by William Wandersee Jr.

Created on: August 01, 2008

When Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous address on the battlefield of Gettysburg, he described democracy as "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
The role of the Federal Government was designed to be one of service to the people of the United States. The role of science is arguably to serve humankind as well. Close to 1,400 inventions created for NASA's space program have benefited the United States since 1976. And every new vaccine discovered saves countless lives.

Science has traditionally transcended politics. Even during the Cold War, exceptions were made for scientists to travel to symposiums to keep up with the latest developments and research.
Nine government departments are currently involved in federally funded research and development, from the Department of Energy to the Department of Transportation. Even the Department of the Treasury is involved, funding research on modernizing the Internal Revenue Service.
And all that research doesn't come cheap - the budget request for research and development funding for 2008 was a cool $138 billion dollars, spread out over projects in the health, science, environment, agriculture and energy fields.
That money comes from where almost all government money comes from - the taxpayer. This research really belongs to the american public, and the american public deserves to reap the benefits (if any) or at least to know the outcome.
Science is not political. All the legislating in the world can't create a cure for cancer, or even make a triangle a square. To keep the results of research hidden, or even worse to distort or hide them because they don't fit with the current politcal flavor of the week is criminal.
The federal government took steps toward making all federally-funded research transparent with the passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006. The act requires free online access to all journal articles resulting from federally-funded research within six months of publication. While the bill still limits access to some classified material, it is a step up from the old system, which charged taxpayers a fee to access what should be rightfully theirs.
The only role the government should have in overseeing the release of results from federally funded science is to make sure those results do get released in unadultarated form for the world to see.

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