[iwar] [fc:Government.Clamps.Down.on.Agency.Web.Sites]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-30 06:10:42


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Government.Clamps.Down.on.Agency.Web.Sites]
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Government Clamps Down on Agency Web Sites

By Robin Toner, NY Times, 10/29/2001
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/national/28INFO.html?todaysheadlines">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/national/28INFO.html?todaysheadlines>

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 - In the weeks since the terrorist attacks,
government officials have been removing information from their agencies'
Web sites on the Internet: the location and operating status of nuclear
power plants, maps of the nation's transportation infrastructure and an
array of other data suddenly deemed too sensitive for general
consumption.

Their actions have touched off a difficult and growing debate about the
balance between the public's right to know and the nation's heightened
security needs in an era of terrorism.

Critics say the government is overreacting, restricting information
needlessly and even removing information that would improve, not
jeopardize, the public's safety, like details on environmental hazards
that might be useful to local citizens. 
"It's a balancing act," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch,
a watchdog group that tries to increase the accessibility of government
information, particularly on the environment. "I don't want to pretend
that there's some bright line you can draw and say, `ah-ha, this is
something that needs to be taken down, or kept up.' But in a democracy,
you always need to err on the side of public information and the right
to know."

Yet government officials say they are reacting to a different and more
dangerous world. "Agencies are trying to do the right thing," said
Rosetta Virgilio, a spokeswoman at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The commission closed its Web site on Oct. 12 and has since returned a
bare-bones version of it to the Internet. Like other agencies, the
commission has formed an internal working group to review its public
information for "anything that might be sensitive or might be helpful to
adversaries," Ms. Virgilio said.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics restricted access to its
"National Transportation Atlas Data Base" as a "precaution" shortly
after Sept. 11, said a spokesman, David Smallen. Mr. Smallen said of the
map gallery, "We've not totally refused access to it, but we're judging
requests on a case-by-case basis." 
The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, has removed from its Web
site a database with information on chemicals used at 15,000 industrial
sites around the country, reflecting the "risk management plans" the
industry must file with the federal government under the Clean Air Act.
Tina Kreisher, a spokeswoman for the agency, noted that these databases
reflected the fears of an earlier era, "when Bhopal hit India, and
people said, `Do I have a chemical plant near me that stores something
dangerous I should know about?' "

This information is still available in government-run "reading rooms"
around the country, officials said. But withdrawing it from the Internet
has its critics. Mr. Bass argued that "the benefits outweigh the risks"
in maintaining easy access to such data, saying that families have a
right to know if their school or day care center is adjacent to a
potentially dangerous chemical site. Moreover, he added, such
information can be pieced together from many other sources, including
the telephone book. 
His group, OMB Watch, has continued to post "executive summaries" of
those risk management plans on its Web site, part of what it calls
RTK-Net, for "right to know."

"This is not an easy decision," Mr. Bass said. "We get hate mail. We get
hate phone calls. It's amazing to say that, because for 12 years we've
gotten accolades from presidents of both parties saying RTK-Net is
wonderful." 
Indeed, many people say they feel conflicted on this issue, regardless
of their position. The Federation of American Scientists, whose Project
on Government Secrecy was created 10 years ago to force more government
information into the open, decided after Sept. 11 to remove data from
its Web site on United States intelligence sites, nuclear weapon
facilities and similar matters.

The decision was made to err on the side of caution, said Steve
Aftergood, who founded the Project on Government Secrecy. "I have had to
come to terms with the fact that government secrecy is not the worst
thing in the world," Mr. Aftergood said. "There are worse things."

Still, many advocates of openness in government argue that officials are
removing information indiscriminately from the Internet.

"The dismantling of these Web sites seems to have been done without much
deliberation, and in more of a panic than a considered judgment as to
whether or not the American public should be deprived of this
information," said Paul K. McMasters, the First Amendment ombudsman at
the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit foundation that promotes freedom of the
press. 
"It is precisely at such times that citizens have not just a right to
know but a need to know," he added.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee and a longtime advocate of the Freedom of
Information Act, said through a spokesman, "As agencies use the
discretion they have on what information they put on line for the
public, there also needs to be Congressional oversight to make sure that
discretion is not abused."

Still, there will be pressure from Congress in the other direction, too
- to ensure that agencies are exercising enough caution in what they
make available on the Internet.

All this is based on an assumption that may be faulty, many engaged in
this struggle say: that information once available can later be
restricted, that the toothpaste, in other words, can be put back in the
tube, in the age of the Internet. "The answer is how in the world could
we?" Mr. McMasters said. "And if we could, would we want to?"

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