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Russian secret service vetting Russian science papers
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.18602!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/526486a.pdf(I hadn't realized that the FSB has continued the old KGB practice of maintaining branches at all universities. Depressing.)
In 1993, the government passed a law obliging scientists in Russia to get permission from the Federal Security Service (FSB) before publishing results that might have military or industrial significance. This mainly covered work that related to building weapons, including nuclear, biological and chemical ones. However, in May, President Vladimir Putin used a decree to expand the scope of the law to include any science that can be used to develop vaguelydefined“new products”. . . .
Since then, rumours have emerged that Russian universities and institutes are demanding that
manuscripts be approved before submission to comply with the amendment. The minutes from the Belozersky Institute meeting confirm this. “Be reminded that current legislation obliges scientists to get approval prior to publication of any article and conference talk or poster,” they say. They note that the rules apply to any publication or conference, foreign or national, and to all staff “without exception”. Scientists will need to seek permission from the university’s First Department — a branch of the FSB that exists at all Russian universities and research institutes, says Viacheslav Shuper, a geographer at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and MSU. He says that MSU geographers have been given similar instructions.
. . .
Letting bureaucrats decide whether any piece of science is a state secret is not just nerve-wracking, but also burdensome, he says. For example, at some institutes, scientists who have written papers in English for foreign pub- lication are obliged to translate them into Rus- sian for the sake of the security service. The changes are also bad for science, says Fyodor Kondrashov, a Russian biologist at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain. “The problem is that it appears that all scientific output is being treated as potentially classified,” he says. “This creates an unhealthy research climate with some scientists prefer- ring not to share information — not to give a talk at a conference abroad, for example. I fear that the authorities will choose to apply this law selectively against their critics.”
Sergey Salikhov, director of the Russian science ministry’s science and technology depart- ment, told Nature that the government does not intend the amendment to restrict the pub- lication of basic research. He says that it is not ordering universities or security services to pro- actively enforce the law over civilian research.
But the amendment leaves interpretation to the security services and science administrators, who tend to be over-zealous, says Gelfand. “Basically, anything new and potentially useful can now be interpreted to be a state secret,” says Konstantin Severinov, a molecular biologist with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, who graduated from MSU.
Since then, rumours have emerged that Russian universities and institutes are demanding that
manuscripts be approved before submission to comply with the amendment. The minutes from the Belozersky Institute meeting confirm this. “Be reminded that current legislation obliges scientists to get approval prior to publication of any article and conference talk or poster,” they say. They note that the rules apply to any publication or conference, foreign or national, and to all staff “without exception”. Scientists will need to seek permission from the university’s First Department — a branch of the FSB that exists at all Russian universities and research institutes, says Viacheslav Shuper, a geographer at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and MSU. He says that MSU geographers have been given similar instructions.
. . .
Letting bureaucrats decide whether any piece of science is a state secret is not just nerve-wracking, but also burdensome, he says. For example, at some institutes, scientists who have written papers in English for foreign pub- lication are obliged to translate them into Rus- sian for the sake of the security service. The changes are also bad for science, says Fyodor Kondrashov, a Russian biologist at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain. “The problem is that it appears that all scientific output is being treated as potentially classified,” he says. “This creates an unhealthy research climate with some scientists prefer- ring not to share information — not to give a talk at a conference abroad, for example. I fear that the authorities will choose to apply this law selectively against their critics.”
Sergey Salikhov, director of the Russian science ministry’s science and technology depart- ment, told Nature that the government does not intend the amendment to restrict the pub- lication of basic research. He says that it is not ordering universities or security services to pro- actively enforce the law over civilian research.
But the amendment leaves interpretation to the security services and science administrators, who tend to be over-zealous, says Gelfand. “Basically, anything new and potentially useful can now be interpreted to be a state secret,” says Konstantin Severinov, a molecular biologist with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, who graduated from MSU.
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Putin is like Avis car rental, number two and trying harder.
