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^^^ 


•:  "^*^';" . 


to  Less  Information 


aa|v  by  and  about  the 
I?     U.S.  Government 


_ 1981 -1987 
Chronology 


American  Library  Association 
.  Washington  Office    ■ 


to  Less  Information 
by  and  about  the 
U.S.  Government 

A  1 98 1  - 1 987  Chronology 


Prepared  by  the 

American  Library  Association 

Washington  Office 

February  1988 


The  American  Library  Association  is  most  grateful  for  the 
generous  support  it  has  received  from  the  Benton  Foundation 
and  the  Field  Foundation. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Preface 

What  was  first  seen  as  an  emerging  trend  in  April  1981  when  the 
American  Library  Association  Washington  Office  first  started  this  chro- 
nology of  items  which  came  to  our  attention,  had  by  December  1987 
become  a  continuing  pattern  of  federal  government  to  restrict  govern- 
ment publications  and  information  dissemination  activities.  A  policy  has 
emerged  which  is  less  than  sympathetic  to  the  principles  of  freedom  of 
access  to  information  as  librarians  advocate  them.  A  combination  of 
specific  policy  decisions,  the  Reagan  Administration's  interpretations  and 
implementation  of  the  1980  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  (PL  96-511,  as 
amended  by  PL  99-500),  implementation  of  the  Grace  Commission  rec- 
ommendations, and  agency  budget  cuts  have  significantly  limited  access 
to  public  documents  and  statistics. 

Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  government's  16,000  publications      Q 
has  been  eliminated.  Through  two  1985  directives.  Circulars  A-3  and  A- 
130,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  clearly  consolidated  its 
government  information  control  powers.  Circular  A-3,  Government  Pub- 
lications, requires  annual  reviews  of  agency  publications  and  detailed 
justifications  for  proposed  periodicals.  Circular  A-130,  Management  of 
Federal  Information  Resources,  requires  cost-benefit  analysis  of  govern- 
ment information  activities,  maximum  reliance  on  the  private  sector  for 
the  dissemination  of  government  information,  and  cost  recovery  through 
user  charges.  The  likely  result  is  an  acceleration  of  the  current  trend  to 
commercialize  and  privatize  government  information. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public  access,  is  the 
growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  utilize  computer  and  telecom- 
munications technologies  for  data  collection,  storage,  retrieval  and  dis- 
semination. This  trend  has  resulted  in  the  increased  emergence  of 
contractual  arrangements  with  commercial  firms  to  disseminate  informa- 
tion collected  at  taxpayer  expense,  higher  user  charges  for  government     \ 
information,  and  the  proliferation  of  government  information  available        "j 
only  in  electronic  format.  While  automation  clearly  offers  promises  of       - 
savings,  will  public  access  to  government  information  be  further  re- 
stricted for  people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for  computer 
time? 

During  1987,  a  government  policy  of  secrecy  was  demonstrated  in  the 
Iran-Contra  affair  and  in  obligatory  employee  secrecy  agreements.  The 
Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  asked  librarians  to  report  on  foreigners 
using  certain  libraries.  Incongruously,  at  the  same  time,  the  federal  gov- 


ernment  is  contracting  out  the  operation  of  more  and  more  of  its  libraries 
to  foreign-owned  private  companies. 

The  American  Library  Association  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  convic- 
tion that  open  government  is  vital  to  a  democracy  in  a  resolution  passed 
in  January  1984  which  stated  that  ''there  should  be  equal  and  ready  ac- 
cess to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in  any  format 
by  the  government  of  the  United  States."  In  January  1985,  ALA  estab- 
lished an  Ad  Hoc  Committee  to  Form  a  Coalition  on  Government  Infor- 
mation. The  Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all 
efforts  which  limit  access  to  government  information  and  to  develop  sup- 
port for  improvements  in  access  to  government  information. 

With  access  to  information  a  major  ALA  priority,  members  should  be 
concerned  about  this  series  of  actions  which  create  a  climate  in  which 
government  information  activities  are  suspect.  This  publication  is  a  com- 
pilation of  previous  ''Less  Access ..."  chronologies. 


I 


April  1981  President  Reagan  imposed  a  moratorium  on  the  production  and 

procurement  of  new  audiovisual  aids  and  government  publications 
using  the  rationale  that  the  federal  government  is  spending  too 
much  money  on  public  relations,  publicity,  and  advertising,  "Much 
of  this  waste  consists  of  unnecessary  and  expensive  films,  maga- 
zines, and  pamphlets."  {Weekly  Compilation  of  Presidential  Docu- 
ments, April  27,  1981) 

April  1981  The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  (OMB)  issued  Bulletin  No. 

81-16  which  provided  procedures  and  guidelines  for  the  morato- 
rium. All  agencies  were  required  to  review  and  reduce  planned  or 
proposed  publications  and  to  develop  a  management  control  plan 
to  curtail  future  spending  on  periodicals,  pamphlets  and  audiovi- 
sual materials. 


June  1981 


OMB  issued  a  model  control  plan  to  assist  agencies  in  developing 
new  or  improved  control  systems  to  carry  out  the  policies  and 
guidelines  in  Bulletin  No.  81-16,  "Elimination  of  Wasteful  Spending 
on  Government  Periodicals,  Pamphlets,  and  Audiovisual  Products." 


June  1981 


OMB  Bulletin  81-21  required  each  federal  agency  to  submit  its 
plan  for  reviewing  its  information  activities  by  September  1,  1981. 
The  objective  was  to  establish  a  process  "...  which  forces  agencies 
to  focus  on  and  allows  us  (OMB)  to  influence  decisions  on  how 
they  process,  maintain,  and  disseminate  information."  Bulletin  No. 
81-21  also  required  the  designation  of  the  single  official  in  each 
federal  agency  in  the  executive  branch  who  will  be  responsible  for 
information  resources  management  as  required  by  the  Paperwork 
Reduction  Act  of  1980. 


September  1981 


I 


October  1981 


David  Stockman,  Director  of  OMB,  issued  Memorandum  81-14, 
requiring  heads  of  executive  departments  and  agencies  to  pay 
special  attention  to  the  major  information  centers  operated  or 
sponsored  by  their  agency.  Among  the  types  of  information  centers 
to  be  evaluated  are  clearinghouses,  information  analysis  centers 
and  resource  centers.  Evaluation  criteria  included  these  questions: 
Could  the  private  sector  provide  the  same  or  similar  information 
services?  Is  the  information  service  provided  on  a  full-cost  re- 
covery basis? 

OMB  Bulletin  81-16,  Supplement  No.  1,  required  agency  review  of 
all  existing  periodicals  and  recurring  pamphlets  to  reevaluate  their 
necessity  and  cost-effectiveness  using  OMB-approved  control  sys- 
tems. Agencies  must  submit  a  new  request  for  all  series  to  be  con- 
tinued after  January  15,  1982. 


1 


October  1981 


October  1981  Public  Printer  Danford  Sawyer,  Jr.  proposed  to  close  all  Govern- 

ment Printing  Office  bookstores  outside  of  Washington,  D.C.  plus  a 
few  Washington  locations.  Approximately  24  of  the  27  GPO  book- 
stores would  be  closed,  because,  it  is  claimed,  they  complete  with 
the  private  sector  and  are  losing  money.  (Letter  to  Sen.  Mathias, 
Chairman  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Printing,  Oct.  9,  1981) 

October  1981  The  Justice  Department  submitted  to  Congress  the  Administration's 

proposal  to  severely  limit  the  applicability  of  the  Freedom  of  Infor- 
mation Act.  {Washington  Post,  November  28,  1981) 


November  1981 


According  to  the  Washington  Post  (November  9,  1981)  over  900 
government  publications  have  been  or  will  be  eliminated  and  the 
government  claims  that  millions  of  dollars  will  be  saved  as  a  result. 


November  1981 


The  Washington  Post  (November  20,  1981)  also  reported  that  the 
Commerce  Department  was  considering  replacing  the  National 
Technical  Information  Service  with  contracts  to  private  firms.  NTIS 
indexes  and  distributes  at  cost  thousands  of  federally  funded  tech- 
nical reports  and  research  studies. 


