Quote Originally Posted by selil View Post
This is part of the reason I have turned down work on classified projects. I'm a nobody so it isn't like I have people kicking down my door asking me accept a government security clearance. I have considered it though in the career pathway as an obstruction.
BLUF: It would be better if being in academia or working with the government regularly weren't an either/or proposition.

Well, I keep learning when posting here, and that is the point. Based upon these responses, I would say that indeed I was wrong, but not in the way that I had originally believed.

Appartently, it is possible for things to become classified if you have to submit it for review, and I always knew that. While I have not successfully published (yet), I have had a few articles reviewed, and I have never had a problem. However, I have a good relationship with the SSO, and that seems to make a huge difference.

What I am more concerned about is the attitude stated by selil, which he is not alone in holding. While in general, I believe that better information is to be had on open source than classified sources, especially for theoretical purposes, I find it a shame that qualified and smart people are unwilling to accept or pursue security clearances that would greatly facilitate their work and would allow them to interact more directly with other members of the community.

I am fully familiar with the caprice of classification. I have fought the battle of classification many times. I have even had to deal with literally random classifications, at wholly inconvenient times. But I think that is a bad thing, that perhaps we want to fix.

The government keeps saying that it wants to have more academics involved with things like HTT and Minerva and the like, but what it gives with one hand it takes with the other. If people have to live in fear of their research becoming censored (for that is how they perceive it) simply because of they help the Army (or whoever) from time to time, then what do you think is going to win out?

Not to mention that most of this, especially in social science, is irrellevant. Of course there are issues, such as specific vulnerabilities, that probably deserve classification, but I would say that pure ethics should also compel someone to not release that. But those limited instances aside, Social Science is a conversation, and for every person who sees things one way there is someone who sees it another. If the information is already available in the public sphere then isn't it much better to have people discuss it and change policy, develop theory, or at least be aware of the confluence of facts, rather than burying their heads in the sand and hoping it goes away? (!!I am talking only of information that is already available to the public, not things that should otherwise be classified!!)

It strikes me as tragic, foolish, and illadvised that our government cannot consult freely with some of the smartest and well educated people on certain topics, because those people need to fear for the loss of their livelyhood by the mere act of consultation. Even if that fear is somewhat irrational, it is a fear nonetheless, and a large one to boot. How much better would it be if government to convoke the greatest minds at any time, be they military, academic, civil, or what have you, and present them with a problem and see what they come up with. I am not so naive as to believe it would always be good, but I do believe that more information is always better than less when making decisions.

Bottom line, by allowing classification to remain capricious and random, and (perhaps) requiring all people who hold clearances to undergo a process whereby their work may be censored based upon unclear guidance and the whims of an individual, holding a clearance, and by extension working with the government on military and security issues becomes an exclusive proposition. If this is not the case, it is apparent that there is enough confusion about the situation that one must operate on that assumption anyway. By so doing, the government de facto excludes all people who would also have interests outside of working with the government. Only those who are willing to potentially derive their entire livelihood from the government are therefore able to consult regularly and directly on issues facing the government today.

I may be wrong in this conclusion. I suspect the government thinks I am, but I think the discussion in this post is evidence of sufficient confusion that indeed that seems to be the perception, and while perhaps not the truth, at least the reality in which we currently live.