What's New for Dec 21, 2001

[Una Smith]

Items 1 and 3 below may be of interest to TAXACOM readers.

>WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 21 Dec 01   Washington, DC
>
>1. REMOTE CENSORING: HHS IS GIVEN AUTHORITY TO CLASSIFY.  It's no
>secret that restricting the spread of scientific knowledge is one
>of the responses to terrorism being considered in Washington at
>the highest levels.  The story is that the head of one scientific
>society was summoned to the White House and admonished that a few
>papers published in the society's journals might have aided
>terrorists.  It's reminiscent of the 1980's, when societies were
>pressured to exclude papers from open scientific meetings if they
>dealt with "sensitive but unclassified" information that might
>aid Soviet weapons scientists.  What's different today is that
>the society feeling the pressure is in the biological rather than
>physical sciences.  Marty Blume, the APS Editor in Chief reports
>that he has not been contacted since Sep 11.  Although he's not
>unhappy to be ignored, Blume was somewhat chagrined that physics
>has become so irrelevant.  According to the New York Times, the
>President just granted the Secretary of Health and Human Services
>power to classify information as "Secret."  So much for Clinton's
>policy of reducing reliance on classification.  As for WN, some
>people still think it should be censored, but that's not news.
>
>2. SECRECY: APS POSITION ON FREEDOM OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION.
>In 1986 WN carried the first report of what the FBI called "the
>library awareness program."  FBI agents, who resembled Elliot
>Ness less than Inspector Clouseau, asked a University of Maryland
>librarian for circulation records of "persons with East European
>or Russian sounding names" (WN 5 Sep 86).  The librarian refused.
>The APS council had already affirmed its support for "the
>unfettered communication of scientific ideas and knowledge that
>are not classified" http://www.aps.org/statements/83.2html .
>
>3. BUDGET: CONGRESS IS STRUGGLING TO ADJOURN TODAY.  But it still
>hasn't finished three of the 13 FY 2002 appropriations bills.
>Unappropriated programs are running on the seventh continuing
>resolution.  It expires today.  Meanwhile, the White House is
>already working on its 2003 budget request.  The darling seems to
>be NSF with its strict peer review and low overhead.  More than
>95% of the agency's budget goes to support research.  However,
>the 8.5% budget increase is not quite what it seems.  For
>example, it includes the transfer of several laboratories and
>programs to NSF, including three Smithsonian programs: the
>Astrophysical Laboratory, the Tropical Research Institute and the
>Environmental Center.  You may or may not find that to be a good
>idea, but it's not new money.
>
>4. OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY: SPECTACULAR LATE DECEMBER WEATHER.  Even
>as I type these last words (2:22pm)we reach the winter solstice.
>Meanwhile, Francis Slakey is in his official running garb to run
>a leg of the torch relay from the Capitol steps (WN 14 Dec 01).
>
>THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY and THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
>Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
>American Physical Society or the University, but they should be.

--
        Una Smith

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mailstop K-710, Los Alamos, NM  87545