November  1981 


Q 


One  example  of  a  discontinued  publication  is  the  Securities  and 
Exchange  Commission  News  Digest,  hardly  an  ephemeral  public 
relations  piece.  The  SEC  will  continue  to  print  it  for  internal  use, 
but  will  no  longer  offer  subscriptions  or  make  it  available  for  de- 
pository library  distribution.  Instead,  a  private  firm  will  publish  it 
at  a  50  percent  increase  in  price  (from  $100  to  $150  per  year). 
(Security  and  Exchange  Commission  News  Digest,  November  10, 
1981) 


December  1981 


Citing  budget  cuts,  the  National  Archives  discontinued  the  inter- 
library  loan  of  microfilm  publications  from  the  Fort  Worth  Federal 
Archives  and  Records  Center.  About  400,000  reels  of  census, 
diplomatic,  pension  and  other  records  used  heavily  by  genealo- 
gists were  lent  to  libraries  annually.  (Letter  sent  from  the  National 
Archives  to  "All  Librarians",  November  30,  1981)  [Note:  In  July 
1983,  NARS  began  a  rental  program  for  census  microfilm  through 
a  contractor.] 


January  1982  The  free  Government  Printing  Office  pamphlet  Selected  U.S. 

Government  PubUcations  used  for  years  to  alert  readers  to  new 
general  interest  and  consumer  oriented  government  documents  will 
no  longer  be  mailed  to  the  public  because  GPO  says  it  is  too 
expensive  to  mail  out  every  month.  GPO  suggests  that  readers 
subscribe  to  the  comprehensive  bibliography  the  Monthly  Catalog 


April  1982 


o/  U.S.  Government  Publications  which  costs  $90  a  year.  {Wash- 
ington Post,  January  22) 

February  1982         The  President's  FY  1983  budget  requested  zero  funding  for  the 

Library  Services  and  Construction  Act;  Titles  II  A,  B  and  C  of  the 
Higher  Education  Act  which  provide  funds  for  college  library 
resources,  research  and  training  programs  and  research  libraries; 
and  the  National  Commission  on  Libraries  and  Information  Sci- 
ence. Less  money  was  proposed  for  the  state  block  grant  which 
contains  funding  for  school  library  resources  and  for  the  U.S. 
Postal  Service  subsidy  which  supports  the  fourth  class  library  rate 
and  other  nonprofit  mailing  rates.  (Office  of  Management  and 
Budget,  Budget  of  the  U.S.  Government  FY  1983) 

March  1982  A  300  percent  increase  in  the  cost  of  an  annual  subscription  to  the 

Federal  Register — from  $75  to  $300 — went  into  effect.  (February  25 
Federal  Register,  p.  8151).  In  1981,  the  price  of  a  year's  subscrip- 
tion to  the  Congressional  Record  increased  from  $75  to  $208.  Sen. 
Charles  Mathias  (R-MD)  stated  that  circulation  of  the  CR  declined 
almost  20  percent  in  the  last  three  years  as  the  price  increased. 
{New  York  Times,  June  2) 


March  1982  Many  publications  formerly  distributed  free  are  now  available  only 

for  a  fee  and  government  agencies  are  urged  by  OMB  to  start 
charging  prices  high  enough  to  recover  their  costs.  For  example, 
because  of  budget  cuts,  Agriculture  Department's  Economic  Re- 
search Service  will  stop  free  distribution  of  its  publications  and 
make  these  reports  available  only  on  a  paid  subscription  basis.  The 
alternative  was  to  curtail  basic  research  activities.  (March  29  FR, 
p.  13178) 

March  1982  A  reference  collection  standby,  the  Dictionary  of  Occupational 

Titles,  is  threatened  because  87  of  the  97  jobs  remaining  in  the 
Labor  Department's  occupational  analysis  division  are  being  elimi- 
nated. {Washington  Post,  March  2) 

April  1982  The  President  signed  Executive  Order  12356,  National  Security 

Information,  which  substantially  increases  the  amount  of  informa- 
tion that  can  be  classified.  (April  6,  FR,  pp.  14873-14884).  Critics 
see  the  Executive  Order  as  a  reversal  of  a  30-year  government 
policy  of  automatic  declassification  of  government  documents. 
Although  the  National  Archives  still  has  the  authority  to  review 
classified  documents,  budget  cuts  are  likely  to  limit  the  ability  of 
Archives  to  carry  out  this  function  effectively.  {Chronicle  of  High 
Education,  April  14) 


May  1982 


May  1982  The  Administration  supports  Senate  amendments  to  the  Freedom  of 

Information  Act  to  restrict  the  type  and  amount  of  government 
material  available  to  the  public.  {Washington  Post,  May  4). 

May  1982  The  government's  two  biggest  collectors  of  statistics,  the  Census 

Bureau  and  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  have  cut  programs 
because  of  budget  reductions.  The  Census  Bureau  has  dropped 
numerous  studies  and  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  has  asked 
Congress  for  an  emergency  $5.6  million  appropriation  "to  maintain 
the  accuracy"  of  such  key  economic  indicators  as  the  Consumer 
Price  Index.  According  to  a  May  4  Washington  Post  article,  "Many 
of  the  programs  being  trimmed  helped  the  government  monitor 
how  its  programs  were  being  used.  Others  helped  policy  makers 
predict  economic  trends."  The  article  also  guoted  a  business  leader 
testifying  at  a  congressional  subcommittee  hearing  in  March:  "A 
million  dollars  saved  today  through  short-sighted  reductions  in  the 
budgets  for  statistical  programs  could  lead  to  erroneous  decisions 
that  would  cost  the  private  and  public  sectors  billions  of  dollars 
over  the  long  run." 

May  1982  The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  agreed  to  make  availa- 

ble a  complete  list  of  discontinued  government  publications  as  a 
way  "...  to  assure  an  orderly  and  equitable  transfer  of  discontinued 
government  publications  to  the  private  sector."  The  list,  which 
should  be  available  in  mid-July,  can  be  obtained  from  OMB's  Bill 
McQuaid  (202/395-5193).  (Association  of  American  Publishers 
Capital  Letter,  May) 

May  1982  In  April,  the  General  Services  Administration  closed  the  Washing- 

ton, D.C.  Federal  Information  Center,  leaving  the  40  information 
centers  in  other  parts  of  the  country  still  operating.  However,  cit- 
ing budget  cuts,  walk-in  services  have  now  been  eliminated,  leav- 
ing only  the  telephone  numbers  and  people  to  answer  them.  A 
saving  of  $260,000  of  the  centers'  $4  million  annual  budget  is 
anticipated.  {Washington  Post,  May  25) 

May  1982  The  New  York  Times  (May  10)  reported  that  GPO  destroyed  $11 

million  worth  of  government  publications  that  were  not  selling 
more  than  50  copies  a  year  or  earning  more  than  $1,000  in  sales  a 
year.  The  millions  of  documents  were  sold  as  wastepaper  for 
$760,000.  Although  a  few  copies  of  most  titles  have  been  kept  in 
stock,  generally  people  looking  for  one  of  the  destroyed  publica- 
tions will  be  told  to  find  it  in  one  of  the  depository  libraries. 


October  1982 


June  1982 


In  keeping  with  its  policy  to  refuse  to  offer  for  public  sale  anything 
that  won't  yield  $1,000  a  year  in  sales,  GPO  has  selected  only  25  of 
the  69  publications  which  the  National  Bureau  of  Standards  wanted 
to  offer  for  public  sale.  As  a  result,  the  rejected  publications  are 
available  to  the  public  only  through  the  National  Technical  Infor- 
mation Service  whose  prices  for  NBS  publications  are  generally 
two  to  three  times  higher  than  GPO's  for  the  same  document. 
(Memo  from  NBS  official,  June  14) 


June  1982 


Continued  cutbacks  on  free  publications  result  in  the  Health  and 
Human  Services  Department  no  longer  distributing  copies  of  In- 
fant Care  without  charge  as  it  has  for  58  years.  {New  York  Times, 
June  2) 


June  1982 


September  1982 


The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  permited  federal  agencies 
to  begin  putting  out  new  publications  and  films,  but  OMB  will 
keep  a  close  eye  on  costs  and  top  agency  officials  will  monitor 
content.  According  to  a  preliminary  count,  the  Administration  has 
eliminated  about  2,000  of  the  13,000  to  15,000  publications  distrib- 
uted before  the  President's  April  1981  moratorium  on  government 
books,  periodicals  and  audiovisuals.  {Washington  Post,  June  11) 

In  response  to  a  September  8  Federal  Register  (pp.  39515-39530) 
notice  by  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  (OMB)  regarding 
proposed  regulations  for  the  information  collection  provisions  of 
the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  of  1980,  Washington  Office  Director 
Eileen  Cooke  sent  OMB  the  resolution  on  federal  government 
statistical  activities  passed  by  Council  at  the  1982  annual  confer- 
ence. Her  letter  sent  with  the  resolution  expressed  ALA's  concern 
with  the  assumption  throughout  the  proposed  regulations  that 
federal  government  data  collection  is  a  burden  on  the  public,  with 
little  recognition  given  to  the  benefits  to  the  public  which  are 
derived  from  accurate,  nonbiased  and  timely  statistics.  She  stressed 
that  the  Association  would  like  to  see  more  safeguards  for  public 
access  in  the  regulations. 


