Government Information

Stephen J. Stose Government Information 1
IST 618—Summer 2008

Issue 1: Government Information

Introduction

In the post-9/11 world of 2002, 51% of Americans visited government-sponsored websites at
some time, 52% reported they would prefer using an online government service than
communicating directly with a government facility, and 79% surveyed responded that inter-
agency communication resulting from e-government would make the world and the U.S. a safer
place (Hart Teeter, 2002)i.

Indeed, President Bush signed the E-Government Act (P.L. 107-347, 44 U.S.C. § 101) into law
on December 17, 2002. Section 2 of the Act specifies one of its purposes "to promote use of the
Internet and other information technologies to provide increased opportunities for citizen
participation in government; to promote the use of the Internet and emerging information
technologies within and across government agencies to provide citizen-centric government
information and services; and to promote access to high-quality government information and
services across multiple channels."

The Act also states, "Electronic government means the use by the government of Web-based
Internet applications and other technologies, combined with processes to implement these
technologies to (A) enhance access to and delivery of government information and services to
the public, other agencies, and other government entities; or (B) bring about improvements in
government operations that may include effectiveness, efficiency, service quality, or
transformation."

Issue Questions

The issues to be addressed in this paper are:

1. When should government provide access to documents, and when should it be left to
the private sector?
2. Should data quality regulations be used to keep agencies unbiased in their postings?
3. Does making documents accessible over the web eliminate the need for printing
documents?

Also, across the paper we will address the following question:

4. What should the priorities be regarding e-Government for the next administration?

First, we will address it generally, but also specifically based on the recommendations made
within each of the first three questions.


Background

The creation of the Federal Register in 1935, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA, 5
U.S.C., 1966) that came of out itii, served to hold government agencies transparent in their
decision-making by requiring agencies to publish their documents making them available to the
public. There were nine discretionary exemptions to withhold information, however, and
successive administrations have either sought to expand the use of these exemptions to legitimize
withholding information (e.g., the current Bush Administration) or frame the act as what Janet
Reno called a “presumption of disclosure” under the Clinton Administration. The administration
under Clinton required legal basis not to distribute information, whereas the Bush Administration
broadened the “sensitive but un-classified” (SBU) exemption to withhold records unless there
was legal basis not to. This was buttressed by assurances the Department of Justice would defend
decisions of withholding based on its “values” and “homeland security,” whose definition was
left to the discretion of individual cases and agencies (Feinberg, 2004). Amongst many other
discrepancies with the intentions of FOIA, it now justified withholding SBU information whose
effects merely “could” instead of “would” cause harmiii and no longer based withholding
documents merely upon their content, but also on what it perceived the individuals “intent” in
using the information might beiv.

Documents classified by executive order have processes of declassification, are subject to
oversight and internal/judicial appeals. The rules were clear, and even with SBU information,
they were applied sparsely and consistentlyv. Now, the arbitrary use of “For official use only”
(FOUO), amongst other new mantras for SBU, is creating information havoc and extreme
backlogging. Different agencies apply arbitrary standards to withhold; records traditionally
available are now more difficult to access, just disappear, or are retroactively classified as secret;
and new categories of information are now being sub-contracted out to private companies not
under legal FOIA obligations, and are charging citizens for the information services legally part
of their rights as taxpayers funding the information creation process.

Thus, the initial intention of Bush’s signing the E-Government Act has been undermined from
within. As one observer writesvi, “Public perception and use of e-government services has shifted
from viewing it as a tool to hold government more accountable in favor of a mechanism to aid in
protecting the U.S. from further terrorist attacks.” Other advocacy groups for open government
have issued similar low marksvii. For example, OpenTheGovernment.org reported that between
1977 and 2000 SBU (or “state secrets privelege”) was invoked 59 times, and 38 times since
2001; that is a rate of 2.46 times a year compared to the Bush Administration’s 5.85viii. The
administration itself has recently recognized that the proliferation of SBU labels ad hoc has
hindered information sharing in its fight against terrorism across agencies down through the state
and local levels, and in response has narrowed SBU from hundreds to only three labels (called
“Controlled Unclassified Information” or CUI)ix. While a good step in damage control,
expiration dates need be applied to these new categories and NARA (National Archives and
Records Administration)—the agency in charge of the changes—needs appropriate funding to
implement the new directive as part of the agencies’ information handling processes, something
that could take five years according to the directive.


