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Exporting Knowledge Via Students
brainhum writes "SF Weekly reports that proposed Department of Commerce regulations will require foreign students at US universities to apply for export licenses to use dual purpose technologies in the classroom. From the article: 'Inherent in the new rules is a discriminatory contradiction: Students from India, which has cordial relations with the U.S., will need licenses to study, but students from Saudi Arabia -- home country for most of the participants in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and much of the financing and ideology behind Islamist terrorism -- will not.' The proposed regulations point out that current export license requirements are based on the person's most recent citizenship, which they believe, could allow a person born in Iran to avoid licensing if they held Canadian citizenship. More information is available in the SF Weekly story "Student of Concern"."
They've got it backwards! We don't want to restrict American information, we want to export as much of it as possible! We have to make the world a safer place by ensuring that every street corner in the world has a McDonalds and Starbucks! Not to mention Plasma TVs and DVD players so that our current enemies are too busy drooling in front of the television to be worried about such a thing as killing Americans! (Don't laugh, I'm halfway serious.)
:-)
To sober up a bit, this is a silly restriction. Nearly all the information you can obtain in higher education can be now found on the Internet. Why bother even trying to restrict it? Besides, competition keeps the world healty. Without it, what desire is there to continue developing new and better technologies? Not to mention the matter of helping our fellow man. India has improved a lot, but my understanding is that there are still plenty of poverty-ridden areas. Many African countries are another good example of this. Why stop them from developing their country? If you want to be effective, close the legal holes in our own country that effectively allow for the import/out-sourcing of slave labor. (e.g. We should open our borders and allow people to legally immigrate in order to work, and then start prosecuting the abuses of the H1-B system.)
There's probably not too much that can be done about out-sourcing (other than ensuring working conditions are required to be to american code), but that doesn't matter quite as much. In a short period of time, the out-sourcing bubble is likely to collapse as companies find that they aren't saving money. Alternatively, foreign wages will rise to a sufficient degree to make such out-sourcing impractical.
Sorry about the American-centered post, but the original story is all about us and our laws. Europeans and other world residents may feel free to chime in with their anecdotes and feelings on the issue.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
How much oil is the US getting from India?
(Note, I haven't read TFA, so I really don't have an informed opinion of what's going on, it was just a thought that struck me.)
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Going to a university is unlikely to help you kill Americans, but it is very likely to give you skills to take America down a peg economicly.
It is vitally important to get a receipt when using the lavatory!
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
All the more reason to patent and copyright everything! See, the world doesn't have to worry about handing over proprietary or critical technologies, as long as we arm (literally) the RIAA and MPAA, and patent lawyers, with automatic weapons and a license to kill.
This is not about terrorism, this export tax. It's about people going to the US to study and work in America, who are from India, and then taking the knowledge back to India, along with all the business.
My opinion is that it's a free country, but does that make it a free world? Should people be able to move all the business out of one country to simply make a buck? Maybe that's not ethical if you're gaining the knowledge from the country in question. But maybe there is a better twist to it...
I'm Canadian and I have tried outsourcing to the US before with my LAMP knowledge (PHP). The pay simply sucks. I can get more money doing local work for charities than working for someone abroad. The pay is that bad. So if Joe American wants to pay that to India to get better positioning for their company's budget -- I'm all for it. Why? Because now I can compete directly against the Indian firm on QUALITY -- something they can't compete on because they just don't have the time with all this new business coming in, IMHO.
I take more time to be sure the job is well done, and that reinforces the expression that you get what you pay for.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Students from India, which has cordial relations with the U.S., will need licenses to study, but students from Saudi Arabia -- home country for most of the participants in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and much of the financing and ideology behind Islamist terrorism -- will not.
Ahh. Cognitive Dissonance, well, maybe in 10 or 15 years we will get over this and do stuff that is kind of intelligent. (Although it could be that India has nukes and the Saudis have Isreal right next door to them, which seems to sum up US foreign policy in the past couple of years pretty well)
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This is very definition of hypocrisy!
This is another nail in the coffin of the US education industry. Universities in Canada and Australia probably celebrated the news with champagne.
The war in Afghanistan is not body count or political power. It is about fundamentalist ideology, and it is taking over the U.S. Osama has won!
Granted, I'm from canada, but work as an undergraduate student on a civil engineering project, with the brains being an Iranian post-doctorate student. The foreign students always seem to be the hardest workers around the University, it's incredible. Even if I consider myself generous of my time, most of these people never look at the time, and pull incredible shifts, coming in during the weekends and staying late to finish off presentations for next week. I cannot imagine this being any different in the USA. I'm not sure governement workers will pull long hours to grant those permits. Modern day research cannot allow itself such a blatent chokepoint.
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
Wake up everyday and find this country is becoming more and more conservative and restrictive. But what do we know? The "people" supposedly elected the right administration for them, so whether they joy and suffer is their own choice.
Students from India, which has cordial relations with the U.S., will need licenses to study, but students from Saudi Arabia -- home country for most of the participants in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and much of the financing and ideology behind Islamist terrorism -- will not.
I think what's far scarier is that the country that Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski come from doesn't have this restriction. They're able to go to US universities without licenses.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Last I checked India already had nukes.
It seems that by if this were in the interest of security, they would be required to include Saudi Arabi in the list of contries. By including India, it almost seems like a backwards attempt to limit foreign students from replacing Americans in the technical fields. I am not sure if that is a conspiracy theory/tinfoil hat kind of thought, but something seems odd about this entire piece of legislation.
First of all, like someone mentioned, anything you can learn in the US in a classroom is already published somewhere. The same textbook you buy for your class is probably on Amazon.com for anyone in any country to purchase. Teaching an Indian student about Nuclear Engineering is really not a security concern. If that student was intent on learning nuclear technology to create WMDs, there are other countries they could go to anyway to learn.
Placing restrictions on education is the last thing we should be doing. With the general population dumbing down, we should be accepting anyone willing to learn. Highly educated people are becoming few and far between. I don't care if the next guy that designs the power plant that keeps my house lit up is Indian or American, as long as someone learns how to do it.
I don't want to get politcal, but this seems like a situation entirely fabricated by the government for some kind of hidden agenda.
/. ++
Somebody please explain why our government panders to a the terrorist capitol of the world.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
This is discriminatory almost bordering on racism and is going to hurt the quality of the work. If a professor in my department(CS) gets funding from the army or NASA, he has to ignore all the Indians and Chinese students for the RA since licensing could take ages and look for even mediocre students from other countries. Would that grad student be upto it even if he could find one?