October  1982  On  October  6,  1982,  OMB  released  a  list  of  more  than  2,000  gov- 

ernment publications — one  out  of  every  six — targeted  for  termina- 
tion or  consolidation  into  other  publications.  This  initiative, 
together  with  4,500  other  cost  reductions  proposed  for  an  addi- 
tional 2,300  publications,  is  expected  to  produce  cost  savings  "of 
more  than  one-third  of  all  federal  publications."  According  to  OMB 
82-25,  "Reform  '88:  Elimination,  Consolidation  and  Cost  Reduction 


January  1983 


of  Government  Publications,"  sixteen  percent  of  all  government 
publications  will  be  discontinued.  This  amounts  to  70  million  cop- 
ies, 1/12  of  the  850  million  copies  printed,  and  is  part  of  ".  .  .the 
Reagan  Administration's  continuing  drive  to  eliminate  costly,  re- 
dundant and  superfluous  publications ..."  Each  federal  agency 
will  be  reviewing  its  publications  for  increased  user  fees.  Similar 
savings  are  expected  during  1983  to  1985. 

January  1983  OMB  published  the  draft  of  the  revision  of  its  Circular  A-76  "Per- 

formance of  Commercial  Activities"  in  the  January  12  Federal 
Register,  pp.  1376-1379.  Library  services  and  facility  operation  and 
cataloging  were  listed  as  examples  of  commercial  activities.  The 
supplement  to  the  circular  sets  forth  procedures  for  determining 
whether  commercial  activities  should  be  operated  under  contract 
with  private  sources  or  in-house  using  government  facilities  and 
personnel.  (ALA's  Federal  Librarians  Round  Table  recommended 
many  changes  in  the  draft  circular  to  OMB.) 

January  1983  OMB  proposed  amendments  to  its  Circular  A-122,  "Cost  Principles 

for  Nonprofit  Organization,"  in  the  January  24  Federal  Register, 
pp.  3348-3351.  The  proposal  ".  .  .would  have  had  the  apparent 
effect  of  severely  restricting  or  inhibiting  an  organization  from 
engaging  in  protected  first  amendment  rights  with  its  own  private 
assets  as  a  condition  for  receiving  the  benefits  of  any  federal  con- 
tract or  grant,  unless  the  organization  would  duplicate  all  its  facili- 
ties, equipment  and  personnel."  ("Legal  Analysis  of  OMB  Circular 
A-122:  Lobbying  by  Non-Prof  it  Grantees  of  Federal  Government," 
Congressional  Research  Service,  Library  of  Congress,  December 
15,  1983,  p.  CRS-2).  The  proposal  was  withdrawn  in  March  after 
substantial  congressional  and  public  criticism.  {Chronicle  of 
Higher  Education,  March  9,  1983) 

February  1983         In  a  February  18  speech  to  the  Conservative  Political  Action  Con- 
ference, President  Reagan  cited  "...  reducing  publication  of  more 
than  70  million  copies  of  wasteful  or  unnecessary  government 
publications"  as  one  of  the  ways  that  his  Administration  is  attempt- 
ing to  make  government  more  efficient.  {Weekly  Compilation  ol 
Presidential  Documents,  February  23,  1983,  p.  260) 


March  1983  Stating  that  additional  safeguards  are  needed  to  protect  classified 

information,  the  President  issued  a  directive  on  safeguarding  na- 
tional security  information  on  March  11.  The  directive  mandates 
greater  use  of  polygraph  examinations  in  investigations  of  leaks  of 
classified  information  and  requires  all  individuals  with  access  to 


August  1983 


certain  types  of  classified  information  to  sign  a  lifelong  pre- 
publication  review  agreement  to  submit  for  governmental  review  all 
writings  and  proposed  speeches  which  touch  upon  intelligence 
matters.  As  directed  by  ALA  Council  in  a  resolution  passed  at  the 
1983  Annual  Conference,  ALA  Executive  Director  Robert  Wedge- 
worth  wrote  to  the  President  and  requested  that  The  Presidential 
Directive  on  Safeguarding  National  Security  Information  be  re- 
scinded. In  December,  Congress  added  an  amendment  to  the 
Department  of  State  Authorizations  (PL  98-164)  prohibiting  imple- 
mentation of  the  directive  until  April  15,  1984. 

April  1983  The  Department  of  Energy  proposed  regulations  in  the  April  1 

Federal  Register,  pp.  13988-13993,  to  ".  .  .describe  those  types  of 
Unclassified  Controlled  Nuclear  Information  (UCNI)  to  be  pro- 
tected, established  minimum  protection  standards,  set  forth  the 
conditions  under  which  access  to  UCNI  would  be  granted,  and 
establish  procedures  for  the  imposition  of  penalties  for  violation  of 
those  regulations."  Although  libraries  were  not  mentioned  in  the 
proposal,  the  scope  of  the  documentation  and  information  poten- 
tially covered  raised  concern  about  access  to  information  on  nu- 
clear research  in  libraries  which  are  depositories  of  Department  of 
Energy  nuclear  materials. 

August  1983  At  a  public  hearing  at  the  Department  of  Energy  on  August  16, 

Sandra  Peterson,  chair  of  the  Government  Documents  Round  Ta- 
ble, testifying  on  behalf  of  ALA,  concluded  that  the  proposed  DOE 
regulations  issued  in  April  about  Unclassified  Controlled  Nuclear 
Information  should  be  withdrawn  and  reevaluated.  At  the  hearing, 
a  DOE  official  recognized  the  concerns  of  academic  and  research 
institutions  about  the  effect  of  the  proposed  rule  on  their  libraries. 
Two  possible  solutions  were  suggested:  1)  expressly  exempt  from 
the  rule  nongovernmental  libraries  whether  operated  by  govern- 
ment contractor  or  not;  and  2)  limit  the  responsibility  of  nongov- 
ernment libraries  to  the  protection  of  documents  or  materials 
specifically  identified  by  title,  if  possible,  to  the  library  by  DOE  in 
writing.  In  an  October  letter  to  DOE  on  behalf  of  ALA,  Peterson 
rejected  both  approaches  as  impossible  and  impractical.  DOE 
plans  to  issue  a  revised  proposal  in  lanuary  1984  in  the  Federal 
Register  for  an  additional  public  comment  period. 


August  1983  OMB  issued  the  revision  of  its  Circular  A-76  (see  lanuary)  in  the 

August  16  Federal  Register,  pp.  37110-37116.  The  impact  of  this 
circular  extends  to  all  libraries  which  depend  on  or  have  a  service 
relationship  with  federal  libraries.  A  contract  for  total  library  oper- 


September  1983 


ations  of  the  Department  of  Energy  library  was  awarded  to  a  pri- 
vate sector  firm  in  August,  for  the  Department  of  Housing  and 
Urban  Development  in  September. 


