Privatization Limiting Access To Information 163
Knutsi sends us to the Federation of American Scientists' blog Secrecy News for a post on how privatization can affect access to research material. The blog tells how a Harvard researcher on the history of nuclear secrecy was denied access that would have been granted in the past. Some followup is in the comments to this reposting of the FAS story. "Los Alamos National Laboratory will no longer permit historians and other researchers to have access to its archival records because Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the private contractor that now operates the Lab, says it has 'no policy in place' that would allow such access."
If research is or was (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is public access, via the Freedom of Information Act. The problem is, that's too slow and cumbersome for most researchers. From the post there,
It's not entirely clear whether this is the contractor doing t
Re:If research is or was (Score:5, Insightful)
The researchers had access before the privatization of the lab. This whole article is the result of the privatization stopping the flow of information, which had normally been filled without FOIA requests up until this time. Presumably, the government would not care since they previously released this information when they ran this lab. This would not be a big deal otherwise.
A very unfortunate state of affairs, but I'm not certain privatization is exactly what's to blame.
Interesting that people will not hesitate to call government bureaucracy for what it is. But, when the same thing happens in the private sector, people excuse the behavior.
This is corporate bureaucracy.
Libertarians like to point out all the positives of privatization without going into the negatives. Here is one glowing example. The bureaucracy is now worse under corporate operation because the private businesses don't have to follow the same laws as the government. More than likely, we're also paying more money as well. At least government limits the amount that executives are compensated.
Re:If research is or was (Score:4, Interesting)
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Libertarians like to think that eliminating government agencies and turning them all over to private corporations will magically make those businesses more efficient and cost less money. That has often been shown not to be true, but Libertarians still believe it on faith.
I'm sorry, but the Libertarian efficiency dogma is not always true. And in some cases like this, it ha
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WHAT government monopoly? Anybody can conduct scientific research, and they can even patent it to get a private monopoly.
I wonder why people insist on calling things like this "privitization". Are they ignorant or just plain dishonest?
No, they are just realistic: that's what "privatization" means in the real world.
Libertarians just seem to define "true privatization" as "it's like real world privatization
Re:If research is or was (Score:5, Informative)
It is not possible for the government to contract out government policy, as hard as they may try.
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They just get lobbyists to create policy for them for "free".
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The contractor has taken over the responsibility for the entire lab. The contractor was there to take over the lab's functions. This was one of the functions, which they're refusing to do. Yes, the government should step in and get the contractor under compliance, but it is the contractor's fault for being out of compliance in the first place.
At which point I hav
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Beaurocracy happens, that's no surprise. I have no idea what the relevance is of people's political opinions but I'll agree with the paying more part.
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Libertarians readily acknowledge, that a corporation can be just as (or even more) stupid as the government.
Our point is, changing from one corporation to another is always possible (and usually quite easy). Changing the government, however — and I don't mean electing a different President or lawmaker, but revamping the government bureaucracy — is quite impossible...
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Oh bullshit. First off, you're not even talking apples to apples. You certainly can change from one government to another - leave the country. It is quite easy. Changing a single corporation is just as hard or harder than changing the govern
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That's a nice opening, thank you very much.
I already did it once, and it was very difficult. My parents, for example, still have not quite adjusted. I suggest, you try it — weren't you promising to move to Canada in November 2004?
Going to a supermarket different from the one, that pissed me off, is much easier. Awarding a road-building contract to a company different from the one, that messe
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Fortunately, libertarians such as those are even more rare than libertarians in general. In fact, you'll find that many libertarians publicly state that private organizations given the same powers as government ones are the worst of all possible solutions.
The fact that private organizations have the same bureaucratic garbage that drags down gov't ones is n
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Actually, if one is willing to minimize the global amount of resources wasted in bureaucracy, one can very well argue using the argument you reject.
