Finding the proper balance between the desired openness of scientific inquiry conducted by scholars at universities and the security needs of the United States in the post-9/11 age is at best “a tricky business,” noted John Marburger in his opening comments to the Committee on a New Government-University Partnership on Science and Security.  The panel assembled by the National Research Council of the National Academies held its first meeting on January 12-13.

 Marburger, President Bush’s Science Adviser and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology, was the lead-off witness in two days of testimony from federal agency officials,  congressional staff, former government officials now working for Washington law firms and  think tanks, and representatives of the research community, including COSSA Executive Director Howard Silver.

 The Committee is chaired by Jacques Gansler, Vice President for Research at the University of Maryland and Alice Gast, Vice President for Research and Associate Provost at MIT.  Other members of the panel include Karen Cook, director of the Institute for Social Science Research at Stanford, Elizabeth R. Parker, Dean of the McGeorge School of Law at the University of Pacific, and former Senator Gary Hart. 

The panel spent considerable time discussing biosecurity, including publication of sensitive information like the genome of the 1918 flu virus, and the new National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity.  It also heard a lot about export-control policy, including an announcement from Commerce Department official Peter Lichtenbaum revising an earlier decision that would have made it more difficult for foreign students to participate in certain university research projects.   Despite the focus on these major problems, the committee also heard about other issues as well.

 There are “multiple challenges” related to how the changes in security are affecting the nation’s science enterprise, Marburger testified.  He noted that in making the nation safer we must focus on both physical security and economic security.  The latter may be more difficult in an era of the globalization of technical work with transnational flows of people and ideas.   The Administration seeks strategic ideas from the committee, Marburger stated, including a method to weigh the costs and benefits of any proposals.  He mentioned a role for the social sciences in conducting threat assessments.  Finally, he asked the panel to reach out to the corporate sector for advice on the export-control issue. 

 Bringing a congressional perspective, David Goldston, Chief of Staff for the Majority on the House Science Committee, called for more “engaged conversation” on the balancing issue.  He did not think the topic was ripe for legislation, but rather enhanced oversight of existing controversies.  He suggested the panel conduct case studies, consider hypothetical situations, review previous reports, and collect real-time data.  He gave the Administration credit for improving the situation with visas for foreign students and scholars; an assessment with which Marburger agreed.

 Michelle van Cleave from the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive provided the committee the perspective of security taking precedence over open science.   She expressed significant concerns with the acquisition of critical technologies by America’s enemies and stressed the importance of “creative approaches” to maintaining U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence superiority.  “A risk management” approach is not enough, she said.  Academics need to be proactive in recognizing possible intelligence threats.

 Genevieve Knezo from the Congressional Research Service reviewed the legislative and regulatory history of a new difficult element affecting the free flow of information.  Agencies are now allowed to categorize certain information as “sensitive but unclassified” (SBU).  The difficulty is that agencies have evidenced no consistency in the interpretation of the SBU category leaving those who seek information, including researchers, in a quandary.  Another witness Randall Murch, a former FBI agent now teaching at Virginia Tech, called SBU’s “mystical.”  At the same time, the tightening of the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) during John Ashcroft’s reign as Attorney General has also made obtaining government information harder.  This whole discussion disturbed Hart, who referenced his former colleague Daniel Patrick Moyhihan’s book on secrecy, which argued strongly against over-classification of government information.

 Wendy Keefer, an aide to former Associate Attorney General Viet Dinh, who went with him to the Bancroft Associates law firm, discussed the USA Patriot Act.  The reauthorization of its provisions slated to sunset are still under discussion in the Congress.  Keefer focused mainly on the Business Records section of the Act, which she admitted is usually known as the “library provision,” because of its notoriety for allowing government officials access to people’s reading habits.  She suggested that research records could fall under the rubric of “business records.”    She also alluded to the disclosure of education records from the National Center of Education Statistics under a section she described “as a limited exception to the Family Privacy Act.”

