Brian Williams, research librarian for US Government, Criminology and Law & Society at UC Irvine (and blogs at justcrim.typepad.com) in his own words:

I've been using government information - local, regional, state, federal, tribal, foreign, international - throughout the course of my professional career. Whether working as Foreign/International Legal Research Specialist at the University of San Diego or as law librarian at a legal services office on the Navajo Nation, government information has played a significant role in my work.

I believe unfettered access to government information is an important measure of democracy.

"[G]overnment information needs to be free" -- We live in amazing times: I'm extraordinarily optimistic about the explosion of government information in digital formats and I'm terribly excited by preservation and access challenges in this fluid world we live in.