Security Versus Science 286
dogfrt writes "According to this Wired News article, post-9/11 homeland security has had a decidedly negative effect on US scientific research. In specific, researchers are self-censoring what they publish, talented foreign students are being denied visas (approximately 20%, according to one source in the article), and researchers are avoiding work with dangerous pathogens, choosing more innocuous micro-organisms."
20% of foreign students (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the article says that 20% of accepted foreign students in physics "...had problems entering the country last year". It doesn't say they've been denied visas. It also doesn't say what constitutes "problems", and what percent normally had trouble before 9/11. They all may have made it in, just with some troubles.
OK... (Score:3, Informative)
GOOD!
Why is it that the US gets flogged for denying someone a VISA, when other countries do it all the time and is considered "common place"?
Yes, I'm a "Yank" (I live about an hour west of Philly), but I just flat-out don't understand why it's a big deal when the US of A does it, but it's OK for anyone else.
Can someone please enlighten me?
Re:Ben Franklin Said it Best (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't think that full protection is fair, too bad. But don't travel to other places, as you will not enjoy the same rights as those citizens.
Well this is the problem; we'll be heading towards a situation where any sort of global travel has to be avoided. If I, as a British Citizen, have to travel to the US for a short term period, either for business or for a holiday, I don't see why I shouldn't be entitled to human rights or justice. These things aren't something that come from being a tax-payer of that country - they should be universal.
I'm reminded of the situation where a group of British tourists were detained as spies by Greece [bbc.co.uk].
Interestingly, the press always reported them as being "plane spotters" and "tourists", and never "potential terrorists". Yet here's a link [bbc.co.uk] from the same day where we're told that the new laws are to detain terror suspects without trial, and indeed, the same government that said the aforementioned group were "only tourists" tell us that opponents of the legislation are "naive".
Re:not necessarily blaming the scientists (Score:1, Informative)
Without going into specifics of how one would do it, it would be possible to make literaly millions of different strains that would be random hybrids of various influenza strains that infect humans and other species. The vast majority of these would be broken and non-infectious, but a few would be viable and completely novel to the human immune system, and thus very deadly. If released into the population, the most contagious strains (not necessarily the most deadly) would rapidly be selected for. Given how interconnected the world is today, you would very likely be looking at a pandemic that would make 1918 seem tame. Such an effort is within the scope of today's technology. The liklihood of someone doing it is reduced by the fact that it wouldn't be something that you could direct specifically at your enemies. However, given the great number of people who subscribe to the idea of an afterlife and who are quite willing to martyr themselves, the prospect worries me significantly.