Patents vs. Secrecy 219
giampy writes "New Scientist is reporting that the NSA appears to be having its patent applications increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. From the article: 'the fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years.'"
Re:win/win (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Compensation? (Score:3, Informative)
The principle of eminent domain does not allow the government to just "take" things. Eminent domain [wikipedia.org] requires that the government compensate you a fair market value [wikipedia.org].
Of course, that says nothing about other methods they have of preventing you from releasing your invention (national security?) or who decides what "fair market value" is.
Re:What The Post Doesn't Say (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Secrecy (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but this attitude just smacks of laziness on the part of a classification clerk. When I worked at Department of Energy sites I was amused to discover that groundwater well construction documents known as 'as-builts' were classified during the Cold War. We had to send over a guy with a clearence to review the well log and report back to the classification clerk that no national security information would be disclosed by declassifying the record. At one site the DOE was custodian to over 4,000 wells, of which 90% of the records were classified. Every hour spent by a PhD geologist reviewing well records cost the government real money. This laziness in applying a classified status to well records cost the taxpayers millions of dollars throughout the DOE complex without advancing national security one iota. Countless other examples of construction records for other non-proliferation items were also classified.
Perhaps you like throwing money away for useless 'feel good' measures, but I don't.
Re:If you can't patent it... (Score:1, Informative)
What a load... "Over the past few years?" Come 'on, cut any silly implications that government secrecy is somehow something new with the Bush administration. The FOIA was passed for a reason and it was passed long before "a few years ago."
Government secrecy is nothing new... just the spin.
Re:Is DOD screwing up great NSA plans? (Score:2, Informative)
Regards,
Steve
Re:Compensation? (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the sixties, a company my father started did a lot of government contract electronics design and manufacturing, mostly for the Navy (some Air Force.) Some of his designs were parsecs beyond what the Navy was currently using at the time, so good that the Navy simply classified them outright. Okay, that's a compliment in a way, but it meant that he couldn't tell anyone about his concepts, couldn't use them for anything himself, and couldn't market any products made with them unless the government chose to buy them from him. Which they didn't, because after stealing his IP they simply shopped it around to other vendors to get a better deal (or to somebody's brother-in-law, whatever.) After that experience, he learned to withhold key parts of specifications so even if they classified what he gave them it wouldn't do them any good. He pissed off more than a few Navy engineers that way, but his attitude was simple: if it's good enough for the Navy to steal it's good enough for them to pay the inventor a fair price.
This all happened was forty years ago, and given the turn our society and our government has taken since, I can't believe the situation has improved any. Really, working for the military is a risky business for any private-sector operation, no matter how you slice it. Money to be made, sure, but you gotta be careful.
Re:If you can't patent it... (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, secrecy isn't a new idea in government. However, the sheer amount of secret things - classified data, blocked FOIA requests, and so much more has grown exponentially in the past 20 years or so. The amount of secrecy allowed in the US now is leaps and bounds above what it was when Reagan was president. (And it was a lot then!)
It used to be that data defaulted to "unclassified" unless it was specifically classified. But lately it's taken a quite a turn - more and more data is defaulting to "classified".
I think a large part of this has to do with two realizations at the government level. One, the less information about the government is out there, the less accountable their constituents can hold them. (This is why the FOIA is so critical for the protection of rights for US citizens.) Two, statistical mining, data interpolation and extrapolation, and other sophisticated, computationally-intensive information guessing techniques have advanced so rapidly and with such efficacy that even when only "non-sensitive" portions of data are released, people are becoming extremely good at figuring out the underlying secrets.
Personally, it scares me that the government can keep secrets from me without even telling me why they're keeping it a secret. ("National Security" has become the catch-all reason to classify ANYTHING, it seems.) It scares me more that the government will no longer let me keep secrets from it. That disparity is beginning to undermine the balance of power between the electors and the elect, and could very easily lead this country into a tryannical state. I thank God that there are still some idealists in the government who are trying to make the right decisions; it is they who help to counteract the creep of power and those it affects.
Re:I hope they give you compensation (Score:2, Informative)
Re:There is not enough data... (Score:5, Informative)
The rate of FOIA challenges and denials has also skyrocketed.
Hmmm... Government getting more secret, AG writing memos about how torture is justifiable, enacting laws that permit indefinite incarceration without being charged, end to judicial oversight of wire-taps, congress considering a shield law for that would make it so only certain people can report government wrongdoing without threat of legal action... At this rate, how long will it be before the bill of rights falls into desuetude?
Re:If you can't patent it... (Score:3, Informative)
2001: 0 NSA Patents Blocked
2002: 0 NSA Patents Blocked
2003: 0 NSA Patents Blocked
2004: 5 NSA Patents Blocked
2005: 9 NSA Patents Blocked (up to March 2005)
RSA and GCHQ (Score:2, Informative)
However, given the prevailing attitudes in the English speaking world, I suggest you patent your ideas in the non-UK EU. Luxembourg?