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Privatization Limiting Access To Information

Posted by kdawson on from the move-along-nothing-to-see-here dept.

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."

35 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I disagree by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

    They also sank the Titanic.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. If research is or was by rockclimber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    funded by public money, there should always be public access.

    1. Re:If research is or was by Holmwood · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is public access, via the Freedom of Information Act. The problem is, that's too slow and cumbersome for most researchers. From the post there,

      The relevant DOE procurement clause is DEAR 970.5204-3 "Access to and ownership of records" and it is in the LANS contract by reference in I-78.

      ...

      It DOES NOT require that the general public have access to either Government-owned or Contractor-Owned records in the possession of the contractor.

      It's not entirely clear whether this is the contractor doing this on its own initiative, or, more likely, the contractor legitimately concerned about being accused by the government of giving someone improper access. So, LANS seems to be playing it safe by directing everyone to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) which is of course all but useless for students and many archival researchers.

      A very unfortunate state of affairs, but I'm not certain privatization is exactly what's to blame.

    2. Re:If research is or was by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It does seem like a no-brainer. However, let's look at it from another, purely hypothetical, angle.

      Let's say you are having a wedding. You want photos of that wedding. You can take them yourself, or pay someone to take them. If you pay someone, only part of that payment covers the total cost. The photographer makes his money back by selling the photos of your event.

      Now, you *can* pay someone enough and they will just download the RAW images and burn them to a DVD for you. But it's very expensive.

      So, the Government wants to research fusion. They don't want to hire all the scientists and fund the entire project. They just want to give someone $1b and reap the rewards. The problem is that it costs a company $2b to get a working product.

      If the taxpayers want it, they can purchase it outright. They should have that option. But it'll cost a lot more than an additional $1b. The company took the risk. If they dumped $4b and got nothing, they'd eat it. If they succeed, they should benefit.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    3. Re:If research is or was by Vicissidude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not entirely clear whether this is the contractor doing this on its own initiative, or, more likely, the contractor legitimately concerned about being accused by the government of giving someone improper access. So, LANS seems to be playing it safe by directing everyone to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) which is of course all but useless for students and many archival researchers.

      The researchers had access before the privatization of the lab. This whole article is the result of the privatization stopping the flow of information, which had normally been filled without FOIA requests up until this time. Presumably, the government would not care since they previously released this information when they ran this lab. This would not be a big deal otherwise.

      A very unfortunate state of affairs, but I'm not certain privatization is exactly what's to blame.

      Interesting that people will not hesitate to call government bureaucracy for what it is. But, when the same thing happens in the private sector, people excuse the behavior.

      This is corporate bureaucracy.

      Libertarians like to point out all the positives of privatization without going into the negatives. Here is one glowing example. The bureaucracy is now worse under corporate operation because the private businesses don't have to follow the same laws as the government. More than likely, we're also paying more money as well. At least government limits the amount that executives are compensated.

    4. Re:If research is or was by Stile+65 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Libertarians wouldn't call this privatization, either. This is still government-funded research done by government contractors. Libertarians would call this "corporate welfare."

      --
      I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
    5. Re:If research is or was by OnlineAlias · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work as a government contractor in a similar situation. All I can say is that "we" as contractors don't have any data. The data is still the government's, and we do whatever they say to do with it. I suspect what is going on here is that the guys overseeing the contract itself are ducking and not doing their jobs, as it is easier just to say the government doesn't have control over the data anymore. Fact is, the government still has the obligation to manage the data, they are just lazy and are putting their jobs off on the contractor.

      It is not possible for the government to contract out government policy, as hard as they may try.

    6. Re:If research is or was by Vicissidude · · Score: 2, Informative

      You have a public, government lab that was turned over to a private, corporate entity. That is the definition of privatization.

      Libertarians like to think that eliminating government agencies and turning them all over to private corporations will magically make those businesses more efficient and cost less money. That has often been shown not to be true, but Libertarians still believe it on faith.

      I'm sorry, but the Libertarian efficiency dogma is not always true. And in some cases like this, it has the side effect of making the agencies worse.

  3. If it weren't privatized... by mobby_6kl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If it weren't privatized, they'd just claim the information is a matter of national security and still refuse to release it.

  4. In ... by Xiph · · Score: 5, Funny

    In fascist America, the company owns you (and your government)

    --
    Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
  5. Is it really a problem though? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    LANL does work on weapons. It seems like erring on the side of not giving out information will inconvenience some researchers but it might be a good thing for everyone else. And as someone pointed out, most of this information needed Q clearance even before privatization, which most researchers don't have, so the number of people inconvenienced is rather small.

