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Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!yetti!peter
From: peter@yetti.UUCP (Runge)
Newsgroups: net.research,net.politics
Subject: Suppression of research presentations by DoD
Message-ID: <166@yetti.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Apr-85 01:16:50 EST
Article-I.D.: yetti.166
Posted: Fri Apr 26 01:16:50 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Apr-85 10:49:17 EST
Organization: York University Computer Science
Lines: 23
Xref: utcs net.research:145 net.politics:8446


I was interested to see in a recent NY Times that the DoD told the
Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers that about a dozen
(unclassified) papers could not be presented and the audiences for another
2 dozen had to be restricted.  Apparently the DoD feels it has the
authority to do this under the Export Control Act which makes it illegal
to export certain technologies without a license, and "when speeches
and papers are involved, .. the presence of foreign scientists could
lead to the unauthorized export of information."[sic!] {sick?!}

This somehow calls to mind a story I heard on the 60s (when there really
was free speech -- remember Ellsberg!) about a physicist who quit
a job with the IDA and was then asked by a former colleague to clarify
something in the notes he left behind.  Unfortunately, no longer having
a clearance, he wasn't authorized to reread the notes and the defenders
of the free world had to do without his insights.  {No, there's no real
connection with the first paragraph except to illustrate in another
way the bizarre attitudes of the military towards research and  scientific
information.}
-- 

   Peter H. Roosen-Runge, Department of Computer Science, York University
                          Toronto (Downsview), Ontario