American Institute of Physics
Corporate Associates Industrial Physics Forum
Policy Session on Science in a Security-Conscious World

October 29, 2002
Keynote Address:  Science and Security

John Marburger

Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President

            Good morning.  I am grateful for this opportunity to speak about a topic that is emerging as a major factor in the conduct of science in the twenty-first century.  Other speakers on this morning's panel will address more specifically how science and technology are being recruited in the war against terrorism.  My remarks will focus on how security concerns are likely to affect the conduct of science.  Unfortunately, we are at the early stages of a period of transition and reassessment of these issues, and I do not have definitive answers or predictions.  But I can at least give you a glimpse of what might be called "policy inclinations," and give you a status report on specific areas.

A historian could trace the interaction between science and security back hundreds of years, but the issue grew in importance during the twentieth century as science emerged as a major driver of technology.  It is through technology, after all, that humans are able to magnify their otherwise modest physical powers to influence their environment, including other humans.  Throughout most of human history, it was advancing technology that stimulated science, rather than the reverse.  Somewhere toward the end of the nineteenth century the roles reversed, notably in connection with chemical and electromagnetic phenomena, and throughout the following century science grew in its role as the source of new technology.  During the first third of the twentieth century, the scientific foundations were prepared for the microscopic understanding of important material properties.  Quantum theory had major impacts on chemistry, materials science, biology, and of course the understanding of nuclear phenomena.  It is an accident that the scientific knowledge needed to produce the technology of nuclear weapons appeared coincidentally with the outbreak of World War II, but nuclear science henceforth became a paradigm for postwar arguments favoring public support of research.  The course of World War II was strongly affected by technology, most notably radar, but arguably also penicillin and other areas of chemistry, optics, and electronics, as well as nuclear weapons.

After the war, attention to security in technical matters focused upon nuclear weapons, particularly after advances in Soviet bomb technology were linked to known national security leaks.  Preoccupation with security concerns strongly affected the research environment at the national laboratories that emerged from the Manhattan Project in the late 1940's and 1950's.  Science historian Robert Crease's recent account of Brookhaven National Laboratory's first twenty five years describes the tension between the openness demanded by lab scientists and the secrecy upon with the Atomic Energy Commission insisted.  The nation's first nuclear reactor built for purely scientific purposes, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor, operated with tight security in its early years.

            The example of nuclear weapons is, unfortunately, not very useful for guidance in how to manage science in a security-conscious twenty-first century.  The scientific knowledge upon which nuclear fission weapons are based is thoroughly understood and widely available today.  A Google websearch on "atomic bomb science" returns about 130,000 sites.  Some of them have detailed drawings and technical discussions about how weapons work and how they are made.  But everyone knows that the technical skill required to make a nuclear weapon is specialized, and that substantial resources are required to produce the fissile material and fabricate it into a weapon of mass destruction.  Specific details of these processes remain classified.  Much of the lore of thermonuclear weapons also remains classified.  Nuclear weapons are produced by nations, but of course they could be appropriated illegally by smaller groups and exploited for societal disruption.  Because of their tremendous potential destructive power and their relatively small size, they remain high on the list of security concerns.  Everyone agrees that nuclear weapons technology should remain highly classified.

            During the 1970's, and particularly the 1980's, some aspects of high power laser research were found to be of importance to national security, and these too were classified.  This technology somewhat resembled nuclear weaponry in the scale and complexity of systems, and in the strong technical engineering flavor of the protected information.  Here too, the basic science concepts were for the most part well known and widely available.  It is the specifics that are classified.  Other similar examples could be cited.

            None of these precedents for dealing with security-sensitive technical material gives adequate guidance for the field of bio-warfare or bio-terrorism.  Advances during the past two decades in molecular-level understanding of life processes can be applied with relatively modest means to the production or enhancement of bio-pathogens.  Modern biotechnology has two aspects: the apparatus required to unravel molecular codes and structures and their significance to the organism, and the technical procedures employed to produce novel organisms based upon this knowledge.  In contrast with nuclear science and technology, the former is relatively difficult to acquire, and the latter relatively easy.  It takes a much greater investment in technology to decode DNA and to unravel the structure of the proteins for which it codes than it does to exploit this knowledge for new products.  The applications require trained and creative personnel, but not particularly sophisticated technical apparatus.

            In biotechnology, therefore, the discovery activity upon which the entire field depends for its advance is the one that is technically difficult to acquire.  The applications phase is easier.  This has implications for any policy aimed to enhance national security against bio-terrorism.   The most efficient way to prevent bio-terrorism would be to classify the basic data that is difficult to acquire.  Because it is basic data, however, this approach would have a serious impact on the development of all applications of biological research, and generally impair the progress of the field.  The alternative of denying access to education in techniques for applying biotechnical knowledge is not efficient because the necessary training is in general not particularly specialized.

            What is an appropriate course of action here?  How should society behave to avoid giving aid to the enemy without at the same time stifling the progress of science?

            First, let me emphasize that the famous (among scientists) National Security Decision Directive #189, issued by President Ronald Reagan in September 1985, is still in effect.  It is the policy of this administration “that, to the maximum extent possible, the products of fundamental research remain unrestricted … and the mechanism of control of information generated during federally funded fundamental research in Science, Technology, and Engineering at colleges, universities and laboratories … is classification.”  This policy was reinforced by President George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice in November 2001.  In March of this year, however, Chief of Staff Andrew Card issued a memorandum ordering federal departments and agencies to “take steps to protect information regarding weapons of mass destruction and other information that could compromise national security.”  Writing in the current issue of Science magazine, the President of the American Society for Microbiology, Ronald Atlas, interprets this memorandum as “signaling that even unclassified information can be dangerous and may need constraints.”  That is true, and there are obviously many forms of information, such as law enforcement and forensics data, whose circulation is controlled but which are not classified.  Mr. Card’s memorandum was a reasonable caution to agencies that generate and use such information.  It does not signal an intent by the U.S. Government to intervene in the process of review and publication of the results of scientific research.

