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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
It is vitally important to get a receipt when using the lavatory!
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
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.
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
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
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!
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?
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...
I wouldn't call a 3% win a mandate, no matter what our president wants you to believe. Believe it or not, there are intelligent people here; just not enough of 'em :(
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
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
What kind of software do collage students use? Something that involves a lot of cut n paste?
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???
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. :\
This is really happening:
Shaul Mofaz, Israel's Defense Minister, visited the US in 2002, shortly after 9/11. The border officials in JFK airport in NYC didn't let him in, becuase he was born in Iran in 1948. It took high-level diplomatic intervention to allow him to continue instead of being turned back to Israel. Apparently being a former Chief of Staff of the IDF (Israeli Army) doesn't mean you might not be an Iranian terrorist.
In March 2003, the Israeli singer Rita had to cancel a tour of the US. She applied for her visa too late, given the 3-month-long FBI security check required for Iranian-born visitors.
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.
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
The reason educated people were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union was that the government did not want to "export" their knowledge. Only if the Soviet government really trusted that an educated person would come back would he be allowed to temporarily leave.
Today this "export restriction" only applies to some foreigners. But how long will this restriction last? After all, US citicens could also leave their country with potentially dangerous information in their minds, and thus "export" this potentially dangerous information.
You may think I am trolling, but I am really worried about this and a lot of other new developments in the US during the last few years.
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/
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.
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:
There's a big difference though. The old testamant part you are talking about refers more to the laws governing Israel. And according to the Bible the land of Israel is limited to a particular area.
There was no call of expansion to other territories. Sure the chosen people were called to wipe everyone out in the promised land, but once the land was taken, that was it. This is unlike the practice of many other nations and peoples of around that time.
So whilst Israel was deadly to the Canaanites (that said Israel disobeyed and intermarried), it was no threat to most other nations.
Christianity is expansionist, but if you look at what the religion actually says, it encourages _love_ and _service_ as part of the expansion process. Spreading Good News, and making disciples of men. Not spreading violence and making corpses of men.
The "architecture" of Islam as a religion is more prone to violence than the other major religions. And in Islam, the killing isn't restricted to any particular area as far as I know.
If any muslim objects to me saying that, he should start objecting to the action of his brothers first. Muslims like to loudly object and claim that Islam is a peaceful religion, but their voices are rather too muted when their brothers interpret/practice Islam in violent ways. Their brothers can quote Islamic verses justifying their actions, can the pacifists/moderates manage to counter those verses with other verses?
Contrast the Jewish laws - the death penalties etc are for people living within Israel or Israelites who break the various laws.
Buddhism is pretty much a pacifist religion. Hinduism is a bit harder to pin down, but I sure don't see that many calls to violence from their holy scrolls/books.
With Capitalism (with the big C) - it seems killing people is OK if it is more profitable to do so, than to not do so.