US Secrecy Efforts Hurting Scientific Research 224
EnlightenmentFan writes "The new, ultra-vague category "sensitive but unclassified" is being used to stop publication of research, according to this
NY Times article (Registration required, but it's free). Bruce Alberts (President, National Academy of Sciences), William A. Wulf (President, National Academy of Engineering), and Harvey V. Fineberg (President, Institute of Medicine) made a joint statement after bureaucrats declared a major NAS report on bioterrorism unpublishable."
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Yeah! That's... ummm... funny.
Canada is such a free society! I think I like it.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/01/27/us.canada.border/ [cnn.com]
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Old news. (-;
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
McCain impersonating Ashcroft: "America won't be free until every American is afraid of being thrown in jail".
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I guess you are referring to Florida here....
Re:Paging Mr. Kettle... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the underlying problem is that many people are now as cynical of government motives as during the Watergate crisis.
There is absolutely nothing an administration can do that is more harmful to national security than to use security classifications for political ends. Unfortunately it is very hard to believe this government when it says 'trust me'.
They said 'trust me' over the tax cut which would not break the budget, guess what it did. Then again it still claims that the names of the energy companies that paid to take part in Dick Cheney's 'energy taskforce' are privilleged.
Federal government research that is inconvenient to the administration simply disappears.
I am less worried by this report than the fact that the director of the CIA is unable to support the claims made by the administration concerning Iraq.
I am less concerned about the actions of the administration than the fact that the 'liberal-press' appear determined not to ask the obvious questions.
Re:Paging Mr. Kettle... (Score:2)
I am less worried by this report than the fact that the director of the CIA is unable to support the claims made by the administration concerning Iraq.
The thought that the CIA director is being more truthful than all the other branches of the US federal government scares me.
And I agree on the "liberal press" comment. To any resident freepers: If the media is so liberal, why was Clinton crucified over getting a blowjob, and the Harken and Haliburton affairs totally ignored? Answer me that.
Tax cut != deficit (Score:2, Offtopic)
Well, there is correlation but not causation there. Basic Macro, the sort we teach to the undergrads, tells us that lowering taxes raises GDP. Reality isn't quite that tidy, but no-one would expect a tax cut to do anything other than reduce the severity of a recession.
Here's the point: the recession, and the busted budget, were coming. They were going to hit no matter what the current administration did. The Bush2 taxcuts lessened the severity of the recession, and might have REDUCED the extent of the deficit [1]. There is a reason they call it the business cycle! If any politician is going to be assigned credit/blame for the timing of the current trough in the cycle, it would have to be one of his predecessors.
There is absolutely nothing an administration can do that is more harmful to national security than to use security classifications for political ends. Unfortunately it is very hard to believe this government when it says 'trust me'.
All very true. All that cynicism wasn't built in a day. Again, Bush2 (and all of us) is reaping the harvest sowed by his predecessors in that office.
Unfortunately, this isn't a Republican or Democratic problem; this is a US problem. We have allowed our government to get away with a lot of secrecy and thus a lot of wrongdoing in the name of National Security. When my parents were young, It was the Germans and the Japanese. Then it was the Godless Commies. For a while it was the War on Drugs. Now it's Rogue States and Terrorists. All very real, and all very convenient for the well intentioned folks who think it would be so much easier to do their jobs if it weren't for the citizens asking all those pesky questions. Convenient, also, for the people who are trying to cover up deliberate malfeasance.
[1] It might also have increased the deficit. I haven't tried to estimate the effects. The point is that it is equally rediculous to ascribe either effect to it.
Re:Tax cut != deficit (Score:3)
No it does not. There is clearly an area where taxation has an effect on GDP and also clearly an area where the effects are irrelevant. Even the infamous Laffer-curve used to justify Reaganomics accepted that. Now Economics 101 taught by Phil Gramm might teach that but most genuine economists explain that economics is very complex and that simple minded ideology does not give infallible answers.
Deficit spending can clearly have a negative effect on GDP by raising long term interest rates and hence the cost of capital. So tax cuts that increase the deficit without creating offsetting incentives for greater economic activity can actually reduce GDP. In particular eliminating inheritance tax does not encourage people to die.
The claim that tax cuts cost nothing because every dollar of lost revenue will somehow be made up in increased GDP is clearly a right-wing fairy tale.
The point is that we were told that the tax cuts would not cause or worsen the deficit over and over again. At no point did the administration admit that the tax cut might result in deficit spending. When Gore challenged Bush on this in the debate Bush made his infamous 'fuzzy math' claim. It is very clear now that Bush was the one using fuzzy math.
To take a more clear cut example, Bush has repeatedly asserted that he had said during the campaign that his balanced budget pledge was subject to conditions, it might be necessary to run a deficit for war, a recession or national emergency. Only thing is that this was actually said by Gore [washingtonpost.com], there is no contemporary press record of the conditions, nor can the administration provide any evidence that they were ever made, or any press release of policy statement that mentions them. The oft repeated pledge to balance the budget unconditionally is retrospectively made subject to a condition that was never stated at the time.
