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"."

Comments

Wrong idea!

[AKAImBatman]

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. :-)

Re:Wrong idea!

[metlin]

Most students would simply go to another country without these restrictions, such as United Kingdom, Germany or other countries with good educational opportunities.

This is the US shooting itself in the foot - the international intelligentsia who come to the US contribute significantly to the American society. By restricting what they have access to, you're restricting their contributions.

Consequently, they'll simply go elsewhere, where there are similar opportunities without such draconic laws. The result? The US will lose out on a lot of very smart people who until now saw the US as a good destination for education and research.

And you must also keep in mind that a lot of these folks do stay back in the US after higher education and become permanent residents or citizens - discouraging them from studying and you've lost a lot of talent preemptively.

Re:Wrong idea!

[AKAImBatman]

Yeah, competition in the realms of nuclear testing and missiles will give it that healthy, glowing complexion free of humans it's wanted for years.

Or it could lead to better nuclear technology, including nuclear engines and space travel.

Truth be told, the cold war was the last vestige of a long age of war. Remember, WWI was primarily about nobility attempting to maintain power in a modern world, while WWII was about Eugenics and superiority through control of genetics. (Since proven to be absolute garbage.)

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. Anyone remember the television show "Dallas"? Who would have thought that it could lead to the fall of communism in Romania?

Re:Wrong idea!

[brontus3927]

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.

Not that I'm condoning it, but the article does mention that it would be needed for dual-use technologies, which means things that could be used to advance another country's military technology. There are alerady licensing issues when exporting the technologies themselves (Want to launch a satelite from Brazil? Expect a lot of paperwork). THis is the realization that students could easily learn this in the US and then simply take their textbook, notebook, or even just memory back home to advance military science of their home country.

That said, I find the inherent racism of brainhum appaling. What makes an Iranian or Saudi inherently more dangerous than a Mexican, Indian, Russian, German, etc? And an Iranian-born Canadian citizen? jeez!

Re:Wrong idea!

[metlin]

My favourite quote from the article:

"When the Third Reich was emerging, they said that only Germans of pure Aryan descent could attend German universities. Significant numbers of German scholars departed," she says. "That was detrimental for Germany, but was glorious for the U.S.

"We got Einstein."

Ah, well.

Re:Wrong idea!

[bman08]

A lot of folks (to use a Bushism to cover being too lazy to research exactly who) refer to the twentieth century as one long world war that just cooled off in a few places. The injustices of Versailles led two WW2 when led to the splitting of Europe between Western and Soviet influences.

Back on topic, this is a fucking retarded move. Another in a series of steps toward the end of America's golden age. Fellow Americans, our government is failing us in every conceivable way. Very few of our problems have their roots in the evils of furriners. Isolation serves only to cut us out of the equation. It's a bad play any way you slice it, and to see the ridiculous way it's being weilded WRT Indians vs. Saudis... ugh.

Re:Wrong idea!

[s20451]

I'm always suspicious when somebody calls attention to the "real" reason. Is it too hard to understand that simple events have complex motivations?

Why did the attacks happen?

- Was it because US troops are on Muslim soil? The US has more foreign bases than any other nation, sometimes on seriously unfreindly territory (e.g., Cuba), almost all of which have provoked no suicide attacks.

- Was it because of cultural dominance? Then why aren't Canadians and Europeans bombing the hell out of the United States? They bear the worst of it.

- Was it because of the poverty of the Arab world? But most of the attackers were middle-class and well educated. This is also true of many Palestinian bombers. Furthermore, many Arab countries are well off.

- Was it for reasons that takes more than five seconds to describe? Most likely.

Re:Wrong idea!

[MasterOfUniverse]

Was it because US troops are on Muslim soil? The US has more foreign bases than any other nation, sometimes on seriously unfreindly territory (e.g., Cuba), almost all of which have provoked no suicide attacks.

cuba does not regard guantanamo as holy place. Muslims regard saudi arabia as holy place.

- Was it because of cultural dominance? Then why aren't Canadians and Europeans bombing the hell out of the United States? They bear the worst of it.

If you would know, canada,europe and US are all part of Western Civilization. There are differences, but not as great as a difference between US and middle east

- Was it because of the poverty of the Arab world? But most of the attackers were middle-class and well educated. This is also true of many Palestinian bombers. Furthermore, many Arab countries are well off.

Right, and the attackers understood that it is thier duty to standup for the weak, since they are well educated in the land of illitrate (ofcourse the form (suicide bombing) is wrong imho.) Many middle east countries are indeed well off. But only thier dictators (with US support). The general polulation lives in poverty (except UAE).

- Was it for reasons that takes more than five seconds to describe? Most likely.

Yes, but you covered the main reasons already. When you see that the only very few people are getting rich in the land of oil and you still don't have money to eat 3 times, I think you would question why.

Re:Wrong idea!

[Vicissidude]

While your thesis with reguards to China is accurate, you over simplify things.

HELLO! This is Slashdot.

The Soviet Command Economy wasn't terribly interested in a spending war with the US nor is there a great deal of evidance to suggest that increased military spending was responsible for the Soviet Collapse.

