Andrew Douglas, interim dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, has apologized publicly today for asking one of his cryptography professors to remove a blog post critical of the National Security Agency's (NSA) newly revealed mass spying programs.

Douglas contacted professor Matthew Green yesterday, asking him to pull the mirrored copy of his "On the NSA" blog post from university servers on the grounds that it "contained a link or links to classified material and also used the NSA logo," according to a Johns Hopkins statement released yesterday afternoon.

This was a strange request on its face—there's nothing illegal about linking to classified information published by news organizations, nor is there anything illegal about using the NSA's logo in a post about the NSA. (Some restrictions on the NSA logo do exist as a matter of law, but these are limited to the logo's use in a way "reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the National Security Agency." Green's hypercritical post was in no danger of crossing this threshold.)

Journalism professor Jay Rosen wanted to find out what had really happened here, and he managed to squeeze a telling detail from the school:

[Spokesman] Dennis O'Shea told me the original concern was that Matthew Green's post might be "illegally linking to classified information." I asked him what law he was referring to. "I'm not saying that there was a great deal of legal analysis done," he replied. Obviously. But again: given the severity of the remedy—unpublishing an expert's post critical of the NSA—careful legal analysis was called for. Why was it missing? ...Instead of trying to get Matthew Green's blog off their servers, the deans should be trying to get more faculty into blogging and into the public arena. Who at Johns Hopkins is speaking up for these priorities? And why isn't the Johns Hopkins faculty roaring about this issue? (I teach at New York University, and I'm furious.)

Well, score one for commendable honesty at least; "I'm not saying that there was a great deal of legal analysis done" is not the sort of phrase most spokespeople ever want to utter.

Today, the school apologized explicitly for the whole mess. Douglas sent a note to Green and shared a copy with the media. It says, in part:

Dear Matt, I write to apologize for any difficulty I caused you yesterday over the post on your blog. I realize now that I acted too quickly, on the basis of inadequate and—as it turns out—incorrect information. I requested that you take down the post without adequately checking that information and without first providing you with an opportunity to correct it... I am sorry that my request to you yesterday may have, in some minds, undeservedly undercut your reputation as a scholar and scientist. I am also sorry if I have raised in anyone’s mind a question as to my commitment to academic freedom. I am pleased that we were able to correct the error quickly. I hope that you understand that my motivation—again, based on inadequate information—was to protect the university and you from legal consequences. I look forward to discussing your work with you, as you suggested yesterday.

In the wake of the apology, Green tweeted, "I just received a very kind formal apology from the Interim Dean of JHU Whiting School of Engineering" and then suggested, "So, um, can we all go back to arguing about TLS?"

It remains unclear exactly where the request to take down the blog post originated. Green said yesterday that he heard it came from "someone on the APL" side of the school, a reference to the Applied Physics Lab, which does plenty of national security work with agencies like the NSA. Johns Hopkins said yesterday that "we did not receive any inquiry from the federal government about the blog or any request from the government to take down the mirror site" but added that the school was "still tracing the path of this event, which all exploded into our notice over the past couple of hours."

Update: The school has now clarified for Ars the chain of events that led to the takedown request: "The blog post originally was spotted by someone at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. A message was sent from a staff member at APL to a staff member at the Homewood campus calling attention to the post. That message may have been understood as a request for action, though I am told it was intended only as an FYI. The Homewood staff member called the post to the attention of the dean."