One wonders what secret conditions might apply to the numerous other undertakings the Bush administration has made.
NY Times... (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory registration-free link (Score:4, Informative)
Sensitive but unclassified? (Score:3, Funny)
Not speaking from personal experience of course
Cliff Stoll (Score:5, Insightful)
So I guess there's another side to the arguement...who would've thought?
Re:Cliff Stoll (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with things needing to be considered "sensitive but unclassified" when they are associated with governmental proceedings and plans etc. but I can't say I see the point in doing this with scientific papers primarily because I don't think other countries are going to stop publishing theirs. Whether an American scientist publishes a paper or not, would-be bioterrorists _will_ find a way to do harm. I can't say I see it as a disservice to the human population (nor to other scientists, assuming they still have access to these papers) but I do consider it ethically wrong to censor it.
Re:Cliff Stoll (Score:2)
Googlefied (Score:5, Informative)
Sensitive but unclassified come on (Score:5, Insightful)
EXACTLY ! (Score:2)
If i can't read it then its not available to the public, hence its classified. I don't care about thin layers of differentiation. For me, its a binary field, Can-Read (y/n)
Re:Sensitive but unclassified come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the "sensitive but unclassified" caveat has none of those requirement and hence none of the traditional restrictions which prevent abuse on the side of classification authorities. Now information can be withheld with impunity without any real accountability.
Re:Sensitive but unclassified come on (Score:5, Interesting)
In the early 1980s, when I worked for an aerospace contractor, I got a memo from DoD vaguely recommending that something be considered "sensitive but unclassified". I wrote back, asking whether this was the Government acting as contracting agent, or was this a statutory requirement? If it was the government acting as contracting agent, we'd be glad to comply, but a formal change order and an additional fee to be negotiated through our contract office would be required. If it was a statutory requirement, we needed to know the legal authority under which it was made, and that should be communicated to our legal department.
Never heard from those people again.
Classification is expensive. When bidding, we would estimate that running a project at SECRET instead of UNCLASSIFIED multiplied the cost by roughly 2. You had to get everybody cleared, which takes time and costs. Documents had to be signed in and out and tracked, which costs and slows the project down. You can't outsource much. It's a big pain.
At TOP SECRET, the costs go through the roof. You work in windowless RF-tight metal-walled rooms with RF-tight airlocks, or you're located at some site in Outer Nowhere. You're always unlocking or locking something. It takes months to get people cleared, and sometimes you have people sitting around doing busywork for months while waiting for their clearances to be processed. Worse, the people working on TS projects get out of date technically because they can't talk to anybody. That's the biggest cost of all. Except in very specialized areas, the highly-classified projects aren't ahead of the state of the art. They're behind.
Re:Sensitive but unclassified come on (Score:3, Interesting)
Any classified document will have at the bottom of each page at least two lines:
Classified by:(classification authority inserted here)
Declassify on: OADR (this is obsolete now, replaced by 10 year rule or other)
Once this is on there the classfication authority is legally responsible for what is contained in that document and how it is handled and whether it should be classified at all. Not so with "sensitive but unclassified" -> no responsibility.
I remember at my duty station we had a bunch of tempested IBM PC XT machines in the 80s. These could be used for processing classified information outside of a regular SCIF. To have these things tempested (which was a legacy of the NAVY's procedure for minimizing compromising electronic emmisions from computers) the PC ended up costing about $50k. Then after all that it usually didn't work. All the copper foil encasing the innerds of the monitor caused them to overheat after about 10 minutes. You had to turn them off, let them cool down and then start up again. Those were the days !
We dont burn books... (Score:5, Funny)
Its understandable. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Its understandable. (Score:3, Insightful)
I really hope that you do not have any sort of privileged access to anything worth knowing.
The problem here is that some of these ideas are obvious: intentionally introducing diseases to US livestock could hurt us - pretty obvious. The same sort of mind that sees a comercial jet as a weapon sees poison and disease as a weapon.
Some of these things are specific threats: numbers, weaknesses, breeding histories, especially deadly or dangerous disease strains, etc - things only profesional researchers are in a position to discover. Why should this sort of tactical information be published before the government can take action regarding it?
Or are you just lashing out against W. without thinking? :)
Re:Its understandable. (Score:2)
Re:Its understandable. (Score:2)
Re:Its understandable. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this sort of information is not accessible only to professional researchers. Much of it is already on the internet, or published in foreign journals--or even in domestic publications that nobody noticed contained "sensitive" information. (That's actually one of the big problems with a "sensitive but unclassified" pseudocategory--nobody can be sure to what it should be applied, and different administrators will draw lines in different places.
Also, as long as this material is unclassified, scientists will continue to talk to one another. Most researchers are inherently helpful people, and they love to talk about their work. (It doesn't hurt that showing an interest strokes their egos, as well.) Having spent a large fraction of my working life in academia, this free interchange of ideas is essential, but it is also virtually impossible to secure on an informal basis. In other words, an email to most researchers would probably provide a great deal of useful information--no face to face meeting required, and forget about waiting for publication.