(I don't mean to say that ppl from the other countries are mediocre but that the decision will now not depend on merit only like earlier, there are good and bad students in and from every country.)
but students from Saudi Arabia -- home country for most of the participants in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and much of the financing and ideology behind Islamist terrorism -- will not.
Aside from making me wish I could mod the article -1, Flamebait, what does this matter? The only possible purpose to this statement is to inflame the debate.
NEWS FLASH: The USofA is home to the majority of terrorists that have attacked abortion clinics and is the source of the financing and ideology of right wing militants. We should immediately move to ensure that all Americans that attend universities apply for licenses to use the knowledge the acquire.
Ridiculous, right? Feel better now?
Instead of some bogus 'licensing' scheme that no one will follow anyway once they leave the country, just bar access to our school system ( or even the country totally ) to undesirables.
Problem solved.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, if we're talking about indians they'll probably be writing the software themselves. Will they need to apply for an import license to turn in their homework?
India is working on the bomb, but come on. if they really wanted to "leak" something they'd just pirate it. If software is available to collage students it can't be that important.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
and how do they plan to enforce it or police it if enacted? also, if foreign born graduate students are a concern, the H1B/GreenCard bearing foreign born workers should be an even bigger concern. this brick don't fly.
So? You're saying the students should be held accountable for the extremists in Saudi Arabia? So it's OK to murder your family for the crimes of the US government?
Which you can buy in... Book shops?
Deleted
This is akin to the law which prohibited "Applied Cryptography" to be exported with the floppy disk, which had source code listings from the book. The book (with the text version of the source) was fine, just not the disk with the magnetic version.
Because we all know foreigners are too dumb to use an OCR scanner...
...that the terrorists have already won.
Now look, it might _seem_ like a double standard foreign policy but if you think about it its not: Yes its true some of the hi-jackers came from Saudi Arabia, and yes the Saudi government has been very slightly un-cooperative recently (some restrictions on nuclear inspections or something) and ok they have committed a few minor human rights violations (who hasn't?) and yes they do have a bit of a clout in the oil market, but really this putting Saudi Arabia down as some sort of totalitarian inhumane state that's living 200 years behind the west has got to stop! Saudi Arabia is an ally but those evil un-democratic Indians are not and so we must be careful.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The cold war was the same issue: Governments trying to hold onto personal power over others. They got away with it because the system was touted as a modern form of government that was for the people and by the people. And like all such governments, it collapsed in the face of the true ideals of individual freedom. The US is a real shining beakon of human liberty. Where else can you get taserd by a cop for mouthing off? Where else but mighty America could doctors go to jail for proscribing pain medication? Where else could the government be free to confiscate land to build corporate headquarters and factories? Where else could the military be free to keep citizens locked up for years without trials or charges? Only in America!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If the US has export controls on goods they carry over to Canada.
For example, the US military has rules against on foreigners working on certain parts of military programs.
Canada is not considered "foreign" in some cases, which makes us exempt from some of these restrictions, however the factories must comply with the (arguably racist) US policy.
The way around this is that "Ethnic Origin" is a functional job requirement for these projects.
It's those evil Canadians! They're trying to export our top secret TEXTBOOKS and even... *gasp* our LECTURE NOTES! They must be STOPPED at ONCE!
multifariam.net -- yet another nerd blog
Seems like the Department of Commerce has been left out of getting some of the money for the war on terrorism. So they create some new regulations that need to be enforced to protect America from foreign students who could assemble an WMD to carry in their backpack and bang Congress for more money. Won't be long before the EPA requires a license to fart since everyone knows that's environmental terrorism if that was done in a crowded room.
An important part of U.S. foreign 'policy' is the ability to "Bomb %s back to the stone age!" $otherCountry;
_ _______ _______
Unless you advance these poor foreigners to our* level of dependence on technology, you devalue this strategy as an effective foreign policy.
Once you understand this, the rest of the errors, become much easier to understand. Anybody got a Stem cell?
__________________________________________
*Yes, I know there are many people here not from the U.S.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
What kind of software do collage students use? Something that involves a lot of cut n paste?
Incredible.
What happened to our ideals? I was taught that educating people, filling their heads with knowledge, also filled their hearts with respect for the society doing the teaching.
That's traditionally why military officers went to college.
And it's true: a professor stands in front of the class giving his political opinion between items in the subject matter. Students absorb it readily, since their guard is down - it has to be, or they won't be able to ace that test on Thursday.
I wonder if it's a side-effect of the reputation American academia has for expressing anti-American sentiment. If colleges and universities were known for talking up the US as the Land of the Free and the Home of the, etc., do you think the government would be trying to limit foreign citizens from exposure to it?
As it is, trying to regulate which people can learn what in the age of the Internet is like trying to control where the rain comes from or which way the wind blows when it leaves.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
This law is just another blindfold for the ones that think the government should do something to "stop those terrorists and competitors to know as much as we do". It will change nothing. The US is as advanced as many countries in Europe, and even behind Japan and some other countries in some technologies.
I fail to see how restricting anything in the universities will help avoid terrorism, when the terrorists (Osama, etc) that planned 9/11 were trained by US military. Oh! Wait! maybe they _did_ take a degree in MIT...
And taking nationality into account is such a lame measure as any other: you have Al-Quaeda in the middle east, ETA in Spain, IRA in Ireland, Drug dealers in Colombia, etc. Your country of origin has nothing to do with you bieng a fscking fanatic. Last time I checked, some _fanatics_ were trying to pass a law to make all schools teach creationism in Alabama...
OK, with the way things are going, some time from now, our beloved government may even ban citizens from going outside the US. Did anyone say Cuba???
Saudi Arabia does not.
Remember how the US (and everybody elses) car industry was devastated by Japan?
That will be nothing compared to what China will do. With a vast internal market they can export to the rest of the world at rock bottom prices.
If they can't educate their better students in US colleges the Chinese will just bite the bullet and set up their own _English_ language colleges and buy in top quality staff with the promise of research grants. Then they will attract all the Asian students currently wanting to go to western universities because the chinese ones will be as good, with the best staff and CHEAPER to attend.
If the *AAs push intrusive biometric authentication for something people really want, but don't want to hassle with that shit over, people will find a way around it. This in turn also makes biometrics ineffective for applications where the security is actually warrented and a benefit to society. So if the *AA's keep idiotically pushing DRM down people's throats, they're undercutting the whole security infrastructre of society. Add a little imagination, and in a stretch, you could argue that we're headed to a world where DVD players indirectly led to the levelling of 100+-story buildings. /tinfoil hat
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
but students from Saudi Arabia -- home country for most of the participants in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and much of the financing and ideology behind Islamist terrorism -- will not.
