Shrouding the endless frontier—Scientific communication and national security: Considerations for a policy balance sheet

Abstract

Abstract Various normal and essential scientific communication activities, including unclassified research dissemination, publication, and exchanges in the open classroom and among scholars, have been limited recently by the Federal government through more vigorous enforcement and stringent application of existing national security controls. These actions are prompted by a growing anxiety about the acquisition of American science and technology by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. Such controls, however, may have a restrictive effect not only on scientific communication, but also on scientific achievement and advancement in the United States. Recognizing this danger, certain countervailing ideas are recounted and discussed here as points of balance both to justifications for these recent limitations and to arguments favoring even broader government authority to constrain scientific communication for reasons of national security.