21 julho 2003

ECO-TERROR
Is MIT a Security Risk? International students may head for more welcoming countries as U.S. strategies to deter terrorism ramp up at educational institutions such as MIT.
Technological McCarthyism: Having great faith in American openness and democracy, I have always found it hard to understand how McCarthyism took hold. Certainly, during my adulthood, this country’s democratic values have been periodically tested. But still I couldn’t see how anything as extreme and widespread as McCarthyist ultranationalism could reappear. After reading “Biotech’s Big Chill,” I am no longer so certain. The story outlines how, in response to terrorism, the United States government is increasing restrictions on foreign students and limiting the access of both foreign and U.S. citizens to various materials and lines of research—mostly biological. While some of these changes are reasonable, I fear that on the whole we are coming perilously close to something similar to McCarthy’s 1950s.