The One thing the "war" on terror has taught us: (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you get it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The attack/act/threat per-se is not the important thing.
That is why the attack on 09-11 (and the post anthrax threat) was SO effective, it shook ppl out of the safety they lived in into a world of terror. It "made" media blow things up out of proportion to feed that fear. More than 1000 times the deaths of the so called "anthrax threat" are killed every month in violent crimes in the US, so which one is a greater threat, and which one got more publicity, and which one made ppl afraid ?
Do you see it ?
Re:I don't think you get it ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't think you get it ... (Score:2)
Re:I don't think you get it ... (Score:2)
(nice username, BTW )
That is why the attack on 09-11 (and the post anthrax threat) was SO effective, it shook ppl out of the safety they lived in into a world of terror.
out of their illusions into reality ? a large part of the world does live in fear, famine, wars and genocide.
More than 1000 times the deaths of the so called "anthrax threat" are killed every month in violent crimes in the US, so which one is a greater threat, and which one got more publicity, and which one made ppl afraid ?
Hysteria != concern. The media flames and is feeding on the first, but that does not mean one should automatically dismiss the second.
A threat is not measured just in the current amount of victims/damages, but also by the potential costs and estimated probability. In this regard biowarfare (not anthrax, which is rather weak , but things like smallpox and worse) is IMHO quite a significant threat. Just look at europe of the 14th century for an example of what an efficient plauge can do.
Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
this is a very old dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point, during WWII the British had knowledge ahead of time of the Germans plans for the bombing of certain towns in southern England. If they would have warned the locals of the impending attack they would have given away the fact that they had in fact breached the code that protected the high command's communications. So, they allowed the bombardments to continue without any kind of 'early' response in order not to tip their hands.
This knowledge has been kept secret until very recently...
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason the Brits kept that information secret was because the means of collection was secret.
That's pretty much standard policy amongst all intelligence agencies: Do nothing that will give away how (or that) you know about the enemy's actions. Until you can use the information to cripple him decisively.
What the Bush administration, OTH, is doing in it's usual ham-handed way, is going through public domain documents and re-classifying them.
Rather like closing barn doors if you ask me, but then, nobody has ever accused Bush of being intelligent.
The Bush administration just doesn't get it, a police state is NOT how you handle terrorists. You take away the terrorist's ability to complain by making his country somewhat wealthy. Hard to get recruits when they're all fat, dumb and happy, isn't it?
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:2, Insightful)
And even if such a paper would have been circulated restricting access to it might have helped (but then again if it was realy widely published then I agree with you that would be useless).
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem here is not that the government classifies material for national security, but the 'sensitive, but unclassified' categorization and attempts to browbeat the independent scientific community into not publishing results.
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:2)
I'm still waiting for the publication of the "Super mega ultra top secret" stuff!
"somewhat wealthy" (Score:2)
This is a fallacy. Saudia Arabia, source of the WTC terrorists, is far from a poor country. Poor people have historically been pretty ineffectual except when they banded together in large groups with lots of help from rich people.
Re:"somewhat wealthy" (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't help when all these poor, unhappy people see their rich princes and king associating so much with the West, and particularly the US. It isn't a hard case to make; "you're miserable because the royal family is hoarding the money - see, they have been corrupted by the contact with the West".
I realize that the Saudi hijackers from 9/11 were mostly well-off and not particluarly poor. But, I would imagine that most of the "foot soldiers" of groups like the Taliban and Al Qua'ida are coming from very poor situations, and they can easily (at least in their minds) trace the cause of their poverty to the US and the West.
Their poverty not a valid reason to kill people, and I'm not in any way justifying their acts of terrorism. But it's very important to try to understand what THEY see as a valid reason and justification.
Going back to Saudi Arabia and its wealth... That country (and much of the region) is only one tech-revolution away from being destitute. Once somebody figures out how to economically use hydrogen, or develops a workable fusion reactor, the need for oil as a a fuel source will quickly diminish, and much of the Middle East will lose its relevance in a geopolitical sense. Of course, we'll (probably) always need petroleum for lubrication, petro-chemicals, plastics and some fuel, but definitely not in the volumes it is produced and consumed now.
In that situation, you'll have even more destitute people who will have old hatreds of the West, which will only be fueled by its prosperity and affluence.
Re:"somewhat wealthy" (Score:3, Interesting)
Marx's economic determinism lacks a model for the Islamic inspired terrorism that is becoming too common. The "Wrongs" that attract recruits to Al Qaeda are the importation of western culture and ideas into Islamic nations. Thety view these as dangrous to thier view of Islamic "purity". Increasing the general wealth of the people in Islamic nations will result in a greater demand for western products and a greater exposure to western ideals. These ideas are a direct threat to the world view of the Wahabist and S'hia Islamic sects.