The Electronic Communications Preservation Act (H.R. 5811, 2008) places NARA in charge of
standardizing and certifying the up-to-now discretionary preservation practices of federal
agencies in communicating federal decision-making. Some estimate millions of emails “lost”
during the Bush Administrationx. Also, the Open Government Act (5 U.S.C. Sec. 552) speeds up
FOIA request processing times to 20 days (in response to requests often taking months or being
ignored outright), assigns tracking numbers to requests, and nullifies research/copying costs if
deadlines are not met. This, however, does nothing to restore the presumption of disclosurexi.
Even so, most recently the current administration seeks to repeal part of the OPEN Government
Act and place NARA, the agency now responsible for both electronic preservation and CUI
oversight, under the auspices of the Department of Justice, the very agency that defends other
agencies attempts at keeping information hiddenxii.

Perspective

This paper is written from the perspective of first a U.S. taxpayer, and second an information
professional. I defend the Principles of Public Information outlined by the National Commission
on Libraries and Information Science in 1990 which state “Government agencies should
guarantee open, timely and uninhibited access to public information except where restricted by
law. People should be able to access public information, regardless of its format, without any
special training or expertise.”xiii My perspective is also a reflection of my priorities for the next
administration. I begin here with three fundamental priorities I consider essential.

What should the general priorities be regarding e-Government for the next
administration?

The first and most fundamental priority of the new administration should be to re-establish clear
guidelines adjudicating the exemptions (e.g., SBU) under which kinds of information are to be
withheld from the public. That is, a presumption of disclosure should be the norm. The burden of
proof should not fall on the public to defend why information should not be withheld (i.e., to
defend their right to access), as it is under the current administration. It was Jefferson who noted
the importance of an informed citizenry for a functioning democracy. This includes the “right to
know,” to know even the conditions under which information will be withheld, without requiring
from citizens justification for their “need to know”xiv. It also assumes government operates “for
the people by the people.” Without a presumption of unfettered access, citizens cannot perform
their democratic function as “watchers,” and nor will they want to if they have to justify
themselves watching. In such cases, “national security” becomes not only an issue of external
threat, but also one of internal threat. At the very least, we cannot be enemies of ourselvesxv.

Under a presumption of disclosure, government agencies at every level can stop pro- or retro-
active “web-scrubbing” for SBU information or information that is ideologically unsavory to
those in chargexvi, a micro-management process mired in communication inefficiencies regarding
both what to publish and what not to publish when and to which groups and with what “intent”.
Coursey & Norris (2008), for example, show evidence of more e-government growth in


sophistication (e.g., online transactional capacity) at the local level between 2000 and 2002, than
between 2002 and 2004, attributing it to the trickling down effects of higher-level agencies
tinkering with content, and with the lack of revenue and technical staffxvii . When resources are
devoted to what the Washington non-profit group OMB-Watch calls the “constant attack on
access”, more money, time and human resources are spent discovering ways to hide information
instead of improving security, infrastructure, and inter-agency communicationxviii. Indeed, soon
after e-Government’s initiation, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) reported
that the 24 initiatives initially set up by OMB to execute the Act, many failed to address the Bush
Administration’s stated goals, specifically that of inter-agency collaboration and customer focus,
and mechanisms for monitoring agency progress (GAO, 2002)xix.

When these resources are freed up, we can focus on other priorities. A second priority is inter-
agency communication, horizontal and vertical. A governing body such as the National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA) should be funded for overseeing the continuing
development of government directories such as USA.gov or Science.gov, in order to firstly
incorporate all federal agencies and their information portals, but also the information now
organized by the both the private and non-profit sectors, as we will discuss. This will have
secondary effects, important to our first priority. As I’ve already reported: in a survey, Hart
Teeter (2002) found that 79% of people thought that inter-agency communication resulting from
e-government would make the world and the U.S. a safer place, and 52% would definitely use its
services, were they freexx. Is the government serving its people? In another article, West (2004)
argues that a proper execution of e-government would indeed do the opposite of what it has
done: “enhance democratic responsiveness and boost beliefs that government is effectivexxi,”
which are the fundamental tenets of the act itself. Inter-agency communication must focus its
efforts both on security (see next priority) during information transfer, but also on non-
redundancy. It must be clearly established which agency is responsible for which source of
data/information. This is not always intuitive, and redundancy cannot always be avoided. Hence,
more importantly, NARA must establish guidelines for the structure and format of government
data, to ensure ease in transfer and storage, as well as ease in creating mash-ups should
requesters be interested in comparing two sources of data from distinct agencies. This would also
ease the forward migration of data when technology changes.

