Science Under Siege

The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a new report which charges that the Bush administration is using the war on terror as a pretext to tighten restrictions on information. It states that the administration "has sought to impose growing restrictions on the free flow of scientific information, unreasonable barriers on the use of scientific materials and increased monitoring of and restrictions on foreign university students. ... The government is seeking to graft the values of security agencies - secrecy, control and confinement of information - onto the world of science, where information must be uncontrolled, open to all and distributed as broadly as possible."