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NORAD orders Web deletion of transcript
NORAD orders Web deletion of transcript, By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com, March 9, 2006. "The Bush administration has been criticized in the past by open government advocates for its aggressive efforts to avoid the disclosure of information that historically has been public. In 2003, the U.S. Army surreptitiously pulled the plug on one of its more popular Web sites after a report embarrassing to the military appeared on it. In another example, the names of the members of the Defense Science Board--an obscure but influential advisory body that influences military policy and had a budget of $3.6 million a year--have vanished from the group's public Web site." Now, "in an unusual follow-up to a public event, the Defense Department has ordered that a transcript of an open hearing on aviation restrictions be yanked from the Web." Some of the pilots who attended the meeting suggested that nothing sensitive was disclosed and that the transcripts were deleted because one of the pilots who testified, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Bush, criticized the government's security apparatus. Continue reading
Origins of “The Right to Know”
Origins of "The Right to Know" by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, March 7, 2006. Continue reading
Citizen groups fight back against government secrecy
Web availability of government information continues to be a mixed blessing. With so much information so easily available to so many people, access in many ways can be considered much improved. But with GPO's refusal to deposit digital government information in depository libraries, more information can be withdrawn without public notice. A new article in FCW reports on the issues:
Public interest groups and federal officials agree on one thing: Because of homeland security concerns, information that was once readily available on public Web sites has steadily disappeared in recent years. But the agreement ends there.Includes a sidebar "Disenfranchising GPO" that describes how agencies have taken control of their information and are publishing it online without notifying GPO. Continue reading
Total Information Awareness just changed its name
TIA Lives On, By Shane Harris, National Journal, Feb. 23, 2006.
A controversial counter-terrorism program, which lawmakers halted more than two years ago amid outcries from privacy advocates, was stopped in name only and has quietly continued within the intelligence agency now fending off charges that it has violated the privacy of U.S. citizens.See also:
- Tinker, Tailor, Miner, Spy: Why the NSA's snooping is unprecedented in scale and scope, By Shane Harris and Tim Naftali, Slate, Jan. 3, 2006.
- Democrats and Bush Aides Spar in Senate Over U.S. Spying, By Scott Shane, New York Times, February 2, 2006.
ABA and OMB Watch on “Sensitive but Unclassified” Information
OMB Watch has information covering a recent American Bar Association (ABA) report on information that governments deem "sensitive but unclassified."
- Report [to] The House Of Delegates, Eleanor D. Kinney Chair, [ABA] Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, February 2006.
- Sensitive But Unclassified Info: You Can't Have It. Why? Because They Say So, OMB Watch, 02/22/2006.
The explosion in the use by federal agencies of Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) designations to withhold information since the 9/11 terrorist attacks has resulted in uneven policies across agencies and unnecessary restrictions on public access to information, according to a recent American Bar Association report."OMB Watch also has a paper, Background on Sensitive But Unclassified Information. Update (2/26/2006): Press Release, February 22, 2006, The National Archives Responds to Reclassification of Documents NARA, "in response to complaints and recommendations received from a group of historians and researchers regarding agency classification activity which has resulted in a number of historical documents being withdrawn from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration" has initiated several actions. Continue reading
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