Less access to less information by and about the U.S. Government xxviii: a 1997 chronology: January – June

ALA Washington Office Clironology
INFORMATION ACCESS

American Library Association, Washington Office

1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 403

Washington, D.C. 20004 -1701

Tel: 202-628-8410 Fax: 202-628-8419 E-mail: alawash@alawash.org http://www.alawash.org

June 1997

LESS ACCESS TO LESS
INFORMATION BY AND ABOUT
THE U.S. GOVERNMENT: XXVIII

A 1997 Chronology: January - June

LESS ACCESS TO LESS INFORMATION BY AND ABOUT
THE U.S. GOVERNMENT: XXVIII

A 1997 Chronology: January - June
CONTENTS

Introduction 3

JANUARY

National security agencies blunder 4

Timing of ethics report release causes controversy ... 4

More Kennedy assassination records made public ... 4
Ethics report made available on publicly inaccessible

web site 4

White House acknowledged conflicting statements ... 4
Disclaimer issued for Foreign Relations of the United

States 5

Runyon's stock worth more 5

Crop freeze blamed on lack of weather data 5

CIA taught, then dropped, mental torture techniques . . 5

Quality of data and quality of life linked 5

Specificity limited of airline safety data 6

IRS admits it lacks the "intellectual capital" to

modernize 6

FEBRUARY

Contractor denies access to organ transplant data to

the public and government 6

IRS sued for failure to protect its records 7

CIA critic leaves State Department 7

Army warned early of Gulf chemical exposure 7

White House tries to control damage from documents

release 7

New documents show Senator involved in

controversial fundraising 7

Pentagon reveals it lost chemical weapons logs 8

MARCH

Government has too many secrets 8

White House and FBI clash over briefing 8

Eisenhower secretly recorded White House

conversations 8

FBI director admits giving inaccurate data 8

Administration proposes legislation to protect

humans from secret experiments 8

APRIL

EPA admits error in health benefits data 9

Too much useless information hampered troops in

Bosnia 9

Bosnian arms policy criticized 9

Weather service cuts said to cost lives 9

CIA says it failed to share information about chemical

dump 9

Justice Department says CIA failed to refer Ames

information to the FBI 9

President expands public access to environmental

information 10

MAY

National Academy of Sciences committees must open

to the public 10

Social Security Administration shuts down online

access to database 10

White House will appeal Court decision that it must

turn over lawyers' notes 11

Report says secret Army chemical spraying did not

harm health 11

President apologizes for government deception .... 11

Fate unknown of many families cut off welfare 11

Fugitive documents decrease public access to

information 11

CIA destroyed documents on the 1953 coup in Iran . 12

JUNE

Lack of data hampers agency compliance with law . . 12
Legislation moves forward to allow federal employees
to provide more secrets to Congress 12

LESS ACCESS TO LESS INFORMATION BY AND ABOUT
THE U.S. GOVERNMENT: XXVIII

A 1997 Chronology: January - June
INTRODUCTION

For the past 16 years, this ongoing selective
chronology has documented efforts to restrict and
privatize government information. It is distributed as a
supplement to the ALA Washington Office Newsletter
and as an electronic publication at http://www.ala.org/
washoff/lessaccess.

While government information is more accessible
through computer networks and the Freedom of
Information Act, there are still barriers to public access.
The latest damaging disclosures facing the Clinton
Administration involve allegations of concealing
information and claiming executive privilege. Continuing
revelations of Cold War secrecy show how government
information has been concealed, resulting in a lack of
public accountability and cost to taxpayers.

Another development, with major implications for
public access, is the growing tendency of federal
agencies to use computer and telecommunication
technologies for data collection, storage, retrieval, and
dissemination. This trend has resulted in the increased
emergence of contractual arrangements with commercial
firms to disseminate information collected at taxpayer
expense, higher user charges for government
information, and the proliferation of government
information available in electronic format only. This trend
toward electronic dissemination is occurring in all three
branches of government. While automation clearly offers
promises of savings, will public access to government
information be further restricted for people who cannot
afford computers or pay for computer time?

On the other hand, the Government Printing Office
GPO Access system and the Library of Congress
THOMAS system have enhanced public access by
providing free online access to government databases.
A study prepared in July 1996 by GPO for Congress
recommends a five to seven year transition to a more
electronic depository program instead of the rapid two-
year transition proposed in 1995 by the House of
Representatives.

ALA continues to reaffirm its long-standing conviction
that open government is vital to a democracy. A January
1984 resolution passed by ALA's Council stated that
"there should be equal and ready access to data
collected, compiled, produced, and published in any
format by the government of the United States."

In 1986, ALA initiated a Coalition on Government
Information. The Coalition's objectives are to focus
national attention on all efforts that limit access to
government information, and to develop support for
improvements in access to government information.

With access to information a major ALA priority,
library advocates should be concerned about barriers to
public access to government information. Previous
chronologies were compiled in two ALA Washington
Office indexed publications, Less Access to Less
Information By and About the U.S. Government: A 1981-
1987 Chronology, and Less Access to Less Information
By and About the U.S. Government: A 1988-1991
Chronology. The following selected chronology
continues the tradition of a semi-annual update.

