ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 12, Number 76
August 28, 2003

In This Issue: ALA and Other Groups Demand Public Voice On Rules that Could Restrict Access to Public Information Deemed "Sensitive"

On August 26, 2003, seventy-five organizations representing librarians, journalists, scientists, environmental groups, privacy advocates, and others sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge calling on the Department of Homeland Security to allow public input on procedures for "safeguarding" and sharing a vaguely defined set of information between firefighters, police officers, public health researchers and federal, state, and local governments.

The letter [http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Our_Association/Offices/ALA_Washington/Issues2/Government_Information/SHSI.pdf] asks Secretary Ridge to release a draft version of the new procedures - which would not themselves contain classified information - for the public to comment on. It also requests that DHS address public comments in writing a final version.  The letter expresses concern that the procedures may cut a broad swath of information out of the public domain - including such items as maps of environmental contamination - that is not classified but which may be perceived as "helpful to a terrorist or potentially helpful in responding to or preventing an unknown future attack." The signatories are also concerned that the procedures would subject millions of persons inside and outside of government to non-disclosure agreements and impose criminal penalties for disclosing information improperly. The procedures could, moreover, cut out the ability of journalists, community groups, and others to inform the public of activities of federal, state and local governments.

The law that created the Department, the Homeland Security Act, included a provision that required the federal government to safeguard and share "homeland security information" with government officials, public health professionals, firefighters and others in order to respond to a terrorist attack. But, under the auspices of fighting terrorism, the Department is poised to write - without guarantees for public input - procedures that could sweep up otherwise publicly available information that has nothing to do with terrorism into a zone of secrecy while subjecting millions of Americans to confidentiality agreements.


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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.