JASON Defense Advisory Group

The JASON Defense Advisory Group is an independent group of scientists and researchers that advise the United States government on science and technology matters related to national security and defense. Members are largely university professors from campuses across the country and include Nobel Laureates and members of the National Academy of Sciences. The group’s activities are overseen by a Steering Committee, a Chair, and a Vice Chair. The Steering Committee determines membership in the group, which comprises 30 to 40 scientists that work each summer in La Jolla, California, at General Atomics, a defense and energy contractor, on questions from government agencies. These clients include the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and the United States Intelligence Community. The group has been administered by the Institute for Defense Analyses (1959-1972), the Stanford Research Institute (1973-1982), and the MITRE Corporation (1983-). JASON is not an acronym; rather, the group is named after the mythical Jason and the Argonauts.

JASON was founded in 1959 under the name Project Sunrise and its main government client was the Defense Department’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). The group was founded to help retain government access to scientific expertise and talent acquired during the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, and thereby help to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union, which had launched the Sputnik I satellite in 1957. JASON’s early work was focused on defense-related physics problems, such nuclear test bans and missile defense, and thus the group was largely made up of physicists. During the Vietnam War, the grouped issued a classified report recommending against the use of low-yield nuclear weapons and designed an electronic barrier to combat the infiltration of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units from North Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and into South Vietnam.

In the 1970s, the group began to widen its scope beyond physics and engineering. In 1977, JASON first worked on global climate models, advising the Department of Energy. In the mid-1980s, they developed a technology for tracking missiles and satellites by utilizing a laser to create an artificial star in the atmosphere. This technology was declassified in 1991 for use by astronomers. In 1989, JASON issued a negative review of the antimissile program Brilliant Pebbles (the program was canceled in 1993). Starting in the mid-1990s, JASON expanded its work to biotechnology, including techniques for detecting biological weapons. A 1995 JASON study determined that little could be learned from small nuclear tests and therefore nuclear weapons could be judged as reliable without undergoing testing. This enabled the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the United States (though it was not ratified by the United States Senate).

Outside of the Department of Defense, JASON has worked with other governmental agencies as well. JASON has done studies for the Department of Homeland Security on the detection of radiological material on cargo ships. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has worked with JASON since 2013 on issues including electronic health records, privacy in health data, and artificial intelligence (AI) in health care. The Census Bureau commissioned a report from JASON regarding fraud and the census and a second report on data-gathering from existing governmental sources, such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration. JASON continues research related to nuclear weapons for the Department of Energy, focusing on the nuclear stockpile.