Just because it is made public doesn't mean it's declassified
M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him by James Dao WASHINGTON - A leading critic of the military's missile defense testing program has accused the Pentagon of trying to silence him and intimidate his employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by investigating him for disseminating classified documents. The case has raised questions about whether a document can be considered secret if it is widely available to the public. And it has touched off a dispute between the critic, Theodore A. Postol, and M.I.T. over how to balance academic freedom with the university's obligations to cooperate with Pentagon investigators. At issue is correspondence between Dr. Postol, a physicist, and the General Accounting Office, an investigative branch of Congress, in which he accused the Pentagon of using doctored data to defend missile defense technology. Dr. Postol said his conclusions had been based on an unclassified report, which he disseminated over the Internet and can now be downloaded from Web sites around the world, including one in Russia. But after Dr. Postol began distributing the report last year, the Pentagon determined that it contained secret information. This month, Defense Department investigators asked M.I.T. officials to stop Dr. Postol from disseminating that information and to confiscate the document from him. The university has not done so. But in an e-mail message to Dr. Postol on Monday, Charles M. Vest, the university president, said M.I.T. might be required to ``move forward with at least the initial steps'' ordered by Defense Security Service, a Pentagon agency. Dr. Postol provided a copy of that message to The New York Times. ``They are basically threatening M.I.T. that it will lose its contract to run this big laboratory if they don't abide by these demands,'' Dr. Postol said in an interview. The institute operates the Lincoln Laboratory at Hanscom Air Force Base in Lexington, Mass., under contract with the Defense Department to do research into missile defense, weather forecasting, military surveillance and other sophisticated technologies. The lab's contract with the Pentagon was worth $319 million last year. M.I.T. officials declined to speculate today on whether Dr. Vest would cooperate with the Pentagon's requests. But Dr. Vest issued a written statement that raised questions about the investigation of Dr. Postol. ``While M.I.T. certainly abides by the laws that protect national security, we also believe that the legitimate tools of classification of secrets should not be misused to limit responsible debate,'' the statement said. ``Trying to treat widely available public information as `secret' is a particular concern.'' Pentagon officials declined to discuss details of their investigation. But Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, argued that the department was obligated to stop Dr. Postol from disseminating potentially damaging information, even if it was readily available. ``Just because it is made public doesn't mean it's declassified,'' Colonel Lehner said. Dr. Postol agreed that the information was potentially damaging, but only because it showed that the Pentagon was far from developing effective antimissile weapons. For years, Dr. Postol has argued that the Pentagon's prototype antimissile system could not distinguish between decoys and enemy warheads. He has joined forces with an engineer, Nira Schwartz, who has accused her former employer, TRW, a military contractor, of faking tests and evaluations of the technology to make it appear more successful than it was. The latest dispute arose when the Pentagon hired five scientists, including two from M.I.T.'s Lincoln Laboratory, to review TRW's technology in the wake of Dr. Schwartz's accusations. The resulting report disputed Dr. Schwartz's assertions and has been used to defend the missile defense program on Capitol Hill. But Dr. Postol, who in the 1990's successfully challenged the effectiveness of Patriot missiles in the Persian Gulf war, analyzed the report and concluded it had distorted data to make it appear that available technology could reliably distinguish warheads from decoys. In fact, Dr. Postol contends, that technology does not yet exist. The Pentagon and TRW have denied that assertion. Dr. Postol first raised concerns about the Pentagon report in a letter to the White House last year. Not long after, the Pentagon determined that officials had inadvertently not removed classified information from the report before releasing it, including the tables and diagrams Dr. Postol has used to attack the testing program. But Dr. Postol, who has done work for the Pentagon and stands to lose his security clearance, contends that the Pentagon's actions smack of a cover-up. He has recruited supporters in Congress. Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, has asked the Pentagon to review Dr. Postol's accusations about the report. Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has asked the General Accounting Office to study the Defense Department's classification policy. ``The question that naturally arises is whether such a policy really protects national security or whether it merely serves to stifle the ability of Dr. Postol to communicate his views,'' Mr. Markey asks in a letter sent to the accounting office today. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0727-02.htm from NYTimes
Just because it is public DOES mean it's declassified. There are Supreme Court cases on this. If the government can recover all the copies, then it can REclassify it. But if it can't, then the document is not classified. I ran into this situation when digging up some of William Friedman's early work from the government. I sued under FOIA to get copies, the gov't declared that the documents were top secret, and I got copies from public libraries and filed them with the court. The government complained bitterly, but a day after the New York Times story broke, they dropped the issue. Thus: Shine a bright, bright light ANYTIME they start to pull this sort of garbage. And make sure you've stashed copies of the document in half a dozen unlikely places, before letting the government know you have the document. It's completely likely that they'll send their bully-boys to steal it from you so they can reclassify it, if you have the only copy. John
At 08:22 AM 08/02/2001 -0700, John Gilmore wrote:
Just because it is public DOES mean it's declassified. There are Supreme Court cases on this. If the government can recover all the copies, then it can REclassify it. But if it can't, then the document is not classified.
