Open government on the ropes?
Senator May Seek Tougher Law on Leaks (Washington Post. Go to BugMeNot for anonymous log-in information) Pat Roberts (R-Kan), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that, in an effort to curb leaks, he "may add language to the fiscal 2007 intelligence authorization bill to criminalize the leaking of a wider range of classified information than is now covered by law." Civil liberties groups and news organizations have argued that the legislation would further restrict their ability to get information from officials. With more government documents being classified than ever before (see this FGI blog post and Secrecy News), this legislation (similar legislation was vetoed by President Clinton) will be a powerful 1-2 punch that could knock out open government! Earlier today, James mentioned a quote by philosopher Sissela Bok in a post about the 1956 Coolidge Committee Report. Bok really hit the nail on the head by pointing out that more secrecy, more classification, and stricter laws against leaks are simply a spiral away from open government, away from our democratic ideals:
"...as government secrecy expands, more public officials become privy to classified information and are faced with the choice of whether or not to leak ... growing secrecy likewise causes reporters to press harder from the outside to uncover what is hidden. And then in a vicious circle, the increased revelations give government leaders further reasons to press for still more secrecy. --Sissela Bok, Secrets. New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 184 and 248.Continue reading
Help save SIPP from the budget axe
The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is slated for the chopping block in the President's FY2007 budget. But you can help save it. Go to the Center for Economic and Policy Research's "Save SIPP" page to find out more about this important longitudinal survey that provides critical information on programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Social Security, and unemployment insurance, and "tracks health insurance coverage, and provides more in-depth information than other government survey on work-family issues, such as maternity leave, child care, and child support." Please email "openletter [at] ceprdata [dot] org" by March 1st to add your name/contact/affiliation to the petition letter that will be sent to all members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the House Government Reform Committee, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Continue reading
1956 Report on Classified Information (Coolidge Committee)
The Memory Hole has put online the full text of the 1956 Coolidge Committee report on classified information, an early governmental report on overclassification and leaks. I especially appreciate the deeper context provided by author Susan Maret, an adjunct professor of library science at the University of Denver (who created the On Their Own Terms: A Lexicon with an Emphasis on Information-Related Terms Produced by the U.S. Federal Government mentioned a while back on Secrecy News).
"...as government secrecy expands, more public officials become privy to classified information and are faced with the choice of whether or not to leak ... growing secrecy likewise causes reporters to press harder from the outside to uncover what is hidden. And then in a vicious circle, the increased revelations give government leaders further reasons to press for still more secrecy.On a side note, the memory hole has been frequently mentioned in the docs community as a potential partner. If librarians are really serious about this potential, I would strongly suggest that you donate to the memory hole. Continue reading
--Sissela Bok, Secrets. New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 184 and 248.
Patriot Search
Patriot Search Philipp Lenssen has created a parody site called Patriot Search that makes fun of the government subpoenas of search engine records (see Should Search Engines Remember What You Search For?) by claiming to make "sure the government is informed should you search for something obscure, illegal, or unpatriotic." Part of its mission statement says:
Instead of letting the government waste tax money by going through complicated procedures to get user and search data from Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves or Google, users of Patriot Search make sure their queries end up right where they belong - in the databases of the government and its various agencies.This would be funnier if the current state of the FDLP didn't guarantee the same thing. By ensuring that the only way to get government information is from government controlled web-servers instead of from FDLP libraries, we ensure that the government has a record of every government report you search for and every one you view. Of course, there are some privacy policies in place that say that they would not do that, (see Will GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?), but can we believe that the government will ignore what it owns when it is willing to subpoena what it does not? Continue reading
UN report on Guantanamo Bay
The UN's Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights released a report on February 15, 2006 calling on the United States to close immediately the detention center in Guantánamo Bay and bring all detainees before an independent and competent tribunal or release them. Below is a copy for download of the document (UN doc number E/CN.4/2006/120). Here's the UN Press release, the link to the PDF document and the NYTimes article describing the document (go to BugMeNot if you're asked to log in!). Continue reading