Government agencies
Government agencies, notably the Navy but also others like Defense Intel, NSA and DEA, have conducted a great deal of research and funded much, perhaps even most, oceanographic research at universities since the 1940s. Is it legitimate to use public funds for research and to lock up the results by classifying them? How would you deal with a legitimate researcher who wants some particular classified data? Also, given the state of affairs in the world today do you think we still need to worry about investigating the oceans in terms of our national security? You may wish to search the Internet for info on this topic, but it is not necessary to do well on this question. Please check out my other posting and the attached article before posting your answer.
One minor point to mention, the Navy SOSUS System was used to monitor Soviet sub activity during the Cold war in the Atlantic and Pacific (there’s no SOSUS equipment in the Indian Ocean). Find out what the SOSUS Net is used to monitor today. Please check out the Submarine paper attachment about underwater surveillance and how we gather intelligence from the sea. It was written by an APUS student who has been a submarine sonar operator for 15+yrs. A P-3 is a Navy Reconnaissance patrol aircraft that primarily hunts subs but it can track surface ships and drug boats very effectively.
Also, next to national governments the greatest amount of oceanic research is done by our friends the oil companies (I used to work as a diver for Shell). Believe me they keep their data absolutely classified. I had a geology professor at Univ. of Tennessee who was investigated and prosecuted because he left Exxon with some of their seismic data and used it in our geology classes. For a perspective on the off-shore oil industry (including our “friends” at B.P.) check out the attached PDF file about the Horizon Rig and how it blew up and sank. B.P.’s geologists should have done better homework and foreseen the gas pocket in the oil deposit that caused the blowout.
In addition to Week 1 assignment I’d like to add that in Chaps 1&2 on the history of navigation and map projections, if you look at old maps (like Franklin’s on pg 9) they look distorted. In the age of Loran and GPS it may seem like no big deal but even today people get lost at sea and in the old days sailors lived in mortal fear of it (in fact that’s why even guys like Capt Bligh were tolerated by their crews, the crew knew that the Capt could get them home). If you look at the old charts you’ll see that they are accurate in terms of latitude (since the days of Eratosthenes people could calculate this distance from the Equator pretty accurately). But it wasn’t until the mid 1700’s that the problem of longitude was solved. Does anybody know what had to be invented in order to solve this problem? Capt Cook took one on his voyages to the Pacific (in fact that’s how he was able to do it). Please post your answer. Also should the British have classified it? The answer is in Chap 1. Also please open and read the attached articles.
………………………..Answer preview…………………….
Oceanographic researches is one of the research arenas which drawn a lot of attention from many quarters. Despite the many researches that have been conducted, still many marine issues remain unattended because the information derived from the researches is classified by the agencies. This paper shall examine the legitimacy of classifying such information that ha been researched on using public funds………………………….
APA
363 words
