The Federal Bureau of Investigation will co-host a conference (pdf) this month “to promote positive continuous dialogue between the U.S. Intelligence Community and the academic community.” The conference will be held at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on April 29.
Topics of discussion will include the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “has been an invaluable tool in providing advice to the FBI on the culture of higher education, including the traditions of openness, academic freedom, and international collaboration, while serving as a forum for discussion of national security issues.”
In 2008, authors from the FBI and the Federation of American Scientists jointly reported on a survey of attitudes among scientists concerning interactions with the FBI. “The attitudes of scientists toward law enforcement personnel are not vastly different from those of the general public. However, a larger percentage of scientists indicated cooler feelings towards the FBI than the general public, suggesting that these reservations are particular to the scientific community and require specific solutions with the scientific community in mind,” the survey found. “[S]cientists are suspicious of the FBI and feel that they do not work well with the scientific community.”
“By taking steps to address suspicions early in any interaction and by treating scientists respectfully and professionally, law enforcement representatives are more likely to build a foundation of respect with their interaction and displace existing hostility,” the authors suggested. See “How Scientists View Law Enforcement” by Nathaniel Hafer, Cheryl J. Vos, Karen McAllister, Gretchen Lorenzi, Christopher Moore, Kavita M. Berger and Michael Stebbins, Science Progress, December 22, 2008.
Grace Wickerson, the Federation of American Scientists’ Senior Manager, Climate and Health, today accepted a national recognition, the “Grist 50” award, bestowed by the editorial board of Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization.
The bootcamp brought more than two dozen next-generation open-source practitioners from across the United States to Washington DC, where they participated in interactive modules, group discussions, and hands-on sleuthing.
Fourteen teams from ten U.S. states have been selected as the Stage 2 awardees in the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC), a national competition that helps communities turn emerging research into ready-to-implement solutions.
The Fix Our Forests Act provides an opportunity to speed up the planning and implementation of wildfire risk reduction projects on federal lands while expanding collaborative tools to bring more partners into this vital work.