Less Access. . .

January- June 1997

CHRONOLOGY

JANUARY
National security agencies blunder

The end of 1996 saw several public relations blunders
that drew unfavorable attention to various federal
agencies that are part of the national security
establishment. The apparent decision of the Central
Intelligence Agency to make major cuts in personnel and
the budget for its popular Foreign Broadcast Information
Service (FBIS) caused the service's fans to protest. "For
them to be talking about massive cutbacks is a tragedy,"
said Rep. W. Curtis Weldon (R-PA). "If anything, we
need more info." FBIS, which provides English-language
translations of more than 3,500 publications from around
world, is considered essential reading among diplomats,
journalists, academics and politicians who follow foreign
affairs. Additionally, for some, FBIS is one of the few
visible products that the public receives from the annual
$29 billion investment in intelligence collection.

In another incident, the Air Force leaked the news that it
determined that no Air Force person should be held
responsible for the bombing of an Air Force housing
complex in Saudi Arabia where 19 Americans were killed
and 500 wounded. But the Air Force withheld release of
the report on which the blanket clearances were based,
pending further legal reviews. The Air Force finding
contradicted the conclusions of a Pentagon investigation
which said that the base's military leaders had failed to
react to a number of intelligence warnings about terrorist
attacks planned in Saudi Arabia. (Kitfield, James.
"Ready, Aim. ..Oops!" National Journal, 4 January 1997,
45.)

Timing of ethics report release causes controversy

In early January, the bi-partisan membership of the
House ethics committee had agreed on several days of
public hearings into the acknowledged ethical violations
of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) before the
entire House would vote on the speaker's punishment.
But when Democrats complained that they would be
required to vote before the committee's special counsel
James Cole turned in his report, the agreement fell apart.
The dispute concerned the special counsel's role in the
hearings and what information he would present. Rep.
Nancy Johnson (R-CT), chair of the ethics panel, said
she told Cole to complete the committee's final report by
January 16 "for circulation to the public and to every
member of Congress. Following that, we anticipate a
public hearing." (Blomquist, Brian. "Gingrich hearings

deferred," The Washington Times, 10 January 1997, A1.)

More Kennedy assassination records made public

Continuing a story that Less Access has documented for
many years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
transferred to the National Archives 15,121 more pages
of records related to President John Kennedy's
assassination. The latest files are documents reviewed
by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in
1978 and 1979 when it examined various assassination
conspiracy theories. The FBI has transferred more than
666,000 pages of Kennedy assassination records to
NARA under a 1992 law that provides public access to
the records. (Associated Press. "FBI Turns Over More
Files on Kennedy Assassination," The Washington Post,
14 January 1997, A13.)

Ethics report made available on publicly
inaccessible web site

When the ethics committee's report on House Speaker
Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was released the GPO
Conference's photocopier could not meet the demand for
copies. The leadership then posted the report in the
Member services section of its Web site, which the public
cannot access. (Henry, Ed. "Spin Begins Even Before
Counsel's Report Is Out," Roll Call, January 20, 1997, A-
1)

White House acknowledged conflicting statements

White House officials acknowledged providing incorrect
or incomplete statements three times in recent months
about its knowledge of key events in the campaign fund-
raising activities that have resulted in numerous
investigations. They were explained as the innocent
results of internal miscommunications instead of a
deliberate attempt to mislead the public. The three
events identified were:

• The hiring of Webster Hubbell, longtime Clinton friend
and former associate attorney general convicted of
bilking clients of his old law firm, by an Indonesian
firm owned by Democratic financial benefactors. The
White House said in December 1996 that it did not
know of Hubbells' hiring before it was disclosed by
news media accounts. Later it was found that Bruce
Lindsey, a senior Clinton adviser, was aware of the
arrangement in 1994.

• The meetings of President Bill Clinton, the Indonesian

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January-June 1997

firm executive James Riady and Democratic fund-
raiser John Huang were characterized as social
chats. Later it was revealed that they also talked
about U.S. policy toward Indonesia and China.

• Vice President A! Gore said during the 1996

campaign that he did not realize a controversial event
he attended at a Buddhist temple was actually a
Democratic fund-raiser. Recently he said that his
staff had sent him a memo informing him that those
attending had paid to belong to the party committee
that hosted the events. (Baker, Peter. "White House
Acknowledges Another Foul-Up," The Washington
Post, 24 January 1997.)

Disclaimer issued for Foreign Relations of the United
States

Volume XXII of Foreign Relations of the United States,
covering the years 1961 to 1963, has been published
with an unprecedented disclaimer that a committee of
historians thinks "this published compilation does not
constitute a 'thorough, accurate, and reliable
documentary record of major United States foreign policy
decisions.'" The censored material involves U.S. actions
from 1958-1960 in Japan, and marks a victory by CIA
classifiers over history. "A frightening precedent," said
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American
Scientists. "The government would rather people imagine
the worst rather than know the truth." (Kamen, Al. "And
the Truth Shall Make You [Deleted]," The Washington
Post, 24 January 1997.)