Coursey & Norris (2008) find that local governments lack technological resources due “to the
lack of financial resources, as local governments find it hard to compete with the private sector
for skilled information technology staff” (p. 9). Firstly, local governments should have vertical
access to information above, in order that they are not using unnecessary resources on
information that already exists. Also, government at the state and local levels can begin utilizing
a common architecture for information. A good example is www.state.xxxxx.us, for which
xxxxx is equivalent to the zip code for that community. While the content will obviously differ,
states and local governments need depend less on formal architecture and security, but instead
can focus their limited budgets on content.

A third priority must be security. It is this author’s opinion that the security of U.S. Government
information become a priority of the Government itself, and not be relegated to the private sector
per se, where FOIA obligations are non-binding and other interests than informing citizenry are
operative. As I discuss in the next section, the private sector’s current control over some


government data must be a temporary step towards reducing the current backlog created through
problems I noted in the first priority. Again, instead of figuring out how to hide information, we
can improve security. Despite security measures being federally mandated, Americans still worry
about the protection of their data and about hackers breaking into government computers. In
2002 only 34% of government websites had visible security policies (Hart-Teeter, 2002).
However, this should not imply customer payment for entry, as has been the trend (West, 2002),
and nor should it imply securing down a separate non-ISP inter-agency network intranet
backbone (i.e., GOVnet) inaccessible to citizens as proposed by Richard Clark of the U.S.
National Security Council. Instead, NARA should be in charge of overseeing each agency’s
development of a systems-architecture that takes security measures commensurate with the
levels of security each agency requires. This will restore user-confidence that requests are secure,
that the data they submit is secure, and that government data/information release follow pre-
established rules of classification and secrecy, and hence respects each citizen’s rights to access
and make informed decisions regarding the information, regardless of intent.

When should government provide access to documents, and when should it be left to the
private sector?

Due to the huge inefficiencies exacerbated by government secrecy, and literally thousands of
complaints regarding extreme delays in processing FOIA requests, a the private sector has taken
responsibility for publishing government or government-funded information in a few different
ways.

First, private companies whose owners are retired FOIA officers, some with extant security
clearances, are being subcontracted to handle all aspects of the request process, including
retrieval, review, and redaction. The Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Transportation all
sub-contract data processing. While experts have lauded their successxxii, they are criticized for
basing procurement rates on “market value”. Also, as one company spokesperson for a company
subcontracted for work with the Federal Data Procurement System said: “We like to meet with
folks and find out how they are using the data to provide a real-time access to the databasexxiii.”
Thus again, withholding, not disclosure, is the norm. We suggest that policy be directed at
making requesters self-sufficient in their requests. In other words, classification and SBU
labeling should happen prior to requests, in theory and practice, so that eventually requesters can
seek their own data, and in doing so see reasons why data was denied them or anybody, and that
such decisions were made prior to their request. While filling the huge backlog of requests will
take time, if outsourcing is to be used, its goal should be not only to catch up, but also to
streamline the process with a goal of requester self-sufficiency in mind. Also, private companies
whose goal is to profit off the venture, especially if profiting off of the requester, will be
avoided; instead, the group will be compensated through government funding for their work at
organization and structuring, with the intention of handing over the administration of the
database to the agency initially in charge of its creation/procurement.

Additionally, Jerry Brito published an article in the Columbia Science and Technology Law
Review detailing how agencies exacerbate and even discourage access to data due to
cumbersome and non-structured formats. The House and Senate offices in Washington, for