And what prevents an Islamist terrorist from studing in India - DOH!?!?!? Specially when his teacher was just graduated from the US.
The obvious logical step is requiring foreign students to belong in a country who agrees NOT to trade with banned countries.
And then, requiring foreign students to belong in a country who agrees NOT to teach... you get the idea.
Seriously, this is completely ridiculous and the only people affected are the students.
If someone fled a freedom-hating, oppressive nation and obtained citizenship in the West, they were considered heroic.
Now, if they do the same thing, we keep a close eye on them, because their place or birth makes them inherently untrustworthy.
Nice.
Hav you ever asked yourself if every bodycount your government gives you is real? Maybe you are counting some innocents among the "walking/talking kamikazi bombs" (sic). Not that I'm saying you should get your head out of the window and get your facts on your own...
If you dont want foreigners (speaking as an citizen of the eu) fine but there seems to be a gap between what american corporations want (cheap labour - and naturally not taxed by the USA) and what republicans think.
If America decides to tax 'knowledge' jolly good for you but you might decide to educate some of those bright americans with talent rather than those who can 'afford it'.
If i enter the US - I object to having my fingerprint taken. Now does that solve terrorism? if I did commit a terrorist crime and die you then know who i was. An exam mean you pass a level of inteligence deemed suitable by standard q - I could also kill - I also eat meat. So technically I am animal terrorist.
Now I visit a conference in America - should this type of export also be taxed? Europe is nearer, and requires no fingerprints. I suggest you guess where I would prefer to go (and no jetlag either).
Money talks - it seems that unregconized american talent does not. You elected Bush - so not my problem.
When my conference moves to europe - i might go again (also a tax break for a US corporation?).
Send Peter Clifford Francis Macrae comdoms to 23 Bedford St, St.Neots, PE19 1AX, England
Aah the good old World War 1 doctrine. Where have you been all these years old friend? They kill 100 of our soldiers, we kill 1000 of theirs and eventually we will win. Sure it didn't work in 1918 but it's about time we'll give it a another change. I for one am willing to sacrifice some people I don't know and have some other people I know to pay for it if that's what it takes to win this one. Please enlist today!
Ummm,the US has lost to the Fundamentalists. The right-wing Christian Fundamentalists. Oh, they don't call themselves that, but given the money and power the wield in the US, they are the most dangerous sponsors of terrorism in the whole world. The mirror ain't broke, use it.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
It seems the Dept of Commerce is trying to pay the bill for te War in Iraq. Also they sem to have failed to consider the ramifications of such an policy. As a Student from India i have used clusters to carry out simulation during my research work. If i had to pay tax to do research work for a professor i would assume the cost for the license would come out from prof's pocket/grant . Thus increasing the cost for such activities . In the Long term i think the Dept of commerce is impedeing growth of science and technologies in the US. Also consider if students from india and China go else where for education like say Austratlia or Canada, imagine the number of lost research patents(Nearly Seventy percent of Science grad student in US universities are from India and China). Less Patents comig from US universities would mean less revenue for the universities , cost of education going up and the effect would go on and on
http://ocw.mit.edu/ would it restrict the classes they can put online?
Blanket statements such as these always invite the inevitable discussions. ("No your wrong!" "You suck!" "No YOU suck!"). World War II had many causes. Unlike some other wars which can be traced back to a single cause, WWII's causes included:
European theater
- Hilter's desire to return Germany to first class world power status after being humilated by the Treaty of Versailles.
- Hilter's policy of "living space" which demanded the forced exodus of people of slavic origin in order to make space of his "Master Race." And my forced exodus I also mean the systematic genocide of entire races. (The eugenics you speak of).
- Domination of the European continent, politically. Hilter's Germany probably would not have occupied France and other Western European countries if Germany had won the war. Instead they would have set up satellite states similar to the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact.
- Mussolini's desire to elevate Italy to first class world power status.
- His own imperial desires to conquor the Balkens, Greece, and North Africa in order to make modern Italy a second "Roman Empire."
- Britian and France's inability to recognize Facsim as a threat they had to match early on, instead appeasing Hilter and letting him "annex" the Sudatenland, Austria, and Chezkoslovakia. (okay not really a cause but not everything is Hilter's fault)
Pacific TheatreOf course I havn't touched on all the causes and I am sure I got some of my details wrong. In addition I am sure I made a blanket statement somewhere that will invite discussion.
Oh well. :\
International students here pay substantially more for tuition than than the cost of their education, whereas citizens pay substantially less than the cost. More international students means more money to educate citizens without raising taxes.
I agree. The current administration are die-hard funamentalists. But I would never trust the democratic party (in it's current extreme liberal status) to national security They are too passive.
Once we win the war, expect major political party reforms in America.
In the mean time, would you rather be annoyed by a bunch of bible thumpers? Or would you rather have your head cut off for speaking bad about the religion of Islam?
Life is not for the lazy.
...the ease with which an F-1 becomes an H-1. It's really hard for foreign students to land US jobs upon graduation. Most (that I know - myself included after undergrad) end up leaving after a long hunt when their visas expire.
I didn't realize that the auto industry was devastated by the Japanese.
I thought that the foreign automakers (notably Korean and Japanese) are setting up more North American design and production.
As for China, all the automakers are working on expanding in there.
In time global pricing will equalize, if China frees its currency, this will happen faster.
So technically, they should be able to learn something, they just should not be able to leave the country unless they get the export license.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If you are waiting for the war to be over before trying political reforms, you are a part of the problem.
Don't you think that the fundies know that once the war is over, they will lose the support of people like yourself? Do you really think they will let the war end, knowing that it is the key to their continued political power?
If you think the opposition is being too pansy, maybe you ought to cowboy up and join them and change them. Either that or try your luck getting the fundies to change. You better go with whichever one you consider easier, because as long as you let the fundies have the driver's seat, they have no incentive to win this war, just one to wage it.
I find it hard to believe that a free and democratic country like India has been put into the same category as Syria, Libya, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. This is after India and US are close allies.r ism_blog/2005/04/goodby_patterns.html ]
India has never exported nuclear or missile or chemical weapons technologies (compare it with the US trackrecord on this). On the other hand, India has been one of the biggest victims of terrorism in the world accounting for around half of the incidents last year.