September  1983 


In  the  September  12  Federal  Register,  pp.  40964-40965,  OMB 
solicited  public  comment  on  the  development  of  a  circular  on 
federal  management  as  part  of  its  responsibility  to  implement  the 
Paperwork  Reduction  Act  of  1980  (PL  96-511).  The  only  underlying 
principle  mentioned  by  OMB  was  that  "information  is  not  a  free 
good  but  a  resource  of  substantial  economic  value .  .  . ."  The  ALA 
response  stressed  that  "To  participate  fully  in  a  democratic  society, 
citizens  must  be  informed  and  aware,  regardless  of  their  individual 
ability  to  pay  for  information."  Indications  are  that  OMB  will  try  to 
establish  user  fees  in  order  to  recover  the  government's  full  costs  of 
creating  as  well  as  providing  information,  and  will  try  to  define 
what  constitutes  unfair  competition  with  the  private  sector  as  it 
relates  to  information  issues  and  library  operations.  OMB  plans  to 
issue  a  proposed  circular  for  public  comment  in  the  Federal  Regis- 
ter in  February  1984. 


October  1983  In  contrast  to  other  policies  which  restrict  public  access  to  govern- 

ment information,  the  U.S.  Government  Printing  Office  launched  a 
national  campaign  to  increase  public  awareness  and  use  of  federal 
depository  libraries.  The  campaign  uses  public  service  announce- 
ments with  the  theme  "Contact  your  local  library"  on  television, 
radio  and  in  print  to  guide  the  audience  to  all  libraries,  the  1,375 
depositories  and  other  non-depositories. 


November  1983 


OMB  issued  a  watered  down  version  of  its  lanuary  revisions  to 
Circular  A- 122:  "Cost  Principles  for  Nonprofit  Organizations;  Lob- 
bying and  Related  Activities"  in  the  November  3  Federal  Register, 
pp.  50860-50874.  In  a  December  19  letter,  ALA  urged  OMB  to 
clarify  ambiguous  language  in  the  proposal  and  reaffirmed  the 
Association's  commitment  to  the  principle  that  open  government  is 
vital  to  a  democracy.  OMB  has  extended  their  previous  mid- 
December  comment  deadline  to  lanuary  18,  1984.  ALA  chapters 
and  state  library  associations  may  want  to  further  analyze  the  OMB 
proposal  to  see  if  it  would  affect  their  organization's  lobbying  and 
related  activities. 


November  1983 


The  House  passed  HR  2718,  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  Amend- 
ments of  1983.  The  bill  establishes  new  goals  for  further  reduction 
of  the  burden  imposed  by  federal  paperwork  requirements.  Federal 
collection  of  information  would  be  reduced  by  10  percent  by  Octo- 


January  1984 


December  1983 


ber  1,  1984,  and  by  an  additional  5  percent  by  October  1,  1985. 
The  House  bill  would  explicitly  prohibit  use  of  funds  for  functions 
or  activities  not  specifically  authorized  or  required  by  the  Pa- 
perwork Reduction  Act.  (November  7  Congressional  Record,  pp. 
H9271-9273) 

In  a  December  12  letter  to  Rep.  Augustus  F.  Hawkins  (D-CA), 
Chair  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Printing,  OMB  Director  David 
Stockman,  protested  the  stipulation  in  the  proposed  JCP  Govern- 
ment Printing,  Binding  and  Distribution  Regulations  that  the  Gov- 
ernment Printing  Office  would  be  responsible  for  the  distribution 
of  all  government  publications.  In  her  letter  commenting  on  the 
proposed  regulations,  ALA  Washington  Office  Director  Eileen  D. 
Cooke  commended  the  JCP  for  its  development  of  regulations 
which  provide  for  technological  changes  and  for  increased  support 
for  the  depository  library  program.  Cooke  said:  "The  expanded 
definition  of  printing  is  extremely  important  for  the  continued 
effective  operation  of  the  depository  library  program.  An  increas- 
ing number  of  government  agencies  are  creating  information 
which  is  only  available  for  distribution  in  an  electronic  format.  In 
order  for  libraries,  specifically  depository  libraries,  to  be  able  to 
provide  information  in  this  format  to  the  general  public,  it  must 
become  a  part  of  the  depository  library  program."  The  proposed 
JCP  regulations  were  printed  in  the  November  1 1  Congressional 
Record,  pp.  H9709-9713. 


December  1983 


On  December  28,  1983,  the  United  States  Government  gave  the 
required  one-year  notice  of  its  intention  to  withdraw  from  the 
United  Nations  Educational,  Scientific,  and  Cultural  Organization 
(UNESCO)  effective  January  1,  1985.  (Press  release  #98-158, 
"House  Hearings  on  U.S.  Participation  in  UNESCO,"  Committee  on 
Science  and  Technology,  U.S.  House  of  Representatives,  March  8, 
1984) 


January  1984 


Note:  ALA  Council  passed  a  resolution  in  January  1984  on  contin- 
ued U.S.  membership  in  UNESCO.  Thomas  Galvin,  Chair  of 
ALA's  International  Relations  Committee,  testified  in  Con- 
gress on  March  15,  1984  and  urged  the  U.S.  to  stay  in  UN- 
ESCO and  continue  to  allow  U.S.  scientists  "full,  prompt, 
and  ready  access  to .  .  .  research  results  of  their  counterparts 
.  .  .throughout  the  world." 

The  Second  Annual  Report  on  Eliminations,  Consolidations,  and 
Cost  Reductions  of  Government  Publications  reports  the  elimina- 


January  1984 


tion  of  3,287  publications  and  the  proposed  consolidation  of  an- 
other 561.  The  total  of  eliminations  and  consolidations  equals  3,848 
publications  or  one-fourth  of  the  total  inventory.  These  publications 
account  for  over  150  million  copies,  or  15  percent  of  all  copies 
printed.  In  addition,  federal  agencies  proposed  5,020  cost- 
reduction  actions  on  3,070  other  publications  including  reducing 
the  volume,  frequency  of  issue,  use  of  color,  and  other  printing  and 
distribution  cost  reductions.  Meanwhile,  the  Office  of  Management 
and  Budget  is  revising  OMB  Circular  A-3,  the  permanent  proce- 
dure for  the  government-wide  review  of  publications.  When  the 
circular  is  revised,  OMB  plans  to  establish  new  publication  elimi- 
nation and  cost  reduction  goals  for  the  remaining  9,000  publica- 
tions in  the  government  inventory  of  15,900  publications.  (Office  of 
Management  and  Budget,  Second  Annual  Report  on  Eliminations, 
Consolidations,  and  Cost  Reductions  of  Government  Publications, 
released  on  January  6,  1984. 

January  1984  A  photograph  in  the  Washington  Post  showed  Presidential  coun- 

selor Edwin  Meese  III  and  OMB  Deputy  Director  Joseph  Wright 
surrounded  by  trash  bags  stuffed  with  government  documents  at  a 
White  House  briefing.  The  accompanying  story  said: 

Since  President  Reagan  took  office  three  years  ago,  the 
administration  has  eliminated  one  of  every  four  government 
publications  then  printed.  Most  of  them  were  distributed  free 
to  the  public  by  the  Agriculture  and  Defense  departments. 

Meese  ridiculed  the  publications,  calling  a  pamphlet  entitled 
"How  to  Control  Bedbugs,"  for  example,  a  real  "bestseller." 
But  the  doomed  publications  included  several  offering  ad- 
vice about  serious  subjects,  such  as  solar  energy,  radioactive 
fallout,  income  taxes  and  drug  abuse.  Meese  said  those 
publications  are  being  eliminated  because  the  information  is 
available  elsewhere.  Eliminating  the  publications  will  save 
$85  million  annually.  .  .  (Pete  Earley,  "U.S.  Tightens 
Tourniquet  on  Flow  of  Paper,"  Washington  Post,  January  7, 
1984,  p.  A5) 

February  1984         For  the  third  year  in  a  row  the  Administration  proposed  elimination 
of  library  grant  programs.  Education  Department  justification  for 
the  zeroes  indicated  no  new  rationale,  but  once  again  noted  "the 
program's  past  success  at  establishing  the  highest  practical  levels 
of  access  across  the  country  to  library  services .  .  .  and  at  develop- 
ing models  of  interlibrary  cooperative  arrangements  to  stimulate 


10 


February  1984 


further  expansion  of  the  concept."  In  addition,  ''any  further  need 
for  training  of  professional  librarians  can  be  met  through  State  and 
local  efforts  as  well  as  student  aid  programs."  In  the  past  years, 
Congress  has  continued  to  fund  library  grant  programs,  in  some 
cases,  at  the  highest-ever  levels.  (Department  of  Education,  The 
FiscaJ  Year  1985  Budget,  released  February  1,  1984) 

February  1984         The  Administration's  FY  1985  budget  request  for  the  Consumer 

Information  Center  is  $349,000,  a  million  dollars  less  than  the  FY 
1984  appropriation.  The  budget  proposes  that  one-half  of  CIC's 
staff  be  redirected  from  traditional  consumer  information  activities 
to  undertake  new  marketing  programs  financed  from  increased 
user  fees  and  other  charges.  The  CIC's  function  is  to  promote 
greater  public  awareness  of  existing  federal  publications  through 
distribution  of  the  quarterly  "Consumer  Information  Catalog"  and 
various  media  programs. 

