Pubdate: Fri, 10 Jan 2003
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Diana Jean Schemo

SCIENTISTS DISCUSS BALANCE OF RESEARCH AND SECURITY

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Leading scientists began talks here today on whether 
and how to withhold publication of scientific information that could 
compromise national security.

The discussions at the National Academy of Sciences follow a raft of 
post-Sept. 11 restrictions on research into some 64 substances that could 
be used in biological weapons. The discussions were also partly an effort 
to fend off potential government censorship or other steps to control 
unclassified research that the new domestic security law terms "sensitive."

The talks were prompted by the hesitance of microbiologists to publish 
their full research in scientific journals out of concern that terrorists 
could use the information. While restrictions on research have long been a 
fact of life for chemists and nuclear physicists, they are new and not 
entirely welcome among microbiologists, who say data must be published so 
other scientists can verify the quality of the research by reproducing the 
results.

"We in the life sciences are in the process of losing some of our 
innocence," said Stephen S. Morse of the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public 
Health at Columbia University. "Knowledge, often using very simple 
materials, is also the critical ingredient in making a biological weapons 
advance."

The discussions brought together two communities that have often viewed 
each other with distrust, if not disdain: security experts and scientists. 
While some scientists contend that the best defense against biological 
weapons is robust research that is widely accessible, security specialists 
maintain that scientists are being naive at best, and reckless at worst.

"These two communities, if we do not start now with a constructive dialogue 
with each other, we're going to turn this into a disaster," said John J. 
Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 
which sponsored the meeting along with the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Hamre noted that the political climate in Washington and around the 
nation supported greater restrictions on science and civil liberties in the 
name of fighting terrorism. If scientists did not take the security 
concerns seriously, he said, politicians and policy makers with little 
understanding of science would step in with "blanket restrictions on 
science, not knowing what's sensitive and what's not sensitive."

"For precious little security, we would have devastating effects for the 
conduct of science," said Dr. Hamre, a former deputy secretary of defense.

John H. Marburger, director of the White House Office on Science and 
Technology Policy, noted that under a Reagan-era directive, research that 
was not classified as secret when ordered by the government could not be 
classified retroactively. But citing a report by the Johns Hopkins Center 
for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, he said such "traditional regulatory 
approaches are not well suited to biosecurity concerns."

Dr. Marburger did not reveal any impending policy changes, but said, "Those 
concerns are public concerns, and to them the public deserves a rational 
and serious response from its government."

The discussions, in a sense, ran against the instincts of many scientists 
here. Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, stood 
before a picture of children gathered around a giant bust of Albert 
Einstein and recalled the society's founding mission: "to make science much 
more accessible to the nation and the world." Today's discussions pondered 
the opposite.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, new laws and regulations restrict who may work 
on 64 "select agents" that could be used to make biological weapons, 
barring students or scholars with a drug conviction or a history of mental 
illness and those from countries labeled sponsors of terrorism from 
participating in research. Universities and clinical and research 
laboratories have inventoried their select agents, with many of them urging 
researchers to destroy their stocks unless they were needed for current 
projects. Scientists found with such agents in violation of the law could 
face five years in prison.

Lewis Branscom, a Harvard professor who is advising the university on 
future work with select agents and other security issues, said he feared 
not so much a "frontal assault" on the First Amendment's freedom to speak 
and publish as "an elaborate web of controls that look and smell and taste 
like classification."

Barring groups of people - certain foreigners, marijuana smokers or people 
with clinical depression, say, from the research, he said, "reminds me very 
much of the McCarthy days."

Ronald Atlas, president of the American Society of Microbiologists, noted 
that proposed regulations issued in December included prohibitions on 
certain avenues of experimentation, and said he was concerned by First 
Amendment issues.

"Do you have a right of inquiry?" Dr. Atlas asked. "It's almost biblical: 
when God says, `Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of Knowledge.' "

In the cold war, the United States faced a technologically advanced 
adversary, but today's threat from enemy nations and terrorists is more 
diffuse, with discoveries that appear benign sometimes providing the clues 
for weapons to spread disease. Outlining a hair-raising next generation of 
biological armaments, George Poste, chairman of the bioterrorism task force 
at the Defense Department, said, "I do not wish to see the coffins of my 
family, my children and grandchildren created as a consequence of the utter 
naivete, arrogance and hubris of people who cannot see there is a problem."
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