Forum Considers Effect of Sept. 11

Federal librarians and others at a Washington, DC, forum March 19 on "Homeland Security: Impact of Policy Changes on Government Information Access" heard some sobering words from government watchdogs and some sobering acknowledgments by government officials.

Patrice McDermott, assistant director of the Office of Government Relations of the American Library Association's (ALA) Washington Office, warned of a "rush to judgment" by government agencies that have removed information in some cases based on complaints from those industries regulated.

"We don't know how much information has been removed," she said. "There is no dialog about it. This [meeting] is a start." She asked that agencies consider the interests of all stakeholders and suggested several criteria to assess online public access. One recommendation: find ways to reduce the specificity of information without removing entire documents or databases.

A day later, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card requested that all agencies and executive departments conduct an "immediate reexamination" of all public documents and report in 90 days to the Office of Homeland Security, reported the Washington Times.

The focus was on information that "could reasonably be expected to assist in the development or use of weapons of mass destruction" but also included "sensistive but unclassified information." That latter categorization, broad and undefined, prompted concern from scientific watchdogs. "It could be an invitation to abuse," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.

At the March 19 forum, Nancy Blair, chief librarian at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, reported on the work of a USGS task force that evaluated whether and how material should be restricted because it contained sensitive information. The task force concluded that, for previously distributed products that are widely available, withdrawal of the material would be ineffective because it would only call attention to it. (It would seem that that conclusion was superseded by the White House memo March 20.)

The task force issued its conclusions at the end of last year, after USGS had already instructed the Government Printing Office (GPO) to ask 335 federal depository libraries to destroy a CD-ROM containing information on "large public surface-water supplies." Blair noted that the information on the CD-ROM was not lost and will be available to researchers and decision-makers.

GPO Superintendent of Documents Francis Buckley noted that "there are no specific guidelines to say when information should be withheld." He also said that, after September 11, GPO has recognized the need for redundancy and received supplemental funding for a geographically separate backup web site, which will contain all the data currently available via GPO. It should be operational within six months and eventually upgraded to a mirror web site.

On March 19, government documents librarians were e-mailed a copy of a letter from Buckley to depository library directors on March 14. It cited the USGS episode as well as recent questions about whether libraries should guard access to Nuclear Regulatory Commission microfiche (see News, LJ 3/15/02 ). It reiterated GPO's role as agent for the government rather than as a policymaker.

The forum was sponsored by FLICC, the Federal Library and Information Center Committee. Opening speaker Viet Dinh, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy, told attendees, "You are doing important work in continuing to prosecute this war on terror."

Dinh characterized Congress's four-day adoption of the USA Patriot Act last year as a well-considered action because of its intense deliberation. In contrast, Ohio State University law professor Peter Swire, a former Clinton administration chief counselor for privacy, called the new law—which greatly expands law enforcement surveillance powers—"the wish list of things Congress previously rejected." That said, Swire said that several elements of the law struck him as sensible.

Swire noted that a four-year sunset provision applies to many provisions of the act and that those monitoring the law should be able to argue for its modification.