Friday, 27 February 1987 Washington, DC

1. NATIONAL POLICY ON THE PROTECTION OF SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION
in electronic databases was the focus of hearings before the House Government Operations Committee this week (WN 23 Jan 87). However, the recently appointed National Security Advisor to the President, Frank Carlucci, and the person he replaced, John Poindexter, both declined to testify. In a letter signed by his executive secretary, Carlucci "respectively" (sic) declined on grounds of White House confidentiality, since he is advising the President on this matter. Poindexter, who was to be questioned on National Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Policy No.2, which he signed on 29 Oct 86 (WN 21 Nov 86), tried the same ploy, but the Committee wasn't buying it. The House legal counsel advised the Committee that Poindexter had no legal basis to refuse to testify since the directive he signed makes no pretense of being an advisory from the President. The Committee voted to issue a subpoena to force his appearance next week. The Tower report is highly critical of the National Security Council's "obsession" with secrecy.

The underlying issue is the so-called "aggregate" or "mosaic" concept that argues that a collection of unclassified pieces of information may reveal a pattern that is classified. Security zealots argue that the KGB obtains information less by seducing embassy guards than by clipping from public sources. If these sources are available on electronic databases, it will eliminate the need for a room full of agents with paste pots and scissors. Both NSDD 145, signed by the President, and NTISSP-2, issued by Poindexter, are intended to make life more difficult for the KGB by placing restrictions on access to both government and commercial databases. In testimony for the APS, it was noted that electronic databases will soon supplant conventional libraries as the repository of scientific and technical information, and will become the preferred means by which scientists communicate their findings. Already, abstracts of physics journal articles are available on the SPIN database of the AIP, which is carried on the commercial DIALOG system. AIP also operates Pi-NET, among the files of which are advance abstracts of physics articles. Any attempt to impede access to such systems threatens the basis of our scientific vitality.

2 . GEORGE H. VINEYARD, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY, DIED ON 21 FEBRUARY,
at the age of 66. After receiving a Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1943, George Vineyard conducted research on radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory during World War II. After the war, he joined the faculty of the University of Missouri at Columbia, until he left for Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1954. He served as director of the laboratory from 1973 to 1981. He served terms as chairman of the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics and of its predecessor, the Solid State Physics Division. He will be sorely missed.

Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.