scary scary scary
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: more ofac follies] Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 17:57:53 -0500
> Subject: Publishers Face Prison For Editing Articles from Cuba, & > Iran, Iraq, S > Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:52:01 -0600 > > Democracy Now, www.democracynow.org <http://www.democracynow.org/> > > Publishers Face Prison For Editing Articles from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, > Libya or Cuba > Tuesday, February 24th, 2004 > > http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/24/1557214 > The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control > recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored > in nations under trade embargoes which include Iran, Iraq, Sudan, > Libya and Cuba. [includes transcript] > > Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and > the treasury department says it is illegal to perform services for > embargoed nations. It can be punishable by fines of up to a > half-million dollars or jail terms as long as 10 years. > > Robert Bovenschulte, president of the publications division of the > American Chemical Society, which decided this week decided to > challenge the government and risk criminal prosecution by editing > articles submitted from the five embargoed nations. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > TRANSCRIPT > > AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets > Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works > authored in nations under trade embargoes, which include, Iran, Iraq, > Sudan, Libya and Cuba. Although publishing the articles is legal, > editing is a, quote, service, and the Treasury Department says it's > illegal to perform services for embargoed nations. It can be > punishable by fines of up to half a million dollars or jail terms as > long as ten years. Robert Bovenschulte is with the American Chemical > Society, which decided this week to challenge the government and risks > criminal prosecution by editing articles submitted from these five > embargoed nations. Can you talk more about this decision? > > ROBERT BOVENSCHULTE: Certainly. Let me make clear first of all that we > are by no means alone in taking this position. In fact, there are very > few publishers that have decided to restrict their normal publishing > activities as a result of the OFAC ruling, which was issued in late > September. The difference for the American Chemical Society, which, by > the way, is the largest professional society in the world with 160,000 > members, was to take a moratorium and put that in place in November > while we studied the impact of the ruling, and the legal situation and > sorted out our options. Because, therefore, we have now lifted the > moratorium, we have actually have more attention paid to us than > perhaps is necessary, because in fact, major commercial publishers and > other society publishers like the American Chemical Society are in > fact continuing to publish just as they have. Most of them never > stopped. We simply took a pause to reassess the situation. It is very > peculiar. You can divide the so-called services into two categories; > one is the traditional peer review function whereby noted scientists > in given fields are asked by our editors, who are also experts, to > review a given article and make a judgment about it, whether it is > publishable or not, whether it's important work, and also to offer > comments that might improve the work. The second category has to do > with what is regarded as copy editing and this means, of course, > correcting grammar, rewriting some sentences in minor ways, changing > punctuation, and conforming the material to a given style guideline. > Curiously, the OFAC ruling when it came out in late September seemed > to permit peer review, but very definitely prohibited this copy > editing function. We had clarification from OFAC that probably peer > review is indeed permissible and does not violate the trade embargo. > We believe however, that this needs to be cleared up in its entirety. > And the copy editing matter is particularly curious because -- > basically, they are alleging that some important service is being > provided by a person who sits there and makes sure that the language > of the paper -- these are highly technical papers, by the way, that > the language has appropriate English and conforms to publishers' style > guidelines. This is curious to us and we cannot understand really what > the rationale for that prohibition is. So, publishers under the > auspices of the Association of American Publishers, which is our trade > association, have in fact formed a litigation task force. We haven't > yet taken action and haven't even decided that we will take action. > But we believe we are on very good grounds, legally, on two bases. One > is the first amendment, our right to publish, because what OFAC is > doing is a classic example of prior restraint; the second is the > so-called Berman amendment, which was passed in 1988 by Congressman > Howard Berman, who is still in the Congress. His amendment exempted > information materials from the items that would be applicable under > trade embargo. So, we believe we're on good legal grounds. We have > lifted the embargo - sorry - we have lifted the moratorium, because we > do not want to restrict publication since this is a worldwide activity > and we believe the only basis for deciding what to publish should be > the merits of the science. > > AMY GOODMAN: So, you can publish articles, research papers from Iran, > Iraq, Sudan, Libya, and Cuba, as long as they have mistakes in them? > > ROBERT BOVENSCHULTE: That's one way of looking at it. The mistakes > that we would catch in a copy editing process would be relatively > minor in terms of the substance of the article. We were very concerned > that the -- if peer review was denied or peer review could be done, > but the comments from the peer reviewers could not be sent to the > authors for correction, that would involve then potentially really > substantive errors or mistakes in those papers. And of course, we did > not want to be publishing something that might contain errors that we > could have caught through