The Nerve of these Ethics People...

Ethicists are "creeping" into science, and boy are they annoying:

In the late 1990s, senior researchers at a national research centre obtained funding to interview young drug users about their illicit activities. When they applied for ethics clearance, they were told by their university research ethics committee that the research could take place only if interviewees signed consent forms in the presence of witnesses. A couple of years later, another researcher who proposed replicating a US study by interviewing Australian legal gun owners in their homes was warned by her university of the 'potential impropriety' of such a visit and instructed to take a chaperone with her to each interview.