"US university students will not be able to work late at the campus, travel abroad, show interest in their colleagues’ work, have friends outside the United States, engage in independent research, or make extra money without the prior consent of the authorities, according to a set of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.
Federal agents are visiting some of the New England’s top universities, including MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, to warn university heads about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.
FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls “espionage indicators” aimed at identifying foreign agents."
This sounds frighteningly similar to USSR’s practices.
[quote]skor wrote:
I heard this news from my Alma mater.
"US university students will not be able to work late at the campus, travel abroad, show interest in their colleagues’ work, have friends outside the United States, engage in independent research, or make extra money without the prior consent of the authorities, according to a set of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.
Federal agents are visiting some of the New England’s top universities, including MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, to warn university heads about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.
FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls “espionage indicators” aimed at identifying foreign agents."
This sounds frighteningly similar to USSR’s practices.[/quote]
Wow… just wow. I hope this isn’t as serious as it seems.
Though I can’t say I’m surprised as I’d thought I’d be.
This is a pretty sensationalist article. The FBI doesn’t have the power to restrict anything, and if you read further into the article, that isn’t what the FBI is asking. It is very common for foriegn intelligence agencies to conduct industrial and technological espionage on college campuses.
There are many technologies that the United States restricts exports on, but a restricted country can gain access to the technology through a college campus. All the FBI is doing is educating the academic world on what the indicators are of a foreign intelligence collection effort.
The sensationalism of the article is indicated by the claim that the universities are to contact the military if someone is suspected. The military has no enforcement role or counter-intelligence function inside the United States that would be used against civilians. That is an effort by the author to make a benign security effort into a supposed threat to the academic world.