[escepticos] Fwd: Censura Cientifica en USA

[David de Cos <ddecos@...>]

Hola,

a la lista del Club Español de Magnetismo ha llegado este indignante 
documento, que se nos pide que divulguemos:


----------------------------------------------------
 Les estoy enviando una de las medidas que el gobierno USA ha dictado
contra los cientificos e investigadores de Cuba y otros paises. La
medida considera tambien la prohibicion de envio de reprints de
articulos publicados por investigadores norteamericanos a sus colegas de
los paises listados.
 Vean a donde llega la presion del imperioen. Si esto no es fascismo que
se defina que es. Creo que a la comunidad cientifica de España, de
Europa y el mundo les interesa conocer.

 Les ruego divulguen esto a todos lo colegas.

--
 Dr. Gerardo Rodriguez Fuentes
 Jefe Laboratorio de Ingenieria de Zeolitas
 Instituto de Materiales y Reactivos
 Universidad de La Habana
 Zapata y G s/n, Vedado, La Habana 10400, Cuba
 tls. (537) 8705707 / 8707666 / 8788956-59 ext.553
 fax. (537) 8794651

----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:19:34 -0800
From: Journal Agricultural and Food Chemistry
To: edilso en fisica.uh.cu, lakleinschmidt en ucdavis.edu, mscanlan en acs.org
Subject: JF035175h
Dear Dr Reguera:

I am responding to your e-mail of Jan 27, 2004, inquiring about the
status of your manuscript, "Physico-Chemical Changes in the Hull of the Corn
Grains During Their Alkaline Cooking," JF035175h.  I had hoped to have
had better news for you of a situation we find ourselves in, not of your
making.  Here is the situation:

An agency of the U.S. government, the Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC), has recently issued a ruling that prohibits publishers from
editing papers from Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan, all countries under 
U.S. trade embargo.  The ACS and its editors strongly condemn this decision,
and we are working aggressively and urgently with many other publishers to
overturn it.

In the meantime, the ACS has reluctantly declared a moratorium on
publishing papers from these countries.  To do otherwise would be to
subject the ACS, including its editors and staff, to the risk of severe
civil and criminal penalties.  This is not a policy; rather, it is a
short-term necessity to avoid violating U.S. law as interpreted by OFAC.

We are confident that we will prevail in our efforts to remove this
obstacle to the traditional open exchange of scientific information.  I
ask for your patience and understanding as we bring pressure on the federal
government for a speedy resolution of the matter.

I can offer you two options:

     * You can withdraw your manuscript and submit it to another journal.
     * You can leave your manuscript with us, on hold, in hopes that the
legal issue described above can be resolved and JAFC can continue to process 
your manuscript.
 
Please understand that option 2 may take some time, and there is no
guarantee that it will be resolved in favor of the ACS position in a
reasonable period of time.  So it is possible that we may ultimately
need to reject your paper because the OFAC ruling is sustained.
Please let me know how you want to proceed.

Best Wishes,

James N. Seiber
Editor

Cc:  L.  Kleinschmidt
       M. Scanlan
c

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Department of Environmental Toxicology
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis CA 95616-8588
USA

(530) 754-7005 (PHONE)
(530) 754-7006 (FAX)
JAFC en ucdavis.edu

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chemical & Engineering News
Copyright © 2004 American Chemical Society


January 26, 2004
Volume 82, Number 04
CENEAR 82 04 p. 5
ISSN 0009-2347


Counterproductive Restrictions



RUDY M. BAUM
Editor-in-chief
PHOTO BY DAVID J. HANSON

The american chemical society and other scientific and technical
publishers were blindsided last year by a ruling by the U.S. Treasury
Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that effectively
prohibits publication of scientific papers from Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Sudan, and Cuba, all of which are under U.S. trade embargoes.

Violation of the trade embargo law can result in a fine of up to $50,000
and imprisonment for up to 10 years.

ACS is still scrambling to craft a policy for dealing with the OFAC
ruling for the editors of its 32 journals. The policy must
simultaneously adhere to U.S. law and respect the independence of the
journal editors and the ethical principle that only scientific merit
determines whether a paper is accepted for publication. In 2003, ACS
journals received 195 papers originating from the five countries, with
the bulk, 170, coming from Iran. ACS journals received a total of 24,222
papers in 2003.

At their annual meeting earlier this month in Phoenix, ACS journal
editors adopted a resolution condemning the OFAC policy. It reads: "The
ACS journal editors unanimously express their vehement opposition to all
laws and regulations that have the effect of restricting the open,
worldwide exchange of scientific information. In particular, the editors
urge ACS governance and staff to aggressively pursue all appropriate
means to bring about the speedy removal of legal obstacles to
publication, by the customary process, of papers submitted to the ACS
from countries under U.S. trade embargo."

A few ACS journal editors urged the society's Publications Division to
ignore the OFAC ruling and publish papers from the embargoed countries
as a matter of First Amendment free speech rights.

The OFAC ruling came in response to a request from the Institute of
Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) concerning publishing papers
from Iran. What followed is a bit convoluted, but the upshot of the OFAC
ruling and interpretation of the pertinent laws by ACS counsel is that
the society is prohibited from providing peer reviewer comments to
authors of papers from the five embargoed countries and from providing
any editorial services to such authors. According to OFAC, that includes
"activities such as the reordering of paragraphs or sentences,
correction of syntax, grammar, and replacement of inappropriate words."

OFAC also ruled that IEEE "would not be prohibited from accepting
camera-ready copies of manuscripts." However, in this age of electronic
delivery of scientific and technical journals, there really isn't any
such thing as "camera-ready" copy.

Let me be blunt. The OFAC ruling is wrongheaded and counterproductive.
The free exchange of scientific and technical information is almost
always in the best interests of science and our nation. In the darkest
days of the Cold War, the U.S. government encouraged contacts between
Western scientists and their counterparts in the Soviet Union and other
Eastern bloc nations, including the publication of the few papers such
scientists could convince authorities to allow them to submit to Western
journals.

The same holds true today for scientists in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan,
and Cuba. Publishing peer-reviewed, properly edited research results in
Western journals could in no conceivable way enhance the economic
situation of these countries. It may, however, nurture the ideal of the
free, unfettered exchange of information, an ideal too often suppressed
in totalitarian nations. It may give scientists, some of whom are at the
forefront of reform movements, hope that their efforts might someday
yield fruit.

Under no circumstances can ACS be a partner to violating U.S. law. Such
an action would jeopardize both the society and its employees. But ACS
must, and I am sure will, work diligently on its own and in conjunction
with other like-minded scientific and technical societies to have the
OFAC ruling overturned.

As individuals, I urge ACS members to take up the OFAC ruling with their
congressional representatives. Trade embargoes may be legitimate tools
for changing the behavior of nations, but they should not be extended to
blocking the free flow of scientific and technical information.

Thanks for reading.

-- 
Saludos,

David de Cos