[ Source: The Counterterrorism Blog: GOODBYE PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM? (UPDATED 4/16) http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterro
It took the tragic incident of 9/11 for the US to wake up to the international scourge of terrorism and now it wants to punish close friends and other victims? US has a serious problem of differentiating between friends and foes.
Posting as 'anonymous coward' to avoid retribution.
Will DOC pay for an international student's tuition if his studies are delayed due to all this bureaucracy?
We didn't ram two planes and wage a jihad war against our own country (dispite what Micheal Moore fanboys would have you believe).
Kill all the Islamic radicals, and then you can start flapping jaw if nothing happens in the political arena
Life is not for the lazy.
Asides from being burdensome and creating a chilling atmosphere for foreign students, how is it really going to help? There are too many ways around it.
Information flows more freely than ever in todays world, and these restrictions just add up to more bureaucratic nonsense while doing little to boost American security.
The US government is perfectly justified in wanting to have better safeguards to ensure that sensitive knowledge is used for the appropriate purpose. Most nations, including my own have similar or even stricter safeguards than the US has, about the sharing of sensitive information.
As an Indian grad student studying in the US, I have absolutely no problem with an extra pair of eyes checking to see if what I'm doing is legit. I suspect that many international students don't either. What I fear though is that there may be too much red-tape to deal with.
If they can just make they process more streamlined and less painful then there won't be as many people complaining about this bill as there are now.
I understand that the DoD is hoping to make these revisions to the deemed export rule even more restrictive. At a presentation recently at which both Commerce and DoD officials were present, there was talk from DoD about making the restriction based on the country of birth of the deemed exportee, rather than just the country of citizenship - even if the foreign-born deemed exportee was a U.S. "green card" holder or a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The guy from Commerce apparently said that Commerce was not interested in this approach, but, well, we all know who has the juice in DC, and in a Commerce v. DoD competition, guess who'd win?
A problem with a nation-of-birth basis, from a theoretical standpoint beyond the obvious practical and fairness issues, is the conflict presented between the DoD's concept and the very idea of naturalization.
These laws will certainly not achieve a blockage of information, only will illegalize moving the information back.
Which will only give the US legal ammunition whenever they need it against foreign companies, governments and technologies.
Makes me wonder if downloading linux-2.6.10.tar.bz2 from USA will be illegal.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Daily the evidence mounts the the US administration are doing more to damage World integration, scientific accomplishment and their Country's standing.
Arbitrary limits on the trade of information from human endeavour... they have no right. Little wonder you drive people to take up arms against what is fast becoming one of the most ridiculous, anti-free trade, anti-freedom Countries the modern World has known.
I'd call the US government a joke if the whole situation wasn't so serious.
Wait till Sibel Edmonds knowledge comes out.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm just arguing that there is *some* logic in the policy, but I think it's its stupid and discriminitory.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
From the APS, sent on 22 April 2005
Dear Chairs of PhD-granting Physics Departments,
I am writing to alert you to a possible threat to research in your department
and to urge you and your faculty to write to the Department of Commerce (DOC)
in response to its "Advance notice of proposed rulemaking" published in the
Federal Register on March 28, 2005. The notice calls for comments that must be
received by May 27, 2005. As discussed below, the leadership of the American
Physical Society feels this issue is so important that you should seek to
provide thoughtful and accurate responses by your university administration,
your department and individual faculty who might be affected by the
recommended changes. We believe that your comments can make a difference.
The proposed rulemaking by the DOC is a response to recommendations presented
by the Department's Inspector General. Implementation of these
recommendations would cause two major changes:
1) The operation of export-controlled instrumentation by a foreign national
working in your department would be considered a "deemed export", even if that
person were engaged in fundamental research. As a consequence, a license
would be required for each affected foreign national (student, staff or
faculty member) and for each export controlled instrument. Typical export
controlled instruments are high-speed oscilloscopes, high-resolution
lithography systems, high-end computers and GPS systems. The situation is
complicated by the fact that the list of instruments is different for each
country.
2) U.S. organizations would be required to apply for a deemed export license
for students, employees or visitors who are foreign nationals (but not U. S.
naturalized citizens or permanent residents) and have access to controlled
technology if they were born in a country where the technology transfer in
question would require an export license, regardless of their most recent
citizenship or permanent residency. For example, transfer of technology to a
Chinese scientist who has established permanent residency or citizenship in
Canada would be treated, for export licensing purposes under the proposed
guidelines, as a deemed export to a Chinese foreign national. (The list of
export-controlled instruments for Chinese nationals is particularly
extensive.)
The Department of Commerce officials who have the responsibility for
developing new policies and practices in response to the Inspector General's
recommendations are anxious to determine what the impact of implementing those
recommendations would be. They must seek a balance between increases in
national security that might result from the implementation of the new rules
and the decrease in national security that would result from negative impacts
to US research and development.
In initial discussions by the APS Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) it was
thought likely that consequences would be:
a) research would slow down significantly due to the need to obtain licenses
for each foreign national and, particularly, Chinese student, staff member,
postdoc, or faculty member using export controlled instrumentation. We
believe that a separate license would have to be obtained for each
instrument. In this regard, it should be noted that the relevant DOC office
has the staff to handle about 800-1000 license requests per year. Present
times to process a license request are typically 2-3 months.
b) instruments would have to be secured to ensure that those who do not have
the required license could not use them.
c) the number of Chinese and other foreign national students would decrease
markedly as their "second-class" status on campus became apparent, thus
ultimately weakening the nation's science and technology workforce.
d) the administrative costs of research would rise markedly.
e) national security would ultimately be weakened as a consequence of a
Don't people already check their brains at the door when entering the US?
--
make install -not war
The Cold War, at least 50 years long, was hardly a "vestige". It might be more accurately called the "culmination" of global warfare as the permanent state of society. And WWII was "about" fascism, if "about" anything, the "merger of state and corporate power".
Wars are "about" single ideas or events only in the hands of propagandists and the minds of their audiences. Winning them is about producing more material damaging to the enemy, while suppressing their ability to produce material damaging to oneself. If wars could be "about" something, they might "prove" something, other than destructive superiority.
--
make install -not war
Here is my take/spin:
The US will eventually try to tie non-disclosures, non-compete, and punitive measures clauses to entry/exit visas.
Via tested biometrics, security logging, and other apparati, the US will persecute, prosecute, and punish legally any reentering student who managed to exit but who was determined to have broken knowledge clauses prior to or after departing the US with a degree or after having gained access to said sensitive/jealously-guarded knowledge.