In  May,  when  the  House  Appropriations  Committee  recommended 
$1,149,000  in  new  budget  authority  for  the  CIC  in  FY  1985,  it 
expressed  concern  that  the  recent  user  charge  increase  has  sub- 
stantially reduced  consumer  demand  for  publications,  with  the 
result  that  lower  volume  has  raised  unit  distribution  costs.  There- 
fore, the  committee  directed  that  the  charge  to  consumers  not  be 
raised  above  its  current  level  of  $1  and  that  the  CIC  charge  other 
federal  agencies  only  the  actual  cost  of  distributing  publications. 
(H.  Rept.  98-803  on  the  Department  of  Housing  and  Urban 
Development- Independent  Agencies  Appropriation  Bill,  1985;  May 
23,  1984,  p.  34) 

February  1984         The  Administration  requested  for  FY  1985  only  $452  million  of  the 
$801  million  needed  to  keep  nonprofit  and  other  subsidized  postal 
rates  at  current  levels.  Under  the  President's  proposal,  a  2-lb.  book 
package  mailed  at  the  fourth-class  library  rate  would  increase  from 
the  current  47<t  to  66<C,  a  40  percent  increase.  However,  the  House 
Treasury-Postal  Service-General  Government  Appropriations  Sub- 
committee, chaired  by  Rep.  Edward  Roybal  (D-CA),    recommended 
$801  million,  the  full  amount  needed.  The  full  House  Appropria- 
tions Committee  approved  that  recommendation  June  7  in  HR 
5798;  the  Senate  subcommittee  has  not  yet  acted.  (House  Treasury, 
Postal  Service  and  General  Government  Appropriations  Bill,  1985 
(H.  Rept.  98-830)) 

February  1984         Following  the  Administration's  request  for  substantial  revisions  to 
the  Freedom  of  Information  Act,  the  Senate  passed  S.  774  amend- 


11 


February  1984 


ing  the  FOIA.  The  bill  would  provide  increased  confidentiality  for 
certain  law  enforcement,  private  business,  and  sensitive  personal 
records.  It  promotes  uniform  fee  schedules  among  agencies  which 
could  recover  reasonable  processing  costs  in  addition  to  the  cur- 
rent search  and  copying  costs,  and  could  keep  half  the  fees  to 
offset  costs.  The  public  interest  fee  waiver  would  be  clarified. 
Many  of  the  substantive  and  procedural  changes  proposed  by  the 
Senate  to  the  FOIA  are  controversial.  Rep.  Glenn  English  (D-OK), 
Chair  of  the  House  Government  Operations  Subcommittee  on 
Government  Information,  Justice,  and  Agriculture,  has  indicated 
that  the  Subcommittee  "must  proceed  very  carefully  and  thought- 
fully in  considering  amendments."  (February  27  Congressional 
Record,  pp.  S1794-1822,  and  "Statement  of  Rep.  Glenn  English  on 
the  Passage  by  the  Senate  of  Freedom  of  Information  Act  Amend- 
ments," News  Release  from  the  House  Committee  on  Government 
Operations,  February  28,  1984) 

February  1984         The  Department  of  Agriculture  announced  that  it  will  issue  a  Re- 
guest  for  Proposal  (REP  84-00-R-6)  on  March  15,  seeking  contrac- 
tors to  provide  a  computer-based  system  to  support  electronic 
dissemination  of  "perishable"  data  developed  by  USDA  agencies. 
(February  28,  1984,  Commerce  Business  Daily).  Examples  of  the 
type  of  data  to  be  disseminated  in  the  system  include:  Market 
News  Reports  from  Agricultural  Marketing  Service,  Outlook  and 
Situation  Reports  from  Economic  Research  Service,  Weekly  Export 
Sales  Reports  from  Foreign  Agricultural  Service,  USDA  press 
releases  and  crop  production  reports  from  Statistical  Reporting 
Services.  Users  will  pay  for  the  direct  cost  of  accessing  the  data 
from  the  computer-based  system.  However,  USDA  does  not  plan  to 
exert  control  over  the  fees  which  contractors  or  sub-contractors 
will  charge  the  public  to  access  the  on-line  data. 

The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  considers  this  RFP  a  proto- 
type for  the  federal  government's  distribution  of  electronic  data. 

The  Patent  and  Trademark  Office  has  signed  agreements  with 
private  companies  for  the  automation  of  agency  records  at  no  cost 
to  the  government.  One  aspect  of  these  agreements  reguires  the 
agency  to  deny  Freedom  of  Information  Act  reguests  for  the  rec- 
ords in  automated  form.  In  a  statement  in  the  March  14  Congres- 
sional Record  {pp.  H1614-1615),  Rep.  Glenn  English  (D-OK) 
asked:  Is  the  agency  obtaining  services  at  the  price  of  limiting 
public  access  to  some  of  its  records?  The  Securities  and  Exchange 
Commission  has  issued  a  reguest  for  proposals  for  a  pilot  test  of  an 


12 


June  1984 


electronic  filing,  processing,  and  dissemination  system.  The  Fed- 
eral Maritime  Commission  is  also  considering  an  electronic  filing, 
storage,  and  retrieval  system  for  tariffs. 

March  1984  On  March  15,  Sen.  John  Danforth  (R-MO)  introduced  S.  2433,  the 

Senate  version  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  Amendments  of 
1984.  The  Senate  bill  v/ould  require  reducing  the  paperwork  bur- 
den by  5  percent  in  each  of  the  next  five  fiscal  years,  beginning  in 
FY  1984.  (March  15  CongressionaJ  Record,  pp.  S2789-2793) 

April  1984  OMB  published  the  third  and  final  version  of  its  controversial 

"Lobbying"  revision  of  Circular  A-122,  "Cost  Principles  for  Non- 
profit Organizations"  in  the  April  27  Federal  Register,  pp.  18260- 
77.  The  revision  which  is  scheduled  to  go  into  effect  on  May  29, 
1984,  makes  unallowable  the  use  of  federal  funds  for  the  costs 
associated  with  most  kinds  of  lobbying  and  political  activities,  but 
does  not  restrict  lobbying  or  political  activities  paid  for  with  non- 
federal funds.  The  new  version  is  still  drawing  fire  from  some 
groups  and  from  Members  of  Congress  who  contend  that  the  book- 
keeping requirement  would  require  contractors  and  grantees  to  tell 
the  government  how  much  they  spend  on  lobbying  and  identify 
those  costs  separately  from  other  expenses.  {Washington  Post, 
April  30,  1984) 

April  1984  The  Justice  Department  concluded  in  an  April  11,  1984  memoran- 

dum for  the  Counsel  to  the  Director  of  the  Office  of  Management 
and  Budget  that  the  proposed  regulations  published  by  the  Joint 
Committee  on  Printing  in  November  1983  ".  .  .are  statutorily  un- 
supported and  constitutionally  impermissible."  (Memorandum  for 
Michael  J.  Horowitz,  Counsel  to  the  Director,  Office  of  Manage- 
ment and  Budget.  Re:  Constitutionality  of  Proposed  Regulations  of 
Joint  Committee  on  Printing  under  Buckley  v.  Valeo  and  INS  v. 
Chadha,  April  11,  1984) 

