[Clips] US spy agency's patents under security scrutiny

Sat Oct 29 08:20:10 EDT 2005

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 Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 08:19:44 -0400
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 From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
 Subject: [Clips] US spy agency's patents under security scrutiny
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 <http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8223&print=true>

 New Scientist

 US spy agency's patents under security scrutiny
 	 	 17:45 27 October 2005
 	 	 NewScientist.com news service
 	 	Paul Marks

 The hyper-secretive US National Security Agency - the government's
 eavesdropping arm - appears to be having its patent applications
 increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. And the grounds for this are for
 reasons of national security, reveals information obtained under a freedom
 of information request.

 Most Western governments can prevent the granting (and therefore
 publishing) of patents on inventions deemed to contain sensitive
 information of use to an enemy or terrorists. They do so by issuing a
 secrecy order barring publication and even discussion of certain inventions.

 Experts at the US Patent and Trademark Office perform an initial security
 screening of all patent applications and then army, air force and navy
 staff at the Pentagon's Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA)
 makes the final decision on what is classified and what is not.

 Now figures obtained from the USPTO under a freedom of information request
 by the Federation of American Scientists show that the NSA had nine of its
 patent applications blocked in the financial year to March 2005 against
 five in 2004, and none in each of the three years up to 2003.

 Keeping secrets

 This creeping secrecy is all the more surprising because as the US
 government's eavesdropping and code-breaking arm - which is thought to
 harness some of the world's most powerful supercomputers to decode
 intercepted communications - the NSA will have detailed knowledge of what
 should be kept secret and what should not. So it is unlikely to file
 patents that give away secrets.

 Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer and computer security expert with
 Counterpane Internet Security in California, finds the development
 "fascinating".

 "It's surprising that the Pentagon is becoming more secretive than the NSA.
 While I am generally in favour of openness in all branches of government,
 the NSA has had decades of experience with secrecy at the highest levels,"
 Schneier told New Scientist. "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."

 However, at another level, the Pentagon appears to be relaxing slightly: it
 seems to be loosening its post 9/11 grip on the ideas of private inventors,
 with the number having patents barred on the grounds of national security
 halving in the last year.

 In the financial year to 2004, DTSA imposed 61 secrecy orders on private
 inventors, a number that had been climbing inexorably since 9/11. But up to
 the end of financial 2005, only 32 inventors had "secrecy orders" imposed
 on their inventions.

 Overall, the figures obtained by the FAS reveal 106 new secrecy orders were
 imposed on US inventions to March 2005, while 76 others were rescinded. So
 there are now 4915 secrecy orders in effect - some of which have been in
 effect since the 1930s.
 Related Articles
 	 	Patents gagged in the name of national security
 	 	http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725075.800
 	 	09 July 2005
 	 	Transforming US Intelligence edited by Jennifer E Sims and Burton
 Gerber
 	 	http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725182.100
 	 	24 September 2005
 	 	Hand over your keys
 	 	http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg16922735.200
 	 	13 January 2001
 Weblinks
 	 	Invention secrecy activity, Federation of American Scientists
 	 	http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/stats.html
 	 	US Department of Defense
 	 	http://www.defenselink.mil/
 	 	US National Security Agency
 	 	http://www.nsa.gov/

 --
 -----------------
 R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
 The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
 [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
 experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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