Social Scientists Work Being Involuntarily Classified
Recently I have run into a fear among social scientists that I think is a little paranoid and perhaps driven by ignorance, however, I may well be the ignorant one.
Several people I have talked to in the Academic community regarding working with the government have given as a reason for not doing so that they are afraid that the government will classify their work. I have heard that such things occuring in the physical sciences such as the young man who's PhD dissertation was on how to make a nuclear bomb. I also have heard that someone wrote a paper (possibly a dissertation) on the vulnerabilities of US civil projects to terrorist attacks.
However, I am talking to Social Scientists. My understanding is that unless they are using classified information to begin with (which they are not), the study should not be classified. Moreover, there should be no reason to classify that information. After all, most social science comes down to postulation, experimentation and theory, not exploitable hard fact. The fact that Dr. Foo of Bar University thinks that one thing is more likely than another is no more exploitable than the contrary argument that will doubtless arise in the journals.
I suppose what I am asking is: Does anyone out there know of a case where a Social Scientist has had their work involuntarily classified? If so, what was that person working on, and why was it classified? If not, is there anyone who has enough authority and breadth of knowledge that not having heard of such a thing is significant? (i.e. you have been in the business for X years and have never heard of such a thing)
I are a "social scientist"
a political scientist, to be exact. I have worked at state universities (currently), private universities, DOD educational institutions (AWC/SSI, NDU, and CGSC), served on active duty and in the reserves. When I worked for the federal government (both as a soldier and as a civilian) I was subject to classification and clearance rules. If I was working with classified stuff, my stuff was classified derivatively. If I was not using classified materials my stuff was reviewed both to make sure nothing was classified and that policy was stated correctly. As an aside, it could not be legally censored for disagreeing with policy as long as the policy was stated correctly. (BTW I am not saying that improper censorship does not take place only that it is not lawful.) Technically, my research in those circumstances could have been classified (as Tom says) if it fell under the appropriate categories even if it was based on wholly unclassified material. That never happened to me.
As a faculty member at a university, unless I am working on a grant that requires a security review, my research is not subject to government review of any kind and I am free to publish it anywhere I can get it accepted. If, by some chance, I have illegally used classified material I would be subject to prosecution but that is very unlikely. The real bottom line for a civilian social scientist not working for the USG is that it would be practically impossible for the USG to classify his research before it was well esconsed in the public domain and available literature. This was true even before the internet and is even more true today.
Cheers
JohnT
Schmedlap, you are supporting
Tom's first point. His second point, however, (if I read him right) ;) is that some efforts to classify documents are highly arbitrary - as, indeed, they are. A million years ago, in my current intel shop, we classified a story that was plagiarized from the CBS Morning News on the grounds that if it was not classified the Generals wouldn't believe it! I kid you not.
My point was, and is, that a not affiliated social scientist or historian, working with unclassified material need have no fear that his work will be classified without his agreement. And generally, the system does not even attempt to classify scholarly, unclassified work done under government auspices. Tom's story was more the exception than the rule, in my experience. I would also note that it was finally released, as well it should have been.
Cheers
JohnT
I'm with John on this one
Based on my experience as a Canuck academic working on US security issues, John’s explanation is spot on. My work on the US military (and other militaries) is by necessity based in part on interviews with current and past participants, so arguably in some senses my research is at the very edge of ‘open source’ (or possibly a bit over that edge). Indeed I have on occasion been asked up front whether I have clearance at the start of an interview.
The crux in John’s explanation is whether the researcher has clearance to work on classified material; if s/he does have clearance, then even their open-sourced work will be reviewed for the reason John notes, (this seems to fit Marc’s Canadian example as well), but if the researcher does not have any clearances then their work is not subject to review or classification. This has always been my understanding stemming from conversations I have had about the possibility of my shifting from ‘public’ academia to ‘military’ academia, or even to consultant work, for should I have agreed I would have had to obtain a certain level of clearance and hence my work, as it was consistently explained to me in all cases, would then be subject to review (if not, as John says, classified derivatively if my work was on classified issues/materials).
