Interesting People mailing list archives

Re: demed export -- Security clearances, lie detectors, etc.


From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 12:42:25 -0700


________________________________________
From: Steve Goldstein [steve.goldstein () cox net]
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 1:17 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] demed export --    Security clearances, lie detectors, etc.

When I was a Program Director (grant program manager, really; the actual title sounds overly lofty for the job) at NSF 
in the 1990's, I asked a few of our "star" awardees about using our grant money for research assistantships for 
non-U.S. citizens or undergraduate stipends to non-U.S. citizens.  The common answer was that, at least at the graduate 
level, there were few, if any, worthy U.S. citizens to chose for their research teams.  One of my awardees had a 
prevalence of mainland Chinese on his teams, and, AT THAT  TIME, said that most of them tried to find ways to stay in 
the U.S. once they had earned their Ph.D.'s.  I'd bet that this would no longer be the case.

At any rate, the  bigger issue seems to be that too many U.S.-borns seek the lucrative careers in business or law, and 
not the rigorous roads to science and engineering.  For those of you in academia, what is the composition of your 
graduate pool as regards citizenship?

--SteveG


At 11:10 AM -0700 5/3/08,  Eugene H. Spafford wrote:
Many countries have historically had some problems of the sort where
nationals of country A who  come to the US to study sensitive topics.
Thereafter, they returned to country A with knowledge of technology
that provides country A with a military or economic advantage that
they might not have been able to develop on their own.  We can't
prosecute them for espionage, because the material they learned was
not classified -- merely advanced, with strong dual uses.   We can't
charge them with theft of trade secrets (even if they were) because
country A won't extradite them on those charges.


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