the peer review process. > > AMY GOODMAN: Is there a specific article right now that you are > working on that you are editing from a particular embargoed country? > > ROBERT BOVENSCHULTE: We are working on a number of papers at the > moment. I believe most, if not all of them, are from Iran. There have > been a few from Cuba, but I don't know where they are in the process > right now. But, yes, we are definitely working on multiple papers. We > had 195 subcommissions from Iran in 2003, and published 60 of those > papers. > > AMY GOODMAN: And what does the government contend is the danger of > these reports? > > ROBERT BOVENSCHULTE: The OFAC logic appeals to a concept of providing > services. > > AMY GOODMAN: I just want to explain OFAC, of course, Office of Foreign > Assets Control in the Treasury Department. > > ROBERT BOVENSCHULTE: Right. And they have said, while peer review is > probably okay, but if we edit material, we as American citizens are > providing a service to the authors in those countries, and that is > prohibited. We find this an absolutely bizarre ruling because there is > -- we cannot see that there is any risk at all to national security or > on any other grounds that would lead any reasonable person to prohibit > copy editing, And furthermore, we don't see why they would make such > an issue out of this. One straw in the wind is - and very bothersome - > this all began, as a mmatter of prologue, this all began because the > Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ran into a problem > in a conference that they ran in Iran about two years or so ago. And > they had difficulty then bringing funds back from Iran and that's > where this issue first arose, and then it cascaded into questions > about publication. The IEEE, I just mentioned, has applied for a > license because OFAC has said that if you apply for a license to do > this prohibited activity, we will consider it on the merits of the > individual case and render a judgment whether we will permit you to go > ahead and do your normal activities, or some subset of those normal > activities. Now, IEEE is still waiting on their license application, > which they submitted in October. What worries us as publishers > generally about this, is that we are in the position, if we apply for > a license, asking permission of the government as to what we ought to > publish, and how we ought to publish it. We believe that is a > fundamental violation of the first amendment. And so, our principled > stance at the American Chemical Society is, we are not going to apply > for a license. If we must fight this legally in concert with other > line-minded publishers, of which there are many, that's what we will > have to do. > > AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you all for joining us and finally ask > Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists where you go from > here. You have published this major report. You have more than 70 > scientists. 20 of them Nobel laureates, who are now protesting the > Bush White House's politicizing of science. What happens next? > > ALDEN MEYER: Well, there's several things that are going on, Amy. One, > we are opening the statement that was issued last week to signature by > the general scientific community, engineering community, medical > community and then the week since it was issued without much effort on > our part, there has been over 1,000 scientists that have signed on to > the statement via our website. We will be taking that out > systematically to associations and networks of scientists and doctors > and engineers around the country to try to demonstrate the breadth and > depth of the concern about this process. Of course, we are continuing > to investigate and pursue leads to document additional examples of > abuse. I should say this is not just a pattern at individual agencies. > There's actually a proposal that's been made by the Office of > Management and Budget to centralize control over the peer review > process at federal agencies across the government. And in a rather > Orwellian twist on conflict of interest, their proposed rule would ban > most independent academic scientists who may receive funding or > government grants for the research from federal agencies from -- in > most cases serving on independent peer review panels on scientific and > technical studies, but would permit scientists whose funding is from > the industries regulated by the agencies to serve as peer reviewers, > as long as they did not have a direct personal financial conflict of > interest. So it sort of turns the notion of special interest on its > head. So that's another process we are following quite actively, and > trying to encourage the OMB to drop this proposed rule. We're also > talking with people up on Capitol Hill, both Democrats and > Republicans. There's obviously broad concern about this problem. We're > trying to get the relevant committees up there to do their own > investigations, hold some oversight hearings, and consider the need > for either legislation or rule makings that would put some guidelines > in place to prevent this kind of abuse from happening in the future. > That would include looking at conflict of interest rules. That could > include recreating some kind of independent scientific advisory > capacity within the Congress itself, such as it had before, the Office > of Technology Assessment was disbanded in 1995. It could include > reviewing the Federal Advisory Committee Act guidelines for > appointments to independent scientific advisory committees across the > government. There's a host of areas that we think Congress ought to > look at and consider the need for action to prevent these abuses in > the future. > > AMY GOODMAN: The Union of Concerned Scientists' website is -- > > ALDEN MEYER: It's www.ucsusa.org <http://www.ucsusa.org/>. > > AMY GOODMAN: Alden Meyer, with the Union of Concerned Scientists. > Thanks for being with us. > > www.democracynow.org <http://www.democracynow.org/>
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KK and DM - And we thought prosecuting VITW was crazy? peace, bill -------- Original Message --------
Subject: Publishers Face Prison For Editing Articles from Cuba, & Iran, Iraq, S |
