Byung Kyu Park's Personal Website

On Slashdot:

“Retired University of Tennessee Professor Dr. John Reece Roth has been sentenced to four years in prison after he allowed a Chinese graduate student to see sensitive information on Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. In 2004, the company Roth helped found, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, won a US Air Force contract to develop a plasma actuator that could help reduce drag on the wings of drones, such as the ones the military uses. Under the contract, for which Roth was reportedly paid $6,000, he was prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals. Despite warnings from his university’s Export Control Officer, in 2006, Roth took a laptop containing sensitive plans with him on a lecture tour in China and also allowed graduate students Xin Dai of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran to work on the project. ‘The illegal export of restricted military data represents a serious threat to national security,’ says David Kris of the US Department of Justice. ‘We know that foreign governments are actively seeking this information for their own military development. Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who knowingly discloses restricted military data in violation of our laws.’ During his trial, Roth testified that he was unaware that hiring the graduate students was a violation of his contract. ‘This whole thing has not helped me, it has not helped the university,’ said Roth. ‘And it has probably not helped this country, either.’”

If the facts as represented are accurate, it seems clear enough: the professor is guilty, if not of actual treason against this country, then of extremely poor judgment. Even naturalized U.S. citizens (to my great dismay) have betrayed this country before either for the sake of money or for the sake of their “motherland” (as if after they took the naturalization oath, they belonged to any country other than United States of America). Foreign graduate students are not U.S. citizens. They are not even permanent residents. Their stay in the U.S. is contingent not only on the visas we issue them, but on the validity of their passport. They can not only be persuaded by their home government but even pressed into service against their will, given how much control over their life the foreign government has. As brilliant as these people are, they cannot work on sensitive projects, and they cannot be allowed access to sensitive data, even inadvertently.

No one said that we cannot hire foreign graduate students—that would be great tragedy indeed, as they are some of the brightest people in American graduate schools (at least judging by test scores and classroom grades). We just cannot hire them for sensitive projects (at least before they decide to stay in this country and become naturalized). This professor was an idiot for not properly shielding his graduate students from sensitive information that would be too tempting for them—or even if not, the access itself, whether they actually used it or not, could be brought against them to arouse sufficient suspicion.

… as a graduate student who lives on tax dollars, either at federal or state level:

On HotAir.com:

Felix Salmon at Reuters also discovers that not all creditors are created equal in California’s eyes. Some people will still get cash rather than a wish sandwich in the mail. See if you can discern a theme:

People who get California IOUs	People California pays in cash
Grants to aged, blind or disabled persons	University of California
People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs	Public Employees’ Retirement System
People in drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services	Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees
Persons with developmental disablities	Judges
People in mental health treatment	Department of Corrections
Small Business Vendors	Health Care Services payments to Institutional Providers

Well, the only reason University of California is in the list of state institutions still paying out cash is, well, UC is now only partly a state institution. Already the flagship campus UC Berkeley relies more heavily on private donations than ever (I think somewhere around 15% of the operating budget now). When the issue of state budge came up some months ago (because, well, HotAir.com’s right—this “crisis” could’ve been avoided if the unprincipled legislators could make the necessary cuts and “sacrifices” months ago), the statement from university official was, well, UC has enough discretionary funding that does not depend on the state funding in the short term that lack of payments from the state on a month-to-month basis will not affect UC employees.

It’s not that California state government is somehow giving special treatment to UC employees—it’s that UC system itself has enough funding independent of this mess of a government that it can shield its employees from the stupid government.

And this is probably the strongest argument one can provide in support of further “privatization” of UC system. There is a reason the nation’s best universities are private schools. In order for the best schools in the UC system (i.e. UC Berkeley and UC LA) to compete with them, we need to compete for and win private funding, because well, frankly state funding is too unreliable and too immoral.