tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525778292565554519.post8797600453552690300..comments2018-01-03T07:02:32.059-05:00Comments on Institutional Review Blog: Canadian Criminologists Decry TCPS DraftZachary M. Schraghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07101709506166167477noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525778292565554519.post-6103484498841525132009-03-21T14:24:00.000-04:002009-03-21T14:24:00.000-04:00Thank you for this clarification. This is an inter...Thank you for this clarification. This is an interesting illustration of a chilling effect at work, showing how a rare incident can lead to widespread suppression of inquiry.<BR/><BR/>Part of my confusion stemmed from the fact that subpoenas are more common in the United States. Social scientists don't receive subpoenas every year, but as Charles Knerr and Andrew Sommerman have documented, the subpoenas arrive every few years. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, Knerr and Sommerman also note that only two social scientists--Samuel Popkin and Rik Scarce--have been imprisoned, and neither surrendered confidential information. Three other scholars did reveal such information, but one was able to strip identifiers first, and a second did so only after receiving permission from the research participant. Thus, only once in the past forty years has an American social scientist surrendered a research participant's personal information to a court without the participant's permission. <BR/><BR/>[I draw this from Charles Knerr and Andrew Sommerman, " Social Scientists v. the US Courts: Subpoenas for Research Data and Research Sources," presented at the Western Political Science Association, 2008. Professor Knerr kindly shared this important paper with me, and I hope he and Professor Sommerman will soon publish a version.]<BR/><BR/>Thus, your argument--that the warnings which ethics boards require of researchers are disproportionate to the threat of disclosure--appears to apply to the United States as well.<BR/><BR/>ZMSZachary M. Schraghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07101709506166167477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525778292565554519.post-19342439828686552262009-03-20T18:01:00.000-04:002009-03-20T18:01:00.000-04:00Professor Schrag:Thanks for reviewing our commenta...Professor Schrag:<BR/><BR/>Thanks for reviewing our commentary on Draft TCPS-2. We would like to clarify our position given your query, “If subpoenas for confidential information are rarely issued and never enforced, how can a requirement that researchers submit to the law be ‘a significant threat to academic freedom’?”<BR/><BR/>The threat to academic freedom is not subpoenas or the courts. The threat is the limited confidentiality doctrine that arises when universities, and now PRE, attempt to force researchers to warn prospective participants of “legal limits” to confidentiality created by “incidental discoveries” i.e. information that might be subject to mandatory reporting laws, such as laws requiring reporting of child abuse, or research information that is potentially subject to subpoena and court-ordered disclosure, i.e. all confidential research information.<BR/><BR/>When the spectre of court-ordered disclosure arose at Simon Fraser University, the first Canadian university to experience such a threat, the administration attempted to force researchers to promise confidentiality to the extent permitted by law, accompanied by a warning that a court might order disclosure of confidential research information. The implication was that, if ordered to disclose confidential research information, a researcher would comply. This “Law of the Land” doctrine subordinates ethics to law. However, just like journalists, “ethics-first” researchers would feel ethically obliged to protect research information even in the face of a court order to disclose it.<BR/><BR/>The threat to academic freedom is the attempt to impose the law of the land perspective on ethics-first researchers, because their research would be made impossible by these a priori limitations to confidentiality. <BR/><BR/>The threat to academic freedom is PRE’s “limited confidentiality” doctrine, not subpoenas or the courts.<BR/><BR/>John Lowman and Ted PalysAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com