Runyon's stock worth more

Postmaster General Marvin Runyon had a much larger
holding of Coca-Cola stock than he had previously
disclosed. Runyon, under investigation for possible
conflict of interest violations for his involvement in a
proposal that would have given the company exclusive
nghts to place soft drink machines in the nation's post
offices, sold his holdings last summer for between
$350,000 and $360,000 after questions were raised
about his role in the deal. His 1995 disclosure statement
indicated the value of his Coca-Cola stock between
$50,000 and $100,000. The 1996 disclosure statement,
subsequently released by postal officials, placed the
value of the Coca-Cola stock between $250,001 and
$500,000. Runyon said he never believed the vending
machine deal would benefit him and once he learned his
role was being questioned he recused himself from the
discussions and sold his stock. (McAllister, Bill.
"Runyon's Coca-Cola Stock Worth More Than Stated,"

The Washington Post. 24 January 1997, A21.)

Crop freeze blamed on lack of weather data

A freeze in Florida, the worst in seven years, caused $93
million in damage to winter vegetable and fruit crops in
Dade County, and losses for all crops could total $250
million statewide. Officials said one reason for the
severity of the losses was that farmers did not get
adequate warning of the weather so they could take
precautions. Due to budget cuts, the National Weather
Service stopped forecasting temperatures for agricultural
areas in April 1996, forcing farmers to rely on local
forecasts of populated areas, which tend to be warmer.
"This was the first year we haven't had a weather
forecast coming from the Government," specifically for
farming areas, said Bob Crawford, Florida Agriculture
Commissioner. "It really left farmers in the larch not
knowing this freeze is coming." ("Worst Freeze in Years
Ruins Florida Crops," The New Yorl< Times, 24 January
1997, A20.)

CIA taught, then dropped, mental torture techniques

According to documents released by the CIA, the agency
taught techniques of mental torture and coercion to at
least five Latin American security forces in the early
1980s, but dropped these methods of interrogation in
1985. A 1983 manual advised against physical torture,
but discussed using intense fear, deep exhaustion,
solitary confinement, unbearable anxiety, and other
forms of psychological duress against a subject. The
agency's role in training Latin American security forces
was discussed in the press and in closed Congressional
heanngs in the mid-1980s. The 1983 manual on
interrogation and the 1985 prohibition against coercive
methods were made public through a Freedom of
Information Act request filed by The Baltimore Sun for a
series on the CIA's relationship with a Honduran military
battalion. The CIA's office of public affairs acknowledged
for the first time on January 28, 1 997 the agency's prior
teaching and subsequent repudiation of psychological
torture. (Weiner, Tim. "CIA Taught, Then Dropped,
Mental Torture in Latin America," The New York Times,
29 January 1997, All.)

Quality of data and quality of life linked

The growing threat to federal data collection and
preservation is a hot topic of debate. Questions about
the data being used to calculate the consumer pnce
index (CPI) has generated a great deal of news, but the
problem of inadequate measurement goes much deeper
than current headlines. According to the author,

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January-June 1997

shortsighted congressional attacks on funding for data
collection and preservation "will significantly damage
everyone's quality of life, not just those affected by
changes in the CPI." She observes that in its haste to
reduce the federal deficit, Congress has plans to cut
funding substantially over the next 10 years for data
collection for federal agencies, including the 2000
census. "The cuts will hurt quality of life measurement
projects at every level - federal, state, and local. Even
local projects depend on federal data gathering for many
important categories of information about their
environments, social conditions, and economies." The
author concludes: "There is a lot of loose talk these days
about what kind of debt we are passing on to our
children. But a 'know nothing' information policy at the
dawn of the information age is a contradiction neither we
nor our children can afford." (Strong, Susan C. "The Link
Between Quality of Data and Quality of Life," The
Christian Science Monitor, 30 January 1997.)

Specificity limited of airline safety data

The Federal Aviation Administration announced it will
use the Internet to disseminate airline safety data that
previously had been considered confidential. FAA was
pressured by Congress to release more airline safety
performance data after the May 1996 ValuJet Airlines
crash in Florida. But airlines' safety records will not be
ranked in the same way as FAA ranks on-time and
luggage-handling performance. Apparently, airline
officials convinced the FAA and Congress to limit the
specificity of the data on airline safety that certain FAA
data could be misinterpreted and should not be released.
Information about maintenance violations — such as
engine trouble or missed repair schedules — will not be
included because of FAA concerns that airlines might be
discouraged from volunteering such information if it were
released. Previously, it would have required a Freedom
of Information Act request to access much of the
information that will be available on the FAA Web page
located at: http://viAAAA/. faa.gov. (Mintz, John. "FAA to
Release Data on Safety of Airlines," The Washington
Post, 30 January 1997, D1.)

IRS admits it lacks the "intellectual capital" to
modernize

Arthur Gross, an Assistant Commissioner of Internal
Revenue, told the National Commission on Restructuring
the IRS that it had spent $4 billion developing modern
computer systems that "do not work in the real world."
He said that he doubted that the agency was capable of
developing modern computer systems because it lacked

the "intellectual capital" to do the job. Gross also
proposed contracting out the processing of paper tax
returns filed by individuals, a move that would permit
non-government workers to see confidential financial
information on tax returns. (Johnston, David Cay. "IRS
Admits Lag in Modernization; Urges Contract Plan," The
New York Times, 31 January 1997, A1.)