instance, grudgingly allow online-access to their database of financial disclosures of members of
Congress, pushing requesters to the paper recordxxiv. Thus, again, the first and second priorities I
list are fundamental. The database is there, but unused, as requesters are presumable required to
legitimize their need for the electronic versions. In response, some third-party groups have taken
it upon themselves to achieve what their government has failed, and initiated open-source
formats for easy searching, retrieval, and even information mash-up. OpenSecrets.org, for
example, one of many projects, has digitized the paper records of the financial disclosures of
members of Congress, in a free searchable database. OMB Watch also publishes a website,
FedSpending.org, that allows access to federal contract spending and financial assistance.
GovTrack.us was developed by a graduate student to track legislation information; and
MAPLight.org is a database of voting records and campaign finance records which offers a
unique perspective into money-politics interactions. Another trend is “crowdsourcing,” which
employs online user communities to digest large amounts of information in short periods of time.
TPMMuckraker.com, for example, provided overnight commentary on 3,000 pages of
documents surrounding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, and published it for usersxxv. We agree
with Brito, and suggest that as an alternative to outsourcing to private interests, government take
advantage of the open-source work we cite here. They can do so by first releasing public
information in a structured, and open format, so that more non-profit bodies can re-structure
them for public use. Government should also keep track of these websites, and incorporate them
into their fledgling directories, USA.gov or Science.gov. We again urge that an independent
government agency such as NARA be funded and held responsible for oversight and
implementation of such systems.

Oversight must also be established to draws lines between the creeping influence private sector
has over research funded by the public. According to the Federal Research Public Access Act
(FRPAA)(S.2695, 2006), any research funded by taxpayer money will be made freely available
to the public no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed periodical. This is the
legislative response to the case of PubScience, an open database of over 1,400 scientific
periodicals made available by the Department of Energy. Private interests claimed the
government was in competitive conflict with business-interests, and it was shut downxxvi. We
applaud the Department of Energy for making the database available as a peer-reviewed
alternative to literature in the scientific and technical fields, and cite it as an example of the
cooperative kinds of ventures we propose. While the private sector claims many arguments to
defend the move, many people, including universitiesxxvii, are beginning to publicly confront the
online-database publishing industry’s stronghold over access to taxpayer funded research
articles. There is evidence that illustrates journals would not be affected at all. In the case of
physics, where articles have been freely available online for over 10 years, journal subscriptions
have not taken a hitxxviii. The question becomes how both forms of the database can cooperate to
form an alliance, or whether Acts like FRPAA and initiatives such as Harvard’s open repository
will slowly force private sector controlled databases to open, or at least charge less money for
public accessxxix.

Should data quality regulations be used to keep agencies unbiased in their postings?


The Data Quality Act (DQA) is also known as the Information Quality Act. The law (P.L. 106-
554) amends the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501). It requires the Office of
Management and Budget to oversee the federal government in guidelines regarding the creation
of quality data. According to the Act, agencies are first required to issue their own data quality
guidelinesxxx, and then establish “administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek
and obtain correction of information” if they find the quality of data disseminated by federal
agencies does not meet standards that maximize “quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of
information…disseminated.” It also allows for an appeals process for those who disagree with an
agency’s verdict on any suits filed.

Many report that the purpose of the act was for Congress to prevent harm that may result should
the new proliferation of government websites disseminate inaccurate information. However,
many others, including the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP)xxxi and
OMB Watchxxxii, say the bill was inserted last-second as a rider to the Treasury and General
Government Appropriations Act by the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, an industry-
sponsored group, and hence had no hearings nor recorded debate. Proponents of the law include
the US Chamber of commerce, which claims the law “regulates the regulators”, while the critics
maintain the rider “builds on an industry lobbying effort to put roadblocks in the regulatory
processxxxiii.”

We agree with OMB Watch, and believe the DQA should be submitted to a full review and
annulled. In 2004 the group reported that OMB undercounted by a factor of three the number of
requests for correction, and that at least 72% of the challenges came from the private-sector. We
argue the directive is misguided and self-defeating in its intention to ensure the “objectivity,”
“integrity,” and “utility” of scientific research as part of the process of creating public policy.

This once again is a reiteration of a tendency towards government disruption of a presumption of
disclosure, replacing it with a presumption of “uncertainty,” twisting the way science has been
conceived since Francis Baconxxxiv. Take atrazine, a very profitable weedkiller that has repeatedly
been shown to disrupt the hormone cycles of certain creatures (e.g., frogs) in wildlife. A higher
incidence of prostate cancer was also found amongst males in Louisiana, where Syngenta
produces the chemical. A petition was filed under DQA and concluded that hormone disruption
“is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical’s use—because the government had not settled
on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption,” but also because other Syngenta-
funded researchers reported they could not reproduce the results. Many scientists, nevertheless,
have called atrazine’s effects conclusive and “one of the best studied chemicals.” But due to the
industry-funded process of “manufacturing uncertaintyxxxv,” and now with DQA, policy-makers
cannot say that it “conclusively” causes these health problems.