Western culture is seductive. People find many of it's ideas attractive. Islamic fundementalists consider ther seductive ideas a danger to the faith, and will consider thier faith under attack as long as there is a single person who has a different world view.
This is far more than a "war against terrorism". It's a religous war. On one side you have the free thinking ideals of modern western society. On the other a religion that seeks to return to the dark ages. Theier plans are no secrect. To reestablish the calphite with all Islamic nations placed under the religous and secular power of a fundementalist caliph, and for the new Islamic empire to resume the conquests that were underway in the 8th century.
Re:"somewhat wealthy" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:2)
I partially disagree.
People like the rich Osama Bin Laden.
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:2)
Re:this is a very old dilemma (Score:2)
Not true. There were some close calls, but that never happened. You need to read some of the more definitive works about Bletchley Park, not Higgenbotham's turkey.
For what it's worth, I toured Bletchley Park two weeks ago. I recommend the visit for anyone into crypto. But go on a weekend, when the experts are there. Check out the Colossus rebuild and the bombe rebuild projects, which are coming along nicely.
uhoh, here's the article! (Score:2, Redundant)
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The presidents of the National Academies said yesterday that the Bush administration was going too far in limiting publication of some scientific research out of concern that it could aid terrorists.
Specifically, they said, the administration's policy of restricting the publication of federally financed research it deemed "sensitive but unclassified" threatened to "stifle scientific creativity and to weaken national security."
The category of "sensitive but unclassified" was poorly defined, the presidents said in a "Statement on Science and Security in an Age of Terrorism."
"Experience shows that vague criteria of this kind generate deep uncertainties among both scientists and officials responsible for enforcing regulations," the statement said.
Indeed, the policy, experts said, had already resulted in the administration's withdrawing of thousands of reports and papers from the public domain.
The National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine were created by the federal government to advise it on scientific and technological matters. But the academies are private organizations; they do not receive direct federal financing, but appropriations from the federal agencies for whom they conduct their research.
The presidents' statement is at least partly a reaction to the institutions' own clash with the policy. Last month, the National Academy of Sciences published a report on agricultural bioterrorism over the objections of the Bush administration.
In publishing the report, the academy said, it hoped to help American scientists identify ways to bolster the nation's biological defenses.
"That's one example," said E. William Colglazier, the executive director of the National Academy of Sciences. "There are others."
The general problem, Mr. Colglazier added, "is not having clear guidelines about what constitutes this sensitive area, because people have different opinions on what should or shouldn't be included. Right now, it's vague and poorly defined. But it shouldn't be just in the eye of the beholder."
More broadly, the academy presidents said, the government should reaffirm a principle laid down in 1985 during the Reagan administration: that no restrictions are placed upon the conduct or reporting of federally financed fundamental research that is unclassified.
A successful balance between security and openness, the presidents said, "demands clarity in the distinctions between classified and unclassified research."
Yesterday's statement was signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences; William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering; and Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine.
Responding to the statement, Gordon D. Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, said: "We continue to work with the scientific community to strike the appropriate balance between national security information that must be held close and scientific information that should be available for research purposes."
The tensions began early this year as the Bush administration began taking wide measures to tighten scientific secrecy in hopes of keeping terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. In January, the administration quietly began withdrawing from public release more than 6,600 technical documents that dealt mainly with the production of germ and chemical weapons.
Then, in a memorandum to all governmental agencies on March 19, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, urged them to redouble security safeguards. Special attention, he said, should be paid to "sensitive but unclassified information."
The need to protect information from inappropriate disclosure, Mr. Card wrote, "should be carefully considered, on a case-by-case basis, together with the benefits that result from the open and efficient exchange of scientific, technical and like information."
Soon afterward, the National Academy of Sciences became entangled in the new policy. The administration asked that an unclassified report it was writing -- "Countering Agricultural Bioterrorism" -- be kept from the public. The report, a two-year, $400,000 study, was being prepared for the Department of Agriculture.
The report warned that inadequate inspections at the nation's borders and gaps in intelligence data on foreign plant and animal pathogens raise the chance that a terrorist armed with, say, the foot-and-mouth virus, could enter the country and spread diseases that might cripple the nation's livestock and plants.
After months of discussions, Dr. Colglazier said, the academy published the report in September. He said a few detailed examples of the threats to the nation's food supplies were removed from the published report and placed in an appendix that was not made public.
"We made our own decision" on what to remove, Dr. Colglazier emphasized.
In their statement yesterday, the academy presidents called for a dialogue among scientists, engineers, health researchers and policy makers to develop criteria for determining when to classify or restrict public access to scientific information.
Among their recommendations, they suggested that a determination be made of what research bears on possible new security threats. Principles for researchers, they said, need to address questions like whether some areas of currently unclassified research should be classified in the new security environment.
The academies, Dr. Colglazier said, "have recognized that it makes sense to restrict public access to some areas of sensitive information that is unclassified," like information about national infrastructures that could be disrupted by terrorist attacks.
