Re: Network research seminar announcement: JUNE 24

[[e-mail]]

    I am sorry but all visitors to SRI are required to identify themselves to
    a guard and to be accompanied inside by an SRI employee. This is a
    standard practice at almost all high tech companies in the USA, Russia,
    and other countries.

James B. VanBokkelen:

>Not true.  Required at sites that do "classified" (or whatever the local
>designation is) for the local government.  You usually sign in at
>non-millitary-industrial-complex "high tech" companies, but you don't
>need to be accompanied,

If so, please do the following. Please go to your nearest non-classified
IBM (or DEC or SUN or whatever) facility, sign in and then keep on walking
without allowing anybody to accompany you. If you see a guard - ignore him.
If he orders you to stop - keep on going. When he starts shooting - just
duck. :-) Please ask your next of kin (in advance) to report the
outcome to me.  

The point is that every large (more than 100 employees) non-classified
hightech company (for example, IBM and DEC) that I have been to,
requires you to be accompanied by its employee.  


> and your citizenship (which does frequently get
>questioned due to skin color

Skin color? The "forbidden countries" are Russia, East Europeans, and
China. The people living there are Caucasian and Oriental. Most
American citizens visiting SRI are also Caucasian or Oriental.
To say that non-Caucasian and non-Oriental visitors
to SRI get preferrential treatment, is absurd. 

Moreover, if you are upset about the US government security policies,
please complain to your Senator. This public lynching that I have received
for trying to conduct research and hold seminars while not breaking
any laws, is ridiculous.

>For you, this is SOP.  For him, it may be a significant inconvenience 

I am from the "Mother of all forbiden countries": from Russia.
 I would bet anything that he is from one of "benign" countries. Why is
this any inconvenience for him and not me?  

Moreover, he lives in Massachusetts, is a programmer in astrophysics, and
has no intention to fly into California for our seminar on network control.
What inconvenience for him is there? Except that he has probably inconvenienced
himself by spending an hour writing his flame just to put me down in
front of thousands of my colleagues for trying to comply with the laws of
our country.  

>and possibly an occasional source of stressful confrontations with armed
>people. 

It is news to me that the 70-year-old nearsighted lady guard, that signs
visitors in and questions their citizenship, is armed with heavy weaponry. :-) 

>I wouldn't run a public seminar in such a facility if I had a choice, but
>it appears that you may not.  

Exactly. 

>If other countries figure this out, and we
>don't, I'll be needing my passport more frequently...

Don't hold your breath. The rest of the world is no better.

However, if you do not like the fact that almost all money,
that we spend in this country on research, comes through DoD and
DoE, then please call your Congressman and ask him to imitate Japan and
spend some taxpayers' money funding non-military industrial research.

In any case, I suggest that this thread be taken off these groups and taken to
Misc.flames or whatever other bulletin board there is for discussing
"what's wrong with this world".


The above opinions are mine and mine alone.