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United States President George W Bush will soon appoint, by executive order, a new panel that will screen foreign student visa applicants seeking to enrol in what the US believes are sensitive science and technology programmes, and deny entry to these individuals if 'a red flag' is raised about what they could ultimately do with their research and knowledge, which could be perceived as threatening US national security in any way.
The Interagency Panel on Advanced Science Security will be chaired by the US Departments of State and Justice and comprise representatives from the counterintelligence community, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency; the Office of Science and Technology Policy; the National Science Foundation; the National Institutes of Sciences; and the Department of Energy.
The panel will evaluate candidates whose courses of advanced scientific study might help them obtain information or acquire skills that could someday be used against the United States.
White House science adviser John Marburger said, "The combination of a student coming from a sensitive country and the institution having a research programme that employs biohazards, and the fact that this student is seeking to work with the professor in that programme should trigger a closer look from IPASS."
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