2002
Press Releases &
Media Advisories |
March
14, 2003
NATIONAL
SECURITY, SCIENTIFIC OPENNESS
CSIS-National Academies to Develop Plan for Keeping
"Sensitive" Information From Terrorists
Contact:
Mark
Schoeff Jr. 202-775-3242 (mschoeff@csis.org);
David Heyman 202-775-3293
WASHINGTON,
March 14, 2003 — CSIS and the National Academies
announced today that they would collaborate to explore
ways to promote national security while maintaining
open communications in the sciences, at a time when
international terrorism poses an increased threat to
open societies.
The
co-chairs of this effort will be CSIS Counselor and
Trustee Harold Brown, former secretary of defense,
and Caltech President David Baltimore, co-recipient
of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
CSIS
and the National Academies will convene a series of
meetings and related projects over the next two years
in which the security and scientific communities, along
with leaders of industry, will meet to address the challenge
of maintaining a dynamic scientific environment that
does not compromise U.S. national security. The forum
will initially take up two core issues: how to manage
the risks of malevolent use of so-called "sensitive
unclassified information" that might enable terrorists
to produce and deliver chemical, biological or nuclear
weapons; and how to address international peer-to-peer
contacts and visits while ensuring a thriving and secure
scientific environment.
"The
American scientific community is deeply concerned about
how to contribute to our national security without sacrificing
the values of openness that have historically made its
efforts so strong. This roundtable will provide a venue
for considering this extremely complicated issue," said
Baltimore.
The
attacks of Sept. 11 greatly intensified concern that
terrorists and/or terrorist-supporting states would
use advanced science and technology to wreak devastation
and disruption on a massive scale. Although it is essential
to preclude access to information and materials to those
who would use science for destructive purposes, in a
world of global communications, it is increasingly difficult
to prevent the transmission of information. Efforts
to protect information could thwart the scientific process,
which for hundreds of years has depended upon the sharing
and replication of results. The CSIS-National Academies
effort is designed to address these challenges by:
- Fostering
dialogue between the science and technology and security
communities as part of the process of formulating
national policies regarding scientific collaboration
and communication;
-
Establishing a focal point for unbiased and deliberative
consideration of solutions to the dilemmas posed by
balancing the need for open scientific communication
with the need for protecting national and homeland
security;
-
Proposing and conducting policy-relevant research
and analysis.
"The
complex infrastructure of modern society is highly vulnerable
to attack using advanced technologies - biological,
chemical, nuclear, and digital," said Brown. "Devising
procedures to limit the access of aggressive states
and terrorists to such technologies while encouraging
scientific research and communication among its practitioners
is a challenging task. The National Academies and CSIS
have agreed to work together to take on that challenge
and I am delighted to co-chair such an enterprise."
CSIS
is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research
organization. The National Academies comprise the National
Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering,
Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.
They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide
science, technology, and health policy advice under
a congressional charter.
CSIS is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy organization.
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