Political Pressure Pushes NASA Technical Reports Offline

Trepidity writes "The extensive NASA Technical Report Archive was just taken offline, following pressure from members of U.S. Congress, worried that Chinese researchers could be reading the reports. U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) demanded that 'NASA should immediately take down all publicly available technical data sources until all documents that have not been subjected to export control review have received such a review,' and NASA appears to have complied. Although all reports are in the public domain, there doesn't appear to be a third-party mirror available (some university libraries do have subsets on microfiche)."

Comments

oh no

[X0563511]

The commies are coming!

It's Joseph McCarthy all over again...

Re:oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.

To be fair, he tried to identify Communists in all walks of life and ran through Hollywood suppressing freedom of speech and using strong arm tactics to destroy the rights of non-state department citizens. Under Joseph McCarthy, Ayn Rand testified in front of congress against film makers to have them fined and jailed. How fucked up is that? He made it illegal to be a Communist no matter how nonviolent or extreme you were. It was the definition of witch hunt and suppressed freedom of speech in American media. It's fine to ferret them out of the State Department but why the private sectors?!

Re:oh no

[LateArthurDent]

To be fair, McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.

Even if that's true, it doesn't make McCarthy right. In this country, the government isn't allowed to prosecute people for their political beliefs. The problem with McCarthy wasn't just that there was a witch hunt in place. The problem was that if every single person he accused to be a communist was indeed a communist, the proper response is, "so what?"

Re:oh no

[the gnat]

If McCarthy was right it was entirely by accident. Many innocent people were smeared as Communists simply for advocating policies that McCarthy personally disagreed with. Among the many was George Marshall, the man responsible for the Marshall Plan and thus one of the people most responsible for saving Western Europe from a Communist takeover. The character of the McCarthy-like senator in "The Manchurian Candidate" is uncomfortably close to the truth.

Re:oh no

[Linux Torvalds]

I don't think "so what?" quite covers the possibility of treason by State Department employees.

Well, "so what?" seems to covers the reality of treason in the Oval Office, so I don't see why the State Department should be held to tighter standards.

Re:oh no

[Rufty]

If they transfer valuable secrets, prosecute them for that, and if they didn't then leave their political beliefs out of it.

Re:oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, I myself have seen the horrors and bloodshed of Capitalism up close and personal in the United States of Amerika.

On another note, I have been screwed a lot more by Big Business than by Big Government.

Re:oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, Ayn Rand saw the horrors and bloodshed of Communism up close and personal in Russia.

Yes and she left for a better place where her speech would not be suppressed ... how sad that she eventually forgot such notions and then suppressed the speech of those who opposed her ... of course, she was all about hypocrisy as she didn't appear to be above utilizing social programs ...

Once the oppressed now the oppressor ...

Re:oh no

[LateArthurDent]

When your political beliefs include the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, that's where the line is drawn. The 50s Communists believed exactly that. They weren't being persecuted for their political beliefs, they were being persecuted for the fact that they wanted to do the federal government what the Tea Party wants to do today. Do you agree with the Tea Party?

I don't agree with the Communists, and I don't agree with the Tea Party. I don't want to prevent either of them from being in positions in government, however. Other than by not voting for them, that is. If other people vote them in, that's their right, because I do believe in a representative government.

The line, by the way, isn't whether your political beliefs include violent overthrow of the U.S. government. It's when your actions support that. The moment you take up arms and try to force the government out and put your own government in place, I expect you to be shot down and arrested. I'm not going to support the government going after you for pre- or thought-crime, though.

Re:oh no

[Attila Dimedici]

That wasn't Joseph McCarthy, that was the Democrats on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, or don't they teach that part in school? When Ayn Rand testified before HUAC, Joseph McCarthy was in the Senate. The HUAC was controlled by Democrats when Joseph McCarthy was making a name for himself.

Re:oh no

[abirdman]

Ms. Rand would have had a better time of it in the USA if she hadn't insisted on writing children's books. Eventually her audience grew up. Oh wait, a few stayed back.

Re:oh no

[abirdman]

Are you referring to the right Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Because Rev. Wright is an honorable, articulate, educated, honest, and forthright man, who is at least second generation military, served as a Marine and a Navy corpsman, has more academic degrees than most Tea-Baggers have fingers on their right hand, is a college professor and runs a church. The fact that the fucktard-right-- errr, I mean mainstream media-- in this country can't tell the difference between an intelligent man's hyperbole (used to illustrate a point about the history of racial oppression) and violent insurrection-- does not condemn the man.

And if not Rev. Wright, then who are you talking about?

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese, Russian, North Korean, whoever governments probably all have a complete copy. The only ones this is gonna hurt is ourselves.

Fighting a smarter enemy

[game kid]

"Export control", just like DRM, deprives good citizens from the ideas of their own peers, while still allowing malicious types with connections and know-how to have the controlled ideas anyway.

Both forms of idea control fight a smarter enemy...by making non-enemies even dumber.

Barn Door

[fermion]

Would not the first thing one would do, if interesting in these technical reports, is to download them all. I have done such things in the past with documents sets I wanted to review. Taking them offline does not make all the copies already generated disappear.

I wonder how much money has been wasted discussing this, making it happen, and how much money will be wasted reviewing the documents. I am glad sequestration hasn't done anything to impair congresses ability to waste money.

Maybe we can ask the chinese to put a mirror up?

[leehwtsohg]

I mean, we could ask really nicely, no?

Hey, china, how about it? In the name of humanity? Openness?

Re:There it is AGAIN!

[Trepidity]

The (Party-State) thing is pretty common for both parties, especially when talking about someone less known. If I were writing about Dick Cheney or Barack Obama or something, I wouldn't put it there, but if we're talking about regular Congresscritters, it seems like useful information to know their party affiliation and where they come from.

If you're seeing a pattern, perhaps rather than a conspiracy, it's simply that one party is attacking science more than the other one is, at least lately?

Re:shitty

[ackthpt]

well, that's shitty.

Pfft. Just mix in some of the bills in the US House every few pages and the Chinese government will become so encumbered and gridlocked they won't know if they are coming or going.

Re:Right by accident

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, not an accident. IIRC the man who gave McCarthy his list was (unknown to McCarthy) KGB. Everybody on that list was deemed either expendable (to make it seem more legitimate) or someone they wanted marginalized (like Marshall). It also served to distract people from the agents they had in place in the CIA and DOD by de-legitamizing any real investigations.
I have heard it said that the one thing the KGB was very good at was spreading dissent. McCarthy served that aim very, very well.