It look slike some things will never change
Going Ballistic
by Brendan I. Koerner-the Village Voice
Last year, Theodore Postol began distributing a report critical of a missile-defense system made by aerospace giant TRW. Postol, an MIT professor of technology and security policy, argued that Pentagon scientists had doctored TRW's data to conceal the fact that cheap, low-tech decoys can easily fool the $60 billion-plus system. A nuclear warhead could be encased in a Mylar balloon, for example, and released with a flurry of identical balloons; the defensive missiles would be unable to detect which one carried the lethal payload.
According to Postol's calculations, flipping a coin would give the system better odds than relying on its sensors.
Pentagon officials soon classified the document retroactively, a strange move considering Postol had relied on data from a report explicitly stamped "Unclassified Draft." Copies continued to circulate on the Internet, and Postol requested that the General Accounting Office investigate the matter. Unable to squelch the report, the Pentagon began leaning on MIT. In July, the Defense Security Service (DSS) asked the university to confiscate all hard copies of the report and launch an administrative inquiry into Postol's behavior.
"I don't understand how these guys can in any way think they have the ability to tell me that I can't download a piece of information that's been released on the Web," says Postol. "My security clearance with the government does not include me giving up my First Amendment rights."
Going Ballistic
by Brendan I. Koerner-the Village Voice
Last year, Theodore Postol began distributing a report critical of a missile-defense system made by aerospace giant TRW. Postol, an MIT professor of technology and security policy, argued that Pentagon scientists had doctored TRW's data to conceal the fact that cheap, low-tech decoys can easily fool the $60 billion-plus system. A nuclear warhead could be encased in a Mylar balloon, for example, and released with a flurry of identical balloons; the defensive missiles would be unable to detect which one carried the lethal payload.
According to Postol's calculations, flipping a coin would give the system better odds than relying on its sensors.
Pentagon officials soon classified the document retroactively, a strange move considering Postol had relied on data from a report explicitly stamped "Unclassified Draft." Copies continued to circulate on the Internet, and Postol requested that the General Accounting Office investigate the matter. Unable to squelch the report, the Pentagon began leaning on MIT. In July, the Defense Security Service (DSS) asked the university to confiscate all hard copies of the report and launch an administrative inquiry into Postol's behavior.
"I don't understand how these guys can in any way think they have the ability to tell me that I can't download a piece of information that's been released on the Web," says Postol. "My security clearance with the government does not include me giving up my First Amendment rights."