May  1984  When  the  National  Farmers  Union  recently  asked  for  a  listing  of 

payment-in-kind  (PIK)  participants  and  amounts  of  the  PIK  com- 
modities they  received,  the  U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture  re- 
sponded that  a  printout  would  cost  $2,284.87,  with  half  of  the 
money  required  up  front.  {Washington  Post,  May  25,  1984,  p.  A21) 

June  1984  Thousands  of  government  employees  are  currently  being  required 

to  sign  prepublication  censorship  agreements  and  to  submit  to  lie 
detector  examinations  despite  President  Reagan's  suspension  of 
these  controversial  programs  proposed  in  his  March  1983  National 


13 


July  1984 


Security  Decision  Directive  84.  According  to  a  General  Account- 
ing Office  report  (GA/NSIAD-84-134)  released  on  June  11,  1984, 
every  employee  with  access  to  sensitive  compartmented  informa- 
tion (SCI)  is  being  required  to  sign  a  lifelong  prepublication  cen- 
sorship agreement,  Form  4193.  In  March  1984,  the  President  had 
promised  Congress  he  would  suspend  the  censorship  and  poly- 
graph provisions  of  his  directive  for  the  duration  of  this  session  of 
Congress.  The  President's  censorship  contract  and  Form  4193  are 
virtually  identical.  Since  the  issuance  of  Form  4193  in  1981,  ap- 
proximately 156,000  military  and  civilian  employees  have  been 
required  to  sign  such  agreements  at  the  Department  of  Defense 
alone.  The  GAG  reports  that  employees  in  22  other  federal  agen- 
cies have  also  signed  these  agreements.  (U.S.  House  of  Representa- 
tives, news  release,  "GAO  Update  on  Administration  Lie 
(  Detector/Censorship  Status  Reveals  Reagan  Promise  of  Suspension 

Has  Little  Effect:  Brooks  Calls  for  End  to  Programs,  Prohibition  by 
Law,"  released  June  13,  1984) 

July  1984  For  the  first  time  in  45  years,  the  Federal  Statistical  Directory  has 

been  published  by  a  private  publisher — at  nearly  three  times  the 
price.  Previously,  the  directory  was  created  by  the  Commerce 
Department's  Office  of  Federal  Statistical  Policy  and  Standards  and 
sold  through  the  Government  Printing  Office.  After  the  statistical 
office  was  transferred  to  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
OMB  killed  the  book  as  part  of  its  drive  to  scrap  unnecessary 
publications.  When  GPO  sold  the  1979  edition,  the  most  recent 
available  from  the  government,  it  charged  $5.  The  private  pub- 
lisher has  updated  the  1979  version,  added  an  index  and  appendix 
and  set  his  price  at  $14.95.  ("U.S.  Statistics  Go  Up  in  Private  Print- 
ing," Washington  Post,  July  24,  1984) 

July  1984  Three  years  after  the  Reagan  Administration  began  slashing  the 

budgets  of  federal  statistical  agencies,  the  General  Accounting 
Office  has  concluded  that  most  major  studies  were  not  jeopard- 
ized, in  part  because  the  cuts  generally  have  been  restored  by 
Congress.  According  to  the  report,  "Status  of  the  Statistical  Com- 
munity After  Sustaining  Budget  Reductions"  (GAO/IMTEC-84-17), 
the  National  Center  for  Education  Statistics,  similar  to  other  statis- 
tical agencies,  protected  its  core  survey  programs  when  budget 
cuts  were  required.  The  Center  also  considered  whether  programs 
were  necessary  because  of  congressional  mandates  or  because  of 
Departmental  requirements.  As  a  result  of  applying  these  two 
criteria,  the  Center  made  most  of  its  reductions  in  the  areas  of 
technical  assistance  to  states  and  library  services.  Program  initia- 

14 


August  1984 


tives  that  were  put  on  hold  included  obtaining  data  on  interna- 
tional education  and  measuring  adult  functional  literacy. 

(WrK^hinrtinn   Pn<:ii     Anmist  9      1 9R4) 


{Washington  Post,  August  2,  1984) 


August  1984  The  Department  of  Energy  published  revised  proposed  regulations 

on  identification  and  protection  of  unclassified  controlled  nuclear 
information  (UCNI)  in  the  August  3  Federal  Register,  pp.  31236- 
46.  DOE  said  that  the  proposed  regulations  have  been  changed  to 
clarify  their  intended  scope,  with  several  of  the  changes  specifi- 
cally directed  at  the  concerns  of  librarians.  "Other  than  the  fact 
that  certain  documents  that,  in  the  past,  would  have  been  released 
to  libraries  no  longer  will  be  released  in  the  future,  these  regula- 
tions have  no  direct  impact  on  the  operation  of  public  or  university 
libraries."  The  broad  scope  of  DOE's  April  1983  proposal  raised 
concern  about  access  to  information  on  nuclear  research  in  li- 
braries which  are  depositories  of  DOE  nuclear  materials. 

On  September  13,  Sandra  Peterson,  Documents  Librarian  at  Yale 
University,  testified  for  ALA  at  a  DOE  public  hearing  on  the  pro- 
posed revision.  While  guestioning  the  philosophy  which  allows  an 
agency  to  restrict  access  to  unclassified  information,  Peterson 
acknowledged  DOE's  congressional  mandate  to  issue  regulations 
under  section  148  of  the  Atomic  Energy  Act,  and  commended  DOE 
for  responding  to  criticism  and  adopting  a  realistic  approach. 

August  1984  On  August  8  the  Joint  Committee  on  Printing  held  an  all-day  infor- 

mational session  at  which  JCP  staff  answered  guestions  on  the 
revised  draft  of  the  "Government  Printing,  Binding,  and  Distribu- 
tion Policies  and  Guidelines"  published  in  the  June  26  Congressio- 
nal Record  (pp.  H7075-78).  The  original  draft  revision  published  in 
November  1983,  intended  to  embrace  new  technologies  and  re- 
place JCP  micromanagement  procedures  with  oversight  and  policy- 
making functions,  generated  hundreds  of  comments.  ALA 
commented  favorably  on  both  drafts,  particularly  the  provisions  for 
technological  change  and  support  of  the  depository  library  pro- 
gram. 

The  JCP  staff  explained  that  the  current  JCP  regulations  were  now 
being  termed  "policies  and  guidelines"  in  light  of  the  Supreme 
Court's  decision  {INS  v.  Chadha,  102  S.  Ct.  2764  (1983),  which 
held  legislative  vetoes  unconstitutional  unless  passed  by  both 
Houses  of  Congress  and  signed  by  the  President.  The  Justice  De- 
partment has  advised  the  Defense  Department  that  it  need  not  seek 
JCP  approval  as  reguired  under  44  U.S.C.,  Section  501,  before 


15 


September  1984 


conducting  printing  activities  outside  the  Government  Printing 
Office.  JCP  staff  director  Tom  Kleis  said  he  would  ask  the  Commit- 
tee to  hold  hearings  on  Title  44  with  an  eye  to  revision,  but  felt  the 
guidelines  were  needed  as  an  interim  step.  JCP's  interest  as  an 
oversight  committee  was  in  making  sure  that  government  informa- 
tion was  available  to  the  public  at  a  fair  price,  and  that  copies  were 
provided  to  depository  libraries  as  reguired  by  law. 


September  1984 


The  Postal  Rate  Commission  recommended  on  Septem.ber  7  postal 
rate  increases  of  10  percent  for  1st  class  (a  22C  stamp),  11  percent 
for  3rd  class  nonprofit,  8  percent  for  the  4th  class  special  or  book 
rate,  and  a  whopping  21  percent  average  increase  for  the  4th  class 
library  rate.  While  in  most  cases  the  U.S.  Postal  Service  had  re- 
guested  larger  increases,  the  reverse  is  true  for  the  library  rate. 
USPS  reguested  12  percent;  the  Postal  Rate  Commission  said  21 
percent  was  necessary  to  cover  recent  increased  transportation 
costs  for  the  library  rate. 


