[Phys-L] Re: OT FISA and Fishing Expeditions from NSA

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

Are we being monitored?  Could mention of nuclear weapons on this list
trigger investigations.  What if you assigned some student research on the
feasibility of a terrorist construction of a nuclear weapon, what would
happen?  Are they also monitoring political activities and opinions because
they do not agree with us?  So far there has been no effect on physics
education, but there could be an effect.

One way to prevent terrorism by our own citizens is to promote critical
thinking.  At present the reformed physics teaching methods are doing this.
OTOH this would also promote divergent political opinions as students
question what they have been told.  Could reformed physics instruction be
billed as an anti-terrorist program because it produces students who
question all assumptions?  This might even mean $$$ for more PER research.

Essentially I see the current climate as one which is possibly headed toward
the McCarty era thinking in which physics teachers are not safer than
history teachers.  Discussion of this possibility and then reasoned
political action may head this off.  So, NO, it is not physics per se, but
it certainly affects what we might wish to do in the future.  It is also
part of the current anti-science attitude promoted by many current
politicians.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> Way OT! Simple political diatribe. Relation to Physics? :-(
>
> Merry Christmas anyway!
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