FEBRUARY
Contractor denies access to organ transplant data to
the public and government

The United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit
organization based in Richmond, is a public/private
partnership intended to manage the acquisition and
distribution of the nation's scarce supply of donated
organs. Although the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Sen/ices' Division of Organ Transplantation
regulates UNOS and paid about 18 percent of its $13.1
million revenue in 1995, in recent months UNOS has
repeatedly told the government that it cannot have data
on transplant centers' turndowns of organ offers, access
to records and meetings of UNOS' Council on Organ
Availability, and, on occasion, minutes of UNOS' public
board and committee meetings.

While the government increasingly finds itself helpless
when UNOS says no, some people think the government
has abdicated its responsibility. "You can't delegate
public policy to a private contractor," said Dr. John
Roberts, a liver transplant surgeon at the University of
California at San Francisco. "You can't have the people
who are in control — essentially competitors — make
policy." UNOS Executive Director Walter Graham
disagrees. "I personally believe that the essence of
democracy is self-regulation," he said.

The Plain Dealer requested data listing the reasons
transplant programs turn down organ offers under the
Freedom of Information Act for centers that transplant
hearts, lungs, kidneys, pancreases and livers because it
wanted the information for a series of articles. Officials
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
agreed to ask UNOS for the data last summer, but
UNOS officials denied the request, maintaining that the
data are "misleading," and "meaningless" indicators of
transplant centers' quality. Following the newspaper's
appeal, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
official Remy Aronoff said of UNOS, "They think if it's
given out and publicized, it will jeopardize their ability to
get that same data from their sources." "Because it's
potentially embarrassing?" Aronoff was asked. "Well,

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yeah, right." (Davis, Dave and Ted Wendling.
"Contractor keeps government in dark on transplant
data," The Plain Dealer {OH), 3 February 1997, S-A.)

IRS sued for failure to protect its records

The American Historical Association, the Organization of
American Historians, the Society of American Archivists
and Tax Analysts of Arlington joined in a lawsuit against
the Internal Revenue Service in U.S. District Court
alleging that the IRS is not taking care of its records and
has huge gaps in its documents for the 1890s, 1910s
and the 1940s. The suit alleges that IRS records could
help understand the history of taxation in the United
States and the transformation of the income tax from a
"class tax" to a "mass tax" after the Depression and
World War II. According to the historians, tax records
are scattered throughout IRS headquarters, with no
inventory, while others are rotting in leaky basements.
The lawsuit maintains that the IRS and the National
Archives and Records Administration have failed to
comply with the Federal Records Act requiring all federal
agencies to turn historically significant documents to the
Archives. (Locy, Toni. "IRS's Record-Keeping Found
Lacking," The Washington Post, 11 February 1997, A19.)

CIA critic leaves State Department

Richard Nuccio, an adviser in the State Department's
Latin America bureau, left his post to become an aide to
Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ). Nuccio lost his security
clearances last year because of his role in revelations
about CIA activities in Guatemala. In March 1995, he
took his concerns to Torricelli that the CIA had withheld
information that a paid CIA informant was involved in a
coverup of the killing of an American citizen and of the
Guatemalan husband of an American woman.
Torricelli's decision to make public the information upset
the CIA which places high priority on the secrecy of its
agents' identities. In his resignation letter to President
Clinton, Nuccio wrote that the CIA continues to rely on
disreputable agents for information although such
persons are the "principal enemies of the policies of
democracy and human rights." (Gedda, George. "CIA
Critic Quits State to Push Reform," The Washington
Post, 25 February 1997, A14.)

Army warned early of Gulf chemical exposure

The CIA provided the Army with information in February
1991 suggesting that an ammunition dump in Iraq that
American troops blew up a month later may have
contained chemical weapons. The Pentagon said that
the information was never passed on to the American

troops who demolished the ammunition dump. These
soldiers learned only last year that they may have been
exposed to nerve gas as a result of the blasts. The
Pentagon has estimated that 20,000 troops may have
been exposed, although there is no conclusive evidence
that anyone was made sick as a result. The newly
declassified CIA reports undermine the Pentagon's
repeated assertions that it was only last year that they
were aware of the possibility of exposure of American
troops to chemicals at the depot. The documents raise
new suspicions about the credibility of the Pentagon and
the CIA. Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) said the CIA had
clearly hidden information about the issue. "The CIA is
every bit as implicated as the D.O.D." he said. "The CIA
has known since 1991 and totally failed to come forward
until late last year." (Shenon, Phlip. "Pentagon Now
Says It Knew of Chemical Weapons Risk," The New
York Times, 26 February 1997, A20.)