Which company researched the bomb? (Score:2, Funny)
It's a good thing that governments have never ever researched nuclear weapons, otherwise they would have to post bomb making instructions on the internet. For those hiding in caves without internet access, they could send a self-addressed stamped envolope requesting the exact plan they would like.
Dear America,
please send me instructions for one ICBM [wikipedia.org] missle.
Allhu Akbar, Osama.
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Actually, the knowledge about how to make a nuke is pretty widespread. (Either fire two U-235 subcritical masses into one another at a high velocity to form a critical mass, or compress a hemisphere of fissile material with explosives.) It's making them small and efficient that's the secret now, but I don't think that terrorists/rogue states care much
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If it were easy -- everyone would have one. Many countries like North Korea, have taken decades and committed massive resources to try and create a bomb. They have, with much of their nations resources on the line, managed to perhaps build 5 low-yield nukes. But the US spent massive research with the britest minds of the time on the Manhattan project -- and I don't think anyone has developed a Nuke without stealing or buying some of those secrets from somebody else.
But proliferation has increas
Re:Which company researched the bomb? (Score:4, Informative)
You're quite literally sorting atom-by-atom, putting the U-238 in one bucket and the U-235 in the other, a 2% sort-by-weight problem. But really it's even worse than that, because one always hears about Uranium hexa-Fluoride, so it isn't 235 vs 238, you have to add 54 to each. That changes a 2.1% weight difference into a 1.7% difference. That's why they talk about thousands of centrifuges for refining.
So from what I understand, some sort of nuclear bomb really isn't hard, given the material. Of course making a *small* bomb really IS hard, as is getting the fissile material.
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The knowledge of how to make a nuke also comes fairly easily with an understanding of physics on a degree level. Would you deny physics doctorates to anyone from a foreign country that might want to make nukes or support terrorists?
Biological and chemical weaponry are the same. Anyone with a modern degree in the field should fairly easily be able to use such knowledge as is required for such a degree (and all the GOOD that can be done with it) to create a weapon of devastating proportions that I, f
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Most all of the countries now developing weapons got the information from Pakistan... and they got it from us. Israel is also a well-known country for selling off US weapons secrets whenever we sell them something (the USSR I believe, got theirs from Israel).
And Homeland Security, actually DID put the plans for building nuclear weapons on it's web site -- until public outcry made them take it down.
You make it
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The manufacturing part is actually simpler than getting the materials -- seperation of uranium isotopes or extraction of plutonium *is* actually quite difficult and dangerous. Then again, who knows how much of those materials are unaccounted for in their pure states already.
You make it sound like banging two radioactive rocks together... yeah that's why everyone had to get their technology from someone el
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Polonium is needed for the neutron initiator in some -- not all -- nuclear devices.
"
>> I was talking about the briefcase nukes. It's a dense source of nutrinos and allows for the "poor man's bomb" like you are talking about. The Nuclear Initiator is the "big deal" in the weapon. Otherwise you have just have some really expensive nuclear waste. Of course -- I've always worried about a dirty bomb in a water supply.
Your point is good about the "truck bomb" -- which is why securing the ports was essentia
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Let's say you are having a wedding. You want photos of that wedding. You can take them yourself, or pay someone to take them. If you pay someone, only part of that payment covers the total cost. The photographer makes his money back by selling the photos of your event.
Now, you *can* pay someone enough and they will just download the RAW images and burn them to a DVD for you. But it's very expensive.
So, t
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If you gave $1b to the right people, then they could come up with a working product. Ho
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Or you could just skip all that nonsense and give the contract to Haliburton, like was done in the last 7 years. Streamlines the process and whatnot...
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That depends entir
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Once the secret for say; stealth bomber is out -- the company gets to make a new, more super-secret weapon for MORE money.