It's not that straightforward, because Postol has a security clearance, so he's under more restrictions than somebody who doesn't. If he obtained the information entirely from already-public sources, as opposed to obtaining documents with classification markings that don't also have declassification markings on them, he should be safe from prosecution, but that doesn't mean they can't pop his security clearance for it.
Even if all sources were unclassified, there still looms Classification by Aggregation. (An NSA phone number is Unclass; the NSA phone Book is Confidential.) Ultimately, the pulled Clearance/loss of contract is the Tall Peg. PHM --- Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com> wrote:
At 08:22 AM 08/02/2001 -0700, John Gilmore wrote:
Just because it is public DOES mean it's declassified. There are Supreme Court cases on this. If the government can recover all the copies, then it can REclassify it. But if it can't, then the document is not classified.
It's not that straightforward, because Postol has a security clearance, so he's under more restrictions than somebody who doesn't.
If he obtained the information entirely from already-public sources, as opposed to obtaining documents with classification markings that don't also have declassification markings on them, he should be safe from prosecution, but that doesn't mean they can't pop his security clearance for it.
===== Paul H. Merrill, MCNE, MCSE+I, CISSP * PaulMerrill@ACM.Org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
Alfred Qaeda <alqaeda@hq.org> wrote:
M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him by James Dao
Here is the letter in question. I'm sending it at least as much to put it in the inet-one archives as I am for general interest :-) If anyone wants the HTML version or the attachments, see http://positron.mit.edu/postol/ ___________________________________________________________________________ SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM Massachusetts Institute of Technology 292 Main Street (E38-603) Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 May 11, 2000 Mr. John Podesta White House Chief of Staff The White House First Floor, West Wing Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. Podesta: I am writing to alert you to information that is of profound importance to President Clintons impending decision on whether to deploy the currently under development National Missile Defense system. I have obtained and analyzed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organizations (BMDOs) own published data from the Integrated Flight Test 1A (IFT-1A) and have discovered that the BMDOs own data shows that the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) will be defeated by the simplest of balloon decoys. I also have documentation that shows that the BMDO in coordination with its contractors attempted to hide this fact by tampering with both the data and analysis from the IFT-1A experiment. In addition, it appears that the BMDO modified the configuration of the IFT-2, 3, and 4 follow-on flight tests to hide the program-stopping facts revealed in the IFT-1A. The documentation and analysis that supports my claims are attached to this letter as Attachments A through D. In the remainder of this letter I will briefly summarize the findings documented in the four attachments. Attachments A and B explain how the BMDOs own data from the IFT-1A test shows that the BMDO falsely represented the results of the IFT-1A test as showing that an Exotamospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) can tell warheads from simple balloon decoys. It is easy to understand this result from a simple explanation of how the EKV works (see Attachments A and B for further details). The EKV sees both decoys and warheads as unresolved points of light, and it attempts to find warheads by examining how each point of light fluctuates in time. The intensity of the signal from each potentially lethal object depends on its size, temperature, surface materials and spatial orientation, and the fluctuation in the signal from each object depends on how its orientation changes in time. The data from the IFT-1A experiment showed that the changing spatial orientation of the decoys and warheads as they fell through the near vacuum of space was nearly the same, each resulting in a signal that fluctuated in a varied and totally unpredictable way. Consequently, the IFT-1A data showed that there was no fluctuating feature in the signals from decoys and warheads that could be used to distinguish one object from the other. One of the early post-flight manifestations of this fact was immediately evident when the BMDO review of the telemetry data from the IFT-1A flight test resulted in the defense system always wrongly identifying a partially inflated balloon as the mock warhead. The team performing the post-flight analysis dealt with this failure by simply removing the balloon from the data, as if it was never there. Even after removing the balloon, the post-flight experimental data still showed that two other benign objects were brighter than the warhead and therefore were judged more likely to be the mock warhead. The team performing the post-flight experiment analysis dealt with this outcome by arbitrarily rejecting the data from the time interval where the two other objects were brighter, and instead chose without technical reason a second time period where the warhead was brighter due to the accident of its spatial orientation. This elaborate hoax was then screened by describing this tampering with the data and analysis in terms of misleading, confusing, and self contradictory language to create the false impression that the results were supported by well established scientific methods. In truth, the procedures followed by the BMDO were like rolling a pair of dice and throwing away all outcomes that did not give snake eyes, and then fraudulently making a claim that they have scientific evidence to show that they could reliably predict when a roll of the dice will be a snake eyes. These meretricious procedures used by the analysis team were applied because the IFT-1A data revealed that the signals from some of the decoys in the experiment were essentially indistinguishable from that of the mock warhead. Stated differently, the signals from both the warhead and balloons had no features that could