Secrecy News: Defending Scientific Openness

Steven Aftergood publishes an email called Secrecy News, which does an excellent job of covering issues related to secrecy policy and practices. This post speaks to an issue that I think is hugely important and largely undiscussed: our post-9/11 obsession with sealing the borders and classifying everything is a prescription for killing our economy. If the US stops being the locus of scientific research and higher education, a magnet drawing in the brightest minds from around the world, our economy will stagnate and die. Secrecy News weighs in with "DEFENDING SCIENTIFIC OPENNESS:

Openness in scientific research is vital to national security and must be preserved, argued a distinguished panel of senior scientists and former national security officials in a new report.

With the exception of research that is properly classified for national security reasons, dissemination of other scientific research should remain unrestricted as far as possible, the Commission on Scientific Communication and National Security said.

This policy 'does not assert that the open dissemination of unclassified research is without risk. Rather, it says that openness in research is so important to our own security -- and to other key national objectives -- that it warrants the risk that our adversaries may benefit from scientific openness as well.'"