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Privatization Limiting Access To Information
Knutsi sends us to the Federation of American Scientists' blog Secrecy News for a post on how privatization can affect access to research material. The blog tells how a Harvard researcher on the history of nuclear secrecy was denied access that would have been granted in the past. Some followup is in the comments to this reposting of the FAS story. "Los Alamos National Laboratory will no longer permit historians and other researchers to have access to its archival records because Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the private contractor that now operates the Lab, says it has 'no policy in place' that would allow such access."
funded by public money, there should always be public access.
If it weren't privatized, they'd just claim the information is a matter of national security and still refuse to release it.
Now it's all about policy and bottom line. That's privatisation for you. It works wonders with inefficient utilities and such but this? By placing such restrictions, they are nipping the very root from which such institutions begin.
As a researcher in trying to integrate knowledge I find this more and more dissapointing. Where the research community is advocating a share model, companies like this come along and remove information from the public domain.
This introduces difficulty as a researcher as this is now a void over which we need jump in order to create new knowledge. As more and more companies become contractors for the government it will ensure that not only researchers but the public will have to pay for information which may be necessary for the growth and understanding of the community as a whole.
It is time for the government to realise that the public should come first and ensure that these types of restrictions do not occur in the future and if possible to revoke those that have already occured.
Ack, i lowered myself into groupthink mode, and forgot to post as AC.
oh well, karmawhoring is for gutless punks anyway.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
As a researcher, I can tell you flat out that the privatisation of information is putting up serious barrier to the work I do. Aside from prohibitively high prices on journal papers, etc, many old papers, experiments and historical documents are under lock and key, with the private companies that hold onto them totally unwilling to go to the (minor) expense of open up their archives. Such papers have effectively dropped off the face of the earth, and when those companies go under or dissolve or simply move headquarters, it's likely that the papers will in truth become lost forever.
Try to find scientific articles or papers before about 1960. It's a nightmare. Aside from paying about $50-60 if you do find anything, finding it will be a challenge. Go back to the 50's and you're in trouble. The 40's is pretty bleak. You can find more papers on ancient Egypt than you can from the 1930's.
It's possible that you can find old articles in Libraries, if you're willing to try about a dozen libraries. But many libraries are "downsizing" their paper collections(for financial reasons brought on by high journal prices). You can try an inter library loan but there are incredibly stringent copyright signoffs for every single item.
Books are not so bad. Libraries usually have good collections, and book publishers don't seem to be as rabidly concerned with copyright as journal publishers. If the material you want is in a book, you're OK. The book can have been published in 1700 and you'll still be able to find a copy relatively easily, and cheaply. Paper's from the 1700's, except seminal ones, probably have all been lost by now.
Private companies cannot be trusted to archive material. I really cannot put it plainer than that. If we place our scientific data, history and writings in the hands of private industry future generations will speak of a "Dark Age" in the 20th century, where apparently a lot was accomplished, but there will simply be no record of it. Our books aren't getting burned, they're getting privatised, a much surer method of destruction.
May the Maths Be with you!
I do agree it can be irksome that you can't tell folk about your work - I've written more papers than I can count for my previous employer - they fill more space that a CD provides - yet I'll never be able to show them to anyone outside of the company, or have them cited in public publications, because they're commercially sensitive and would be easily exploitable by competitors for profit.
However, working for a private company does free you from the waste endemic in universities, and provide greater opportunity and increased freedom for many people.
Privatisation is not all bad.
Everyone is so quick to demand privacy, but aren't as quick to allow other entities like businesses, governments, and other organizations the right to the same privacy. However, privacy is a tricky issue. The US Constitution never mentioned the right to privacy and I'm sure that the founding father's would've found it laughable if someone mentioned it to them. We in America are guaranteed our right to live the way we want as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's rights or on mutually agreed upon laws. Doesn't mean that the government can't know about how you live your life. It just can't interfere with it if its not against the law. I'm not defending any position mind you. But, if you deserve the right to withhold information from the government so do they. Not all knowledge is in your best interest.
It's amazing how everything can be turned into a business.. The sad thing is, that the companies seek to protect their interests not the humanity's, which in the end pays for it. It hardly leads to savings, when the government functions are maintained by a mesh of private companies, which all seek to profit from the business of governing...
At this stage, I think it would be best if everyone had the knowledge. Think switzerland (where you have a requirement to keep arms, not just a right). I'd feel a lot safer in the long run (i.e. for my children's future) if the government was constantly under REAL threat of being overthrown.
Is security via obscurity really how we want to maintain our nuclear defense?
Why is parent post moderated as funny? It should be moderated +5 as informative.
Kurt
It' just the next logical step. We've progressed from a manufacturing-oriented society to a service-oriented society, and are moving toward an information-oriented society. As goods and services decline in value, it's only natural for information to increase in value, and for people to start controlling what information they give out to whom.
Indeed.
The knowledge of how to make a nuke also comes fairly easily with an understanding of physics on a degree level. Would you deny physics doctorates to anyone from a foreign country that might want to make nukes or support terrorists?
Biological and chemical weaponry are the same. Anyone with a modern degree in the field should fairly easily be able to use such knowledge as is required for such a degree (and all the GOOD that can be done with it) to create a weapon of devastating proportions that I, for one, would not like to imagine on the real world.
The truth is knowledge, to use a cliche, is power. It is a tool. A knife that can be used to reap crops and prepare food or a weapon to be used out of desperation and fear against a threat real or perceived.
Just because a tool can be used for harm does not mean that it is wise to take it out of the hands of man and if we do decide to try and limit it we are fools to think that it can be held entirely from others.