I have never gone that particular route for a variety of different reasons, but one reason is that if I ever was given clearance then my work would in the least be subject to review (but this has never been the main reason – cutting off my pony tail and wearing a suit daily always are much higher on my list of reasons :eek: ). Possibly the one gray area exception that I have run across is some work I did, based completely on my open source research, for the US gov't via a consultant; in this case I could/can disseminate what I had written but was asked not to distribute the final document in which that work appeared (in whole) without prior permission as the document was for 'internal use only' (this exception seems to sort of fit Marc's example re red teaming and self censorship).
So, all in all, concern by an academic (who works and researches solely in the public realm) about having their open source research censored, unless they have clearance and/or are working on classified issues, seems to me to be more than bit misguided.
academics and classification
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TT
So, all in all, concern by an academic (who works and researches solely in the public realm) about having their open source research censored, unless they have clearance and/or are working on classified issues, seems to me to be more than bit misguided.
I agree with John and Terry--however, the original question is whether academics working for government might have their output classified, even when working with open sources.
Well, yes--the work that they produce under contract might be classified for a variety of reasons. In my experience, not only is this usually clear from the start, but the USG in particular (and contractors working for the USG) usually have reams of paperwork to be signed agreeing to this.
Might their subsequent work be classified? It ought not to be, if they aren't currently working for government, it is not a reproduction of their for-government work, and doesn't use classified materials. Certainly I haven't heard of it happening.
All in all, I think concerns about this are overstated.
Going beyond the classified
Abu Suleyman, you are spot on!:) Far more insidious than classification is the new twist on the old theme of "administrative protection" usually FOUO. We all understood pretty well tha FOUO was not a classification but was used to protect privacy or the government from running afoul of plagiarism charges and copyright violations. But now some idiot has come up with Sensitive But Unclassified - whatever the hell that means! By the EO that establishes US classification (see Wm's link for the ref) information is classified if its unauthorized diclosure will harm (classification guidance provides the terms for degree of harm that establish whether information is Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret) the security of the US. If the information doesn't fall into that category, it is unclassified - period! SBS is just what the las 2 letters say - BS, designed to protect the guilty!!!!!:eek: So much for my rant of the day.
Marc, when I was doing my dissertation on local politics in rural Peru (1966 -68) I followed the anthropological convention of disguising the names of my informants and the people under observation. At the time, we didn't assume a power relationship, rather it was simply to protect their privacy. Had my dissertation been translated into Spanish, anybody from my towns could easily have identified the people I was talking about. As to the English, since a couple of key players were Peace Corps Volunteers, it was a matter od peotecting their privacy and not much more. Again, any social science researcher could easily have discovered the identities of my informants and the people I observed - even if they didn't ask me. I would have been happy to have given them that information anyway.
Cheers
JohnT
Where do we go from here?
BLUF: The free flow of information is good, and we in this forum should educate ourselves, and those around us to ensure that information continues to flow.
I think that it is obvious that I have touched a nerve here, and the problem is far greater than I originally feared. The question, then, is where do we go from here.
As I see it, the problem is actually ignorance. (Isn't ignorance so often a part of the problem.) Of course there are three levels of ignorance:
1) On the part of the government and government officials there is ignorance on the actual policy and the role that classifications and caveats play.
2) On the part of academics there is ignorance about security clearances and procedures (and how to work with them, instead of against them).
3) On the part of everyone on the role that non-governmental people could play in 'fixing problems'. Basically, I don't know that there is any plan at all, outside of fits and starts like HTS.
Far from being helpless in this forum, there are many educated and connected people here. I think that if we do our homework, we could come up with enough information. I am looking into trying to find out what is already available, but if anyone knows of classes that you can take on classification procedures, that would be great.
I look to the recent past, when Fermi and Oppenheimer helped end WWII by building the nuclear bomb, and luminaries such as George Kennan shaped foreign policy. (In fairness, Kennan was a Statie at the time.) Now we have an 'Us vs. Them' mentality, where 'Us' is the government (to include some contractors) and 'Them' is the people.