    Given the rumours of spies from China getting hold of US secrets like the design of the W88 warhead from LANL, maybe less access is a good thing. Seems to me that now that nuclear weapons tests are rare, it will be hard for other countries to make small warheads like this other than by copying an existing design. So stopping any information coming out of LANL is in the interest of the US.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    1. Re:Is it really a problem though? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is security via obscurity really how we want to maintain our nuclear defense?

    2. Re:Is it really a problem though? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Did you read the link?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W88

      The calculations for a nonspherical primary are apparently orders of magnitude harder than for a spherical primary (a spherically symmetric simulation is one dimensional, while an axially symmetric simulation is two dimensional), which would likely be the reason they would be desirable for a country like the People's Republic of China (which already developed its own nuclear and thermonuclear weapons), especially since they were no longer conducting nuclear testing which would provide valuable design information.


      This information wasn't in the public domain, and it requires both nuclear testing and computer simulations design warheads like this. It's worth pointing out that many other countries have spent a fortune not producing any viable warheads in sixty years. See for example North Korea's recent test. And I've read that other information about nuclear warheads have never been published openly.

      But the idea of keeping this stuff secret is not that it's impossible for the bad guys to reverse engineer, it's that they need to spend time and money doing so. Actually, I suspect that the sort of disfunctional tyrannies that would be most dangerous with nuclear weapons would find any sort of large scale engineering project like this hard to run because they don't have a culture where subordinates can argue with their bosses without being punished. They tend to be very bad at engineering, and so it's possible that the current level of secrecy will delay them developing a viable nuclear weapons system until the US is able to shoot down ICBMs, or until their regimes change into something more democratic.

      Even the USSR, which seems to have a had a far more healthy engineering culture than North Korea was essentially bankrupted trying to build weapons systems. And this was made much harder by COCOM regulations which stopped them buying crucial components from the West. I've actually met engineers from former East Germany who've confirmed how effective COCOM was.
      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  6. This was to be expected. by Wizard052 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Open Source by hoojus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. Mini Dark Age by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
    1. Re:Mini Dark Age by alphamugwump · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Damn right. If data is too difficult to access, it's the same as if it didn't exist. The Ark of the Covenant might really be stored in some government warehouse, and it wouldn't make a difference. To be easily accessible, data must be indexed, redundant, and digital. Which, practically speaking, means it must be on the internet. You might have some nifty search routines, but I guarantee they're not half as good as google. This is my problem whenever I try to search an academic database: their search sucks. Even if you have a general idea of the title, an article can still be hard to find.

      But more frightening is the rapid obsolescence of the physical medium. If you can't read the data, it also does you no good. Example: my parents recently mailed me a VHS tape. I don't have a VCR. Nobody I know has a VCR. My parents have a VCR. But when it breaks, there won't be any VCR repairmen left to fix it, or any companies making VCRs. They might be able to find something on ebay, but it would be a collector's item.

      What happens when all those microfilm readers break? Do you order a device custom-built to read your data? No, as important as it may be, it probably isn't worth it. That data is effectively gone. Every time there is an article about archival on Slashdot, someone mentions how durable paper is. Of course, stone is even more durable, but it has massive problems with storage density. And of course, there's the fact that nobody will know how to read your runes in a couple hundred years. Hell, a hundred years from now, we'll probably be plugging ethernet into our skulls. We probably won't be able to read anymore.

      Funny thing is, we (or my generation, anyway) like to think that the internet has always existed, and that every scrap of human knowledge is in there somewhere. It feels big, nebulous, and immortal. But try searching for things that happened before, say, 1995. Not big things, like wars and shootings. Try googling your grandparents. Or minor news, like some school being opened, or old radio shows, or something.

      It won't be there. And your radio station or newspaper isn't about to digitize all their archives, if they still have them. In theory, there's a record, but in practice, it never happened. Written history has given way to "internet history", just as the oral tradition gave way to written history. And it's like we're not writing down the Odyssey because the Bards Association of America will sue us if we do. So only information worth risking a DMCA is getting saved.

      Thus, Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons from the 60s are easily available. But the news? You're pretty much out of luck.

  9. shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    duh.... Don't you know the whole purpose of the privitization of government is to end-around the constitution?

  10. Which company researched the bomb? by Nymz · · Score: 2, Funny

    If research is or was funded by public money, there should always be public access.

    It's a good thing that governments have never ever researched nuclear weapons, otherwise they would have to post bomb making instructions on the internet. For those hiding in caves without internet access, they could send a self-addressed stamped envolope requesting the exact plan they would like.

    Dear America,
    please send me instructions for one ICBM missle.
    Allhu Akbar, Osama.
    1. Re:Which company researched the bomb? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It's a good thing that governments have never ever researched nuclear weapons, otherwise they would have to post bomb making instructions on the internet.