Air bags, second-hand smoke, condom use, breast-cancer, the health benefits of marijuana, and
many other environmental and health issues are being subjected to a litany of unnecessary
legislation. The legislation is not coming from individuals, but from industry attempting to use
the legislative process in the name of “regulation” and “objectivity” to stymie scientific results
that render their interests less profitable. It also comes from groups with ideological interests at
heart, attempting to use public policy to sway the public’s opinion on particular issues (e.g.,


condom and marijuana use) regardless of science, instead of allowing individuals to make their
own decisions after a review of the “facts” science attempts to accumulate and present.

Industry and public interest groups have every right to submit scientific research, but science has
been conceptualized to regulate itself through processes such as double-blind peer-reviews and
test-retest reproducibility. Science is falsifiable, whose object is to arrive at theories that are “less
bad” than others, the others of which become null or untenablexxxvi. You cannot “prove”
scientific theories, but this regulation is written such that if problems are found, the public must
bear the risk until science can “prove” that there is no risk. This is strikingly similar to what we
discussed as a “presumption of disclosure.” We strongly urge this bill to be repealed, and request
a judicial review of all the cases that have gone before the OMBxxxvii. We suggest no alternative,
but instead suggest that lawmakers begin adopting legislation to protect science from the
creeping intervention of the interests of the private sector. And we suggest that government
agencies reflect the ongoing “debate” in science regarding the questions at issue, so that
consumers of can make informed choices regarding its content and origin. This can be done not
by making definitive statements based on a non-existent “objectivity/non-objectivity”
dualismxxxviii , but instead by educating the public about the complexity of the issues involved, the
different points of view, and basic recommendations based current scientific consensus, or the
most up-to-date theory that does the least harm and is the “less bad.”

Does making documents accessible over the web eliminate the need for printing
documents?

The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA, 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.) serves to reduce the amount of
paperwork burden imposed on the public, while insuring the utility and quality of federal
information. The Government Paperwork Elimination Act (P.L. 105-277) amends PRA to
include promoting the advancement of information technology to replace the use of paper with
electronic processes. It allows the public to submit, transact, and maintain records electronically
with federal government agencies, as well as enforces the legal validity of an individual’s
electronic signature in representing him or herself. While we fully support the initiatives of this
act, we would pressure government to repeal the requirement that the act remain “technology-
neutral.” While it does permit an agency to use a technology commensurate with its needs, it
disallows inter-agency transmission of information both horizontally and vertically. OMB, who
oversees the act, should constrain the use of technologies that both respect the digital-divide in
their backward compatibility, but also avoid technologies that do not allow inter-agency data
migration due to proprietary or technological incompatibilities.

For instance, XML has become the standard of the IRS as part of the IRS Restructuring and
Reform Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-206, 112 Stat. 685). When data is coded with XML, the tags allow
data recognition across server-, system-, and application-types. Amongst other benefits in speed,
efficiency, and cost, it also “will reduce the redundancy of multiple state and federal filings faced
by employers” and by individuals, and “provide a valuable link between tax and financial
reporting” to “increase the transparency of tax-exempt organizations” as it “serves as both a tax
return and a financial statementxxxix.”


With an e-signature, it is no longer necessary that the IRS maintain paper-based copies of
individual’s tax returns. In such cases, however, legislation is required that establishes
regulations for how this electronic data is to be maintained and secured in multiple locations,
such that it is neither at the mercy of natural disaster nor cyber-crime. XML, in this case, secures
forward-migration issues, and thus open-source data-structuring formats allow for agencies to
share data, reduce redundancies between agencies.

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP, P.L. 106-
554) is a program initially funded by Congress. They established goals to define the kinds of
information worthy of preservation, the types of management systems and infrastructure required
for its preservation, how this will be financed, and the sticky issues of creating incentives for
doing soxl. Their mission reads: “Develop a national strategy to collect, archive and preserve the
burgeoning amounts of digital content, especially materials that are created only in digital
contents, for current and future generations.” Thus, it is clear that digital content needs to be
preserved as digital content, and we fully support the continued funding of this initiative and
others like it. For example, with web pages having an alarmingly short-life span, groups like the
Wayback Machine (www.archive.org/web/web.php) are beginning to archive their content and
structure, a medium completely unsuitable for printing. This archive already contains 85 billion
web pages, with almost 2 petabytes of data “growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month,” more
text than contained in the Library of Congress.