Really, though, this is yet another hare-brained US attempt at stabbing the EU and Chile and Brazil and China and others in the eye for taking anti-US stances on patent laws the US has been exporting like cigarettes and ambassadors...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
thoughtcrime
Ok, this one puts me over the top.
I have to agree that the main effect is that if I were a potential foreign student I'd look at this and say, "Screw the U.S. of A. Australia, here I come."
But there is one weird thing. It seems like the FBI have impunity to go anywhere in the world and arrest anybody they want these days. What if a foreign student goes back home and independently invents something on the controlled list? Will the FBi fly over to arrest him because "surely" he is in violation? Seems like the easiest thing is just to isolate the U.S. because it is a poison pill.
"Kill all the Islamic radicals"
For each Islamic radicals that is killed in the name of the "war on terror" two previously non-radical Islamist becomes radicals... That's the problem with that war... Because those Radicals have family and friends... and those tends to go nuts when relatives get slauthered...
Not to mention that a lot of innocent non-radical islamist get killed by error, which leads the surviving non-radical to think that the radicals where right to demonise the US...
That war is a terrorist breeding machine, it should never have been started the way it has been.
It would be a good guess that that war on terror is not going to end for a looong time.
Have you ever wondered why the US is the main target for terrorist (dont give me that shining beacon of light and liberty crap, most people from other country dont see you as such and chance is those evil terrorists are not seeing it that way either)
The US have been economically enslaving many country in the past... millions are dead from hunger and disease because of this economical colonisation. And many of those terrorist were born in that misery and learned to hate the US in that context.
I am not saying what they are doing is justifiable... Just that as in any illness, the cause of the problem must be found for the disease to go away... Taking anti-pain pills to fight a cancer never worked well...
And to worsen the things some right wing political figures use that situation to restrict the liberty of its own population... while beign re-elected on the basis of the war.
Y'all are acting like irrelevant blue-state people. All this talk about logic and considering the implications of your actions just proves you've got that blue-state mentality. The current US government takes that as proof that it's going in the right direction. If the intellectuals are against them they must be doing something right.
As someone who isn't studying in the US, I think that this idea in general is completley retarded, not to mention the way they decide if a certain country should be licensed or not. And just because other countries have such measures doesn't make it right, just look at ***GODWIN ALERT***!
This legislation has it entirely backwards. Instead of protecting the - oh so valuable - information taught at US universities it will lead to reduced influx of smart folks from other countries, who will instead prefer to go to Europe or feel growing incentive to advance their own academic systems.
Go on like this and the US will soon loose their edge - if we haven't already.
Which means you've all missed the largest lesson that you should have learned when we let you into our country to study.
That is all.
Yes, but the hubbub's about why you and your countrymen and not saudi arabia.
The simplest explanation is oil. And the simplest explanation is often the correct one.
Thesis: World War II (WWII) was fought by the UK, France, USSR, China, and USA (Allies) against Germany, Italy, and Japan (Axis)[1] in order to prove to their citizens, or to whoever, that they were against Anti-Semitism and Eugenics, especially because the governments and leaders of said Allies engaged in Anti-Semitism and Eugenics and they did not want their own bigotry to come to light. By fighting against a greater injustice than their own they could redeem themselves in the eyes of others.
[1]I am purposely leaving out many other combatants due to space limitations.
I am going to write the first part of this post assuming that I have your thesis correct (which I probably don't) and will address what I think about said thesis.
Eugenics and Anti-Semitism are not the same thing. They are related in that they both rely on what we enlightened people would now consider bigotry. Certainly at the time they were probably not considered evil or inhumane. Fortunately by out standards they are. I won't disagree with you that Americans, Britons, and Russians where just as Anti-Semitic as Germans or any other nationality. I also won't disagree with you how Eugenics was used in the US. There are numerous shameful examples that even make headlines today as when the Governor of Virginia apologized for his state's Eugenics programs.
I don't believe that humanitarian reasons had much to do with the reasons why WWII occured. The idea that human rights somehow trump all other international issues began after WWII with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 1948. Of course it was drafted and the ideals developed during the Second World War, but the reasons that caused WWII were a result of state of international affairs in the 1930s.
Finally I'd like to disagree with you about your final point:
Of course the worst thing of all is that the US didn't work up much of a sweat about things even AFTER Poland was invaded. London was being firebombed and we were still discussing "if we get pulled into this war, whose side would we be on?"
The United States of before WWII was a different country than the one that emerged afterwards. In fact US foreign policy was always been defined as a mix of two poles, idealism (Woodrow Wilson) and realism (Theodore Roosevelt). Before WWII idealism coupled with isolationism reigned. The idea that the US should be the "city on the hill," acting as a beacon for all to copy our own shining example of democracy, dominated US foreign policy and the minds of ordinary citizens. By working to make a better democratic republic at home the US could be an example to countries abroad.
But there was a current of realism in American foriegn relations and that was not directed toward Europe but toward the East to China. Trade relations with China was the reason for the friction between the US and Japan in the 1920s and 30s. The US may not have "cared" about Germany annexing Central Europe, but when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1933 the US cared.[2] The embargo against oil which the US imposed against Japan after its invasion of China in 1937 was one of the primary reasons Japan wanted to extend its empire to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia today), a major source of petroleum. Japan could only do so if the US Navy in the Pacific was neutered. This directly lead to the surprise attack of the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. The Japenese were aiming for one decisive blow in order to knock out the US. And with Britian fighting against Germany the British colonies were vulnerable. Japan stood to gain everything with one roll of the dice.
[[2]The real "start" of WWII as far as I am concerned. Of course real fighting didn't begin until 1937 when Japan invaded the rest of China and it didn't become worldwide until 1939 with the invasion of Poland. Europeans/
Just noticed the google ads on this page advertising Studies in Australia!
The Aussies must be pimping this.
Under Equal Employment Opportunities Laws, employers are forbidden from asking prospective or actual employees for their birthplaces. Somethings gotta give ... :)
Eventually the silliness of many laws is exposed.
Wow, I'm just floored by the comic's scathing wit. It's very similar to this, isn't it?
Well, I suppose it's the natural extension of "intellectual property," isn't it? If thoughts are property, Universities are the biggest pirate ships ever created.
I'd suggest the Dept. of Commerce to take special attention regarding the protection of the cutting edge technologies generated by Dan Crevier at Microsoft http://blogs.msdn.com/dancre/archive/2004/12/10/27 9842.aspx.
Failing to protect that would save unfriendly countries about 10 years of technical development (not to mention the millions spent on R&D) and I'm sure they don't want that.
