JASON
Photo via flickr by Graffiti Land
JASON is an independent scientific advisory group that provides consulting services to the U.S. government on matters of defense science and technology. JASON was established in 1960, and all members, including physicists, biologists, chemists, mathematicians and computer scientists, are selected because of their scientific brilliance.
JASON typically performs most of its work during an annual summer study, and has conducted studies under contract to the Department of Defense (frequently DARPA and the U.S. Navy), the Department of Energy, the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the FBI. For administrative purposes, JASON’s activities are run through the MITRE Corporation, a non-profit corporation in McLean, Virginia, which contracts with the Defense Department.
Approximately half of the resulting JASON reports are unclassified, and a selection of unclassified JASON studies can be found at JASON Defense Advisory Panel Reports.
One such study in March 2008 is titled “Human Performance” (Project Number: 13079022), with the Sponsoring/Monitoring Agency being the Office of Defense Research and Engineering (ODDR&E). The abstract reads as follows: “The tasking for this study was to evaluate the potential for adversaries to exploit advances in Human Performance Modification, and thus create a threat to national security. In making this assessment, we were asked to evaluate long-term scenarios. We have thus considered the present state of the art in pharmaceutical intervention in cognition and in brain-computer interfaces, and considered how possible future developments might proceed and be used by adversaries.”
Individuals who briefed JASON on this “Human Performance” study include the following:
Lily Johnston; Jenny Haward and Kevin Dean of the Defence System Analysis Division, Australian Department of Defence; Eric W. Wasserman, M.D., Brain Stimulation Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health; Harris R. Lieberman, Ph.D., Military Nutrition Division, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine; Gary Hazlett, Yale University, Robert Mitchell Centre for RPOW Studies, and NIMH; Hans P.A. Van Dongen, Sleep and Performance Research Center, Washington State University, Spokane; Adam Russell and Bartlett Bulkley, Scitor Corporation; Ann M. Rasmusson, Yale University School of Medicine, VA National Center for PTSD, Clinical Neuroscience Division; Douglas Kalman, Ph.D. Candidate, Nutritional and Exercise Biochemistry, Touro University; Gary Lynch, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine; Thomas H. Karas, Advanced Concepts Group, Sandia National Laboratories.