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Comment by tehjoker | Hacker News Reader

Last time, I said this was corporate fears of losing money dressed up as xenophobia and got pushback. Now the spooks are just stating it outright.

Chinese and American scientists have more in common with each other than we do with the elites that run the government and corporations to the detriment of the population.

We should loudly denounce the government interfering with free scientific exchange and funding. Science isn't a competition; it's meant to benefit all of us regardless of nationality.

Edit: Last time they were messing with a researcher that was working on cancer treatments. They were worried he'd "steal" cancer treatments and give them to Chinese people! The nerve!

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I don't get this sentiment at all. China is notorious for stealing IP, they're a major military player (threat), and this professor lied about his ties to China and still worked on DoD funded projects. The government reaction seems pretty reasonable.

Many many projects are DoD funded and have little to nothing to do with immediate military applications. China is a threat to US hegemony in its own backyard, but to state that China is a threat to actual US citizens is kind of absurd. We're over there, they're not over here!

They're not over here - yet. Never in the history of the world has there been a surveillance state like they're building, there's no telling how effective it might end up being.

What exactly is the Chinese “threat” here?

Are they going to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier loaded with soldiers to invade the shores of Seattle and Los Angeles? And then claim the mainland United States as their own property?

Countries are continually jockeying for power. There's cyber wars, trade wars, cultural wars.

Not the countries. The "elites".

That's a straw man, I never said they're an invasion threat. They're a threat to US military superiority.

Well power has to be balanced. Otherwise one with the biggest club might get wrong ideas.

Currently, China is the one with the wrong ideas. That's why we need to oppose them every step of the way.

It isn't like he's arguing for a preemptive strike against China. Just a rule about giving taxpayer funding to their agents (which is what one becomes when agreeing to work on their behalf)

Seattle and LA no. But are they going to make territorial claims over islands in the South China Sea, islands that are also claimed by US allies such as the Philippines, South Korea and Japan? Will they use the threat of military force in an attempt to support those claims? Well yes they have already done so.

Do you really think any student gets near anything that could remotely impact national security without a background check?

This is Charles Lieber's latest paper: http://cml.harvard.edu/assets/Nanowire-probes-could-drive-hi...

It's a review article on nanowires, and in the acknowledgements an Air Force is listed, obviously because a student's salary is funded by the Air Force. The guy is stupider than the FBI permits but there is no reason to drift into xenophobia.

>> China is notorious for stealing IP,

> xenophobia

Really? So stating that China steals IP is now "xenophobia"?

"We should loudly denounce the government interfering with free scientific exchange and funding" $18M his funding was from the government (NIH and DoD). With those grants he agreed to disclose foreign funding sources. He failed to do so.

Agreed, this is made clear in the process of NIH, DoD funding. Initially I thought prosecutors and media wasre overreacting, but the scale of both the foreign funding sources and NIH DoD funding is not something that anyone could overlook unintentionally. Its a shame for such and accomplished scientist.

Without hearing his side, I am skeptical. It might be he didn't disclose because he knew that he'd be penalized for taking money from his home country. I don't know, but my skepticism when it comes to "national security" and nations they want us to think of as the enemy requires an extremely high bar.

edit: sorry got the scientist's nationality wrong.

> It might be he didn't disclose because he knew that he'd be penalized for taking money from his home country.

“Charles M. Lieber (born 1959) is an American chemist and pioneer in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology.”

Even if you got his nationality correct, it'd be an absolutely absurd defense to not disclose because he knew he'd be penalized.

> It might be he didn't disclose because he knew that he'd be penalized

That is called fraud. That's not an excuse, and is in fact a reason for him to continue to be in trouble.

Could you imagine? "I decided not to disclose my tax evasion because I knew I'd be punished. I'm innocent!"

Accepting hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and then lying to your university, the DoD, and NIH about it has nothing to do with "free scientific exchange".

Wait, are you trying to cast the guy who got paid millions of dollars to assist a foreign government as "one of the little guys"?

I wish things were as simple as this, however scientists' desire to share and collaborate stands directly at odds with state actors desire to access the technology differentiators. Would be nice to live in a world where these technologies weren't deployed against other humans (on all sides) but that is not the reality we live in.

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