be exploited to tell one from the other using credible scientific methods so the team invented a set of fraudulent methods to get the desired result. In view of the results of the IFT-1A experiment, it is now clear why the IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments were re-configured following the analysis of IFT-1A. After the IFT-1A experiment, the BMDO changed the number of objects it planned to fly in follow-on experiments from ten to four. The four objects were to be a medium reentry vehicle (MRV), a 2.2 meter diameter balloon, and two balloons of diameter 0.6 meters. Some time after this reduction in the number of objects to be flown in IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments, the number of objects was again changed. This time the two 0.6 meter balloons were removed, because of the high probability that the seeker would mistake one of them for the mock warhead. This action further reduced the number of objects for the IFT-2, 3, and 4 follow-on experiments from four to two, leaving only a single large balloon and a medium warhead. The fidelity of the IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments was further undermined by the BMDO through the careful choice of a time of day for the intercept attempt, which placed the sun behind the EKV illuminating the balloon and warhead from the front. In this experimental geometry, the willful insertion of the 2.2 meter diameter balloon converted it from what otherwise might have been a credible decoy to an object that was unambiguously a beacon. In addition, the very large differences in the intensity between the balloon and warhead made it easy to distinguish between the two targets while at the same time making it easier for the EKV to home on the dimmer but still very bright warhead near the balloon. The results of the IFT-1A experiment, and the way it was allowed to influence the modifications to the IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments, is of profound signific ance for the Presidents decision on whether or not to move forward with the current National Missile Defense concept, as it is now clear that the entire concept relies on a flawed analysis of the most basic and critical flight test data. When the data from these experiments are properly analyzed and interpreted, they indicate that the current NMD system will not be able to reliably deal with even the most simple first generation countermeasures. Such trivially simple countermeasures could include the use of tumbling warheads, partially inflated balloon decoys, and decoys and warheads constructed with tethered objects and rabbit-ear type appendages. The points made herein can be readily verified by a careful review of the study Independent Review of TRW Discrimination Techniques Final Report, (POET Study 1998-5). This document (included here as Attachment D) contains a mix of irrelevant and profound findings about the post-flight analysis of the telemetry data, creating a superficial but false impression of a sound scientific analysis. A careful reading of this report and the related documents included in the attachments instead reveals the following: * Data that demonstrated that the EKV would always mistake a partially inflated balloon for the mock lethal object was inexplicably removed from the post-flight analysis of the EKVs performance. * After this data was removed, the data from the eight other remaining benign objects and the lethal mock warhead showed that the system would still mistakenly choose two of the benign objects instead of the lethal object. * In order to alter this unfavorable outcome, the team tampered with both the data and the analysis of the data to artificially create a false outcome where the system would choose the mock warhead. This highly organized and systematic pattern of actions has the appearance of an elaborate scientific and technical blunder, which urgently needs to be investigated by a team of scientists who are recognized for their scientific accomplishments and independence from the Pentagon. Fortunately, the physical phenomena and analysis techniques at issue here are well known to many highly skilled independent scientists who work on problems in basic physics, computer science, and in the analysis of statistical data, so assembling a team of top-notch independent scientists who can evaluate the BMDOs analytical claims should be no problem. I urge the White House to put together such a team of scientists who can independently evaluate the procedures used to reach these erroneous conclusions about the content of the telemetry data from the IFT-1A flight test and the subsequent modifications of the IFT-2, 3, and 4 flight tests. Attachments A, B, C, and D contain detailed explanations of the findings provided in this letter along with the documentation from which they are derived. Sincerely yours, Theodore A. Postol Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Security Studies Program and Program in Science, Technology, and Society Cc: Leon Fuerth, Assistant to the Vice President for Security Affairs Hans Binnendijk, Assistant to the President and Director Defense and Arms Control Policy Phil Coyle, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, Department of Defense Attachment A: Explanation of Why the Sensor in the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) Cannot Reliably Discriminate Decoys from Warheads Attachment B: Technical Discussion of the Misinterpreted Results of theIFT-1A Experiment Due to Tampering With the Data and Analysis and Errors in the Interpretation of the Data Attachment C: Collected and Annotated Defense Criminal Investigation Service Documents Associated With the Investigation of Tampering With the Scientific and Technical Data and Analysis from the IFT-1A National Missile Defense Experiment Attachment D: Independent Review of TRW Discrimination Techniques, Final Report, POET Study 1998-5, M-J. Tsai, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Larry Ng, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Glenn Light, Aerospace Corporation, Frank Handler, POET/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Charles Meins, MIT Lincoln Laboratory -- Riad Wahby rsw@mit.edu MIT VI-2/A 2002 5105
participants (5)
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Alfred Qaeda -
Bill Stewart -
John Gilmore -
Paul Merrill -
Riad S. Wahby