"But the concern," he said, "is that there should be clear guidance on what information would fall into this category."
Re:uhoh, here's the article! (Score:2)
It's a free market, in both senses of "free" (Score:4, Informative)
Use a stupid fake reg. Stop copying & postin (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon people. It's not that hard to use a stupid free registration. The Wall Street Journal has a subscription cost, the Economist has a subscription for some articles... NY Times doesn't HAVE to provide free media content, so don't blatantly disregard the law when it's so incredibly easy to follow.
News at 11. (Score:5, Funny)
Back to you Dan.
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Facts are stupid things. - Ronald Reagan
Re:News at 11. (Score:2)
That's just like when the NBC afflicate in Las Vegas planted an unmarked van on Hoover Dam for an hour at night, to prove that terriorists could blow up the dam. Stuff like that tends to be more effective at panicing the populace and getting a quick, if knee-jerk, reaction out of the security people than pointing terrorists to a now very well known problem.
Re:News at 11. (Score:2)
We know very well that there are lots of easy targets all over the country. Lots. Pointing out one of them doesn't mean much. It might, for awhile, cause it to be somewhat less attractive as a place to attack.
This actually occured to me during the 1960's, when there were these groups around the country pretending to be violent revolutionaries. But they never attacked any of the obvious easy targets. Occasionally they would talk about it ("Let's throw acid in the resevoir!") in a totally unworkable way, but nobody believed them, because they had so many easy chances, and didn't use any of them. And nobody said anything about it, because as long as people pretended to take them seriously, they were able to believe that they were heroic revolutionaries. I even knew one of these ding-dongs, and he believed in himself. He "hid out", paranoid that the Feds were after him. And collected his welfare check. From the feds. He may have gone so far as to use a fake SSI number, but I wouldn't bet on it. (I figured that it was cheaper than keeping him in a loony bin, and he was harmless.)
If we had real revolutionaries around, there's a lot of places that would need better security, but I sure wouldn't want the feds in charge of it. It needs to be the responsibility of the people who would be affected. Airport security should be managed by the airlines and the airports. etc. (That wouldn't keep out a surprise attack, but then nothing would.)
And the appropriate response would be to send in not the air force, but teams of assassins. Target the people who made the decision, not everyone near where they were reported to be five weeks ago. The air force strikes were dramatic, but I don't see any reason to believe that they hit their ostensible target, and that isn't even his country. He probably went back home where it's quieter.
Default assumption... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are very few places where "security by obscurity" works to protect anyone but the bad guys. If I were a farmer, I might find that report of great personal interest. If I know of a security problem, I might be able to do something about it. Or at least knowing what's on my farm and its surroundings, to know exactly what kind of help to buy or ask for from the Feds. Some answers might be as close as one's county agricultural agent, if one knows what questions to ask.
Let's put it this way, how would you feel as a netadmin if BugTraq suddenly became "unclassified but sensitive"?
Should the "War on Terrorism" ever become more serious than "The War on Some Drugs", i.e. more than inconveniece for the average American and an excuse to peck away at more civil liberties of the sort that the terrorist also want to see disappear, the front line of the war starts where we are sitting, we're going to have to protect ourselves, and the most important defense in this kind of war is accurate information.
Information, i.e. the stuff that Big Brother has decided is none of the public business.
Re:Default assumption... (Score:2)
Tell that to all the British farmers who were hit by foot and mouth last year... had only they known! Yeah. Right.
Re:Default assumption... (Score:2)
Ah. You mean like Windows does? I think a part of the problem is that we don't trust those who are making the decisions not to use that capability to their own advantage. And we suspect that they might do us more damage than what it is they are claiming to protect us from. (It's even nicer when they can say that they can't tell us what they're protecting us from, but that we should trust them. When they [or their masters] lie to use every day.)
The knees are still jerking (Score:5, Insightful)
This is overkill!
Re:The knees are still jerking (Score:2)
Paranoid fantasies aren't a legitimate reason for laws. They really aren't. And the US has no right to tell Bali how to run it's country. Persumably they are dealing with it in a way that seems appropriate to them.
I am much more perturbed by the way this administration has been abusing the constitution than I am about what it's been "protecting" us from. And the responses that it's made to the events have been
Re:The knees are still jerking (Score:2)
Not a new classification (Score:5, Interesting)
"Sensitive but unclassified" information is not all that new. When I received my initial security briefing in technical school for the U.S. Air Force in 1998, one of the first things we discussed was the nature of sensitive unclassified information. Basically, the category covers things that are not in and of themselves "Secret" or above, but could cause damage to U.S. and allied mission objectives if widely disseminated.
For example, the fact that a particular unit is being deployed to a particular overseas base is not classified. However, if combined with other information, it may enable a hostile nation or group to discover operational intentions, which is why we were "strongly encouraged" not to use open phone lines to discuss troop movement orders.