Excuse me? Remember the nuclear arms race? When one side had enough nukes to destroy the world five times over, the other side had to get enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over. Then the other side had to get enough to destroy the world twenty times over. This outrageous behavior went on for decades.

Remember all the tanks and planes and conventional weapons that were ready to roll into Europe at a moment's notice? The Soviet Union had numerical superiority in these systems, so the US had to spend $$$ for developing advanced fighters and helicopters in order to take out these Soviet weapons. In the meantime, the Soviets made improvements and churned out more tanks and planes and weapons. And again, this behavior went on for decades.

Remember all the minor wars that we entered in? North Korea and Vietnam both came out of cold war fears. The Soviet Union had Afganistan.

Finally, remember Star Wars? We spent huge sums of money on this, regardless of whether it actually worked or not. Do you honestly believe that the Soviets did not spent gobs of money on something similar?

ALL of these events took massive amounts of money. Given our economy, we were better able to afford these expenditures while the Soviet Union bankrupted itself attempting to compete. Gorbi didn't stand a chance by the time he got into office.

Contrary to popular belife, the construction and development of nuclear weapons technology isn't terribly difficult - just hugely expensive.

Maybe for a uranium nuclear warhead. But, if you want to get into the big leagues with a plutoninum warhead, then the design is considerably more complex.

If you've got access to the materials the actual know how isn't too far off.

We shouldn't make it any easier than you say it already is by also training their personnel.

Its generaly considered a good thing when you've got more than one major power.

Considered a good thing by who? Certainly not the single, major power.

China is a Maoist Oligarchy, not a Communist Dictatorship (such a thing is a contradiction in terms).

And therefore, it's more excusable if we teach Chinese citizens weapons knowledge? The nitpicky details of just how evil China is misses the point. Getting into an argument of the structure of China's government misses the point. China was merely an example of a country where we SHOULDN'T be shipping this information. There is also Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. Stick to the topic.

Taiwan isn't a country... at least it's not internationaly recognised as such.

Again, by who? There are countries that recognize Taiwan. Even so, China has recently made threatening statements to Japan as well because of what Japan puts in its textbooks. Again, stick to the topic.

Sure, Chinese students can go back over to China. But it's not as if what they're studying is classified. US Students can post that same material to the web. US Students can be hired by a Chinese firm. Are we going to start restricting the travel of anyone with a masters in Electrical, Mechanical, Computer, or Nuclear engineering now?

No, it's not classified. However, what they are studying is sensitive information that CAN be used to make weapons. There is no reason whatsoever that we should be training Chinese nuclear engineers. While they MIGHT not go back and make nuclear weapons, they certainly COULD.

As for US students, I'm not worried about them, their loyalties generally lie with the US. They're not likely to go make nuclear weapons for China, Iran, North Korea, etc.

Decline

[El Cabri]

This is another nail in the coffin of the US education industry. Universities in Canada and Australia probably celebrated the news with champagne.

Hardest workers

[kaamos]

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.

Hidden Agenda?

[Nytewynd]

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.

What does this have to do with anything?

[El Cubano]

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?

Re:What does this have to do with anything?

[Nytewynd]

The relevance is that this is being introduced in the name of security. The point is to restrict education of possible military knowledge to people from countries we are worried about. That is exactly how Saudi Arabia fits into the issue. It's not a slam on Saudi Arabi, nor is anyone saying that Saudi Arabians are all evil, but if you are restricting people based on the potential military threat of their home country, Saudi Arabia probably should be at the top of the list.

The USA is definitely overpopulated with it's own terrorist. That is one reason I hate how all of a sudden the general population thinks all Muslims are secretly plotting the annihilation of our country. These same people that apparently love freedom, democracy and the US are the ones harassing people exercising their freedom of choice at the clinics. Apparently, to some people freedom is only a good thing when it is a subset of things you agree with.

These types of issues are used as scare tactics by politicians. It works for them because people don't think about things. They believe most of what they are told.

Re:What does this have to do with anything?

[Quixote]

Well, the submitter was merely pointing out a logical fallacy behind the purported reasoning of these (proposed?) restrictions.

If the idea indeed is to deny knowledge to potential enemies, it makes sense to see who these "enemies" are. And looking at the fact that the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi; Bin Laden is a Saudi; many of the others in the Al Qaeda hierarchy are Saudi; it would make sense to include Saudis in this set of restricted students. Now, to not put restrictions on Saudis and then turn around and place such restrictions on Indians (to name a group) who have had no involvement whatsoever in terrorism against the US and EU, defies logic, doesn't it??

Re:What does this have to do with anything?

[dvdeug]

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 only possible purpose to this statement is to inflame the debate.

Why? Saudi Arabians have repeatedly attacked the US, and Saudi Arabia is highly undemocratic and has no religious freedom. India is a free country and Indians have never posed a threat to the US. Shouldn't that be taken into account when discussing further restrictions on who can be taught dangerous information?

exporting knowledge

[wk633]

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...

Re:An international student's perspective

[alphakappa]

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)