I am not a Utopian who believes that state secrets should be out in the open. Nevertheless, there is already an abundance of information available which is not classified. I am also showing my political science colors when I say that I believe, even at the cost of sharing it with those who wish us in the West ill, we should make sure that information is more available rather than less. We cannot turn off the Internet, nor hide under a rock. It is far better that we talk about where we want to go and how to get there with as many people as possible to get as good an idea as possible.
Open the curtains and let the light shine in!
I don't refer to stuff that is classified already
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Entropy
As an intel guy I guess I'm of two minds on this issue and I've seen similar debates take place within the intelligence world. One of my jobs used to involve trying to get intelligence downgraded and/or released for the same reasons Cavguy lists for pushing info down to the unclass level - access.
Overclassification, and unnecessary classification are a seperate although related problem, and probably still on topic. However, what I am most concerned about is actually the taking of things that were never classified, and perhaps not even produced by the government and then classifying them.
Here's a counterfactual example: I have heard, but cannot confirm, that Tom Clancy's "Hunt for Red October" and he and Larry Bond's work in "Red Storm Rising" were so close to the real thing that intelligence agents for both countries initially believed that they had a security leak, but that in reality it was primarily conjecture and derived from information readily available in the public library at the time. (For the purpose of this example assume that the previous premise is true.) What if the government had classified "The Hunt for Red October"? That is what many people are concerned about; that if they work with the government or even study issues related to the government and security issues they may have they work classified even though the information it is based on remains in the public domain.
I agree that U.S. TTP's or current operations shouldn't be revealed. I don't think there is any value in hiding doctrinal manuals behind the AKO Electron Curtain, but it doesn't give me nearly as much heart burn. But plenty of people seem to believe that while two wrongs don't make a right, enough UNCLASS data compiled together can make a SECRET document, and that just strikes me as crazy.
Waiter, there's a mouse in my soup!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Abu Suleyman
Overclassification, and unnecessary classification are a seperate although related problem, and probably still on topic. However, what I am most concerned about is actually the taking of things that were never classified, and perhaps not even produced by the government and then classifying them.
Here's a counterfactual example: I have heard, but cannot confirm, that Tom Clancy's "Hunt for Red October" and he and Larry Bond's work in "Red Storm Rising" were so close to the real thing that intelligence agents for both countries initially believed that they had a security leak, but that in reality it was primarily conjecture and derived from information readily available in the public library at the time. (For the purpose of this example assume that the previous premise is true.) What if the government had classified "The Hunt for Red October"? That is what many people are concerned about; that if they work with the government or even study issues related to the government and security issues they may have they work classified even though the information it is based on remains in the public domain.
I agree that U.S. TTP's or current operations shouldn't be revealed. I don't think there is any value in hiding doctrinal manuals behind the AKO Electron Curtain, but it doesn't give me nearly as much heart burn. But plenty of people seem to believe that while two wrongs don't make a right, enough UNCLASS data compiled together can make a SECRET document, and that just strikes me as crazy.
The waiter's response was, "Stop screaming and waving it about by its tail. Everyone else will want one."
A serious consideration is neither to confirm nor deny. Someone like a Tom Clancy may produce a document that contains stuff that, had it been published by an arm of the DoD would have been classified at some level fron Confidential up to TS Burn Before Reading. That does not matter. What does matter is the reaction of those "in the know" to such a book.
In cases like this it is better just to note to oneself that the horse left the barn but not worry about shutting the door. Shutting the door is a dead give away that something bad just occurred.
Sam, I wouldn't worry about it.
Nobody is keeping track of you for clearance purposes. You report to no one.
So, write what you want and publish it. No problem. As I said before, as a Reservist with all sorts of TS accesses, I never had to seek clearance for anything I wrote when not on active duty.
We really shouldn't make to much of the hypothetical possibilities since the reality is that once the horse is out of the barn...
(Reminds me of the stallion living about a mile away who came to visit my mare - after escaping - while she was in heat about a month ago...:cool:)
Cheers
JohnT