      Actually, the knowledge about how to make a nuke is pretty widespread. (Either fire two U-235 subcritical masses into one another at a high velocity to form a critical mass, or compress a hemisphere of fissile material with explosives.) It's making them small and efficient that's the secret now, but I don't think that terrorists/rogue states care much about that. Even a 'fizzle' yield in the middle of a major city would ruin a lot of people's days.

      -b.

    2. Re:Which company researched the bomb? by Nuffsaid · · Score: 2, Funny

      Either fire two U-235 subcritical masses into one another at a high velocity to form a critical mass, or compress a hemisphere of fissile material with explosives.
      Ha! They managed to let you and many others believe THAT! Excellent job by the Secret Services. No wonder no rogue terrorist group managed to build one so far. They were all put on false track by this kind of disinformation.
      --
      Nuffsaid
      ________

      Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
    3. Re:Which company researched the bomb? by Gerzel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Which company researched the bomb? by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Um, I'm sure it's a bit more work than that. Very few countries have ever been able to make a bomb.
      Most all of the countries now developing weapons got the information from Pakistan... and they got it from us. Israel is also a well-known country for selling off US weapons secrets whenever we sell them something (the USSR I believe, got theirs from Israel).

      And Homeland Security, actually DID put the plans for building nuclear weapons on it's web site -- until public outcry made them take it down.

      You make it sound like banging two radioactive rocks together... yeah that's why everyone had to get their technology from someone else? I think only one other country besides the US ever independently developed nuclear weapons -- and even THAT is suspect. It's either been stolen, or proliferated on purpose.

      The accusations of Iran having the bomb are ludicrous as well. They have (as far as anyone knows), 144 cyclotrons capable of concentrating plutonium. Running non-stop at peak performance, it would take 10 years for all of those cyclotrons working non-stop to make ONE atom bomb. It takes a lot of Uranium and a lot of work.

      But the "small nuke" you mention is a very big deal right now. There were hundreds of breifcase nukes that went missing after the fall of the USSR. Many governments were concerned but it was believed that it wasn't too much of an issue, because the material necessary to arm it was about a pound of Polonium. An unstable, expensive, and hard to handle source of neutrinos that has a half-life of one year. After two years -- the briefcase nukes would disarm themselves. Despite what the News Agencies reported -- it isn't easy to acquire.

      But when did we last hear about Polonium in the news? Oh yeah... the death of Lyshenko. Now I understand the press told us he was a reporter, critical of Putin .... but he was actually a weapons dealer, who was visited by a Mullah on his death bed to give him a martyrs funeral. Lyshenko was known as a go-between for the Russian/Israeli mafia (mostly in Ukraine working with separatists and Poland), and the Taliban.

      NOW, you can start to worry.

      You can find more detail of this on http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    5. Re:Which company researched the bomb? by dpilot · · Score: 3, Informative

      From what I understand, the problem isn't getting U-235 to go boom, it's getting U-235.

      You're quite literally sorting atom-by-atom, putting the U-238 in one bucket and the U-235 in the other, a 2% sort-by-weight problem. But really it's even worse than that, because one always hears about Uranium hexa-Fluoride, so it isn't 235 vs 238, you have to add 54 to each. That changes a 2.1% weight difference into a 1.7% difference. That's why they talk about thousands of centrifuges for refining.

      So from what I understand, some sort of nuclear bomb really isn't hard, given the material. Of course making a *small* bomb really IS hard, as is getting the fissile material.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  11. On the flip side. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As a researcher, (who's worked in industry and the university sector) I can tell you flat out that privatisation has helped the quality of research and pace of progress in the fields that I work in: physics and fundamental computer science. Competition and profit are strong motivators for many people.

    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.

    1. Re:On the flip side. by lawpoop · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can tell you flat out that privatization has helped the quality of research and pace of progress in the fields that I work in: physics and fundamental computer science...

      I've written more papers than I can count for my previous employer ... 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. OK, so privatization helps the pace and quality of research... but doesn't that lead to duplication of effort, and a general stymieing of knowledge in the field? If you are doing some great research, but it only reaches other people in your company, aren't there 50 other companies who are doing the exact same research, but only keeping it internal?

      So what happens after a generation or two of all of the cutting edge research happening solely within corporations, who aren't sharing with each other? Wouldn't that basically put a halt to the progress of the field, since in order to learn cutting edge stuff, you would have to go to a company after your degree, and then you are bound up by the confidentiality agreements, and nobody can legally reverse engineer the fruits of your research because of laws like the DMCA?