This would be like your hypothetical photographer, supplementing their income by taking pictures of your wedding night, and then charging you NOT to release them to the internet. Then going and selling them to some web site. You get divorced and hire the same photographer at your next weddi
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Actually, it depends on the terms of the contract. If there are no terms relating to copyright, you get everything since it was a work for hire. That is why a good and normal wedding photography contract will spell out that the photographer
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If it weren't privatized... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Actually, the problem with the article is that it doesn't characterize the data kept secret; it would be easier to d
In ... (Score:5, Funny)
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oh well, karmawhoring is for gutless punks anyway.
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but it doesn't take much, to be annoyed by:
the amount of survailance that goes on.
the encroachment on civil liberties
the shady wars that are being engaged
the disregard of human rights (torture, indefinate imprisonment without trial)
and the disregard for international relations
i'm sure if i lived in USA i'd come up with more, including counterarguments, but from my outside view
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However, the only reason it is funny is that there are aspects of it that worries people, the same that gets it to anger You.
Second, because people have served to protect certain values, does in no way ensure, the government upholds them.
Third, Nope, I'm not a Che shirt type, not a musician, don't have long hair, don't smoke weed all day, and don't believe in socialism. Your presumptions about me are fundame
Is it really a problem though? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the rumours of spies from China getting hold of US secrets like the design of the W88 warhead [wikipedia.org] from LANL, maybe less access is a good thing. Seems to me that now that nuclear weapons tests are rare, it will be hard for other countries to make small warheads like this other than by copying an existing design. So stopping any information coming out of LANL is in the interest of the US.
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LANL does work on weapons. It seems like erring on the side of not giving out information will inconvenience some researchers but it might be a good thing for everyone else. And as someone pointed out, most of this information needed Q clearance even before privatization, which most researchers don't have, so the number of people inconvenienced is rather small.
You're forgetting that the research being done by this small handful of researchers who have the appropriate security clearance may lead to all kinds of scientific or medical breakthroughs that could be hugely beneficial to the rest of us. So yeah, it's a rather small number of people who are currently being inconvenienced, but it might be a rather large number of people who will be missing out on something great as a result.
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As was pointed out during the Wen Ho Lee case (My Country Against Me), most of the knowledge necessary to build city destroying nuclear devices is already available to the public.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W88 [wikipedia.org]
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The common wisdom seems to be that Nukes are easy to create. Thanks for rebutting that.
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This was to be expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
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BTW, Los Alamos began as a secret nuclear weapons lab. The people who worked there weren't even allowed to reveal their true address until the late 1940s -- before that, all mail went to PO Box XYZ Santa Fe, NM. And was censored coming in and out.
If anything, LANL is returning to its roots, not escaping them.
-b.
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It does? Like the wonders of rolling blackouts, higher prices and less service? I guess it does.
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East Coast Reactionary:
"Hey! Who turned the lights out?" *turns them back on*
West Coast Revolutionary:
"Hey! Who turned the lights out?"
"Hey! Who turned the lights out?"
"Hey! Who turned the lights out?"
"Hey! Who turned the lights out?"
It's a cultural thing...
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Governments are NOT like monopolies.
For instance, our Social Security system uses less than 2% overhead to distribute funds and is the envy of the world. Because millions of seniors watch it like a hawk -- there is oversight. And it was put together by FDR, who knew how to create good government.
Government is a tool and can be good or bad depending upon who the citizens put in the government.
"Contractors and privitisation are not to blame; monopo
Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
This introduces difficulty as a researcher as this is now a void over which we need jump in order to create new knowledge. As more and more companies become contractors for the government it will ensure that not only researchers but the public will have to pay for information which may be necessary for the growth and understanding of the community as a whole.
It is time for the government to realise that the public should come first and ensure that these types of restrictions do not occur in the future and if possible to revoke those that have already occured.
Mini Dark Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Try to find scientific articles or papers before about 1960. It's a nightmare. Aside from paying about $50-60 if you do find anything, finding it will be a challenge. Go back to the 50's and you're in trouble. The 40's is pretty bleak. You can find more papers on ancient Egypt than you can from the 1930's.