In some instances, treating certain pieces of unclassified data as sensitive actually helps to protect an individual's personal data. Information gathered by the U.S. Department of Defense on its personnel is covered by the Privacy Act of 1974, which does not inherently make it classified. However, because the data is sensitive, handling and transmitting it with increased care is beneficial for military personnel.
Although I am as upset as the next person (well, the next clueful person) about the gradual erosion of my rights as a citizen -- as a a matter of fact, I had to explain to my father just yesterday about the dangers of the DMCA, Senator Hollings, and the CBPTDA or CDBTPA or CATBAD or whatever the hell it's called -- I really do feel that this article was a bit of unfounded hysteria. The U.S. government, by dint of its mandate to defend the citizenry through its Executive Branch, is always going to have information that could potentially compromise its intelligence-gathering or war-fighting capabilities. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is acknowledge that fact and search for a story elsewhere.
Re:Not a new classification (Score:2)
This is exactly the point that you're trying not to make. For some "sensitive" information, laws already exist outside of classification to protect it. (Personal info is protected under the Privacy Act.)
For other "sensitive" information, no such protection exists. Perhaps it would be appropriate to create another (lower) level of classification, so that what should be protected (and how) is properly codified and not left to the judgement of individual administrators.
Finally, in the context of bioterrorism, one wonders why this information is necessarily even considered sensitive--access to the pathogens is something that is of far greater concern than simply knowing of their existence. And that access is already regulated.
Science? (Score:5, Informative)
There is a _federally financed_ report on bio-terror.
The government doesn't want it published because some someone decided the data may be sensitive/dangerous. (for good reason? for bad reason? we don't know obviously).
There is your dilemma in a nutshell. Is this really a science story? This is a politics story and the person who submitted it had a very misleading lead-in for it. Here is one for you that doesn't imply censorship of private research. "Federal government halts publishing of federally financed report".
Re:Science? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the feds didn't like what you were publishing, maybe it couldn't censor it directly without going to great legal lengths, but what it could do and probably would do is withhold federal funding. That would mean financial disaster for any institution. It's almost virtual financial blackmail.
Re:Science? (Score:3, Insightful)
Science story, political spin? (Score:2, Insightful)
Three of the most-respected US scientists--the heads of three groups that "were created by the federal government to advise it on scientific and technological matters"--have come out with some important and clearcut advice. Let me quote from the story:
Here is what I see as the heart of the story: If researchers know that anonymous bureaucrats can block publication on any grounds they choose, you are going to see self-censorship that is more dangerous than any external censorship could be. Young researchers especially will stay away from "sensitive" areas, because they have a lot to lose if their work disappears into some bureaucratic black hole.
The reporter suggests the statement reflects "at least partly" some trouble over a government-financed report about bio-terror.The NAS spokesman denies that report is the issue.
If the government paid for this research, why can't they suppress it? Most important scientific research is paid for by government--that is, by taxpayers--with the idea that the result of this research could benefit the public. As a taxpayer, I don't want bureaucrats left free to hide any results that don't suit them. I paid for that research, and I'm entitled to know what it said unless there's some very clear reason to keep it secret. Most privately-funded research (Viagra anyone?) is already secret.
"Is this really a science story?" Some major science guys are calling attention to a government policy that hurts science and scientists directly, and the public only indirectly. But I suppose if you consider any criticism of government on any grounds to be political....
Scapegoats (Score:4, Interesting)
These are very trying times, and the dark cloud is almost upon us. Find Chancellor Palpatine in our own congress, and you will find the future of our country.
It's inevitable.
Lucas may just be milking for money, but the movies really do give an interesting view on the current state of affairs.
Re:Scapegoats (Score:3, Interesting)
Hitler also claimed that Poland attacked him. I wonder if Bush will make the the parallel perfect by claiming that Iraq attacked the USA, and declare that "starting this morning, we are shooting back" as Hitler said. That would be really spooky!
Re:Scapegoats (Score:2)
The Tribunes of the Plebs had the power to Veto any action by the Roman government, and thier safety and right to impose a veto was considered sacred under Roman law. Mark Antony was one of the 10 Tribunes, and closely allied with Caesar. (His mother was Caesar's cousin). Mark Antony vetoed a motion by the Roman Senate to strip Caesar of his powers as Governer of Gaul, and was forcibly driven from the Senate along with another Tribune that was allied with Caesar. This provided Caesar with the excuse that he was marching on Rome to protect the Tribunes of the Plebs from the illegal actions of the Senate.
Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Misleading summary (Score:2)
Hrm (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't we learned by now, that the terrorists already -have- the weapons of mass destruction they need? Faith in their government, ambition, and follow through.
So how much faith in your government, ambition, and follow through do you have?
Re:Hrm (Score:2)
Al Queda (Score:2, Interesting)
Ambition. It takes a lot of ambition to first off step up to the plate, then die so that you can receive the Martyr's reward.
Follow through... How many people do you know that'd plan to die for their religion? Their ideas? Then do it? Albeit you are dead, you did follow through with your plan.
