Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

This has some tangential list relevance in that it involves the Brave New
World, so to speak, of the government deciding what research is legal and
what is not.

Clinton is asking Congress to ban research into human cloning.

Importantly, this is not a proposal to cut federal funding of such efforts,
as this would be unexceptionable (except to certain obscurantists). That
is, the NSF or HHS or NIH or whatever is free to not fund all sorts of
research projects. (Obviously many of us would cut nearly all such funding.)

No, Clinton is asking for Congress to *ban* such research, regardless of
where the funding came from. "Clone a cell, go to jail."

"Clinton's proposal would make illegal any attempt to create a human being
using the so-called somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that produced
Dolly the sheep, in which an adult cell was fused with an egg. "

Though I'm not a constitutional expert, this would seem to me to be a
violation of various rights. A First Amendment right to speak and publish
as one wishes for one, a Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure
and to be secure in one's papers, and probably more general rights that
have long-held that government agents cannot tell people what books they
may read, what thinking they may do, and  whom they may asssociate with (if
the Civil Rights Act is viewed as the unconstitutional anomaly it is).

Only a very few types of research are banned. And these are all ostensibly
"national security" areas. Namely, chemical and biological warfare
research, heavily regulated (private companies can do such research, but
only with government approval, supervision, and generally _for_ the
government). And nuclear weapons research (probably as part of the Atomic
Energy Act).

(If anyone can think of other "bans on research," besides weapons areas,
let me know.)

But a ban on cloning research would not be a matter of "national security,"
only of ethics and religious beliefs. Whatever the arguments for banning
unapproved research into CBW and nuclear weapons, banning cloning research
is an entirely different set of issues.

Will Congress pass such a ban? Unknown. (They didn't pass the last such ban
Clinton asked for.)

Will the Supreme Court hear the case if such a ban is passed and then
challenged? Unknown.

Any implications for crypto? If Congress can successfully make certain
types of science illegal, felonizing the search for truth, why not a ban on
certain types of mathematics research?

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."