 John Hamre, a former Department of Defense and Senate Armed Services Committee official now President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, bemoaned the “climate of distrust” that permeates the science/security debate.  He noted that the Soviets didn’t trust their own people, which undermined the citizens’ loyalty to the government.  He asserted that is what is now happening in the U.S.

 Concerns of Research Community Presented

 Representatives of the research community in addition to Silver, included Tobin Smith of the Association of American Universities (AAU),  Joanne Carney from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Janet Shoemaker of the American Society for  Microbiology (ASM), and Mark Smith of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).  Tobin Smith focused on AAU’s concern about “troublesome research clauses” in government contracts to universities that place restrictions on publication or participation by foreign nationals.  Carney brought up the “right-to-travel” issue, particularly the ban on U.S. participation in scholarly conferences in Cuba.  Shoemaker stressed how ASM has worked to refine publication policies regarding biotechnology and biosecurity.  Mark Smith discussed AAUP’s longstanding defense of academic freedom and openness.

 Noting COSSA’s congressional seminars on “Detecting Deception,” “Risk and Crisis Communication,” and “Protecting Privacy,” Silver’s testimony stressed the role social and behavioral scientists play on the security question.  He quoted the Hart-Rudman Commission’s conclusion that:  “The new military-security environment of the next 25 years will be shaped by a unique and substantially unfamiliar set of political, economic, technological, social, and cultural forces…As in the past, conflict will be driven by perturbations in the political order, social dislocation, passionately held beliefs, economic competition, and cultural division.”  All of these, Silver noted, are topics that social and behavioral scientists study.

 In addition, he referenced the recent hearings in the House Science Committee on the social science response to disasters, citing Dan O’Hair’s testimony about risk perception and communications and Susan Cutter’s research on evacuation (see UPDATE, November 21, 2005).

 In discussing the impact of the current security climate on conducting social science research, Silver mentioned the difficulties faced by survey researchers as well as those who conduct government surveys with regard to confidentiality and people’s perception, that as Daniel Solove declared at the privacy seminar, “my data is confidential…assuming no crisis.”  He also cited Ken Prewitt’s discussion at the same seminar of the impact on information collection, which is vital to our democracy, if people do not trust that their responses  will remain confidential.

 Other issues, Silver discussed, included the Patriot Act provision on education data, although up until now, there does not appear to be any evidence of its use.  The difficulty of testing deception detection results in real life situations, the limiting of access to information under FOIA, and the impact of the SBU category on the new Homeland Security center at the University of Maryland, a concern echoed by Chairman Gansler. 

 Finally, reiterating Marburger’s call for a “new science of science policy” (see UPDATE, May 2, 2005),  Silver told the committee that social scientists “who study incentives for research and how knowledge accumulates, is disseminated, and transformed into technologies that may be diffused throughout society can contribute to a better understanding of the costs of restrictions on research.”

 Janet Norwood, former Commissioner of Labor Statistics and former President of COSSA, will head a   13 member National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) committee to examine the Department of Education’s (ED) international education and foreign languages programs. 

 The NAS study will review the adequacy and effectiveness of the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs in addressing their statutory missions and in building the nation's international and foreign language expertise — particularly as needed for economic, foreign affairs, and national security purposes.

 During the Higher Education Act reauthorization the past two years, these programs have come under attack for promoting anti-Americanism (see UPDATE October 6, 2003, August 8, 2005, and September 12, 2005).  A particular target of the critics has been the Middle East Centers, which are accused of promoting the Palestinian cause at the expense of Israel. 

 Joining Norwood on the panel is former Census Bureau director Ken Prewitt.  A former two-time President of the Social Science Research Council and a COSSA seminar speaker in 2005, Prewitt is now Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.   Christopher Cross, former Assistant Secretary of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement at ED, is also on the committee.  For a list of the full committee roster go to: 

http://www4.nas.edu/webcr.nsf/CommitteeDisplay/CFEX-Q-05-08-A?OpenDocument

 Mandated by Congress in the FY 2005 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act, the study will focus on eight areas:

·   Supporting research, education and training in foreign languages and international studies, including opportunities for such research, education, and training overseas;