[iwar] [fc:The.Information.Wars]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-26 21:25:48
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 21:25:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:The.Information.Wars]
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The Information Wars

Terrorism has become a pretext for a new culture of secrecy
 
by Mary Graham
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/09/graham.htm">http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/09/graham.htm>
.....
 
W ithin twenty-four hours of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
the federal Department of Transportation had removed maps of the nation's
2.2 million miles of pipe lines from its Web site. The government had
created the maps only recently, to identify places where ruptures in pipes
that carry oil, natural gas, or hazardous chemicals could endanger lives,
property, or drinking water. In the 1990s an average of four accidents a
week caused property damage of more than $50,000, injury, or death.

The removal of the maps was hardly an isolated incident. Since September
federal and state officials have stricken from Web sites and public reports
thousands of pages of information about health and safety risks to
Americans‹information, officials say, that might somehow aid terrorists. The
Environmental Protection Agency withdrew from its Web site information about
accidents, risks, and emergency plans at factories that handle dangerous
chemicals. Energy regulators removed reports on power plants, transmission
lines, and the transportation of radioactive materials. The Federal Aviation
Administration stopped posting enforcement information about security
breaches at airports and incidents that threatened airline safety. The U.S.
Geological Survey removed reports on water resources and asked libraries to
destroy all copies of a CD-ROM that described the characteristics of
reservoirs.

Some state governments went further. Florida not only restricted access to
security plans for hospitals and state facilities but also gave the
president of the state senate authority to close formerly public meetings.
In a directive that was itself intended to be secret, New York State's
directors of public security and state operations ordered agency heads to
curb public access to all "sensitive information." What, exactly, was
"sensitive"? "Information related to systems, structures, individuals and
services essential to the security, government or economy of the State,
including telecommunications ... electrical power, gas and oil storage and
transportation, banking and finance, transportation, water supply, emergency
services ... and the continuity of government operations." Just about
everything, that is.

T hese were extraordinary measures for extraordinary times. Administration
officials moved quickly and appropriately to remove from the Web maps of
nuclear-power plants and defense installations, for example. The Web, they
argued, transformed previously scattered information into mosaics of
opportunity for extremists. But a year after the terrorist attacks temporary
emergency actions have evolved into fundamental changes in the public's
right to know, and the restrictions have been driven as much by familiar
politics and bureaucratic instincts as by national security. The problem
comes because a new and uncertain threat has provided cover for legitimate
and opportunistic measures alike.

Even before September 11 the Bush Administration had taken unprecedented
steps to expand official secrecy. Early last year Vice President Dick Cheney
refused to provide to Congress the names of energy-industry executives who
had advised the energy-policy task force he headed. That action provoked the
first lawsuit ever by the General Accounting Office against the executive
branch. Also before September 11 the Justice Department initiated work on a
new policy to support agency actions to keep secret any government
information, as long as agency heads had a "sound legal basis" for
withholding it. This reversed a presumption in favor of disclosure unless
the government could show "foreseeable harm."

By October, President Bush was calling for new policies to shield
information voluntarily provided by private companies about weaknesses in
"critical infrastructure"‹a malleable term that the Administration said
should include telecommunications, energy, financial services,
transportation, and health care. In March, Andrew Card, the White House
chief of staff, ordered all agencies to adopt guidelines to prevent
inappropriate disclosure of "sensitive but unclassified" information
‹without actually defining the term.

Typically, these new rules have been put into effect by memorandum, without
public explanation. Missing has been any forum for weighing the risks of
shutting off public access. Recent congressional debate about restricting
access to critical infrastructure information under the Freedom of
Information Act provided one limited step in the right direction, producing
constructive ideas about how to narrow the definition of what is critical
while still satisfying the concerns of national-security agencies.

Zealous secrecy in response to a foreign threat is not new, of course. In a
Harvard commencement address this past June, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
reminded students that the Cold War had produced a culture of secrecy that
outlived the conflict and at times actually impaired security. That culture
had largely disappeared by the end of the 1990s, as a better-informed public
and the growth of the Internet drove advances toward openness. The Clinton
Administration declassified millions of pages of historical records, and
Congress approved the Electronic Freedom of Information Act, which
encouraged agencies to put information online even before it was requested.

The wholesale censorship of information on Web sites and in government
reports carries insidious costs. Current government proposals to bar foreign
nationals from working on scientific projects and to restrict publication of
government-funded research could actually decrease national security.
Relying on partial truths and official conclusions can create needless
scares, increase risks, and ultimately change the political process.

Compromises that deem some members of the public more worthy than others
violate basic fairness. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example,
long known for its openness, now requires researchers to register before it
gives them direct access to its enormous Envirofacts database. It also
requires them to obtain sponsorship from a senior official and have their
requests approved in advance. "The danger is that right to know is replaced
by need to know," says Gary D. Bass, the director of OMB Watch and the
organizer of a new coalition of environmental, health, labor, journalist,
and library groups tracking secrecy changes.

An administration that prides itself on conducting business like a well-run
corporation naturally thinks that sensitive information can and should
remain proprietary. But national security is everyone's concern, and the
idea that openness can be more effective than secrecy in reducing risks has
received too little attention.

What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics &amp; Society conference
of Post &amp; Riposte.

Mary Graham 's book Democracy by Disclosure: The Rise of Technopopulism will
be published this month. 

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