On behalf of Jeff Snyder:

You may have heard about the arrest of Gang Chen of MIT and the push back from academics.
The charges are primarily based on a failure to disclose interactions which are quite common for academics on proposals to do fundamental research.

A petition has been started to urge the US to reverse this policy and to institute the recommendations of the National Science Foundation
to investigate issues of transparency and conflicts by universities or the NSF rather than federal prosecution.

The change.org petition “We are all Gang Chen” can be found at
http://chng.it/fvkVHbBP89

Jeff Snyder