Social Scientists Work Being Involuntarily Classified

[TT]

Interesting. Any discussions I have had never got anywhere near the points you both mention, but it would seem that it comes down to Rex’s earlier point.

Rex posted: 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.

That this is the way the situation applies makes sense to me. I know any number of people who publish who obviously had very high clearance at one time or another, and they may still have their clearance for all I know, for it never occurred to me ask them about this.

[TT]

Selil posted: I have considered it though in the career pathway as an obstruction.

I never perceived the possible opportunities that crossed my path as obstacles to my academic career, but then I am a poli scientist, not a technologist, so our situations are different. Gov’t work and clearances obviously has not hurt John or Rex’s careers, but by the same token you clearly see career issues given your line of research.

Instead one of my abiding issues is that I prefer to be able to pursue research questions that I find interesting rather than doing work/research to answer questions/issues that others set for their own purposes, so those possible opportunities involving doing gov’t work direct or via consulting never appealed to me however much better paid than academia. Working in a military academic environment, of course, one retains academic freedom but for any number of reasons these particular opportunities either did not pan out or did not appeal to me at the particular time.

[selil]

I never perceived the possible opportunities that crossed my path as obstacles to my academic career, but then I am a poli scientist, not a technologist, so our situations are different. Gov’t work and clearances obviously has not hurt John or Rex’s careers, but by the same token you clearly see career issues given your line of research.

As a technologist my research is highly applied. I don't theorize about the bomb I build it, then I build it better, then I produce the process to mass produce it. Technology faculty do a lot of consulting to various entities and corporations. In many ways that is what we do rather than sponsored research. As a specialist in information technology (networking and security) i look at ways to implement, integrate, adapt, change, model, infuse, fuse, the various disparate hard science disciplines through my research. In my world we do stuff. As a cyber warfare researcher I take all of the above.... and well you don't really want to know.

Because of the highly applied nature rather than basic science nature any knowledge derived and then utilized could in many ways be suspect. The things I know, the techniques, the skills, the methodologies, are what make my knowledge valuable. And, exactly the kind of things that would be classified. My mentors have warned me about this since the first major scholarship I was awarded.

[wm]

Long ago and far away when the US first introduced classified info Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA), I seem to remember that a clause therein was interpreted such that any work produced by a person who had signed such an agreement was subject to security classification review. I also seem to recall that the NDA was subsequently changed to modify/remove the offending language and we all had to sign new NDAs. For what it is worth, here's a link to the SF 312 (current US Govt NDA) briefing booklet from the Information Security Oversight Office of the US National Archives.