When an empire decides to start building up a lot of secrecy about science and technology, these are the first signs that that country is starting to slide down the other side of the curve of empire. It happened with the decline of the british empire and now, its starting to happen with the american empire. With the current growth of both China and India and the fact that most of the manufacturing is now done in china, you now lose the ability to fund new technologies and as a result, the buracracy decides that any new technologies now will have to be restricted to those who are "not of the landrew" (to quote an old star trek show. For instance, Britan, after world-war 2, destroyed all the computers build to decode the german communications instead of fostering the growth of computer technology, probably decided by some ignorant buracrat somewhere. And, this same attitued creates a scociety where new ideas are regarded with suspition and everybody has a "can't do it" defeatist attitued. To grow and prosper, you have to be willing to work with other people and not limit yourself to some "brazil/blade runner" type of disfunctional big-brother society. It is a good thing that we now have the internet and the powers that be, can't control it very easy.
If this law comes into effect, in about 10 years US companies will start chasing export licences from European countries. I cannot believe how Americans (probably only the gov officials) are so keen to isolate the the country from the rest of the world.
The real reason behind the 9-11 attacks was, dare I say it, Islam.
We love to pretend that all religions are positive, equal, beneficial to humanity, comforting to believers, and a positive force in the world.
Bullshit.
Some religions are disfunctional. They just don't work. And they have no function internally to correct themselves and adapt to changing circumstances in their societies.
In the ancient world, the religions of the Greek and Roman gods fell into this category when they could no longer serve the needs of the people and the rulers.
It's time to consider the possibility that Islam now has the same problem. The possiblility that it does NOT serve the needs of the believers, does NOT guide how to live and love, and no longer provides a positive force in the world.
Or maybe instead Islam has been stolen by the insane who are using the faith as an excuse to be psychotic murderers.
But what makes Islam different from the other religions is that Islam has always granted the right to believers to murder the non-believers or any person who questions the more oppressive aspects of the faith. It is not a tolerant, multi-cultural religion. At least not the branch followed by the adherents who are always in the news for murdering people.
If you were to hear someone yell "Allah Akbar!" on the street or in a public space, would you feel all warm and cozy upon hearing an affirmation of goodness? Or, would you feel a deep, cold fear that something truly horrible was about to occur to you real soon?
A system of beliefs that primarily exists to create an atmosphere of horror, despair, and oppression simply has no place in the modern world. It is a disfunctional set of beliefs and must be challenged by all intelligent, civilized people such as yourself. It invokes evil. It should not be accepted as simply 'just one more color in the rainbow'.
Is Christianity also like this? Sure, at times. But when some Christians go insane they get challenged by the ones who do don't go crazy. When Moslems go insane, do other Moslems challenge them and demand that they return to the pure teachings of peace, harmony, and justice?
I've never seen it.
For decades immigrant scientists have been a major force in developing technology that is used by the US military.
So in order to make the US safer, we're going to drive them away so they'll develop such technology for other countries?
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
So then, why was it that the Clinton administration was active in tracking and going after Osama - but when Bush came to office, his administration ignored the warnings about Osama, and dismantled the anti-Osama unit?
... and then they built the supercollider.
As a Canadian, I am very very pleased with the idea of more bright people coming here to study.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Ever actually read your Bible? Go through the Old Testament and you'll find plenty of religious injunctions to kill infidels and anybody else who interferes with the operation of the theocratic monoarchy run by a priesthood which is presented as the ideal form of government.
The "kill the infidel" program is one the average Christian pays very little attention to. He's too busy having a life to worry about it.
Look up "Dominionists" or "Christian Reconstructionists" for what real Bible-believers believe in. Then, you can do a bit more research and find out about the "Council on National Policy" (CNP) and their connection to the inner circles of the GOP, but that's another post and another topic.
The hard core among these people are the ones who blow up abortion clinics and provide other evidence of violent insanity.
Secularized Muslims are no problem. They go to mosque, go home, go to work, and are too busy living their lives to go out to try to blow up the world in the name of Allah.
The hard core among these people ... get the idea?
Fundamentalists are the problem, not the specific excuses for religious or ideological insanity any given fundamentalist uses. They have more in common with each other than they have with rhe rest of us.
As to your overall ignorance of world history, that's not a problem I can clear up in a single slashdot post, there are plenty of good books, go study some.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Even if we suppose that foreign students are not granted the constitutional protections of free speech and free association (which they are) US professor certainly have these rights. As such assuming they are dealing with unclassified data they have a constitutionally protected right to explain/convey/tell the students the concepts in question.
Also it simply won't work. Aside from classified programs US scientists regularly rush off to foreign countries to explain their results at conferences. Hell a large fraction of the profs coming up with this stuff are (or were) foreign nationals. Do you really think they are going to abide by such a law or seek ways around it. As a graduate student and soon to be professor I know I would try and circumvent this rule except in very rare circumstances (the students seems to be specifically looking for milatary information or the data is stuff that should have been clasifie but was overlooked) and I bet many other people would do the same.
Why the fuck are people so stupid when it comes to security. It is like they are constitutionally unable to realize that it does not good to spend a great deal of resources patching one avenue of attack when others are left wide open. Whether it be plane travel or graduate students learning information they could just as well have read from a journal in their home country.
Moreover since the same information can be easily found in other countries's universities like the UK this won't decrease the amount of military technology lost. In fact since many of these people contribute important ideas which are used in milatary applications it will only reduce our security.
How the hell can anyone be dumb enough to believe this is a good idea?
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
So where can I go to get a licence for exporting my brain? I need this quick, since the summer vacation is here shortly and I've *plans*.
The US have been economically enslaving many country in the past... millions are dead from hunger and disease because of this economical colonisation. And many of those terrorist were born in that misery and learned to hate the US in that context.
As someone who has studied global ecconomics, this is utter bullshit. We have done far more good for the middle east then anyone in the world. We have done nothing oppressive, not even with our trading policies.
As for breeding violence. Good, I'm glad. I'm all for stepping on the fire ant mount to get them all out. If it comes down to dropping atomic bombs on that whole region, so fucking be it!!!. Those radicals either need to stop the terrorizing, or we will stop it for them...and with FORCE! Fuck em...fuck em all that hold no value to human life through sucide bombing.
The only way to kill cancer is to kill some inocent in the process for the greater cause.
Life is not for the lazy.
The clinton administration was offered Osama as he was captured. But, they declined it due to no "legal" bases. Also, The Clinton administation did nothing after the first few bombings of the WTC.
You have it totally ass-fucking-backwards.