It's possible that you can find old articles in Libraries, if you're willing to try about a dozen libraries. But many libraries are "downsizing" their paper collections(for financial reasons brought on by high journal prices). You can try an inter library loan but there are incredibly stringent copyright signoffs for every single item.
Books are not so bad. Libraries usually have good collections, and book publishers don't seem to be as rabidly concerned with copyright as journal publishers. If the material you want is in a book, you're OK. The book can have been published in 1700 and you'll still be able to find a copy relatively easily, and cheaply. Paper's from the 1700's, except seminal ones, probably have all been lost by now.
Private companies cannot be trusted to archive material. I really cannot put it plainer than that. If we place our scientific data, history and writings in the hands of private industry future generations will speak of a "Dark Age" in the 20th century, where apparently a lot was accomplished, but there will simply be no record of it. Our books aren't getting burned, they're getting privatised, a much surer method of destruction.
On the flip side. (Score:2, Insightful)
I do agree it can be irksome that you can't tell folk about your work - I've written more papers than I can count for my previous employer - they fill more space that a CD provides - yet I'll never be able to s
Re:On the flip side. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've written more papers than I can count for my previous employer
So what happens after a generation or two of all of the cutting edge research happening solely within corporations, who aren't sharing with each other? Wouldn't that basically put a halt to the progress of the field, since in order to learn cutting edge stuff, you would have to go to a company after your degree, and then you are bound up by the confidentiality agreements, and nobody can legally reverse engineer the fruits of your research because of laws like the DMCA?
It might be faster than the university for a while, but after that while, it would seem to peter out to me.
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What competition? The academic publishing sector is undergoing merger after merger. Monopolisation is a fact of life. Prices of papers keep going up an up. Profit is the main motivator here and it is directly opposed to the principles of research; open exchange of ideas.
Waste in terms of
Re:Mini Dark Age (Score:5, Insightful)
But more frightening is the rapid obsolescence of the physical medium. If you can't read the data, it also does you no good. Example: my parents recently mailed me a VHS tape. I don't have a VCR. Nobody I know has a VCR. My parents have a VCR. But when it breaks, there won't be any VCR repairmen left to fix it, or any companies making VCRs. They might be able to find something on ebay, but it would be a collector's item.
What happens when all those microfilm readers break? Do you order a device custom-built to read your data? No, as important as it may be, it probably isn't worth it. That data is effectively gone. Every time there is an article about archival on Slashdot, someone mentions how durable paper is. Of course, stone is even more durable, but it has massive problems with storage density. And of course, there's the fact that nobody will know how to read your runes in a couple hundred years. Hell, a hundred years from now, we'll probably be plugging ethernet into our skulls. We probably won't be able to read anymore.
Funny thing is, we (or my generation, anyway) like to think that the internet has always existed, and that every scrap of human knowledge is in there somewhere. It feels big, nebulous, and immortal. But try searching for things that happened before, say, 1995. Not big things, like wars and shootings. Try googling your grandparents. Or minor news, like some school being opened, or old radio shows, or something.
It won't be there. And your radio station or newspaper isn't about to digitize all their archives, if they still have them. In theory, there's a record, but in practice, it never happened. Written history has given way to "internet history", just as the oral tradition gave way to written history. And it's like we're not writing down the Odyssey because the Bards Association of America will sue us if we do. So only information worth risking a DMCA is getting saved.
Thus, Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons from the 60s are easily available. But the news? You're pretty much out of luck.
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They buy up old news stories and archive documents. It is a vast repository of most of the data in news print in the past 100 years. They buy it on the cheap because most companies that create the articles, don't have a business model that can take advantage of archiving data. It will cost some money to get the information out.
shocking (Score:2, Informative)
Problem with Privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Problem with Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, the constitution doesn't mention a right to privacy because the constitution was created to spell out the limited rights granted to the government. During its creation, this was clearly understood by those in participation. This is why the bill of rights was written later- the governmental powers were quite limited in scope at the outset and it was assumed that all else was in favor of the citizens.