We propose that the U.S. government also begin to archive the month-by-month evolution of its
own websites, as well as the forms and transactions it undertakes, as a “running digital record” of
e-government. We argue that NARA should again be funded to undertake this initiative, which
will both serve as a glimpse into the history of the United States, but will also allow for the
government to be held accountable for what it publishes, distributes, and promotes to the public.
Data and transactions, however, are the responsibility (as previously suggested) of the individual
agencies. We argue that if a record was initiated and completed electronically, it need only be
preserved electronically. Exceptional cases may warrant printing, however, but rules and
guidelines need be established for such cases (e.g., a future document like the Declaration of
Independence would certainly warrant the preservation of a paper version). NDIIPP should also
perhaps work in coordination with NARA in order to establish and outline the rules that will
serve to discriminate those digitally produced resources requiring simultaneous print-
preservation, and those which are to remain “merely” digital.

Other groups like Google are spending huge amounts of resources digitizing analog collections
for future usexli. This is contentious for reasons of copyright infringement. However, it also
brings into question whether it will dilute standards of preservation for analog materials such as
unique books, photographs, cultural artifacts, and original historical documents. The current
ALA , AAM (American Association of Museums), and SAA (Society of American Archivist)
rules should remain in effect.

Conclusion


Cyber-optimism is the belief that technological change will take care of itselfxlii. While
philosophically up for debate, as human actors it behooves us to form policy that foresees the
human, national and international consequences of an ungoverned Internet. U.S. Policy must
work to respect the rights of it citizens to unlimited access to information unless that information
fit pre-established forms of classification or “sensitivity.” The government must justify why it
cannot release information, and reverse the trend that requires citizens to justify their need. This
is at odds with our Constitution, and until a presumption of disclosure is re-established, the
important business of inter-agency communication and Internet security will be stifled, and the
government will continue neglecting its responsibility to its people of making the country and the
world a safer and better place to live and do business.

Notes:
i
Hart-Teeter. (2002). E-Government: To Connect, Protect, and Serve Us. The Council for
Excellence in Government.
ii
The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (5 U.S.C. 1001-1011) became the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
of 1966 (5 U.S.C. 552), was expanded again in 1974 (P.L. 93-502), then amended in both 1986 tightening controls
(FOI Reform Act, P.L. 99-570), and was loosened again in 1996 and encompassed electronic records in E-FOIA
(P.L. 104-231).
iii
Department of Homeland Security, Management Directive System, C, Information Designated as FUOU, (e), (f),
(j).
iv
See Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2003 at 5 U.S.C. 5(a)(3)(A) and (E), which prohibits release of
information from 5 agencies to specific types of people.
v
Typically, reports Feinberg (2004), to three types of information: atomic energy, patents, and technical information
related to arms control/space/satellites and dual-use (military-civilian) technology.
vi
Matthews, William. (February 27, 2002). Perception of E-Gov Shifting. Federal
Computer Week. www.fcw.com/print.asp.
vii
Olsen, Florence. (September 7, 2007). Government earns low marks for openness. Federal Computer Week.
http://www.fcw.com/online/news/103693-1.html.
viii
See www.OpenTheGoverment.org.
ix
Brain, Ben (May 19, 2008). President orders agencies to simplify data labeling. Federal Computer Week.
http://www.fcw.com/online/news/152577-1.html?topic=egovernment.
x
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (April, 16, 2008). Legislation introduced to improve federal
recordkeeping. http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1875.
xi
Federation of American Scientists (January 02, 2008). New FOIA law does not “restore presumption of
openness.” Secrecy News. http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/01/new_foia_law_does_not_restore_.html.
xii
Mitchell, Kirsten B. (February 6, 2008). Bush seeks to reverse open records move. Ocala.com.
http://www.ocala.com/article/20080206/NEWS/802060333/1001/NEWS01.
xiii
Principles of Public Information, U.S. National Commission of Libraries and Information Science
http://www.nclis.gov/info/pripubin.html.
xiv
GAO, August 2002, 55–57.
xv
See Miriam Drake (June 3, 2008). Government doublethink: Protection or suppression of information.
Infotoday.com. http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/may03/drake.shtml.
xvi
This has been documented from sites divergent as ABC Nightline interviews the Agency for International
Development director, to statements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removing information on


