Brookhaven Organization of Scientists
P. O. Box 929
Upton NY 11973

Sidney H. Kahana, President
Tel: 516-344-3738
Gerry M. Bunce, Vice President
George R. Hendrey, Secretary
Alfredo U. Luccio, Treasurer
Stephen E. Schwartz, Past President

June 9, 2000

Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus
Department of Physics
13-3005
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

By Facsimile

Dear Professor Dresselhaus:

We are writing you as nominee for Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy. We wish
to call to your attention an issue of concern to the scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

As we are sure you are aware the Department of Energy has, in the aftermath of the Wen Ho Lee affair,
greatly stepped up its counterintelligence efforts at the DOE Laboratories. Irrespective of the guilt or
innocence of Dr. Lee, one consequence of this heightened security consciousness of DOE has been to
impose increasingly onerous security requirements on all DOE laboratories including the Office of
Science Laboratories, and specifically including Brookhaven. This has, among other things, affected the
ability of foreign scientists to visit the laboratory, led to imposition of briefing requirements on foreign
travel by scientists, and raised unfortunate distinctions between laboratory employees who are U. S.
citizens and those who are not. However, because essentially no classified work is conducted at the
Office of Science Laboratories, including BNL, these security requirements are wholly unnecessary.

One bright spot in this increasingly bleak picture was the announcement last month that the Office of
Science Laboratories would be exempt from the new DOE requirement that foreign nationals be issued,
and required to wear, distinct identification badges. The new regulation, embodied in DOE Notice N
473.4 (5-26-00) lists 16 laboratories that are excluded from the DOE security badge requirements and
then goes on to state that personnel at Argonne National Laboratory-East and Brookhaven National
Laboratory, which the document characterizes as "fundamentally basic research facilities principally
involved in unclassified activities" must (except for limited personnel involved in classified work) be
issued an "Office of Science common badge without distinction of nationality." We are highly gratified
that the Department has recognized the fundamental nature of the research conducted at Brookhaven in
this order.

We remain concerned, however, over the continuing application of other counterintelligence
requirements to BNL, as noted above. Clearly the continuing application of these requirements to BNL
is inappropriate and unnecessary, especially given the recent formal recognition in the Badging Notice
of BNL as a basic research facility, which, of course, it has been all along. We therefore hope that this
formal recognition of Brookhaven as a fundamental research laboratory might serve as a basis for
freeing the laboratory from these invidious and unnecessary security requirements, which, it is now
clear, are being applied to Brookhaven mechanically rather than for any good reason.

We thus request you in your capacity as nominee for Director of Energy Research to speak out on this
issue. We are confident that a statement on this issue on your part would work wonders in causing the

Brookhaven Organization of Scientists is an association of scientists and engineers at Brookhaven National Laboratory
dedicated to keeping BNL "A place where superb science flourishes."Brookhaven Organization of Scientists is not affiliated
with Brookhaven National Laboratory or the Department of Energy.

Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus

2

June 9, 2000

responsible individuals at DOE to recognize that no good, and much harm, is caused by continuing to
apply countersecurity measures that are appropriate for weapons laboratories to a fundamental research
laboratory such as Brookhaven.

We would welcome the opportunity to brief you further on this matter, and we look forward to hearing
from you on this.

Sincerely yours,

cc:

Ernest J. Moniz, Under Secretary
James F. Decker, Acting Director, Office of Science
John Marburger, Director, Brookhaven National Laboratory