The  initial  impact  early  in  1985  would  be  about  a  15  percent  in- 
crease in  the  library  rate  (from  the  current  47C  for  a  2-lb.  package 
to  54C),  with  the  average  21  percent  increase  (67C  for  2  lbs.,  up  42 
percent  over  the  current  47<C)  over  current  rate  at  the  end  of  the 
phased  rate  schedule  for  the  library  rate  (in  approximately  1986). 
The  library  rate  is  now  in  Step  14  of  a  16- step  phased  rate  sched- 
ule leading  up  to  a  rate  which  reflects  the  full  attributable  costs 
(but  none  of  the  institutional  or  overhead  costs)  of  the  library  rate 
mail.  (Note:  At  its  December  12  meeting,  the  U.S.  Postal  Service 
Board  of  Governors  accepted  the  Postal  Rate  Commission's  recom- 
mended rates.  The  new  rates  will  take  effect  on  February  17,  1985.) 
(U.S.  Postal  Service,  News,  General  Release  No.  47,  December  12, 
1984) 


September  1984 


In  a  September  14  letter  to  Donald  Sowle,  Administrator  of  OMB's 
Office  of  Federal  Procurement  Policy,  12  members  of  Congress 
stated  that  "While  we  believe  that  proper  implementation  of  the  A- 
76  Circular  can  help  achieve  more  cost-effective  performance  of 
government  activities,  we  oppose  its  application  to  library  opera- 
tions, which  are  inherently  connected  to  the  government's  ability  to 
make  sound  policy  judgements."  Signatories  were  Reps.  William 
Ford  (D-MI),  Albosta  (D-MI),  Hawkins  (D-CA),  Simon  (D-IL),  Dy- 
mally  (D-CA),  Owens  (D-NY),  Barnes  (D-MD),  Schroeder  (D-CO), 
Oakar  (D-OH),  Williams  (D-MT),  Brown  (D-CA),  and  Walgren 
(D-PA). 


16 


October  1984 


September  1984 


The  National  Aeronautics  and  Space  Administration  announced  on 
September  18  that  a  New  York  firm  would  publish  and  distribute 
"NASA  TechBriefs  Journal,"  saving  NASA  $600,000  a  year,  en- 
abling the  publisher  to  make  a  profit  selling  ads,  and  perhaps 
making  more  free  copies  available  to  the  public.  But  the  chairman 
of  the  Congress'  Joint  Committee  on  Printing  declared  NASA's 
agreement  illegal,  a  violation  of  Title  44.  A  NASA  lawyer  has 
issued  an  opinion  that  JCP's  jurisdiction  applies  only  to  publica- 
tions intended  for  a  government  audience,  not  to  all  publications 
containing  government-gathered  information.  In  response,  a  JCP 
attorney  said:  "Their  interpretation.  .  .is  totally  specious.  That 
would  leave  out  the  larger  part  of  the  universe  of  government 
publications."  ("Print  Deals  Seen  Making  GPO  a  Paperless  Tiger," 
Washington  Post,  October  2,  1984) 


September  1984 


The  House  Post  Office  and  Civil  Service  Subcommittee  on  Human 
Resources,  chaired  by  Rep.  Don  Albosta  (D-MI),  held  oversight 
hearings  September  20  and  25  on  the  implementation  of  OMB 
Circular  A-76  and  its  effects  on  the  federal  workforce.  OMB  Circu- 
lar A-76  sets  forth  executive  branch  policy  on  the  performance  of 
"commercial"  activities  by  the  federal  government.  At  the  Septem- 
ber 25  hearing.  Rep.  Albosta  questioned  Office  of  Management 
and  Budget  Deputy  Director  Joseph  R.  Wright,  Jr.  about  the  appro- 
priateness of  contracting  out  federal  libraries  and  said  that  OMB 
was  "walking  a  thin  line"  in  including  the  entirety  of  library  opera- 
tions in  their  emphasis  on  turning  government  activities  over  to  the 
private  sector.  In  his  testimony,  Wright  listed  14  categories  of  activ- 
ities for  productivity  improvement  study  which  federal  agencies 
will  be  asked  to  concentrate  on  in  the  near  future.  "Libraries"  fall 
between  "mail  and  file"  and  "laundry  and  dry  cleaning." 


Rep.  Major  Owens  (D-NY)  testified  that  libraries  are  one  of  the  few 
professional  functions  on  OMB's  list  and  linked  contracting  out 
efforts  to  the  Office  of  Personnel  Management's  efforts  to  reclassify 
and  downgrade  federal  librarians.  He  thinks  that  both  these  efforts 
have  ominous  implications  for  the  future  and  for  the  age  of  infor- 
mation. 

October  1984  In  the  October  1  Federal  Register,  p.  38694,  the  Department  of 

Commerce  announced  that  it  intends  to  conduct  a  cost  comparison 
of  its  library  and  issue  an  invitation  for  bids  under  OMB  Circular 
A-76. 


17 


October  1984 


October  1984  Over  the  past  two  years,  parents  in  a  housing  subdivision  in  Morri- 

son, CO,  have  watched  12  neighborhood  children  die  of  cancer, 
heart  disease  or  meningitis.  Another  five  children  are  battling 
cancer  now,  residents  say,  and  there  are  dozens  of  unexplained 
cases  of  heart,  brain  and  lung  disease.  The  neighborhood's  5,000 
residents  are  blaming  the  problem  on  toxic  wastes  and  demanding 
government  help.  The  Environmental  Protection  Agency,  after 
rebuffing  the  citizens  for  more  than  a  year,  recently  undertook  a 
series  of  surveys  to  search  for  toxic  polutants.  However,  EPA  has 
warned  that  it  may  lack  the  funds  to  do  much  if  it  turns  out  that  the 
health  problems  stem  from  toxic  discharges  in  the  neighborhood. 
A  local  activist  recalls  bitterly  that  EPA  officials  initially  told  resi- 
dents that  they  knew  of  no  sites  in  the  area  that  could  pose  a  haz- 
ard. With  one  call  to  the  U.S.  Geological  Survey,  the  citizens 
secured  a  map  showing  that  at  least  five  uranium  mines  once  oper- 
ated in  the  immediate  vicinity.  "You  just  go  to  the  library  and  look 
it  up,"  the  local  activist  is  quoted  as  saying.  ("12  Children  Dead  in 
'Cancer  Cluster'  Community,"  Washington  Post,  October  4,  1984) 

October  1984  The  Counterfeit  Access  Device  and  Computer  Fraud  and  Abuse 

Act  of  1984,  now  part  of  PL  98-473,  was  aimed  at  computer  hack- 
ers but  could  have  unintended  dampening  effects  on  the  public's 
right  to  know.  The  legislation  makes  it  a  federal  offense  to  know- 
ingly use  or  disclose  information  in  a  government  computer  if  the 
computer  is  accessed  without  authorization  or  if  the  scope  of  au- 
thorized access  is  exceeded.  Sens.  Mathias  (R-MD)  and  Leahy  (D- 
VT)  pointed  out  that  the  focus  of  the  new  provision  is  on  whether 
access  is  authorized,  not  on  whether  the  use  or  disclosure  of  infor- 
mation is  authorized.  Thus  even  information  whose  release  is  man- 
dated by  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act  might  not  be  able  to  be 
released  if  the  authority  of  a  particular  government  employee  to 
obtain  it  from  a  computer  file  were  in  any  doubt. 


October  1984 


Federal  agencies  are  publishing  notices  in  the  Federal  Register 
announcing  increased  fees  to  the  public  for  record  retrieval  includ- 
ing Freedom  of  Information  Act  requests.  The  increased  fees  im- 
plement existing  policy  to  recover  the  direct  costs  of  document 
search  and  duplication,  but  can  be  high  when  an  individual  re- 
quests information  which  must  be  retrieved  by  computer.  For  ex- 
ample, in  the  October  29  Federal  Register,  p. 43468,  the  U.S.  Postal 
Service  published  standard  charges  for  system  utilization  services 
which  range  from  $189  to  $1,827  per  hour.  Dedicated  use  of  a  370/ 
135  costs  $15,704  per  accounting  period.  Peripheral  charges  vary 
from  $.01  per  frame  for  offline  microfilm  processing  to  $2,960  per 
accounting  period  for  inspection  service  processing. 