Life is not for the lazy.
Now that's what you get with a bunch of religious fundamentalists in power: a suppression and degradation in science.
...what, actually? Fear of spreading evil technology?
/is/. And security through obscurity JUST DOESN'T WORK! The IT-industry knows that. What people want to know, they find out, a truism even more /certain/ in science than anywhere else. All Bush is doing is slowing down the scientific process (which with global warming is kinda essential that it solve certain problems FAST) and keeping people dumb.
I mean, it's bad enough that Bush is stacking the commissions with untrustworthy and interest-conflicted people, and it's even worse that Bush and cohorts are actively changing scientific reports to suit their agenda (and when 20 Nobel laureates and countless other scientists sign a petition to that effect, you can take that as fact. Makes you wonder what happened to the respect which scientists where afforded in the '50's that that petition is so underreported.)...but now you remove a portion of the acedemic debate straight out!
These people are important to the scientific debate as a whole: science is basically peer-review by smart people, and young scientists are a rare (way too rare!) breed which cast a critical eye on what has gone before...which is the very essence of science! And now Bush is ensuring that there are even less of them, for fear of
Let me tell you something: technology is not inherently evil, it just
Hmmm...couple that with the 'no child left behind act', and you'd almost wonder if there isn't actually a concerted effort to do just that?
Anyway, as Galileo said: '...and still the earth turns around the sun', meaning that you can deny certain knowledge, but in the end the knowledge will come out.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
This is cr@p!
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Which means you've all missed the largest lesson that you should have learned when we let you into our country to study.
I'm assuming that your statement is about personal liberty, and if so, I* agree wholeheartedly with you. Also, there' the fact that all this 'dual' purpose technology is not impossible to develop elsewhere - those who want it will create it, while the brilliant minds that want to learn and contribute here will be scared away. I hate the thought of having to prove that I'm not a potential terrorist.
Losing the Chinese and Indian students will be a big problem for the US in the years to come. Right now, the main reason why Chinese and Indians come to the US to study is that they can get opportunities here that they cannot get in their home country. We all know how China and India are developing - what happens that they can get the same opportunites at home? Who will do the graduate research in American universities? Instead of preparing for that eventuality, I see that you have stuff like 'leave no child behind'. I'm not trying to be condescending here - as a great lover of education, it pains me to see that education is nobody's priority in this country.
(* I'm Indian)
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Actually I woul argue just the opposite. It is most definatly unethical to try and keep knowledge secret just to maintain your economic superiority. After all letting them have the knowledge (assuming it is only economiclly usefull and not militarily) is in and of itself no skin off your back and the fact that it stops you from exploiting them in return for this knowledge or its fruits is irrelevant.
As an analogy suppose you were visiting a poor diabetic for dinner. On your way in you scan the room trying to memorize everything you see as you have trained yourself to do at great effort because you often find it gives you an advantage. In so doing you spot his insulin hiding out of the way under a pillow. After dinner his blood sugar shoots up and he can't find his insulin. Now you could demand to garnish his already small wages in return for telling him where the insulin is hiding. After all you did make an investment to gain this information and it isn't your fault he lost the insulin. However it would still be morally wrong to do so.
In general when helping someone costs you very little and aids them greatly you have a moral obligation to help. This is just as true when the other person is in another country as when they are in your neighborhood. Furthermore it is hard to think of an example where the benefit is potentially so great relative to the cost. The information itself costs nothing and at worst we improve the standard of living in these other countries and lose our supply of cheap labour (more likely though everyone gains because as these countries become rich they too produce scientific and engineering knowledge). Conversely this information offers the possibility for these countries to pull out of poverty and go from horrible suffering to a comfortable existance.
Finally, why should countries be the relevant units? Why is it that other americans should have the right to this knowledge but not Indians or Iraqis? Is there something special that makes americans more worthy?
Sure you might reply it matters because it is the result of US scientists (which isn't even necesserily true). However, this doesn't answer anything. Why isn't it the children of all scientists who should have the right to this information, or perhaps only the people in the state it was discovered? Or if you want to make the taxpayer funding argument shouldn't only the rich be given access, the poor after all are on net recieving resources from the government and hence can't be said to be funding the research.
The choice of countries as the relevant group of people who should benefit is merely a selfish choice or just an emotional one. We do it out of warm feelings of nationalism or because this lets us extract the most money from other groups. However, it is morally irrelevant and wrong. There is no relevant moral difference between someone born 100feet south of the US-Mexico border and one born 100feet north.
I understand that we all get used to and expect a certain quality of life. We start feeling we deserve this high paying (relative to other countries) job or such a good salary. However, if your salary drops by half you still have hospitals to treat you, indoor plumbing, water, police, fire, a TV, radio, and cellphone (though less minutes). Allowing this sort of information and jobs to migrate to the third world makes the difference for them between abject poverty and a minimal level of comfort and health. If you really believe all men are made equal the fact you were born an american can't mean you deserve these things and they don't, who your parents were shouldn't make a difference. So it is clear the only moral thing to do is not try and block this flow of expertise and jobs.
Of course we should implement a massive government insurance scheme so that one segment of society is not bearing the brunt of this cost alone but this is a topic for another day.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Under the new regulations, the Department of Commerce would be reviewing as many as 350,000 additional deemed export license requests every year, because all U.S. laboratories, research facilities, and universities will be subject to the new license restrictions. In 2003, Commerce reviewed just 846 applications for deemed exports to foreign nationals. The new volume of applications, it would seem, will be nearly impossible for the department to handle.
If the Department of Commerce borrowed a page out of operations manual of the USPTO and made money by approving applications, then maybe very few would be rejected.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
After the death of Mohammed bin Laden, control of the company passed to Salem bin Laden, Osama's half brother. The roots of the first known Bush-bin Laden convergence date back to the mid-1970s, when the two clans were linked by a Houston businessman named James R. Bath. Bath had befriended George W. Bush in the late 1960s, when they both served in the Texas Air National Guard. By 1976, when Gerald Ford appointed the elder George Bush as CIA director, Bath was acting as a business agent for Salem bin Laden's interests in Texas. (Texas and Saudi Arabia were well-connected by this point through U.S. oil companies and related industries with operations in both locations.) In 1991 Time magazine and later other publications reported on allegations by Bath's former business partner that the Bush CIA hired Bath in 1976 to create offshore companies to move CIA funds and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia.
