Secret Science: Federal Control of American Science and Technology - Hardcover

Foerstel, Herbert N.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0275944476 ISBN 13: 9780275944476

Publisher: Praeger, 1993

Synopsis

This book is a plea for scientific openness and free access to information. It demonstrates the futility of scientific secrecy and the weakness of national arguments against open communication. From the restriction of technologically advanced exports, to the classification of research as restricted or secret, to the monitoring (and censoring) of scientific publications and library collections, to the pre-emption by the Pentagon of scientific and technological research, the U.S. federal government has achieved a state of unprecedented control over American science and technology. This, despite the end of the Cold War. Foerstel examines this continuing trend toward the state as chief sponsor, promoter, and supervisor of scientific research and its unsettling ramifications.

Foerstel concludes that scientific secrecy is counterproductive to American interests, particularly in an era when economics has come to define national security. His controversial analysis will be of interest to scientists, historians, and students of government alike.

About this title

About the Author

HERBERT N. FOERSTEL is the retired former head of Branch Libraries at the University of Maryland in College Park and is a current member of the board of directors of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. He is the author of Surveillance in the Stacks (Greenwood, 1991), Secret Science (Praeger, 1993), Banned in the USA (Greenwood, 1994), Climbing the Hill with his daughter Karen Foerstel (Praeger, 1996), Free Expression and Censorship in America (Greenwood, 1997), and Banned in the Media (Greenwood, 1998)

From the Back Cover

This book is a plea for scientific openness and free access to information. It demonstrates the futility of scientific secrecy and the weakness of national arguments against open communication. From the restriction of technologically advanced exports, to the classification of research as restricted or secret, to the monitoring (and censoring) of scientific publications and library collections, to the pre-emption by the Pentagon of scientific and technological research, the U.S. federal government has achieved a state of unprecedented control over American science and technology. This, despite the end of the Cold War. Foerstel examines this continuing trend toward the state as chief sponsor, promoter, and supervisor of scientific research and its unsettling ramifications. Foerstel concludes that scientific secrecy is counterproductive to American interests, particularly in an era when economics has come to define national security. His controversial analysis will be of interest to scientists, historians, and students of government alike.

Reviews

This discussion of what is perhaps the government's most intransigent First Amendment dilemma--whether science is protected as free speech--seems weak and unfocused compared to the consequences of the problem. Skirting the larger legal issue, Foerstel ( Surveillance in the Stacks ) dissects a few test cases, such as those challenging the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, to give a very rough sketch of the constitutional conflict between national security and the nature of science. An examination of industrial espionage and the government's role in protecting "proprietary information" cites recent business and government transactions with foreign businesses and goverments. Ultimately, lack of structure and the short focal length of Foerstel's view severely limit the reader's grasp of this complicated topic.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Foerstel's Surveillance in the Stacks (1991) was a science librarian's response to the FBI's ``Library Awareness Program,'' in which the feds asked for records of ``suspicious'' foreign nationals consulting technical reference books. Here, the author (Engineering and Physical Sciences Library/University of Maryland) expands his scope to examine the broader issue of governmental control of scientific research and publication in a free society. While government interest in the military applications of scientific research has a long history, Foerstel concentrates on the cold war period, in which national security became the justification for unprecedented control over research and publication. Measures originally put in place during WW II (to keep the atomic bomb out of Nazi hands) gained a new lease with the emergence of the Soviets as the perceived threat to world peace. In practical terms, this meant that any scientist with a leftist past was a fair target for the security apparatus: J. Robert Oppenheimer is only the best known of the scientists victimized by the shift in political winds. Foerstel documents the growth of the ``Black Budget''--funds for research so secret that its very existence is kept hidden from Congress. Another growth area for governmental control is cryptography, especially the use of computers to generate and read encoded documents. An especially disturbing area of governmental encroachment, Foerstel says, is the attempt to control the spread of unclassified information, with the government arguing that a hostile power may add together innocent facts to arrive at dangerous conclusions- -the ``mosaic theory'' of intelligence. Often dry and pedestrian, but compelling for its detailed and extensively documented treatment of the damage done to science in the name of security. Required reading for anyone concerned with continued abuses of power by the military- industrial complex. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Praeger
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0275944476
• ISBN 13: 9780275944476
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256