condom use for STD prevention, to statements form the National Cancer Institute removing statements regarding the
non-relationship between abortion and breast cancer. We’ll discuss this in the Data Quality Act section.
xvii
See Coursey & Norris (2008). Models of e-government: Are they correct? An empirical assessment. Public
Administration Review, 68(3), and also Norris & Moon (2005). Advancing e-government at the grassroots: Tortoise
or hare? Public Administration Review, 65(1).
xviii
See http://www.ombwatch.org/info.
xix
United States General Accounting Office: Report to the Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate
(November, 2002). Electronic government: Selection and implementation of the Office of Management and
Budget’s 24 initiatives. www.gao.gov/cgi.bin/getrpt?GAO-03-299.
xx
Hart-Teeter. (2002). E-Government: To Connect, Protect, and Serve Us. The Council for
Excellence in Government.
xxi
West, D (2004). E-government and the transformation of service delivery and customer attitudes. Public
Administration Review, 64(1).
xxii
Lee, Christopher (June 8, 2004). On FOIA front, more agencies contract out: Private firms have growing role in
handling backlogs of requests for government records. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A23282-2004Jun7.html.
xxiii
Cited in Feinberg, L. (2004). FOIA, federal information policy, and information availability in a post-9/11 world.
Government Information Quarterly, 21(4).
xxiv
Brito, J. (2008). Hack, Mash, & Peer: Crowdsourcing Government Transparency. Columbia Science and
Technology Review, 119. http://www.stlr.org/cite.cgi?volume=9&article=4.
xxv
ibid., but also see: OMB Watch (May 28, 2008). A failure of access, a shortcoming of technology.
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4265/1/233?TopicID=1.
xxvi
Olsen, Stefanie (Novemer 21, 2002). Government agency pulls Web site. Cnet News.com.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-966824.html.
xxvii
Harvard University is the first university to establish its own repository of scientific articles by its faculty, with
access open to all. See Cohen, Patricia (February 12, 2008). At Harvard, a proposal to publish free on web. The New
York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/books/12publ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. For many other articles,
see http://hul.harvard.edu/osc/news.html.
xxviii
Ibid.
xxix
Salem, J.A. (2003). Public and private sector interests in e-‐‑government: a look at the DOE'ʹs
PubSCIENCE. Government Information Quarterly, 20(15).
xxx
The Guidelines can be found at OMB’s website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/agency_info_quality_links.html.
xxxi
DefendingScience.org. Information quality act: History and guidelines.
http://www.defendingscience.org/public_health_regulations/Information-Quality-Act-History-and-Guidelines.cfm.
xxxii
OMB Watch (May 28, 2002). Background on Data Quality Guidelines.
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/773/.
xxxiii
ibid.
xxxiv
Herrick, C.N. (2004). Objectivity versus narrative coherence: science, environmental policy, and the US Data
Quality Act. Environmental Science & Policy, 7(5).
xxxv
Weiss, Rick (August 16, 2004). ‘Data Quality’ law is nemesis of regulation. The Washington Post.
http://thecre.com/post/, acquired from the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness.
xxxvi
Popper, K (1934). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routledge.
xxxvii
The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness maintains a list of “Definitive Data Quality Articles,” and works to
overturn DQA. See http://www.thecre.com/quality/quality_2004.html.
xxxviii
Herrick, C.N. (2004). Objectivity versus narrative coherence: science, environmental policy, and the US Data
Quality Act. Environmental Science & Policy, 7(5).
xxxix
Gara, S.C., Karim, K.E., & Pinsker, R.E. (December, 2005). The benefits of XML implementation for tax
filing and compliance. The CPA Journal. http://www.nysscpa.org/printversions/cpaj/2005/1205/p66.htm.
xl
The program is led by the Library of Congress, and can be found at: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/library/.


xli
Walker, Leslie (May 18, 2006). Google’s goal: A worldwide web of books. The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051702016.html.
xlii
Norris, Pippa (2001). Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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