But yes education may help, but is unlikely, if they are raised that way... Look at the various supremacy groups. By and large people think they are wrong, but they were raised that they were right, and everyone else is.
As for acquiring more lethal means to kill us, a report isn't going to help them get the means. Money is. And with enough people, you can easily raise enough money.
Then in the case of what happened over a year ago, it just took -ONE- millionaire (Bin Laden)
to cause enough damage.Who says one person can't change the world?
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Bill Joy's Warnings.... (Score:3, Insightful)
His general point (I believe it was his...), that the dissemination and democratization of knowledge and modern technology has made possible super powered individuals who are able to leverage the kind of power that was previously only available to nations, rings true. When Clinton fired cruise missiles at Bin Laden, it was the first time that the US had shot missiles and bombed not a country, but an individual. The anthrax attacks appear to a another example of the intersection of powerful knowledge and destructive intent creating significant dangers and disruption.
Back on the topic of science and this article, I'm not advocating a system that is both useless and obstructing (which the system mentioned in this article might be). But I think we must think about some of these concerns in a reasonable way and think about if there are things to do and not to do which limit dangers while not obstructing useful scientific progress.
Re:Bill Joy's Warnings.... (Score:2)
The second, I think Saddam Hussein was the first.
The anthrax attacks appear to a another example of the intersection of powerful knowledge and destructive intent creating significant dangers and disruption.
Perhaps true, but you picked another bad example. The evidence revealed so far indicates an individual who had access to US bioweapon stockpiles.
Anybody can be a major threat given access to the resources of a nation-state.
Re:Bill Joy's Warnings.... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I just wanted to clear up that factual thing. Otherwise, I think your point about Bill Joy is an interesting one.
We need more 'careful' openness (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Bill Joy goes to far as well. The type of information we are talking about is basic science and technology, not specific stuff. The article is really more talking about having clear guidlines of what to publish and what not. Given clear distictions, which the field experts are more qualified to make than the government, people will intelligently self-censor just like we already do with system security issues. That is what happened in the case cited in the article. They pulled a few specific examples to an unpublished appendix. I'm sure that if you have a need to know (i.e. you are in a role where you might encounter the specific threat), you will be able to get the appendix too.
What Joy is proposing is essentially security through obscurity, and it is a losing proposition. All the social progress that has been made comes from openness, not fear. What is important is that people pay attention to what knowledge is being used for, and what people around you are up to. If a 'fundamentalist' of any stripe can learn a destructive technology without anyone ever talking person to person deeply enough to get a real sense of the them, then there is great danger.
What this bungled attempt to censor scientific publishing shows clearly is that the administration does not understand that terrorism and protecting ourselves from it is a social problem, not a technical one. You have to trust that most people are well meaning and intelligent enough to contribute to the solution. We all have the same goal, but there is disagreement about methods.
The FBI doesn't even trust other government agencies enough to share critical information. Their culture is so broken that it is disfunctional, and it is clear to everyone, but nothing happens to change it. It sure would be refreshing to see the director of the FBI say, "We might have been able to stop this. We failed, I'm sorry". I'd trust someone who said this to actually try to fix the problem.
Security thru Obscurity ? M$ REALLY bought the gov (Score:3, Informative)
That they will still get the exploitz ? that Saddam has scientists of his own not ? that the publishing of biothreats could make the public more aware to tho them and start taking steps to prevent them?
That it even could work in the gov's favour, like a guy thinking back and saying hmmm this description fits what the guy sitting beside on the plane back from ---- was carrying in his briefcase.
Re:Bad analogy (Score:2)
No, you can't, but the information necessary to build a bomb is already out their. It's not how widely disseminated the information is, but whether a determined person could get it if they want to. Protecting the world from terrorism is a social problem, not a technical one, and it isn't served by treating scientists and technologists like idiots who can't tell the difference between general and specific information. The experts in a given field are better qualified to determine which is which, and draw up guidlines for their colleagues than any government functionary.
Most specific information that should be considered 'sensitive' in the sense we are discussing is very time sensitive. If there are vulnerabilities, they need to be disclosed to everyone that 'needs to know' so that the issues can be corrected. If an information leak would expose a vulnerability, then you had better be working on a solution, or changing procedures over time just to break up patterns. The best way to keep an attacker from being able to exploit patterns is not to have them. Often easier said than done, but if there is a pattern whether designed in, or just by default, you've got to assume that a determined attacked can and will discover it. You've got to randomize.
Enron over and over again (Score:3, Funny)
Former Arthur Andersen emploees now work for the government. The shredders runs 24 hours a day to make sensitive reports unpublishable.
We shouldn't have to give up freedom... (Score:5, Interesting)
It sickens me when I heard politicians talking about how they would like to pass this bill or that bill to keep so and so crime from happening again. It is like they use the victim to get more support for laws... laws that don't need to exist. The exiting public agencies should take care of the problem by enforcing existing laws.
Case in point is when I heard a democrat saying we need to pass the bill that will make each gun get "fingerprinted". That would be a total waste of taxpayer money. Once you fire the gun a few times the print changes! They use recent cases like the shooter in Maryland to put more and more restrictions on us.