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After W. lost a bid for Congress, he decided to launch an oil company in Midland in 1979. For $50,000, Bath bought a 5 percent stake in W.'s Arbusto (Spanish for "Bush") partnerships. At the time, Bath also served as business agent for several prominent Saudis, including Salem bin Laden. In exchange for a percentage of the deals, Bath made U.S. investments for these clients in his own name, according to Time. Although Bath has said that he invested his own money in Arbusto, not Saudi money, the fact that he was Salem's agent at the time has fueled speculation that Osama bin Laden's eldest brother was an early investor in W.'s first oil venture. It was around the time of this investment, incidentally, that Osama bin Laden made his first trip to the Khyber Pass, where he would soon join the Mujaheddin and the CIA in the holy war that expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan. (Salem, for his part, owned a house in Marble Falls, and died in a 1988 plane crash near San Antonio.)
The bin Ladens cemented clearer-cut financial ties with the Bush clan in 1995, when they invested $2 million in the Carlyle Group. Carlyle specializes in the buyout of government defense contractors, and many of its principals were heavyweights in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Carlyle's chair is former Reagan Administration Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. Former Bush Secretary of State James A. Baker III is a Carlyle partner and the firm's senior counsel. Ex-President Bush himself is a Carlyle board member and its senior Asian advisor. In recent years, Carlyle has dispatched Carlucci, Baker and Bush to Saudi Arabia to butter up the bin Ladens.
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Houston Chronicle, June 4, 1992:
George W. Bush's company, Bush Exploration Co., general partner in the limited partnerships, went through several mergers, eventually evolving into Harken Energy Corp., a suburban Dallas-based company. Bush, known informally as George Jr., is a shareholder and director of Harken, which has been granted lucrative offshore drilling rights off the coast of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. One of the top shareholders of Harken, a public company, is Saudi businessman Abdullah Taha Bakhsh. Bush said that to his knowledge, Bath 's investment was from personal funds, and no Saudi money was investedin Arbusto
Bath, 55, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, declined to comment for the record. Spokesmen for FinCEN and the FBI also declined to comment." According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after Bush was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen appointed Bath as his business representative in Houston.
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Whoever rated this fucktard insightful is stupid. Even in the absence of money or war people are constantly striving to make the world a better place, you think people would just sit the fuck around and do nothing you got to be joking me. Where did the open source movement come from? Working for free at what you love? Wanting to improve the world because its filled with war mongering idiots?
Many people are motivated through sheer principle and imagination and don't need war, or the carrot and the stick to make the world a better place.
What is that innocent killed is you? or your relative? your two year old son? Although I agree with what you have said, I dont agree with the solution you propose.
This is scary. I just dont get whats happening to this country. I've had the previlage of being a grad student here for the last four years and the idea of the US losing the tech edge seemed so preposterous till the other day. I have to say, these four Bush years are really the inflection point, the beginning of the end maybe? Bush seems to beginning to assume Stalinesque staure as days go by. I think the next presidential election will undoubtably be the one which makes or breaks the future. It remains to be seen if the next guy in line can undo all the crap of 8 years of fascist, xenophobic policies and magnificient stupidity.
Part of the ideals of America- part of the ideals of joining a free country- is that people can freely choose to join the country and then are just as American as those to those born here. (Other than that can't be president thing.)
So far they've applied this to people who've become citizens of other free countries. But if they don't accept that a naturalized Canadian is really Canadian, why would they, deep down inside, think that naturalized Americans are really Americans?
Whatever characteristics they think keep immigrants from becoming true Canadians must also exist in the immigrants who become American. Its bad enough we've got government officials who can't read the constitution well enough to see that our rights go to "persons," not just "citizens." Now we also have officials who openly yet indirectly show that they think only some citizens are actual citizens.
Engineering education, atleast in the better Indian engineering schools is heavily subsidized by the Govt. I am a student here and I pay less than $450 as annual fee for my engineering program. The Govt spends over $3000 p.a. on me. After completing their education here, Indian students move to the US, first as grad students and then as dilligent employees of American companies. India itself doesn't benefit. If there are laws like these, fewers Indian will migrate to the states.
I don't wish death on the innocent. But in times of war, it's inevitable to happen on all sides.
When irreconcilable difference are at hand, then the only path left to peace is through victory. Sad, but true.
Life is not for the lazy.
With any luck, this move will soon result in the outright dropping of crypto export restrictions. Hooray!
All your brains are belong to US(A)
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Does this policy mean they are going to firewall off that MIT website, where they have posted their course content online for the whole world to see?
"The Great Firewall of America."
That would suck.
"As someone who has studied global ecconomics"
Then you must have skipped a few class... or maybe your educationnal system is starting to do a bit of brainwash... Go study it outside the US... Have you ever heard of bolivia? Where world bank forced them to priovatize water and people did not even have the right to collect rain water... Or maybe in the phillipine where Nike factory are located on "no law" zone where people work at the point of a gun?
If you look at the economy in a matter of number of $ going in a country then maybe US has increased the flow of $ of some country... but when you see the strings coming with those $ then you start seing this is bullshit...
Typical US method is to offer a big loan to a country that is direly in need of cash... then when that country whant to pay for that loan then the US ask for payment in the form of mass production of say coffee... but to give the amount asked, the country must sacrifice some of its territory that was used to produce food... And that country becomes more and more dependent until it is in a dire crisis. And at that point any country can ask about anyting in return of favor or debt reduction ect... That is economic enslavement... The amount of money going in the country is increased, but the people are working as slave and starving.
"As for breeding violence. Good, I'm glad. I'm all for stepping on the fire ant mount to get them all out. If it comes down to dropping atomic bombs on that whole region, so fucking be it!!!"
Well, you seem to be the violent one here, and this kind of speach based on hate is pretty much the same speech that you could hear from the mouth of a terrorist. Dont forget that it is your governement that armed and trained Oussama... I suppose that was for the good of the middle east and its people... was it?
"The only way to kill cancer is to kill some inocent in the process for the greater cause."
No, there is no way of curing a cancer that has spread too much... And right now the treatment you are giving this cancer is making it grow faster... Everyother country around is seeing that... But wait I forgot you are soooooo much smarter than the rest of the world...
The term "freedom loving" has many non-obvious interpretations these days.
My Credo, is a speech by Albert Einstein to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, in the autumn of 1932. I think it is the most eloquent intrepretation of "freedom loving" I have ever read.
BTW: "the perils of democracy" he spoke of in the speech was a direct jab at Hitler's recent election win. Considering he was "Jewish" I would say he left the target range with bravery and dignity.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The 9/11 attacks on Washington never happened. That day's disastrous events occurred in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.