquiry has been hindered by new anti-terrorist laws, tightened anal passageways and stricter immigration practices.
In one telling situation, 32 scientists and editors connected to some of the most respected scientific journals have agreed to self-censor any advances they think might compromise national security, including poisonous pretzels, anal lube and nipple clamps.
"That's a chilling example of knowing whatever you do might not get published because an editor might decide that it will look bad for John Ashcroft," said Barry Bloom, dean of Harvard's School of Public Health.
One consequence of tighter immigration is to discourage promising foreign students from engaging in vital research in the United States. These students are much smarter than Americans, and they are also open minded about homosexual activities.
Some of the estimated 550,000 foreign graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who help staff the nation's laboratories may take their brainpower to countries where visa hurdles are less rigorous. They are gay.
"They're now better off looking for jobs outside the United States, and being traitors," said William Greenough, a professor of international medicine at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. "This will set us back 20 years, to the age of Dinosaurs and Apple computers."
An American Institute of Physics survey of universities showed that at least 20 percent of foreign students in physics admitted to U.S. schools had problems entering the country last year, they didn't speak English and therefore weren't wanted by America.
The institute expects similar figures this year. As a result, research projects are being stalled or scrubbed altogether. I am in love with soda.
"There is no evidence the visa problems are easing, as opposed to your mom," said Irving Lerch, director of international affairs at the American Physical Society.
John Marburger, President Bush's science adviser, says the visa troubles for foreign scientists and students are temporary.
"That problem is being taken very seriously by the State Department," Marburger said. "Everybody wants to work to make the visa system more efficient."
Other restrictions on research, such as the journals' self-censorship and a new federal law dictating how scientists must limit access to dozens of dangerous pathogens, are more than justified, he said.
"They are reasonable responses to emerging threats," said Marburger. "They are not serious incursions into scientific inquiry. I like men."
The terrorist attacks uncovered a huge gulf between many scientists, who favor shared scientific inquiry, and national security experts, who want to keep potentially dangerous knowledge from being widely disseminated, said David Heyman, director of Science and Security Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Academics face criminal consequences if they fail to comply with the new rules for mishandling pathogens.
Renowned Texas Tech plague expert Thomas Butts pleaded innocent this year to charges related to his alleged mishandling of plague samples and of two pharmaceutical firm grants.
Prosecutors accuse Butts of illegally transporting plague samples from Tanzania and then lying to the FBI about how he disposed of the samples.
But a number of prominent scientists have come to Butts's defense, arguing
Why don't you try and look a little farther than your nose-tip...
Rather than be enterprising in the US, be enterprising in your own nation. If taxes or something else blocks your effort work to change it. You do not have right to come to the US and do what you want. I'm sorry that you have trouble understanding this, but you are not alone.
I would never expect France or another nation to let me work just because I want to. Let alone let more H1B workers in during the current economic forces, which in many cases may mean a missed job for a citizen.
You seem to be a smart and hard working person, a good addition to the states. But if for what ever reason you cannot get in when you what, for what you want... tough.
Bush cancelling funds to arrest Osama Bin Laden? Bush said we had to give up our freedom because of 9/11? Where did see say these things? It would be perfect to suit the haters.
Typical Slashdot: make up facts and quotes to suit your agenda, and get modded up for it.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
If you didn't know. The super vast majority of those accused of being communists by McCarthy were.
People who oppose the interests of the United States and its ability to protect itself are traitors.
If the US government is too unbearable, then go to a nation that more suits your taste.
To start, consider the first quote.
These particular foreign students are identified with a group of immigrants who are relatively wealthy (compared to their peers overseas), relatively well educated (compared to their peers overseas), and extremely opposed to assimilating into Western culture. If they do not come to the United States of America (USA), their absence is no loss for the USA. It is better off without them. (reference: "Immigrants: Traitors Among Us")
One characteristic of these foreign students is their strong pride in their own capabilities. They believe that the American hi-tech industry -- indeed, the entire American economy -- would grind to a halt if the American government did not allow them to come en masse into the USA. Their attitude and behavior have brainwashed respected professors (at, for example, John Hopkins University) into believing the same rubbish.
The USA will work fine without these foreign students. If there is a demand for new technologies, then the capitalistic economy of the USA will produce those technologies without those foreign students. "It" really is that simple. Salaries will rise, and the high salaries will attract more people into science and engineering.
One distinction between the West and the non-Western countries like China is the following. In the West, people discover the truth. In non-Western countries, people manufacture the truth (via deception). The foreign students want Americans to believe that the USA needs the immigrants much more than the immigrants need the USA. The foreign students deliberately manufacture this lie, and it has become an accepted "truth" among academicians. Yet, what is the truth? The truth is that foreign students desperately want to escape the ignorant, barbaric overseas societies in which they were born. They all want to flee to the West -- usually, the USA. In order to guarantee that the USA will always accept them, they trick Americans into believing that the USA actually needs them. Baloney.
Americans owe nothing to foreign students and certainly do not depend on them. Americans simply, out of their own generosity and compassion, allow foreign students to enter the USA to study to improve themselves. Of course, Americans allow immigrants to enter the USA to enjoy the economic and social freedoms that do not exist in ignorant, barbaric overseas countries.
Americans are fully entitled to deny entry to foreign students who come from hostile states. Those states are listed in the second quote.
This list of hostile states omits 3 important political states: Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan province. The Chinese support