White House tries to control damage from
documents release

The White House released hundreds of pages of
documents related to new disclosures about President
Clinton's role in Democratic fundraising. They follow
thousands of other documents released over the past
month that show how the Democratic National
Committee raised money by bringing top supporters to
the White House. Presidential aides declared the White
House had nothing to hide. Having disclosed the
documents, the White House was forced to explain what
they meant. Some documents refer to DNC-sponsored
coffees at the White House as fund-raisers, which are
illegal on federal property. White House spokesman
Michael McCurry said the events were misdescribed.
(Harris, John F. "Hundreds of Pages Added to White
House Experiment in Disclosure," The Washington Post,
26February 1997, A8.)

New documents show Senator involved in
controversial fundraising

Newly released White House documents contradict Sen.
Chris Dodd's (D-CT) claim that he was not involved with
the Democratic National Committee's controversial
fundraising practices when he was the party's general
chairman during the last election. Thus far, Dodd had
blamed his former co-chair, Don Fowler for the DNC's
fundraising mistakes. But a July 1995 memo shows that
Dodd — over Fowler's objections — encouraged the White
House to continue offering "premier" access to $100,000
DNC contributors. (Henry, Ed. "Democrats Tied to DNC
Scandal," Roll Call, 27 February 1997, A1.)

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Pentagon reveals it lost chemical weapons logs

The Defense Department revealed that all full copies of
the chemical-warfare logs from the 1991 Persian Gulf
war had disappeared, although copies on paper and
computer disks had been stored after the war in locked
safes at two locations in the United States. An
exhaustive search found only 36 pages of the estimated
200 pages of classified logs that were supposed to
record any incident in which chemical or biological
weapons were detected. The report increased
speculation by veterans groups and Members of
Congress that there had been either criminal
incompetence with the Defense Department or a cover-
up. (Shenon, Philip. "Pentagon Reveals It Lost Most
Logs on Chemical Arms," The New York Times, 28
February 1997, A1.)

MARCH
Government has too many secrets

The Report of the Commission on Protecting and
Reducing Government Secrecy, released in early March,
said that the federal government's system for classifying
and keeping secrets is out of control. The Commission
was chaired by Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-NY).
According to the report, about a half-million government
officials and contractors have the power to stamp a
document "secret", and they do so on more than 3 million
a year. In government vaults, there are about 1 .5 billion
pages of documents stamped secret that are more than
25 years old. About a half-million requests to make
documents public under FOIA are received each year,
but it can take months or years to respond. The cost of
processing FOIA requests runs more than $100 million a
year. In 1995, President Clinton ordered that all secrets
more than 25 years old should be automatically
declassified by the year 2000 — with certain exceptions
for national security. But so far, only about 10 percent of
those documents have been declassified. (Thomas,
Evan. "Taming Uncle Sam's Classification Compulsion,"
The Washington Post, 9 March 1997, C2.)

White House and FBI clash over briefing

The White House and the FBI gave conflicting versions
of their contacts with each other about a briefing on an
alleged Chinese plan to influence the 1996 U.S.
congressional elections. President Clinton complained
that he had only recently found out about the allegation
about China because FBI agents who briefed National
Security Council staff at the White House asked that the
information not be revealed, and the White House aides
complied. Within hours, the FBI issued a public

statement rebutting this account, insisting that it had
placed no restriction on the dissemination of information
within the White House. The White House insisted the
FBI statement was "in error." (Baker, Peter. "Clinton, FBI
Clash Publicly Over China Probe Briefing," The
Washington Post, 11 March 1997, A1.)

Eisenhower secretly recorded White House
conversations

President Dwight Eisenhower used a secret dictabelt
machine to record conversations in the Oval Office. The
dictabelts went unnoticed at the Eisenhower library in
Abilene, KS for more than 40 years. Old, creased,
flattened out and stuffed into letter-sized envelopes with
dates and other notations scribbled by Eisenhower or his
secretary, the late Ann Whitman. The conversations
were recorded on machines that are now obsolete. "We
thought they were damaged and unplayable," library
director Dan Holt said. But last summer a New York
researcher, William S. Doyle, asked to listen to them.
Wth the help of the Dictaphone Corp. and other experts
the conversations that have been found will be released
to the public. "The Eisenhower recording system was a
closely held secret" when it was in operation, said Doyle.
(Lardner, George. "Eisenhower Secretly Recorded Oval
Office Sessions," The Washington Post, 15 March 1997,
A6.)

FBI director admits giving inaccurate data

Louis Freeh, director of the FBI, acknowledged providing
inaccurate testimony to Congress about the suspension
of a crime-lab whistle-blower after the Department of
Justice Inspector General told him to correct his
testimony as promptly as possible. Sen. Charles
Grassley (R-IA), chair of a Senate subcommittee that
oversees the FBI, released several letters describing
Freeh's testimony and its inaccuracies. An FBI
statement said that Freeh "totally rejects any contention
that he deliberately misled the Congress or the public."
He promptly corrected the record when his "inadvertent
omission" was pointed out to him, the statement said.
(Davidson, Joe. "FBI's Director Admits Giving Inaccurate
Data," The Wall Street Journal, 18 March 1997.)

