[Brahms-l] Fw: Letter from RHIC & AGS UEC to express concern about HSPD-12

Hi
I am forwarding this to our list. I known many of you have seen this, but there are some brahms users
who are not registered (with there present e-mail possibly) as a RHIC user.

Flemming

----------------------------------------------------------------
Flemming Videbaek
Physics Department
Brookhaven National Laboratory

e-mail: videbaek@bnl.gov
phone: 631-344-4106
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Brant Johnson 
To: RHIC & AGS users 
Cc: lowenstein@bnl.gov ; schlagel@bnl.gov ; chaudhari@bnl.gov ; ozaki@bnl.gov ; DENNIS.KOVAR@science.doe.gov 
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 12:45 PM
Subject: Letter from RHIC & AGS UEC to express concern about HSPD-12



Dear Users,

        The attached letter (see also plain text below) was sent from the
UEC to express our concern that the Homeland Security Presidential
Directive 12 (HSPD-12) should be carefully implemented by DOE to avoid 
adverse impact on user access to Brookhaven's research facilities.  The
UEC will keep the user community informed as we become aware of the
development of DOE plans to implement HSPD-12.

Sincerely, the RHIC & AGS Users Executive Committee: 

"Gary Westfall, Chair" <westfall@nscl.msu.edu>,
        Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, U.S.
"Victoria Greene, Past-Chair" < senta.v.greene@vanderbilt.edu>,
        Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, U.S.
"Brant Johnson, Chair-Elect" <brant@aps.org >,
        Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, U.S.
Christine Aidala, Columbia University, New York, NY, U.S.
Barbara Erazmus, Subatech, NANTES, France
David Hofman, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, U.S.
Michael Murray, University of KansasLawrence, KS, U.S.
Stephen Pate, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, U.S.
Michael Sivertz, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, U.S.
Peter Steinberg, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, U.S.
George Stephans, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, U.S.
Glenn Young, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, U.S.

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                w w w .p h y .b n l.g o v /u s e rs

May 23, 2005

Mr. Bruce A. Brody,
Associate Chief Information Officer for Cyber Security
IM-30/Forrestal Building
U.S. Department of Energy 1000
Independence Avenue, SW 
Washington, DC 20585

Dear Mr. Brody:

We are writing to express our serious concerns about the negative
implications of the application of the Homeland Security Presidential
Directive 12 (HSPD-12) on the research currently being conducted at U.S.
national laboratories.

As members of the RHIC & AGS Users' Executive Committee (UEC) at
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), we represent 1,600 users from over
272 institutions in 29 countries. Our users are scientists, students, and 
post-docs who conduct nuclear and high-energy physics experiments, studies
of radiobiological effects on humans, and R&D in physics and manufacturing
by using one of Brookhaven's user facilities.  These facilities include 
the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), Alternating Gradient
Synchrotron facility (AGS), NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), Tandem
Van de Graaff, and the Accelerator Test Facility (ATF).

As you know, HSPD-12 specifies the use of a Personal Identity Verification 
(PIV) standard to grant access for federal employees and contractors to
federally controlled facilities and computing resources.  The FIPS PUB 201
draft standard focuses precisely on that scenario.  However, only 250 of 
our 1600 users are federal employees or contractors.  More than half are
not US citizens and not residents of the U.S. The vital contributions of
these users are crucial to the success of Brookhaven's scientific 
programs. Our concern is that with the ambiguities in the FIPS PUB 201
draft, it may be applied beyond the environment for which it was
apparently intended. If it is applied broadly, such as to access by
non-federal employees and non-contractors to scientific user facilities at 
the National Laboratories, then the majority of work at the science labs
will be stopped or reduced significantly.

Although we fully support the goals of the Office of Homeland Security, we
urge you to carefully consider all possible negative implications to 
scientific research of HSPD-12. For example, if it will be applied to
physical facilities and computing systems at the National Laboratories,
then there must be a reasonable mechanism for people who are not federal 
employees, not federal contractors, not citizens, or not physically
present at the facility to continue their legitimate use of these
facilities and systems. We encourage DOE to use a graded approach in the
applications of HSPD-12 so as not to negatively impact the science mission 
of the user facilities at BNL.

We strongly recommend adoption of the primary approach recommended by the
DOE Laboratory Directors' System of Labs' Computing Coordinating Committee
(SLCCC) White Paper of 20 May 2005. Namely, that DOE should "Require M&O 
contractors to use PIV cards when accessing federal systems, but not
require the use of PIV for access to contractor-operated facilities such
as the laboratories."

(Signed by)     RHIC & AGS Users' Executive Committee 
                c/o the RHIC & AGS Users' Center
                Brookhaven National Laboratory
                Bldg. 355A
                Upton, NY 11973-5000

cc: S. Aronson, P. Bond, P. Chaudhari, D. Kovar D. Lowenstein, S. Ozaki 




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