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National
Security - or Covering His Ass?
February
20, 2002
by Alan Landis
In the last week, the Bush administration pulled
from public websites and other resources more than 6,000
public domain scientific documents that covered research in
a broad number of areas (including biological and chemical
abstracts that could possibly have been used to create weapons
of mass destruction). This action, while typical of the way
that Bush has acted with regards to the history of administrations
past and present, conjures the spectre of an all too repressive
security state.
The reason given for the withdrawal of these documents (some
of which have been available for decades) has ostensibly been
so that the information involved would not fall into terrorist
hands. Of course - terrorists, gotta stop those foreign terrorists
from getting more anthrax. However, the anthrax scares in
October seem to point to the fact that the anthrax was in
all likelihood taken from a federal military research facility
by someone who knew exactly what he or she was doing; even
if the documents could be withdrawn retroactively in time,
it would have made absolutely no difference.
Okay, so this will stop future terrorists from figuring out
how to create potential biotoxins or chemical agents, right?
Well, no, not really. There are any number of research universities
in the United States that have this information, and any number
of research universities outside of the United States that
also have this same information. Will the federal government
start compelling them to destroy their own collections? They
may try, but short of armed guards coming in with orders to
burn libraries to the ground, if a terrorist were truly determined
enough, they WILL find the information they need.
So what does Bush gain by taking this action? If you only
look at it as a way of cracking down on potential foreign
terrorism, not much. On the other hand, if you look beyond
that, things get very worrisome indeed. First of all comes
the question of being able to slow any investigation into
where the anthrax really came from. Government documents contain
more than just scientific information - they can also be used
to provide an audit trail for when specific advances were
made, where they were made, and what support was given, public
and private to make these advances possible. Audit trials
like this could prove potentially embarassing, especially
if the anthrax was not the work of a single madman but was
in fact employed as a potential weapon (or at least inciting
event) by someone within government.
The probe to find the source of the anthrax seemed to be
moving towards a very small number of potential sites, and
then all of a sudden investigators proclaimed that the case
was not going anywhere. Having this material available to
researchers might very well have meant that academics or doctors
familiar with the pathogens could have aided the investigation
- a very patriotic thing to do after all, not to mention a
feather in the cap of anyone who did so. Thus, withdrawing
this material begs the question - is Bush trying to protect
the country, or possibly himself?
This could also very well be the start of a much more exhaustive
attacks on free speech - a point which Bush has consistently
had problems with since being elected. If you are an academic,
and the potential exists that work you are doing could arbitrarily
be considered classified, then you can either try to protest
(and risk losing your job) or shifting away from that line
of research. This will in turn mean that increasingly knowledge
about certain biologically or chemical advances (or maybe
other areas, such as large scale computer systems or nanotechnology)
will only be in the hands of the government (though it could
also be sold off quietly to companies with enough money).
It also has a very deleterious effect on the development of
potential vaccines or antidotes, which in turn makes these
technologies into increasingly dangerous weapons. It also
has the inadvertant side effect of shifting technological
development in these areas out of the US and to other countries,
such as England, which has openly encouraged genetic scientists
to relocate to that country because of the limitations in
this country on stem cell research.
Finally, such actions continue the precedent that the Federal
government (in the person of the president) can suppress the
free flow of information in the name of "national security."
Lovely phrase that, a term beloved of all political leaders,
because it means that evidence can be destroyed, illicit activities
can be pursued and shady fortunes can be made under the banner
of protecting the country from harm. In general, we tolerate
a certain degree of this because most people know that there
are some things that happen in government that are necessary,
but not necessarily pretty. Bismarck's assertion about not
looking too closely into the making of sausage or politics
is as true today as it was in the 1880s
Yet when a leader wraps himself and all of his activities
in the banner of national security, then it is time to become
justifiably suspicious. It is a short hop from securing scientific
documents to suppressing academic dissent, a quick jump from
creating "Free Speech Zones" to cracking down on protests
of any sort deemed counter to the interests of the administration.
This country retains its liberty by balancing the totalitarian
impulses of three institutions against one another. When that
balance goes awry, it is indeed a short road to the next imperium.
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