Administration proposes legislation to protect
humans from secret experiments

Continuing an ongoing story in this chronology, the
Clinton Administration said it would propose legislation
that would protect Americans involved in secret
government experiments from abuses like those when
humans were used in Cold War-era human radiation

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January-June 1997

tests. Additionally, Secretary of Energy Federico Pena
announced that the Administration would expand current
law and compensate roughly 600 uranium miners who
developed lung cancer. Lack of records of the
experiments, many dating from the 40s, 50s and 60s
have hampered efforts to compensate victims or their
survivors. (Strobel, Warren. "Rules set to protect human
subjects," The Washington Times, 29 March 1997, A2.)

APRIL
EPA admits error in health benefits data

The Environmental Protection Agency conceded that it
had overestimated by about one-fourth the health
benefits of stricter air pollution standards the agency
wants to impose this summer. The admission provides
ammunition to those who oppose the proposed
regulations. EPA now says the new standards designed
to reduce smog and soot in American cities would
prevent 15,000 premature deaths each year, down from
the 20,000 originally projected. The recalculation came
at an inopportune time for EPA because critics of the
proposed rule allege that the proposals were not
supported by scientific evidence. Supporters said the
error does not change the fundamental problem of
unhealthy levels of industrial soot in the air that leads to
needless loss of life. (Warrick, Joby. "EPA Concedes
Error in Air Pollution Claim, " The Washington Post, 3
April 1997. A19.)

Too much useless information hampered troops in
Bosnia

A Pentagon study has determined that too much useless
information was overwhelming troops in Bosnia and that
a "major weakness" existed in providing computerized
human intelligence. The report was prepared by a task
force of the Defense Science Board which said that the
good news is that information flowing down to the troops
is "much more robust." On the other hand, "we need to
make sure that we don't saturate the warrior with data
while starving him of useful information," the report said.
Widespread computer viruses were identified as another
problem. The task force recommended guards and
training to prepare for the possibility that enemies might
exploit the vulnerability of computers as a way to impede
U.S. computer-run operations. (Pincus, Walter.
"Information Glut Hampered U.S. Troops in Bosnia,
Pentagon Say," The Washington Post, 3 April 1997,
A22.)

Weather service cuts said to cost lives

Some employees of the National Weather Service are

fighting personnel cuts being made at the agency,
maintaining that the cuts will impair forecasting and
endanger lives and property. The weather service also
said it would temporarily defer maintenance on vital
computer and forecasting systems and freeze its
program to replace equipment to meet a funding cut of
$27,5 million in FY97. The Administration has proposed
an increase of $10.8 million in FY98 for the weather
service, but unless Congress approves this level, further
deep personnel cuts will be necessary.

As an example of the risk to public safety resulting from
these cuts, National Weather Service officials point out
that three Coast Guard crewmen died in February off the
coast of Washington when their boat capsized in rough
seas during a rescue. The seas were forecast to be 12
to 15 feet high, but were actually as high as 24 feet. A
weather service buoy in the area could have given a
more accurate reading on sea height, but was not
operating because the service had stopped maintaining
it. "With the restructuring of the National Weather
Service, we have more and more information coming to
us on weather," said Rick McCoy, emergency
management director of Van Wert County, OH. "Cutting
staff means... the information is not going to get out in
time and people are going to die." (Rivenbark, Leigh.
"Storm Brews Over RIFs," Federal Times, 7 April 1997,
3.)

CIA says it failed to share information about
chemical dump

The CIA released a report suggesting that intelligence
errors may have led to the destruction of an Iraqi
ammunition dump that may have exposed thousands of
American troops to nerve gas. The CIA apologized to
the veterans for the mistakes at an unusual televised
news conference. The report revealed that the CIA had
solid evidence in 1986 that thousands of weapons filled
with mustard gas had been stored at the Kamisiyah
ammunition depot in southern Iraq. Yet the agency failed
to include the depot on a list of suspected chemical-
weapons sites provided to the Pentagon before the war.
(Shenon, Philip. "CIA Report Says It Failed to Share
Data on Iraq Arms," The New York Times, 10 April 1997,
A1.)

Justice Department Says CIA Failed to Refer Ames
Information to the FBI

A Justice Department report concluded that "the CIA
must bear the primary responsibility" for investigators'
failure to focus early attention in the late 1980s on spy

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January- June 1997

Aldrich Ames. DOJ Inspector General Michael
Bromwich reported that "potentially incriminating
information concerning Ames" available at the CIA in late
1989 "was not properly referred to the FBI for
investigation." Additionally, much of the summary of a
still-classified 400-page report by Bromwich repeated
criticisms of the FBI's performance that were made
public in a 1994 House intelligence committee report.
The report complained of the FBI's slow-start in
investigating the loss of two FBI-recruited agents who
had been working inside the Soviet Embassy in
Washington. Ames, a veteran counterintelligence officer
spied for nine years for Moscow. He provided
information that led to the deaths of 10 Soviet and other
officials who were working and clandestine agencies for
the United States. (Pincus, Walter. "Report Faults CIA's
Delay in Ames Case," The Washington Post, 22 April
1997, A6.)

