By a commentator for Tjen Folket Media.
NRK reports that the state is concerned that there are too many studying within IT who are not Norwegian and therefore will not necessarily receive security clearance in the future. In the article, which does not contain a single critical position, both the Minister of Public Security, a representative for the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, and the Minister of Education express their position on this.
Nearly 2 in 3 Norwegian doctorates within IT are awarded to foreigners.
As a solution to this, the government has decided that they will earmark 11.8 million kroner to the education of persons who are eligible to receive security clearance.
This entails several things. First, it opens up for discrimination in the education sector, against those who are not from Norway, as well as the political discrimination of people who are radical and revolutionary. In the best case, the education resources will be distributed unfairly, and in the worst case, people will be discriminated already in the admissions process.
Second, it means that security services will receive a degree of power through their clearances by pointing out who will have the best prerequisites for a given education.
Third, it serves the state and the security services to concentrate such knowledge among their own ranks. Skills that are important for being able to surveill others and that are important for others who wish to protect themselves against surveillance. Skills that serve the bourgeois state and the imperialist war apparatus. For instance, the article mentions that Norway delivers encryption solutions to NATO.
It also deepens the militarization of society when education and money that ends up serving the security services’ needs is disguised as funds for education in the national budget. And without a doubt, it shapes the field that it regards, as it clear that they wish for this to be a field that first and foremost is one for those who wish to work for police, the military, and security services, rather than those who wish to use these skills for something entirely different.
Pinar Heggernes at the Institute for Informatics at the University of Bergen tells NRK the following:
We have earlier accommodated earmarked positions with IT security, but that time there were no guidelines regarding security clearances. In that case, we would not be allowed to discriminate against applicants according to which country they come from.
and:
I think this is a very good idea. It will give us good tools to be able to carry out the job in the manner that the authorities wish for us to do it.
In other words, the leadership of the university shows their loyalty to the state and the security services, even before their own students and education interests. Even when she, in her own words (!), describes it as discrimination that they earlier were not allowed to carry out!
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