November 8, 2007

FBI Calls on Universities to Guard Against Spies

The FBI's relationship with university students and academics has never been one of wine and roses -- see the agency's covert campaign to discredit Albert Einstein. Therefore, it might be a bit surprising to know that some university presidents are now embracing the agency and are perhaps even willing to become its eyes and ears on campus.

...

Speaking this week at Penn State University, FBI Director Robert Mueller told an audience that universities need to guard against spies who are out to acquire bits and pieces of technology and research and said he's worried that "pre-classified and pre-patented" technologies could fall into the wrong hands.

The NPR report doesn't say how universities would accomplish this without clamping down on their ordinarily open, information-sharing nature. Presumably, one possible way, not discussed in the NPR piece, would be to simply bar some foreign students and academics from entering the U.S. Another possible solution, used in the past, would be to bar U.S. academics from publishing or otherwise publicly presenting research that the government deems sensitive.

Mueller says, however, that the FBI isn't trying to impose its will on campuses; it simply wants to make academics cognizant of these issues.

Mmmm, hmmm.

Read more.

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