follow the money (Score 1)

Every time a study comes out saying that Windows is more secure, faster and cheaper than Linux, the first thing Slashdotters ask is "Who funded this study?" Which is exactly what the Chairman is attempting to establish. Are these scientists unbiased, or are they in the pocket of some lobby group. It's a critical question. Having said that, it can also most definitely be a form of harassment. It is easy to see who funded a scholarly paper. The last paragraph is typically used to list the funding sources of the work. The funding agency expects to be listed. If you don't list them, they will probablly cut off the funding. That said, bias can creep into the scientific process more through funding sources buying silence rather than speech. It is tempting for a researcher to delay publishing results that are critical of the products or goals of a funding agency. It is a problem the scientific community has to face up to (one solution ... quit gutting funding for National Science Foundation grants). There are other ways of buying silence, though. Hauling a researcher in front of a comittee and digging through his personal finances is a great tool. Academic labs typically consist of a researcher, a postdoc or two and some grad students. The lost productivity associated preparing to hand over the raw data for a massive study to a congressional investigation can bring other research to a grinding halt. The scientific community in this country is fundamentaly open and self correcting. There are flaws. Sometimes bad data gets published or good data gets withheld. For a season or two a researcher might make a nice career out of fabricated data. In the last, oh, five years or so there has been a tendency to treat the scientific community as a dog that should be brought to heel. The message has gone out "get the wrong result, expect retribution". This might work in the short term to meet political goals but in the long term the administration is poisoning the well.