            Earlier this month the Committee on Science of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on “Conducting Research During the War on Terrorism: Balancing Openness and Security” at which I testified on a panel that included Professor Atlas, UC Santa Cruz Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood, and MIT Professor Sheila Widnall.  To clarify how the administration is dealing with these issues, I discussed three specific cases: The “public Health Security and Bioterrorism Prepa redness and Response Act of 2002” which establishes the so-called “Select Agent” rule restricting access to biopathogens, a proposed process for the evaluation of student visa applications, and the status of discussions regarding “sensitive homeland security information.”  My testimony is on the OSTP website (http://www.ostp.gov/) where you can find more detail on each of these issues.

            Today, I want to point to the proposed student visa process as an example of what I think is an appropriate way to address the complexity of the openness vs. security issue.  It is very difficult to define when a particular student applying to study a particular field at a particular institution may pose a security risk.  Remember that we are not speaking here only of students applying to major research universities.  We must deal with a vast array of educational programs.  But even looking only at the research university population, it would be extremely difficult to devise a set of rules that could be applied automatically by consular offices in a foreign country to assess the probability that the applicant could be a terrorist seeking special information needed to disrupt society.  As a practical alternative, an interagency working group established jointly by the Office of Homeland Security and OSTP has proposed a process that brings the necessary information to bear on problematical cases.  Let me quote from my testimony on this process:

“To prevent potential terrorists or those tied to terrorist organizations from receiving sensitive, uniquely available, training and knowledge, the President directed, through Homeland Security Presidential Directive-2, (HSPD-2) in October 2001, that, "It is the policy of the United States to work aggressively to prevent aliens who engage in or support terrorist activity from entering the United States and to detain, prosecute, or deport any such aliens who are within the United States."  HSPD-2 goes on to direct that, "The Government shall implement measures to end the abuse of student visas and prohibit certain international students from receiving education and training in sensitive areas, including areas of study with direct application to the development and use of weapons of mass destruction." 

“But the Directive also cautioned that these measures should be implemented with great care because, "The United States benefits greatly from international students who study in our country.  The United States Government shall continue to foster and support international students."

“To fulfill the requirements of Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-2), OHS and OSTP established an interagency working group that included members from the Departments of State, Justice (headed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)), Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and representatives from the intelligence, counterintelligence, and law enforcement agencies.  This working group labored over several months to find the right balance between scientific openness and national security in implementing the requirements of HSPD-2.  The Administration adopted the Working Group's recommendations, and agencies are now developing the processes and regulations needed to implement the Administration's policy.

“The Administration has chosen to implement an enhanced mechanism to review the visa applications of advanced students and visiting scholars on a case-by-case basis.  This review process will focus on international students who wish to participate in sensitive science and technology areas that are uniquely available in the United States and who may use the knowledge gained to threaten the security of the United States.

“The Administration concluded that given the wide array of coursework and information freely available through academic institutions and other open sources, it becomes impossible to create a list of sensitive courses or even majors that would meaningfully enhance homeland security against terrorist threats from international students.  Because of the focus on uniquely available, sensitive, scientific training or knowledge, it is logical to assume that graduate and postdoctoral researchers would be more likely to be reviewed than undergraduate students whose educational content tends to be more widely available.

“The Administration will create an Interagency Panel on Advanced Science and Security (IPASS) to perform the enhanced review process.  The IPASS co-chairs would be appointed by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, and the members would be drawn from the State Department, the INS, federal science and technology agencies, and the intelligence, counterintelligence, and law enforcement agencies.

“The State Department will refer select student and visiting scholar visa applicants for advanced science programs to the IPASS for review as part of the normal process of screening student visa applications.  The INS will also refer select F, M or J visa holders (and applicants for change of status to F, M or J visas) for review when they seek involvement in uniquely available, sensitive training or knowledge areas.

“IPASS will evaluate a number of variables, including the individual's background and previous education and training, their country of origin or affiliation, their scientific area of study, training, or research and the nature of the work currently conducted at the U.S. educational institution, and will provide the referring agency with an advisory opinion regarding the proposed visa applicant.  Both the State Department and INS will retain their statutory authority to make the final determination in each case, although some changes to the visa process may be likely when the Department Homeland Security is created.

“In addition, the IPASS will assess what uniquely available sensitive scientific knowledge is emerging, where it is available, and which terrorist groups or organizations might be trying to gain access to it.  IPASS will work closely with U.S. educational institutions and scientific societies in this effort.

“The Attorney General and the Secretary of State, along with OHS and OSTP, will routinely monitor the work of the IPASS to ensure that the Federal government has struck the right balance between scientific openness and homeland security.  We are aware that there are great scientific institutions around the world, which provide an attractive alternative to studying or conducting research in the United States.  We don't wish to turn away scientists unnecessarily.”

            These are important issues, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to discuss them with you.  I know you have many questions about this topic, so I will end my prepared remarks here, and respond to your specific concerns in the ensuing question and answer session.