Some of the founders believed that there might be confusion regarding this, hence the bill of rights. Which brings us to amendments 9 & 10. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. and The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.. Thus, since it isn't written anywhere in the constitution nor in any of the amendments that americans do not have a right to privacy, we the citizens retain that right by omission.
I also disagree with the founding fathers finding our expectation to privacy laughable. They were attempting to crawl out from under the thumb of the british empire. In fact, it would appear to me that the early workings of the government suggest that the attitude was more of a "to each his own" style. As you yourself stated "We in America are guaranteed our right to live the way we want as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's rights or on mutually agreed upon laws."
Finally, I disagree partially with your suggestion that the government has its own right to privacy. Public office? Funded by taxpayers? Not a private citizen? The government was intended to work for and in a sense be monitored by the citizens. Representation, accountability, those were what we were shooting for back then. Privatization and the ensuing loss/lockup of what was previously not public, but available to those with clearance doesn't promote any of these things.
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"Unreasonable search and seizure..." Things like electronic privacy and surveillance weren't an issue at the time, so they weren't written into the Constitution. It doesn't mean that the writers of the Constitution wouldn't have included a right to privacy, had it been a more major issue at the time.
-b.
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Businesses, I have a certain amount of sympathy for. Governments: if it's paid for with my tax money, the results of the research better be released to the public unless there's a compelling reason not to. (I think that nuclear weapons designs fall under the "compelling reason" umbrella.)
-b.
Re:Problem with Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that certainly sounds like you are defending a position. And why does it have to be reciprocal? There are reasons why the government and publicly traded companies should be open that simply don't apply to people. It's like children and parents. Parents need to be able to know 100% about their small child. The small child doesn't need to know what mommy and daddy do when the bedroom door is closed. There are reasons for both, and the relationship isn't symmetrical. The government should be transparent. I vote for people based off their record. If their record is sealed (or the effects of their votes), then I am not an informed voter. Corporations that choose to be publicly traded must disclose financial information so that investors can make informed decisions. Corporations are also not people, and have no rights other than what is granted by the government (the opposite of people).
The US Constitution never mentioned the right to privacy
Sure it does. Read the 9th and 10th Amendments and report back what you find. I have a constitutionally guaranteed Right to Privacy. It's funny that those that claim to be the most literal interpreters of the Constitution just pretend the 9th and 10th Amendments aren't there (I'm not stating specifically you, but just those people in general).
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>> Amen brother!
Corporations have no right to privacy -- nor does society benefit from them having such.
The Executive Privilege of hiding everything has to be stopped.
The whole notion of the Common Good has been stood on its head for years now. Corporations SHOULD ONLY EXIST IF the have a benefit to society -- not because they make a profit.
I've used this same argument with Record Labels; they create a system where it's more beneficial for them to have perhaps 40 top acts, and to limit the nu
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I understand what you were pointing out, and I disagree. The government has no rights at all. They have powers. Limited powers, outlined by the Constitution, and no powers beyond what is explicitly listed. Corporations have no rights. They are an artificial construct of the government to allow multiple people to act as a single person for the convenience of comm
privatization (Score:3, Insightful)
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Not as if research was the only place... (Score:2)
These [michellemalkin.com] people [littlegreenfootballs.com] take it all the way to the bank.
This may be more CYA than malicious (Score:2)
We shouldn't forget the spate of recent security lapses at Los Alamos. I think it is very likely that the new management may be of the opinion of "turn it all off until we get written direction from DOE."
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How Air Services Australia killed public DAFIF (Score:3, Informative)
Who did this affect? Everyone in Aviation.
So who was behind it? They wouldn't say at the time.
