Freedom of Information Drain.
Quote: "There are now about 30 bills pending in Congress that attempt to
redefine what the government is required to release to the public under the
federal Freedom of Information Act."
Risks Prompt U.S. to Limit Access to Data Security, Rights Advocates Clash
Over Need to Know
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 24, 2002; Page A01
The letter from the government told Joy Suh to destroy the CD-ROM of the
nation's water supply data "by any means". Suh, the documents librarian at
George Mason University, immediately asked her assistant to get out her
scissors and cut the silver disk into tiny shards.
Suh was eager to do her part to help protect the country.
But as someone who has dedicated her life to sharing information with the
public, she worried that this directive signaled the beginning of a more
secretive period in American society. "I debate both sides in my mind.
I see the government aspect of it. I also see how researchers and the public
might need this data," Suh said.
Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has gone to what academics,
lawmakers and civil-liberties proponents describe as unprecedented lengths
to control the dissemination of information in the name of national
security, escalating the debate over how to balance protection with the
public's right to know.
The Internal Revenue Service reading room on Constitution Avenue NW now
requires visitors to be shadowed by an employee at all times. The National
Imagery and Mapping Agency no longer sells its detailed digital maps on the
Internet. And since October various government agencies have been stripping
their Web sites of such data as security plans of hazardous chemical sites
and information about weapons of mass destruction or aviation accident reports.
In a few weeks, the government plans to announce a new set of guidelines for
what kind of security information should be withheld.
There are now about 30 bills pending in Congress that attempt to redefine
what the government is required to release to the public under the federal
Freedom of Information Act. Earlier this month Richard A. Clarke, the White
House's top information security adviser, urged lawmakers to quickly pass an
exemption for information about computer attacks. "The biggest thing that
Congress could do to achieve cyberspace security this term is to pass a
very, very narrowly crafted amendment" to the act, he said.
One of the first changes to the FOI law went into effect about two months
ago, allowing agencies to withhold potentially sensitive data such as maps
about transportation networks.
"It has always been true that in times of war you don't release battle plans
to the enemy," said Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), who is co-sponsoring a
bill with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz).
Federal officials have grown increasingly concerned about how to handle the
release of information as evidence mounts that Osama bin Laden and his
supporters may have used readily available government documents to plan
terrorist attacks.
Data stored on computers apparently used by al Qaeda operatives included
public reports about crop-dusting and a General Accounting Office study
detailing security vulnerabilities in 19 federal buildings and two airports.
A report titled "Source-Area Characteristics of Large Public Surface-Water
Supplies in the Conterminous United States" had been housed at George Mason
and about 300 other federal depositories until it was removed this winter at
the request of the U.S. Geological Survey. The agency was concerned the data
on pipes that tap into dams and reservoirs could be used to aid a chemical
or biological attack. FBI agents visited several libraries to ensure that
the document was truly removed from circulation.
Karen Williams, who oversees digital initiatives and special collections at
the University of Arizona, said a clerk destroyed the institution's copy
without thinking about the implications. It is an action Williams regrets.
The library's administration has since decided that if a similar request
from the government comes in the future, it would seek legal counsel first.
"I hope that we would act with caution and be absolutely certain that any
information that gets pulled is dangerous information," Williams said.
State and local governments, and even companies and individuals, have been
following the federal government's lead in making it more difficult for
people to gain access to sensitive information.
In Virginia, Dels. S. Chris Jones (R-Suffolk) and Clifton A. "Chip" Woodrum
(D-Roanoke) and Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) have introduced
legislation that would allow public officials to withhold information that
might aid terrorists, such as architectural plans for buildings. A bill
proposed last month by Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) would allow a
government official to deny access to records if it is deemed to "constitute
a risk to the public or to public safety." Measures such as these disturb
people like Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a group that
advocates public disclosure. "While security may improve, the spirit of
civil society is lost. We cannot let that happen here," Bass wrote in a
post-Sept. 11 assessment of his group's mission.
One of the most contentious debates has been between, on one side,
government officials who believe that information about hazardous chemical
sites should be kept away from potential terrorists and, on the other side,
environmentalists and other groups that contend the public should have this
information to address any health concerns. Another debate has been between
Defense Department officials, who want to make sure their research isn't
used to create weapons, and scientists, who say that new limitations on
information-sharing may stifle innovation.
Finding the right balance is difficult. Some groups that traditionally favor
full disclosure -- consumer groups, academics and the press -- have come to
support certain restrictions since the September terrorist attacks.
Michael Levi is in charge of a project at the Federation of American
Scientists that provides analysis on national security policies. He is now
reviewing the group's Web site of more than 1 million pages and already has
removed information such as satellite photos of nuclear facilities and
reports on high-tension areas, including India and Afghanistan. "We often
err quite strongly on the side of caution," Levi said. A spokeswoman for
Internet search engine Google said the Mountain View, Calif., company had
been coordinating with federal agencies to make sure that material the
government deleted from its sites is not still available to the public
through automatic-saving functions on the company's system.
Sen. Bennett and his supporters said that private companies running much of
the country's critical telephone, power and banking infrastructure need
assurances that their proprietary secrets won't be shared as they coordinate
security and emergency procedures with the government. "Certainly if you're
a CEO and you discovered a virus, it would be a problem for you if you told
the federal government and it told a potential competitor," said Robert
Hoffman, director of legislative affairs for high-tech giant Oracle Corp. Or
worse. "You don't have to be a law-abiding U.S. citizen to file a FOIA
request. You could be a lawyer for Osama bin Laden," Bennett said.
Bennett argues that exempting such information from public purview does
little to limit public access since much of the data is privately held. But
critics worry that the restrictions could be used to suppress data that goes
beyond national security concerns. Bennett's bill, for example, would keep
private any information about critical infrastructure services that is
voluntarily shared with a federal agency for "analysis, warning,
interdependency study, recovery, reconstitution, or other informational
purpose." The shrinking pool of readily available government documents makes
George Mason's Suh wonder how far the restrictions will reach. "Will we soon
be taking away books on gunpowder and bombs?" she asked.
Government departments such as commerce, defense and energy have already
removed thousands of documents from public access. The Energy Department
decided to suppress about 9,000 documents from its Information Bridge Web
service. Many of them are scientific research papers from national labs that
contain keywords such as "nuclear" or "chemical" and "storage." Department
employees are reviewing the papers to see if they pose national security
risks and are re-posting those found to be benign. Walter Warnick, director
of the agency's Office of Scientific and Technical Information, acknowledged
in an interview that the review may take many months and that some
legitimate research may be delayed as a result.
Still, "we were obliged to act quickly, and we did. The longer we would have
waited, the more the risk to the country," he said. As for the CD-ROM that
went into her trash can, Suh said she suspects pirated copies of the data
may still exist, hidden in file drawers or the vast memory of the Internet.
Among the nation's librarians, there are already rumors that some ignored
the government's request to destroy the discs and simply filed the
information away, in anticipation of a day when worries about terrorists are
no longer so acute.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58430-2002Feb23.html
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