Lee Tien
ABSTRACT
Public access to information held by government has long been a contentious issue. Proponents of government secrecy have traditionally argued that public access interferes with the government's internal decision-making processes, imposes costly burdens on agencies, and makes private companies unwilling to share information with the government.These complaints have only grown louder since September 11. The Bush administration has shown on a number of fronts that it values secrecy more than accountability: it has shifted its information policy away from public access and has taken unprecedented steps to "depublish" information on government websites. And Congress is now considering whether to protect companies' voluntarily submitted "cybersecurity" or "critical infrastructure" information against public access on the theory that secrecy is necessary in order to induce private firms to cooperate with the government.EFF believes that such concerns are overblown. As a legal matter, the federal statutes that protect the public's right to know already contain exemptions can adequately protected such information. More important, security vulnerabilities are clearly of great importance to the public --- infrastructure is critical precisely because we all depend on it. If companies are allowed to shield information about the risks in their systems, there cannot be meaningful public discourse about those risks or the measures taken to address them.
- Access Reports, http://www.accessreports.comGoogle Scholar
- American Library Association, http://www.ala.org/washoff/righttoknow.htmlGoogle Scholar
- Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
- OMB Watch, http://www.ombwatch.orgGoogle Scholar
- Post Sept. 11 environment, http://www.ombwatch.org/info/2001/access.htmlGoogle Scholar
Index Terms
- Access to information after 9/11
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