Report Card
Corson, Ross
REPORT CARD Ross Corson The Knowledge Factory GOING FOR BROKE: THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX by the Committee for Non-Violent Research 1401 S. State Street, Ann Arbor,...
...The report includes an excellent bibliographical essay, detailing source books for researching connections among the university, the military, and industry...
...For Your Information FORMER SECRETS: GOVERNMENT RECORDS MADE PUBLIC THROUGH THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT by Evan Hendricks Campaign for Political Rights, 201 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C...
...The report's main purpose is to provide readers with a clear impression of the information that has been disclosed and, sometimes, of how the disclosures benefited the public...
...The Michigan students who wrote Going for Broke were provoked by the Federal budget shifts from social programs to military "preparedness," the proposed high-technology "revitalization" of Michigan's economy, and the shift in their university's budget to research-oriented programs in engineering and computer science...
...The decline in the university's total budget, the rationale for this program, has been greatly exaggerated and the $20 million in cuts proposed over the next four years would simply be allocated to departments engaged in technological research for industry...
...Former Secrets has little immediate utilitarian value...
...A compromise bill, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is unlikely to reach the Senate floor this year...
...Going for Broke, the authors explain, is "a contribution to what should become a far wider and deeper debate" about the rising military and industrial presence on the American campus...
...Well-documented though somewhat weak in political analysis, Space: The High Frontier in Perspective is a useful introduction accessible to those who have no special expertise...
...The cases demonstrate the law's value in uncovering information about consumer product and drug safety, Government attempts at behavior control, the environment, nuclear power, official fraud and waste, labor, civil rights, foreign affairs, national defense, and Federal intrusion into political activities...
...the redirection of military space research in the United States and the Soviet Union to improved weapons surveillance, which would allow the superpowers to negotiate verifiable arms control agreements...
...As the two superpowers embrace military space projects, their faltering civilian programs encounter growing competition from Western European nations and Japan...
...This report," David L. Sobel, staff counsel for the Campaign for Political Rights, explains in the foreword, "highlights many specific ways in which the Freedom of Information Act has been used to advance the public interest...
...The project's sponsor, in these cases the DOD," the report explains, "is purchasing the researcher's time and expertise, and, as the old saying goes, 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.'" Going for Broke reveals the truth behind the university administration's call for a "smaller and better" University of Michigan through "selective discontinuance" of funding to certain departments...
...A resource that could be a decisive factor for world peace," Daniel Deudney states, "is in danger of contributing to humanity's last war...
...2.00...
...Former Secrets provides clear and convincing evidence of the FOIA's value and of the need to strengthen rather than enfeeble it...
...It gives only brief descriptions of the secrets disclosed, the agencies and requesters involved, and the results of the disclosure...
...These expenditures—not likely to decrease if the two nations follow their usual paths—are crippling civilian space activities and bringing the world closer to war...
...They are also among the 500 cases listed in the 200-page study, Former Secrets...
...Among Deudney's suggestions are the establishment of an international agency to launch a satellite for monitoring arms buildups, crisis spots, and weapons tests in order to stabilize international relations...
...This study from the independent Washington research organization, Worldwatch Institute, surveys the uses, both military and civilian, to which nations have put outer space and recommends peaceful, progressive alternatives to some of them...
...9.00...
...soldiers in nuclear tests during the 1950s, the cancer risks of pregnant women taking the hormone DES, the dangers of exploding Pinto gas tanks, the CIA's testing of drugs on unwitting Americans, the FBI's spying on dissenters...
...These are just a few of the thousands of disclosures made during the fifteen-year history of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA...
...REPORT CARD Ross Corson The Knowledge Factory GOING FOR BROKE: THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX by the Committee for Non-Violent Research 1401 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 $2.00...
...an honest effort to include the Third World in satellite communications systems, and the expansion of satellite use for such "earthkeeping" tasks as weather and crop forecasting...
...20036...
...Researchers funded by the Department of Defense contend that the purpose of their work is to advance scientific knowledge, but, as this report makes clear, the purpose of a project is not determined by the researcher alone...
...20002...
...Within a decade," Deudney explains, "the United States and the Soviet Union may find they have borne all costs of opening the high frontier—and that others are profitably exploiting it...
...The radiation exposure of U.S...
...Star Wars SPACE: THE HIGH FRONTIER IN PERSPECTIVE by Daniel Deudney Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C...
...At least 75 per cent of the space research funds in both nations currently go to such military applications as missile-targeting satellites and experimental anti-satellite weapons...
...These former secrets were usually uncovered by journalists, historians, and political activists who had a good idea of what they were looking for but could find it only after much effort...
...Having conquered land, sea, and sky, military strategists in the United States and the Soviet Union have now set their sights on outer space...
...Although this report deals specifically with the University of Michigan, it addresses issues and reaches conclusions that apply to many other campuses...
...Still, it may be excessively optimistic to proclaim, as Sobel does, that "the Act has fostered democratic participation in the affairs of state...
...More than two decades ago, Dwight Eisenhower called for an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" to guard against the "unwarranted acquisition of influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex...
...The FOIA has been a center of some controversy this year, with the Reagan Administration and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah trying to impose severe restrictions on the information obtainable under the Act...
...Having more countries focusing primarily on the civilian uses of space is a welcome counterbalance to the growing military emphasis of the superpowers, which has emerged as a major drag on civilian space activities...
...They discovered that in the last six months of 1981, the amount of military-funded research at Michigan doubled, despite guidelines adopted by the Regents in 1972 prohibiting any research that might lead to the destruction of human life...
Vol. 46 • October 1982 • No. 10