      It might be faster than the university for a while, but after that while, it would seem to peter out to me.
      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    2. Re:On the flip side. by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Competition and profit are strong motivators for many people.

      What competition? The academic publishing sector is undergoing merger after merger. Monopolisation is a fact of life. Prices of papers keep going up an up. Profit is the main motivator here and it is directly opposed to the principles of research; open exchange of ideas.

      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.

      Waste in terms of what? We're talking about access to information here. If a lazy university academic produces a only one publically viewable paper in 10 years, while a private researcher produces 100 private papers in the same time, the lazy academic is still infinitely more productive when it comes to disseminating research.

      Privatisation is not all bad.

      That's true. Corporate shills for example profit exorbitantly.
      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
  12. Problem with Privacy by adarklite · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Problem with Privacy by pionzypher · · Score: 5, Insightful

      First off, I agree with you on your last point. There is certain knowledge that shouldn't be publicly available to everyone.

      That said, the constitution doesn't mention a right to privacy because the constitution was created to spell out the limited rights granted to the government. During its creation, this was clearly understood by those in participation. This is why the bill of rights was written later- the governmental powers were quite limited in scope at the outset and it was assumed that all else was in favor of the citizens.

      Some of the founders believed that there might be confusion regarding this, hence the bill of rights. Which brings us to amendments 9 & 10. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. and The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.. Thus, since it isn't written anywhere in the constitution nor in any of the amendments that americans do not have a right to privacy, we the citizens retain that right by omission.

      I also disagree with the founding fathers finding our expectation to privacy laughable. They were attempting to crawl out from under the thumb of the british empire. In fact, it would appear to me that the early workings of the government suggest that the attitude was more of a "to each his own" style. As you yourself stated "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."

      Finally, I disagree partially with your suggestion that the government has its own right to privacy. Public office? Funded by taxpayers? Not a private citizen? The government was intended to work for and in a sense be monitored by the citizens. Representation, accountability, those were what we were shooting for back then. Privatization and the ensuing loss/lockup of what was previously not public, but available to those with clearance doesn't promote any of these things.

      --
      I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
    2. Re:Problem with Privacy by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not defending any position mind you. But, if you deserve the right to withhold information from the government so do they.

      Well, that certainly sounds like you are defending a position. And why does it have to be reciprocal? There are reasons why the government and publicly traded companies should be open that simply don't apply to people. It's like children and parents. Parents need to be able to know 100% about their small child. The small child doesn't need to know what mommy and daddy do when the bedroom door is closed. There are reasons for both, and the relationship isn't symmetrical. The government should be transparent. I vote for people based off their record. If their record is sealed (or the effects of their votes), then I am not an informed voter. Corporations that choose to be publicly traded must disclose financial information so that investors can make informed decisions. Corporations are also not people, and have no rights other than what is granted by the government (the opposite of people).

      The US Constitution never mentioned the right to privacy

      Sure it does. Read the 9th and 10th Amendments and report back what you find. I have a constitutionally guaranteed Right to Privacy. It's funny that those that claim to be the most literal interpreters of the Constitution just pretend the 9th and 10th Amendments aren't there (I'm not stating specifically you, but just those people in general).

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  13. privatization by jovius · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

  14. Titanic by Morosoph · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, Iceberg; it's such a giveaway!

    --
    Wikileaks, no DNS
  15. How Air Services Australia killed public DAFIF by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 2, Informative

    DAFIF was a free listing of every aviation facility on the planet: runways, airports, navaids, beacons. One day the US NGIA who compiles it pulled the plug on public access. They said some 'foreign content providers' had claimed copyright on their portion of the data. Instead of distributing a partial worldwide database (which would be kind of useless), they thought "screw it" and dropped public access. Not just US citizens lost out on this, but the whole world did.

    Who did this affect? Everyone in Aviation.

    So who was behind it? They wouldn't say at the time.

    Turns out it was these little greasers: Air Services Australia. They did it because they wanted to rip off Australian Aviators, and they couldn't do that while the US made available an aviation database for free. This is one of these government organizations which pretends to 'privatize'. You get these pompous, stuffed-shirt public servants who think they built an organization from the ground up, when they were really handed something build from public money and said 'charge everyone'. So, Air Services Australia: Thanks a lot.

    http://www.fcw.com/article91698-12-12-05-Prin
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFIF
    http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/

    Under the USC government doesn't copyright their products: citizens already paid to produce it with their taxes. In Australia and Britain, there is a long tradition of fleecing the public.

  16. This story is about 25 years old by smchris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It all dates back to Ronald Reagan and the push to "run universities like businesses". That's when the privatization of university results went wild.

    By now, there should be a whole generation who has never thought of universities as anything else.

  17. nothing unusual about that by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.