This article displays how it's used to keep information from getting out. There is a point where lawmakers should stop and think about what they are doing.
Re:We shouldn't have to give up freedom... (Score:2)
The sheer quantity of laws is ridiculous. We are headed down the road toward a authoritarian police state by selective enforcement of too many laws. The constitution was good. It was short, sweet, and to the point. Most importantly, it can be taught to a high-schooler in a semester. I firmly believe our laws should be that way. One should be able to take a one-semester class and learn EVERY law that applies to you as an individual, be able to pass a test on it, and contractually agree that you understand your rights.
But we live in a world where the laws you are responsible for obeying fill a room, and ignorance is no excuse.
On a related note, I think a very interesting project would be to codify laws in an algorithmic format, like computer code. Before a law is passed, it should be tested. Codify it and run it on a computer. Use monte-carlo to throw a million permutations of test-cases at it. The whole body of law should be encoded this way, so that we can algorithmically identify duplicates, and reduce law creep.
-- Bob
Re:We shouldn't have to give up freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
And all pro-gun control arguments use fear, too. "Think of the children! We must protect the children from evil guns!"
Shooting people is bad. Does fingerprinting new guns prevent people from being shot? Not really. Does it help us find criminals who are using guns that they bought illegally or have had their barrels modified or had their barrels replaced by spare parts or been fired enough to alter their barrel's fingerprint? No. Does fingerprinting cost lots of money that could be spent on better causes, such as schools? Yes.
1/2 agreement (Score:4, Informative)
"In January, the administration quietly began withdrawing from public release more than 6,600 technical documents that dealt mainly with the production of germ and chemical weapons."
It made me rethink my knee jerk reaction, and I hope everyone does before just shooting from the hip on this one.
just my $0.02
Re:1/2 agreement (Score:3, Insightful)
Will they forbid the selling of sugar as it can be used as an explosive component?
Will we be forced to present how much gasoline we spent on our cars, so that no one can be able to use it for Molotovs?
Will forks and knifes be withdrawn from restaurants and public places to avoid being used as cold weapons?
Will future generations be lobotomised and genetic enginnered to avoid any natural impulse of violence?
In the end, will we have a chance to survive?
You mean like the... (Score:2)
Um... (Score:2)
Are you allowed to withdraw things from PD, or is this another case of the US government abusing its power?
Nothing New / FOIA... (Score:4, Insightful)
sensitive but unclassified flame (Score:5, Interesting)
But even Europe was not exempt of such situation. There is a mistery story about some major soviet expert on nuclear war that suddenly vanished in South Europe after a major scientific congress on the effects of Nuclear Winter. For years, no one and nobody could guess where this guy went to. He vaporised in such way, that both soviet and westerners constantly blamed each other for his vanishment. Some may think this was another Cold War incident. However, this guy seems to had worked on a more perfect model to represent the consequences of a major nuclear war. This work was not secret nor confidential and it seems that he was about to show it to everyone in that congress. However someone made him disappear before he could do it.
I wonder what will happen if the vague term "sensitive" becomes an official member of the secrecy levels. We could see such thing like: "Well we could tell you the number of victims of unsuccessful nuclear experiment but that's highly sensitive information."
Re:sensitive but unclassified flame (Score:3, Insightful)
There were many deaths of microbiologists after the anthrax attacks.
The US is stifling research, (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok time to move.
Fineberg's Update on the Agro Report... (Score:3, Informative)
Salis
Historical analysis of Alberts' & Wulf's asser (Score:3, Insightful)
While there were many causes cited, one of the most significant conclusions of the paper was that the U.S. was far more efficient because of the openness of the U.S. R&D community. Specifically, that U.S. military research could benefit significantly by adopting a "no secrets" approach. (As you might imagine, that was quite controversial within the DoD community.) And, while the Soviet Union led in certain areas, cross-discipline pollination suffered, as did application.
All this should be intuitively obvious to anyone who's watched ideas spread and grow, which fosters a virtuous cycle, which is inhibited by secrecy. I'm sure other research has been done in this area by now, but this was the first time (at least that I know of) that it was taken beyond the "inutitively obvious" stage.
I can't find the paper on the web (my paper copy disappeared long ago), and I don't remember who conducted or sponsored the research, but the findings caused quite a stir and debate which is why I remember it. If anyone out there has a solid reference, I'd very much appreciate it. Thanks.
"Sensitive but Unclassified" due to J. Poindexter (Score:4, Informative)
Good information about this at Dubya Report [thedubyareport.com], Citizen Times [citizen-times.com] and DS Star [hpcwire.com]
Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S: War on Terrorism? Nah.. I smell oil
ignorance is not bliss (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're not allowed to tell someone that a truck is headed at them, all you end up with is a more surprised victim.
I really think that this is an issue that we ran into with the cryptography restrictions. Research is protected speech. period.
1940's (Score:3, Interesting)