[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 10/08/09

Thu Oct 8 13:09:56 EDT 2009

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2009, Issue No. 80
October 8, 2009

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

**      DOD SUPPRESSED CRITIQUE OF MILITARY RESEARCH
**      NEW DOD WEBSITE FOSTERS SECRET SCIENCE

DOD SUPPRESSED CRITIQUE OF MILITARY RESEARCH

"Important aspects of the DOD basic research programs are 'broken',"
according to an assessment performed by the JASON defense science advisory
panel earlier this year, and "throwing more money at the problems will not
fix them."

But that rather significant conclusion was deliberately suppressed by
Pentagon officials who withheld it from public disclosure when a copy of
the JASON report was requested under the Freedom of Information Act. 
Instead, it was made public this week by Congress in the conference report
on the FY 2010 defense authorization act, which quoted excerpts from the
May 2009 JASON report, "Science and Technology for National Security."

"Basic research funding is not exploited to seed inventions and
discoveries that can shape the future," the JASONs also determined, as
quoted in the congressional report (in discussion of the act's section
213).  Instead, "investments tend to be technological expenditures at the
margin."

Furthermore, "the portfolio balance of DOD basic research is generally not
critically reviewed by independent, technically knowledgeable individuals,"
and "civilian career paths in the DOD research labs and program management
are not competitive to other opportunities in attracting outstanding young
scientists and retaining the best people."

These dismal findings, and the large bulk of the unclassified 60 page
JASON report, were withheld under the Freedom of Information Act by the
Office of Director of Defense Research and Engineering.  They constitute
"subjective evaluations, opinions and recommendations which are currently
being evaluated as to their impact on the planning and decision-making
process," according to the August 31, 2009 FOIA denial letter.

The few paragraphs of the study that were released nevertheless including
some interesting observations.  Citing a 2008 report in Science magazine,
for example, the JASONs noted that "Peking and Tsinghua Universities have
now overtaken Berkeley and Michigan as the largest undergraduate alma
maters of PhD recipients in the U.S."

	http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/sandt.pdf

The DoD research laboratories should be abolished, the late Gen. William
Odom suggested some years ago.  "Few of them have invented anything of
note in several decades, and many of the things they are striving to
develop are already available in the commercial sector," he wrote.

"Sadly, these laboratories not only waste money on their own activities;
they also resist the purchase of available technologies from the
commercial sector. Because they are generally so far behind the leading
edges in some areas, they cause more than duplication; they also induce
retardation and sustain obsolescence," Odom wrote ("America's Military
Revolution," American University Press, 1993, p. 159).

But Don J. DeYoung of the National Defense University argued that the
decline of the military laboratories should be reversed, not accepted. 
"The loss of in-house scientific and engineering expertise impairs good
governance, poses risks to national security, and sustains what President
Dwight Eisenhower called 'a disastrous rise of misplaced power'."  See
"Breaking the Yardstick: The Dangers of Marked-Based Governance," Joint
Forces Quarterly, 4th Quarter, 2009:

     http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/editions/i55/21.pdf

NEW DOD WEBSITE FOSTERS SECRET SCIENCE

The Pentagon's Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) last month
announced the creation of a new password-protected portal where authorized
users may gain access to restricted scientific and engineering
publications.

"DTIC Online Access Controlled... provides a gateway to Department of
Defense unclassified, controlled science and technology (S&T) and research
and engineering (R&E) information," according to a September 21, 2009 news
release.

"As defense S&T information advances, so does the unique community to
which it belongs," said DTIC Administrator R. Paul Ryan.

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2009/09/dtic092109.pdf

The cultivation of controlled but unclassified scientific research by DTIC
seems to represent a departure from a longstanding U.S. government position
that scientific research should either be classified, if necessary, or else
unrestricted.  (There have always been exceptions for export controlled
information and for proprietary information.)

"It is the policy of this Administration that, to the maximum extent
possible, the products of fundamental research remain unrestricted," wrote
President Reagan in the 1985 National Security Decision Directive 189.  "It
is also the policy of this Administration that, where the national security
requires control, the mechanism for control of information... is
classification."

	http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-189.htm

"The key to maintaining U.S. technological preeminence is to encourage
open and collaborative basic research," wrote then-National Security
Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 2001.  "The linkage between the free exchange
of ideas and scientific innovation, prosperity, and U.S. national security
is undeniable."

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/cr110101.html

In response to a request 5 days ago, DTIC was not able to provide a
comment on the matter.

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

See also "Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works" by Steven
Aftergood, Yale Law and Policy Review, vol. 27, no. 2, Spring 2009:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/aftergood.pdf

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691