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CPSR Newsletter Summer 1995

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Computers, Government, and Access to Electronic Records

by Marsha Woodbury
Director-at-Large, CPSR

CPSR News Volume 13, Number 2: Summer 1995

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It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume . . . that every citizen is a criminal . . . The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him.
- H. L. Mencken, "Life under Bureaucracy," 1927
It's appropriate to preface this issue of the CPSR Newsletter with a "fighting" quote from Mencken. Although I, the guest editor, have worked successfully with government officials to obtain government information, I and many other journalists and activists have met Mencken's bureaucrats as well. The law may state that we have access to certain records, but we can't always acquire them, particularly in a useful format.

The articles in this issue should update your knowledge of what freedom of information laws are, how these laws treat electronic records, and what we, as computer professionals and concerned citizens, should know about our responsibilities for creating, maintaining, and using databases. Our purpose herein is to discuss how computers and digitized records will change your access to government data. In order to focus on the topic, I left the issues of copyright, maintaining the integrity and authenticity of records, and protecting personal privacy for future editors to cover.

One piece of advice: always try to obtain information without resort to the law. Once you make a formal request, the government officials can find many reasons for not filling it, and you may wait for years. You can catch more bytes with honey than with vinegar, as it were.

Freedom of Information

The people like to believe they have the right to oversee their elected or appointed officials, even if they in truth cannot always get the information they seek. The FOIA [Freedom of Information Act, pronounced foya] is a romantic notion and not the ultimate guarantee of responsible government.
- Antonin Scalia, "The Freedom of Information Act Has No Clothes," 1982
Freedom of information, or "the right to know," is an emotional issue. The concept's undergirding philosophy recognizes that the public, as "the people" with a common interest in the common good, has "the right to know." In contrast, a totalitarian government doesn't even go through the motions of openness. Those who believe in the right to know hold that an informed public is a safeguard against governmental abuse of power; yet, no matter how open a government aspires to be, it can hardly avoid reining in access to and release of information, in order to govern. For any nation accustomed to "freedoms" such as the freedom of speech or religion, labeling legislation a freedom of information law gives it an emotional boost that the word access would fail to provide.

Other countries adopted freedom of information laws before the United States did. Sweden has had right- of-access since 1766. Finland passed its freedom of information law in 1951, Denmark in 1964.

When the United States federal government adopted a FOIA in 1966, it applied only to records in the possession of agencies and departments of the Executive Branch, such as Agriculture, the Justice Department, and Health, Education, and Welfare. Congress and the Judicial Branch remained exempt.

Each of the 50 states has its own FOIA legislation, so a citizen's right of access to records very much depends on where she or he lives. My state, Illinois, was the last state in the Union to adopt a FOIA - even Mississippi beat it to the post. However, in Illinois a record stored in electronic form is considered an official public record, a clarification that other states have not made.

The articles that follow should broaden our knowledge of what has been happening to federal, state, and local FOIAs as records are increasingly stored in electronic form.

The first article, by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, defines many of the issues and offers guidance about how to prepare a FOIA request. Next, David Morrisey, a professor in Colorado, writes about the lack of government preparation for electronic access. In the subsequent article, Eileen Gannon describes how the Environmental Working Group acquires and translates data in order to provide information to the public.

Archivists have many legitimate concerns about how the government stores its records electronically. The Society of American Archivists has written a position statement on archival issues to guide your planning. This statement is followed by the concerns of James Love, who fills us in on public and private networks in regard to the status of public records and open meetings under FOIA.

David Sobel has contributed an update on the CPSR and EPIC lawsuits, some of which concern FOIA issues. Joel Campbell gives some tips for starting a state freedom of information organization. Dave Gowen relates his own experience in acquiring electronic data. Finally, we include a list of listservs, Gopher, web, and FTP resources for further information. I hope this newsletter will do three things:

  1. Help you to obtain and use information stored in digital form, whether browsing it online, doing research, or monitoring the government.
  2. Make us all more aware of the pitfalls and plusses of digital record-keeping, and how we can use our expertise to help others.
  3. Lend support to the journalists, archivists, and activists who are working hard to insure our right to know. People who save a tree or historic building enjoy more publicityÑtheir acts are visual and dramatic. A person who stops a mass "delete" or puts up government web pages earns little public acclaim. This newletter gives them the attention they deserve.
References
Mencken, H.L. "Life Under Beaurocracy." Prejudices: Sixth Series, (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1927): 241- 42.

Scalia, Antonin. "The Freedom of Information Act Has No Clothes." Regulation 6(2) 1982: 14-19.

Marsha Woodbury, a Director-at-Large on the CPSR Board of Directors, is the Associate Director of Education at the Sloan Center, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She can be reached at marsha- w@uiuc.edu.

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