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)