Turns out it was these little greasers: Air Services Australia. They did it because they wanted to rip off Australian Aviators, and they couldn't do that while the US made available an aviation database for free. This is one of these government organizations which pretends to 'privatize'. You get these pompous, stuffed-shirt public servants who think they built an organization from the ground up, when they were really handed something build from public money and said 'charge everyone'. So, Air Services Australia: Thanks a lot.
http://www.fcw.com/article91698-12-12-05-Prin [fcw.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFIF [wikipedia.org]
http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/ [airservicesaustralia.com]
Under the USC government doesn't copyright their products: citizens already paid to produce it with their taxes. In Australia and Britain, there is a long tradition of fleecing the public.
USFIF (Score:2)
-b.
This story is about 25 years old (Score:3, Interesting)
By now, there should be a whole generation who has never thought of universities as anything else.
LOC as a solution (Score:2)
The privatized, government funded labs should be required to submit their research results to the Library of Congress for centralized, public archival. And be required to do so in a timely manner.
No suprise (Score:2)
Contractors don't distribute data because they don't set policy, that's the government employees job. No employees you say? Then who's supervising the contractors? There is supposed to be some government over site, in not taking care of that over site somebody's not doing their job. No surprise when it comes to government.
nothing unusual about that (Score:3, Insightful)
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You're being a bit simplistic here.
It's just Crony Capitalism (Score:2)
I've been talking this up the past month... it's pretty outrageous to think that our Nuclear Weapons are now made by a for-profit company.
Of course, right now, when GE wants more money to build props for Nuclear Subs.... they just leak the blueprints to a foreign company and our subs become obsolete and trackable. So the government shells out more money to GE for new props. Everybody wins!
But this has to top the list of Greedy+Stupid;
https://freeinternetpress [freeinternetpress.com]
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I'd be curious who they got to replace them... look at who they've gotten to work at Blackwater security. But hey, you know, what could happen if you hire a bunch of Armageddon-loving fundamentalists? I'm not saying that's who is doing security -- but you and I won't be abl
They DO have a policy... (Score:2)
Their policy is "NO ACCESS".
What I would do. (Score:2)
Second, explain to him that you are doing a study, and that their policy has created a problem.
Third, explain that you have the right to get the information, and that their policyis no so much 'a problem' for you, as instead a delay for you and a serious problem for them.
Fourth, when he asks why is it a problem for him, tell him that if you have reasonable access, you will only ask for about 20 most relevant documents, the
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Titanic (Score:5, Funny)
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Mod parent up -- he has a point. The rush to develop nuclear weapons in the 40s, 50s, and 60s was marked by an almost callous disregard for the environment. They really *did* make a mess, especially at Hanford, Rocky Flats, and Oak Ridge. Less so at the national labs themselves, perhaps, but who really knows.
Not to mention that we nuked ourselves -
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We do not value what we have never experienced. Therefore in a society where we are more consumers of information rather than participants, we do not value free and open discourse, nor the freedom of information that makes that possible.
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One of the fun things in a democracy is that even those that did not vote for who won share the responsability of the choice.
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I'm sure a modern digital camera can capture a page of text as well as a photocopier, and a camera probably won't need the flash either. Old paper isn't generally allowed to be photocopied because of the bright light (causes fading) and the heat (presumably ages the paper and helps fade the ink too), but a digital camera won't do this, and it might even be quicker than photocopying!
I hate to offer a workaround as a solution, but this kind of BS isn't going to end soon :(
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Here's the important part:
If restrictions were there to protect the material, you wouldn't be able to remove them that way.
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Well, the results of nuclear *science* is publically available to any scientist. Nuclear secrets are, however, available to *many* scientists with appropriate clearance.
"Los Alamos are the traitors who through Clinton, gave your nuclear secrets over to your enemy."
Los Alamos is a national laboratory that brought us nuclear devices. I have no idea what your statement means when it is parsed except that you you hate Clinton and Los Alamos.
"Los Alamos '