Scientists essentially try to uncover secrets in a collaborative environment. Without openness, it's hard to push back the curtain of ignorance, which is what scientists aim to do. It's hard to advance at the same time when scientists are working on matters related to national security, when secrecy is critical. So there is this tension that you can't avoid. But Los Alamos spokesman Jim Danneskiold thinks that tension is overstated.
Security is part of everybody's job here.
The people who deal with classified information are trained and know how to handle it. He sees accountability as the key. There is no security system that can prevent people from breaking the rules. In Stern's opinion, one problem is confusion about what information truly needs to be classified. In the early 1990s, President Clinton announced a widespread declassification of scientific data that weren't such big secrets anymore.