The Independent Student Newspaper
Number 777 Friday 14th February 2014 www.varsity.co.uk
Erotica through the Ages
MATHIAS MARX
From Lady Chatterley’s Lover to Wetlands, Maggie Bridge looks at the rise in popular erotic literature
Comment P15
Published in Cambridge since 1947
Students join the debate on use of drones Martha Elwell Senior News Editor
Can’t see the wood for the trees? Alain de Botton talks to Varsity about the mess of modern media, and his ideas for changing it (p. 12)
Concern over GCHQ interference £50,000 studentship is offered by the intelligence organisation Martha Elwell Senior News Editor Links between Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and GCHQ threaten its academic independence, according to Professor Ross Anderson, the University’s head of cryptography. The Department was recently awarded the status of Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security (ACECSR) by GCHQ, making available £50,000 for a PhD studentship. In an interview with Varsity,
Anderson outlined his belief that the arrangement threatens the Haldane principle, which asserts the independence of research grant awarding bodies in deciding which projects to fund. The problem is that the University and GCHQ have fundamentally different purposes, he says. Although the PhD studentship has not yet been taken up by anyone in the Department, Anderson is concerned that GCHQ will be able to direct research in security, and that the large sums of money that are supposed to be available on a non-discriminatory basis will only be available to ACECSRs. He describes how security clearance is used by the intelligence organisation as a means of insisting on the right of prior review of all publications: “They
will tell you some irrelevant and harmless top-secret fact and they will then say since this person has had access to top secret information, we need to be able to review their research for the rest of their life. “The object of the exercise is to rein in and control security research done in British universities.” He added: “After putting a relatively small amount of money into the system GCHQ has effectively wrested control over millions of pounds of public money that used to be spent on doing security research and is now being handed out to people who have signed up to the GCHQ programme.” A spokesman for GCHQ said: “GCHQ recognises the critical role the UK academic sector plays in both
national security and prosperity. “We are working with partners across government and beyond to recognise and increase the investment in those universities that demonstrate excellence in cyber security. Cambridge University has some of the UK’s leading thinkers in the field and we welcome the challenge and independence they and their colleagues across the sector bring.” Any applicant has to obtain vetting clearance from GCHQ, including the requirement not only to have been born in Britain, but for their father to be British-born as well. Anderson suggested this was “an ingenious way of getting around the laws against racial discrimination and that the “majority of our research students are foreign”.
A Cambridge student has launched a campaign to encourage British universities to cease investment in companies that produce drones. Sara Aslam, a Masters student in Modern South Asian studies, has started a petition which calls for higher education institutions to consider the human costs of the use of drones and to divest from drone technologies. Drones are unmanned aircraft that are controlled from the ground or through a pre-programmed mission. The CIA uses drones to track-down and kill suspected militants. The Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen in the last five years, eight times as many as were launched during the entire Bush presidency. These strikes have killed more than 2,400 people, at least 273 of whom were reportedly civilians. “It’s absolutely crazy that these investments exist,” says Aslam, a former management consultant who has taken a year out to study at Cambridge. “How on earth can student-rearing institutions actually invest in technology that has killed innocent students halfway across the world?” Aslam first became interested in the issue of drone warfare as an undergraduate when she was president of the National Union of Pakistani Students and Alumni. Among this group, she says, the use of drones is a key issue. She decided to actively protest against the use of drones last October, following nine-year-old Nabila Rehman’s testimony before US congress as a victim of a drone strike. “There was quite a stir-up about Nabila Rehman…but nothing much came of it.” On Monday the Centre of South Asian Studies hosted a showing of the documentary Unmanned: America’s Unofficial Drone Wars, a film about the impact of the Obama Administration’s drone policy on the tribal region of Pakistan. The event was organised CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Reviews: Does Dallas Buyers Club get our seal of approval? (p. 28)