Secrecy News: NRL Demise?; Degenerating Secrecy; Security for Ex-Cons
Secrecy News: NRL Demise?;
Degenerating Secrecy; Security for Ex-Cons
About
Secrecy News
SECRECY NEWS is an email publication of
the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Project on Government Secrecy. It provides
informal coverage of new developments in secrecy,
security and intelligence policies, as well
as links to new acquisitions on the Federation
of American Scientists web site. It
is published 2 to 3 times a week, or as events
warrant. Secrecy
News Article Index
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has achieved a long list
of milestones in defense technology over the past eighty
years, having developed the first U.S. radar, the world's
first intelligence satellite, prototypes of the Global
Positioning System, and a lot more.
But now the viability of NRL is threatened, scientists say, by a
quiet Navy move to transfer authority over the Lab from
civilian to military control, which they say is likely to
stifle innovation and scientific freedom.
"NRL belongs to the Navy Secretariat, and as such, it is the
only installation not controlled by the service's uniformed
officers," according to a review of the situation by an
anonymous analyst who opposes the military takeover.
Such civilian control "was [inventor] Thomas Edison's intention
from the day he urged the Navy [in 1920] to create NRL."
But now the Lab faces imminent consolidation under the newly
established Commander, Navy Installations (CNI), prompting
fears that its days as a world class research facility
are numbered.
"More than facility management is being centralized at CNI. Power
is being amassed there, at the expense of Navy civilian control,"
the analyst warned in a recent paper that is circulating among concerned
scientists.
"Thomas Edison would be spinning in his grave if he knew the
present course of Navy RDT&E," the analyst wrote.
The fate of NRL is of interest to scientists and technologists
far outside the U.S. Navy.
"NRL is important to all of us -- to defense industry and to
science," said Charles Townes, Nobel laureate and inventor of
the laser (and an FAS sponsor) in 1998.
Coincidentally, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently
observed that research and development is one of the things
"you don't want to centralize excessively."
"The worst thing you could do is if you're in the research and
development business is to get everyone in the same town in the
same building going to lunch together and they all begin to
think alike. That's the last thing you want," Rumsfeld said,
speaking at Osan Air Base in Korea on November 18.
EVERYTHING SECRET DEGENERATES
The FBI's use of murderers as informants in Boston beginning in
the 1960s was explored in a blistering report from the House
Committee on Government Reform last month, which also
criticized the Bush Administration for impeding its
investigation.
Because of the FBI's indiscriminate reliance on known killers,
"men died in prison -- and spent their lives in prison -- for
crimes they did not commit," the House Committee report found.
"A number of men were murdered because they came to the
government with information incriminating informants.
Government officials also became corrupted."
Yet "throughout the Committee's investigation, it encountered an
institutional reluctance to accept oversight."
"The Committee's investigation was delayed for months by
President Bush's assertion of executive privilege over a number
of key documents. While the Committee was ultimately able to
obtain access to the documents it needed, the President's
privilege claim was regrettable and unnecessary," the report
said.
It might seem reasonable to presume that a person who has been
convicted of a crime and sentenced to more than a year in jail
would be ineligible to be granted a security clearance.
Yet when such a presumption is turned into a statutory
prohibition, unintended consequences follow.
The so-called Smith Amendment, which was enacted in the FY2001
defense authorization act, bars certain convicted criminals
from ever holding a security clearance, even decades after
incarceration.
And it is now wreaking havoc in the national security workforce,
according to attorney Sheldon I. Cohen, a specialist in
security clearance practice and procedures.
"The Smith Amendment has caused individuals who have served
their country faithfully and meritoriously to lose their
clearances and their jobs twenty to thirty years after having
paid their debt to society for committing minor crimes," he
wrote.
"The effect on the national defense has been far more serious,"
he added. "People in critical positions whose skills and
knowledge are virtually irreplaceable are being forced out even
though they have had a clearance for many years. It is
jeopardizing our submarine and aircraft industries where every
craftsman, welder and electrician must have a clearance."
"Instead of strengthening our national defense, the Smith
Amendment has put it at risk."
In a recent publication, Mr. Cohen urged concerned parties to press
for repeal of the Smith Amendment. See his "Smith
Amendment Alert!".
