{"id":1942,"date":"2014-07-26T15:01:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-26T19:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2017-01-12T18:19:03","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T23:19:03","slug":"us-state-department-let-in-cryptographers-and-other-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=1942","title":{"rendered":"US State Department: Let in cryptographers and other scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predictably, my last post attracted plenty\u00a0of outrage (some\u00a0of it too vile to let through), along with the odd commenter who actually agreed<\/em> with what I consider my fairly\u00a0middle-of-the-road,\u00a0liberal Zionist\u00a0stance. \u00a0But since the\u00a0outrage came from\u00a0both<\/em> sides of the issue, and the two sides were outraged about the opposite things, I guess\u00a0I should feel OK about it.<\/p>\n

Still, it’s hard not to smart from the burns of vituperation, so today I’d like to blog about a very\u00a0different political issue: one where hopefully almost\u00a0all Shtetl-Optimized<\/em> readers will actually agree with me (!).<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve learned from colleagues that, over\u00a0the past year, foreign-born scientists have been having\u00a0enormously more trouble getting visas to enter the US than they used to. \u00a0The problem, I’m told, is particularly severe for cryptographers: embassy clerks are now instructed to ask specifically\u00a0whether computer scientists seeking to enter the US work\u00a0in cryptography. \u00a0If an\u00a0applicant answers “yes,” it triggers a special process where the applicant hears nothing back for months, and very likely misses the workshop in the US that he or she had planned to attend. \u00a0The root\u00a0of the problem, it seems, is something called the Technology Alert List (TAL)<\/a>, which has been around for a while—the State Department beefed it up in response to the 9\/11 attacks—but which, for some unknown reason, is only now being rigorously enforced. \u00a0(Being marked as working in one of the sensitive fields on this list\u00a0is apparently called “getting TAL’d.”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The issue reached a comical extreme last October, when Adi Shamir<\/a>, the “S”\u00a0in RSA, Turing Award winner, and foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences, was prevented from entering the US<\/a> to speak at a “History of Cryptology” conference sponsored by the National Security Agency. \u00a0According to Shamir’s open letter detailing the incident<\/a>, not even his friends at the NSA, or the president of the NAS, were able to grease the bureaucracy at the State Department for him.<\/p>\n

It should be obvious to everyone that a crackdown on academic cryptographers serves no national security purpose whatsoever, and if anything harms<\/em> American security and economic competitiveness, by diverting scientific talent to other countries. \u00a0(As Shamir delicately puts it, “the number of terrorists among the members of the US National Academy of Science is rather small.”<\/span>) \u00a0So:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Any readers who have more facts\u00a0about what’s going on, or personal experiences, are strongly encouraged to share them in the comments section.<\/li>\n
  2. Any readers who might have any levers of influence to pull on this issue—a Congressperson to write to, a phone call to make, an Executive Order to issue (I’m talking to you, Barack), etc.—are strongly encouraged to pull them.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Predictably, my last post attracted plenty\u00a0of outrage (some\u00a0of it too vile to let through), along with the odd commenter who actually agreed with what I consider my fairly\u00a0middle-of-the-road,\u00a0liberal Zionist\u00a0stance. \u00a0But since the\u00a0outrage came from\u00a0both sides of the issue, and the two sides were outraged about the opposite things, I guess\u00a0I should feel OK about it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nerd-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1943,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions\/1943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}