President expands public access to environmental
information

After considerable internal debate within the
Administration, a decision was made to provide more
access to more information from the government.
President Clinton marked Earth Day by issuing new
federal regulations requiring thousands more industrial
facilities to report the toxic chemicals they emit into the
air, land and water. The rules expand the "community-
right-to-know" program that provides detailed public
information on toxic materials in local communities. "By
expanding community right to know, we're giving
Americans a powerful-very powerful-early warning
system to keep their children safe from toxic pollution,"
Clinton said. "We're giving them the most powerful tool
in a democracy-knowledge." Citizens can tap into the
Internet or visit local libraries to find out what toxic
materials are being discharged in their neighborhood.

Administration officials had considered softening the plan
because of complaints from industry officials and
congressional Republicans who maintain that the
requirements are too burdensome. Critics say that
compliance with the rules cost too much, particularly for
small businesses, which pay an estimated $7,000 a year
in paperwork. (Baker, Peter. "Clinton Marks Earth Day
by Widening Scope of Toxic Release Reporting Rules,"
The Washington Post, 23 April 1997, A15.)

MAY
National Academy of Sciences committees must

open to the public

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
ruled that advisory committees of the National Academy
of Sciences, the premier independent scientific body in
the United States, must provide open public access to
their deliberations and documents. The private,
congressionally chartered organization plans to appeal
the ruling to the Supreme Court on the grounds that such
access could threaten the objectivity and quality of its
research reports. The case at issue involves a suit by
the Animal Legal Defense Fund and other groups to
prevent the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services from using an NAS committee's proposed
revisions to the principal federal guide for the care and
use of laboratory animals.

The plaintiffs argued that the NAS committees should be
subject to the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act
which requires bodies that advise the federal
government to open their proceedings and to follow strict
government regulations in appointing committees and
conducting meetings. For decades, NAS has exercised
exclusive control over committee membership and
usually has met behind closed doors on such
controversial topics as: nuclear energy, air quality,
pesticide safety, electrical and magnetic fields. Even
when committees act under congressional mandates,
are funded by federal agencies and are producing
reports intended to influence government policy, NAS
has followed its own rules. Bruce Alberts, the academy's
president, said this practice ensures that the panels can
provide "independent, objective scientific advice" free of
political pressure of partisan influence." (Suplee, Curt.
"Court Orders Public Access at National Academy of
Sciences," The Washington Post, 7 May 1997, A19.)

Social Security Administration shuts down online
access to database

In April, the Social Security Administration shut down
online access to its database of Personal Earnings and
Benefits Estimate Statements for 60 days after some
Members of Congress, privacy advocates and the public
complained that personal privacy was too easily
compromised at the site. Recent Congressional
hearings were held to determine what kind of security
would allow the SSA to safely resume posting the
sensitive financial records on the Internet. All it took was
five items of personal information to unlock personal
information on the database: a name. Social Security
number, mother's maiden name, birth date and place of
birth. The purpose of the site was to make it easier for

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workers to see their financial records and plan for
retirement. The acting Social Security Administrator
James Callahan testified, "Nothing is more important to
Social Security than maintaining the public's confidence
in our ability to keep confidential the sensitive data we
maintain on American citizens." But he pointed out that
the security problem is shared by other government
agencies that are increasingly using the Internet to
conduct business. (Saffir, Barbara. "Sharing the Secrets
With the Right Party," The Washington Post, 8 May
1997, A25.)

White House will appeal Court decision that it must
turn over lawyers' notes

The White House will appeal to the Supreme court a
decision of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the
White House must turn over subpoenaed notes to
Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr. The
notes in question were taken by White House lawyers
when investigators questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton
about matters related to the Whitewater real estate
dealings in Arkansas. The efforts of the White House to
keep the lawyers' notes away from investigators were
not known before this ruling. (Biskupic, Joan. "Lawyers
for White House Ask High Court to Shield Notes," The
Washington Post, 13 May 1997, A4.)

Report says secret Army chemical spraying did not
harm health

A National Research Council report determined that the
secret spraying of a potentially toxic chemical, zinc
cadmium sulfide, in tests by the Army in the 1950s and
1960s apparently did not harm health. According to the
NRC findings, the chemical, sprayed from airplanes,
rooftops and moving vehicles in 33 urban and rural areas
of the United States and Canada, did not expose
residents to chemical levels considered harmful. Sites
for the secret spraying included Minneapolis and
surrounding areas; Corpus Christi, TX; Fort Wayne, IN;
and St. Louis, MO. (Leary, Warren. "Secret Army
Chemical Tests Did Not Harm Health, Report Says," The
New York Times, 15 May 1997, A24.)

President apologizes for government deception

President Clinton formally apologized to the eight
survivors of secret government experiments that became
known as the "Tuskegee experiment." In a White House
ceremony, the President said, "What was done cannot
be undone, but we can end the silence." The Tuskegee
experiment, begun in 1932 and ended in the 1970s when
a newspaper article revealed it, was carried out by the

U.S. Public Health Service. Participants were promised
free medicine and meals, but were never told their
venereal disease was being left untreated to study its
long-term effects. (Harris, John and Michael Fletcher.
"Six Decades Later, an Apology," The Washington Post,
17 May 1997, A1.)

Fate unknown of many families cut off welfare

A General Accounting Office study found that states
have cut off welfare benefits to 18,000 families in recent
years, most because they failed to find work or move far
enough toward that goal. About three fourths of those
who lost benefits were still receiving some federal
assistance, such as Medicaid, food stamps, disability
payments or housing aid. About one-third of the families
were returned to welfare rolls when they agreed to
comply with state requirements. But GAO said that a
lack of information made it impossible to know whether
the circumstances of the families who lost benefits had
improved or if they had fallen deeper into poverty.
Frequently, states could not say what had happened to
as many as half the families that had lost benefits. "This
is the first indicator that people, when they go out of the
welfare system, you're not in touch wit them, " said Sen.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), who requested the
study. (Vobejda, Barbara. "States Cut 18,000 Families
from Welfare Rolls, GAO Reports," The Washington
Post, 16 May 1997, All.)

Fugitive documents decrease public access to
information

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) inserted in the Congressional
Record a report prepared by the Government Printing
Office on the extent of the problem of fugitive
government publications, publications that should be
available to the public in the nation's depository libraries
but are excluded for a variety of reasons. The GPO
report documents the scope of this problem and
recommends solutions. Hoyer said, "It is important that
people know just how serious this problem is."

GPO said four major factors have contributed to
increasing losses of key general interest publications in
the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP): 1)
electronic information dissemination via agency Web
sites without notification to the FDLP; 2) the decreasing
compliance with statutory requirements for agencies to
print through GPO or to provide copies of publications
not printed through GPO to the FDLP; 3) the increasing
trend for agencies to establish exclusive arrangements
with private sector entities that place copyright or

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copyright-like restrictions on the products involved in
such agreements; and 4) increasing use by agencies of
the rationale that publications must be sold in order to be
self-sustaining. (Hoyer, Steny. "People's Right To
Access," Congressional Record, 22 May 1997, E1045-
46.)

CIA destroyed documents on the 1953 coup in Iran

The CIA said that it had destroyed or lost almost all of
the documents related to its secret mission to overthrow
the government of Iran in 1953. The agency has
promised for more than five years to make the records
public. Apparently the two successive directors of the
CIA, Robert Gates in 1992 and James Woolsey in 1993,
who pledged the documents would be released as part of
the CIA's "openness" initiatives, did not know there was
little left to open. Almost all the documents were
destroyed in the early 1960s. "If anything of substantive
importance that was an only copy was destroyed at any
time," Woolsey said, "this is a terrible breach of faith with
the American people and their ability to understand their
own history." Nick Cullather, a historian on the CIA staff
in 1992 and 1993 said that the records were eliminated
by "a culture of destruction," born of secrecy. (Weiner,
Tim. "CIA Destroyed Files on 1953 Iran Coup," The New
York Times, 29 May 1997, A19.)

Legislation moves forward to allow federal
employees to provide more secrets to Congress

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence approved
legislation that would permit federal employees, including
those who work for the CIA, to give classified information
to Senators and Representatives with the approval of
their superiors if it exposes misstatements made to
Congress, gross mismanagement or waste, fraud or
abuse. Since the Reagan Administration, Executive
Branch policy has prohibited federal employees from
giving classified material to legislators or Congressional
committees without first clearing such action with their
bosses. Sen. Robert Kerrey (D-NE), vice chair of the
committee, said that current Administration policy left
federal workers in doubt about whether they could go to
Congress as whistleblowers with classified information.
"This undermines Congress's ability to fulfill its
constitutional responsibility and is particularly troubling
when intelligence agencies are involved," he said.
(Pincus, Walter. "Panel Votes to Let Agency Staff Pass
More Secrets to Capitol Hill," Tlie Washington Post, 6
June 1997. A3.)

JUNE
Lack of data hampers agency compliance with law

The General Accounting Office has determined that
many federal agencies are having difficulty fulfilling the
intent of the 1993 Government Performance and Results
Act. GAO predicted that although agencies will meet the
September deadline for filing strategic plans and annual
performance goals, "those documents will not be of a
consistently high quality or as useful for congressional
and agency decision-making as they could be." Among
the challenges agencies face are a lack of information on
program performance. GAO questioned the equality and
accuracy of information on program performance even
when the data exists. The GAO report, "The
Government Performance and Results Act: 1997
Government wide Implementation Will be Uneven"
(GAO/GGD-97-109) was posted on the GAO's Internet
site, www.gao.gov. (Barr, Stephen. "Agencies Are
Having Difficulty Measuring Success, GAO Finds, The
Washington Post, 3 June 1997, A17.)

Semi-annual updates of this publication have been compiled in two indexed volumes covering the periods April 1 981 -December 1987
and January 1 988-December 1991 . Less Access... updates are available for $1 .00; the 1981-1987 volume is $7.00; the 1988-1991
volume is $10.00. To order, contact the American Library Association Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, #403,
Washington, DC 20004-1701; 202-628-8410, fax 202-628-8419. All orders must be prepaid and must include a self-addressed
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June 1997