18 


December  1984 


November  1984       The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  issued  Bulletin  No.  84-17, 
Supplement  No.  1,  which  provides  the  pro-rata  reduction  targets 
necessary  for  federal  agencies  to  achieve  the  savings  targets  speci- 
fied in  the  Deficit  Reduction  Act  of  1984.  Each  of  the  executive 
agencies  covered  by  the  supplement  has  a  pro-rata  reduction  tar- 
get of  25.6  percent  for  publishing,  printing,  reproduction,  and 
audiovisual  activities.  This  percentage  amounts  to  a  $347  million 
cut  in  printing  and  publications  in  1985.  ("OMB  Gets  Serious  on 
Spending  Cuts,"  Washington  Post,  November  7,  1984  p. A 13) 


'd 


November  1984       The  Defense  Department  issued  one  directive  and  prepared  to 
issue  a  second  that  will  restrict  the  release  of  unclassified  and 
previously  available  information  about  weapons  and  other  military 
systems.  The  new  rules  apply  to  technical  information  generated  by 
the  Defense  Department,  military  contractors,  research  organiza- 
tions, universities  and  anyone  under  contract  to  the  Pentagon. 
Pentagon  officials  said  that  the  directives  are  intended  to  reduce 
the  flow  of  militarily  useful  technology  to  the  Soviet  Union.  Critics 
said  the  directives  are  worded  so  broadly  that  they  could  also  be 
used  to  restrict  the  flow  of  embarrassing  information  about  weap- 
ons performance.  DOD  officials  sought  to  assuage  fears  that  the 
new  directive  would  be  used  to  cut  off  technical  information  to 
Congress  or  to  hide  mistakes  by  pointing  to  specific  provisions 
forbidding  such  actions,  {Washington  Post,  November  8,  1984; 
New  York  Times,  November  5  and  8,  1984) 

November  1984       The  Chemical  Information  System  (CIS),  20  chemical  data  bases 

with  physical  and  regulatory  data,  which  the  Environmental  Protec- 
tion Agency  (EPA)  has  operated  since  1973,  has  been  turned  over 
to  private  contractors  without  providing  any  interim  federal  fund- 
ing. Each  of  the  two  contractors  who  have  taken  over  the  data  base 
has  a  different  plan  for  the  system's  future.  Users  claim  that  this 
will  "put  the  system  in  chaos."  When  there  are  two  different  data 
bases,  users  will  be  forced  to  subscribe  to  both  to  get  what  they 
could  previously  get  from  one — "twice  the  overhead  and  twice  the 
work."  Still  another  concern  is  that  unprofitable  but  scientifically 
valuable  components  of  the  system  are  likely  to  be  dropped.  A 
proposal  to  move  the  system  to  the  National  Library  of  Medicine 
gained  some  Congressional  support  but  was  not  considered  before 
Congress  adjourned.  ("EPA  Dumps  Chemical  Data  System,"  Sci- 
ence (November  16,  1984)) 

December  1984  A  32-page  report  prepared  by  Harvard  University  asserts  that 
federal  agencies  have  greatly  expanded  their  demands  to  see 
academic  research  before  it  is  published.  Officials  on  other  cam- 

19 


December  1984 


puses  describe  the  report  as  the  most  comprehensive  catalog  yet 
published  of  restrictions  on  university  research  that  the  government 
funds,  and  that  it  marks  the  beginning  of  a  concerted  effort  by 
research  universities  to  roll  back  such  restrictions  in  the  Reagan 
Administration's  second  term.  ("Campuses  Fear  Federal  Control 
Over  Research,"  New  York  Times,  December  18,  1984) 


December  1984 


The  United  States  cast  the  lone  vote  in  the  United  Nations  General 
Assembly  against  the  continued  publication  and  expansion  of  a 
directory  listing  500  potentially  dangerous  products  that  are 
banned,  restricted  or  have  failed  to  win  approval  in  any  one  of  60 
countries.  The  Assembly  vote  was  147  to  1.  A  United  States  dele- 
gate said  the  American  vote  reflected  the  Reagan  Administration's 
belief  that  the  $89,000  expenditure  on  the  publication  was  "waste- 
ful" because  the  information  was  generally  available  elsewhere, 
although  not  all  in  one  place.  Some  nations  contended  after  the 
vote  that  the  United  States  was  not  sensitive  to  their  need  for 
guick,  easy  information.  A  member  of  the  Bangladesh  delegation 
said:  "It  is  very  difficult  for  developing  countries  to  collect  this 
information  on  their  own." 


The  United  States  voted  against  the  initial  publication  of  the  direc- 
tory in  1982  and  has  since  declined  to  provide  data  for  it.  The 
publication's  information  about  substances  banned  or  restricted  in 
the  United  States  was  compiled  with  the  help  of  the  Natural  Re- 
sources Defense  Council  which  filed  a  Freedom  of  Information 
reguest  with  federal  agencies  to  obtain  it.  ("U.S.  Lone  Dissenter  in 
147-1  Vote  at  U.N.  on  Toxic-Products  Book,"  New  York  Times,  De- 
cember 19,  1984) 


December  1984 


lanuary  1985 


The  State  Department  announced  on  December  19  that  it  will  go 
ahead  with  the  announced  withdrawal  of  the  United  States  from  the 
United  Nations  Educational,  Scientific  and  Cultural  Organization 
(UNESCO)  on  December  31,  ending  38  years  of  membership. 
United  States  membership  could  be  renewed  if  UNESCO  makes 
certain  changes  in  its  operation,  according  to  a  State  Department 
spokesman.  {Washington  Post,  December  20,  1984) 

President  Reagan  issued  Executive  Order  12498  which  could  ex- 
pand greatly  the  authority  of  the  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget  to  control  government  poHcy  making.  The  order  will  allow 
it  to  screen  other  agencies'  regulatory  proposals  before  the  rules 
are  drafted  formally  or  announced  publicly.  The  Executive  Order 
does  not  apply  to  independent  agencies  and  also  exempts  regula- 


20 


February  1985 


tions  that  must  face  tight  judicial  or  statutory  deadlines.  {Washing- 
ton Post,  January  5)  [Ed.  note:  See  January  4  Federal  Register,  pp. 
1036-1037  for  the  text  of  the  Executive  Order.] 

January  1985  A  32-page  report  "Federal  Restrictions  on  the  Free  Flow  of  Aca- 

demic Information  and  Ideas,"  prepared  by  John  Shattuck,  a  vice- 
president  at  Harvard  University,  was  reprinted  in  the  January  9 
Chronicle  ol  Higher  Education.  This  report  has  additional  exam- 
ples of  restrictions  of  access  to  government  information. 


February  1985 


The  1985  edition  of  the  Car  Book  rates  cars  based  on  crash  test 
performance,  fuel  economy,  preventative  maintenance,  repair,  and 
insurance  costs.  Originally  published  in  1980  by  the  Department  of 
Transportation,  it  guickly  became  the  government's  most  popular 
publication  with  two  million  copies  reguested;  but  the  Reagan 
Administration  discountinued  the  book.  It  is  now  available  from  its 
private  publisher  for  $8.95.  (Washington  Post,  February  4) 


February  1985         For  the  fourth  year  in  a  row,  the  Administration's  budget  proposed 
to  eliminate  funding  for  the  Library  Services  and  Construction  Act 
and  the  Higher  Education  Act  title  II  library  grant  programs.  The 
National  Commission  on  Libraries  and  Information  Science  was 
once  again  at  zero.  The  proposed  budget  would  also  eliminate  all 
postal  revenue  forgone  appropriations.  If  enacted,  this  would  mean 
that  as  of  October  1,  1985,  those  eligible  for  free  mail  for  the  blind 
would  have  to  pay  the  full  cost  of  this  mail;  and  major  increases 
would  take  effect  in  all  subsidized  rate  categories  including  non- 
profit bulk  mail,  classroom  publications,  and  the  fourth  class  book 
and  library  rates.  A  two-pound  book  package  sent  library  rate 
would  be  $.94,  a  74  percent  increase  from  the  current  $.54.  This 
would  be  on  top  of  a  15  percent  increase  February  17,  when  the 
two-pound  package  went  from  $.47  to  $.54  as  part  of  a  general  rate 
hike. 

Budget  documents  indicated  that  at  a  later  date  the  Administration 
would  propose  legislation  to  permit  the  United  States  Postal  Ser- 
vice to  increase  the  rates  of  full  ratepayers  so  that  some  subsidy 
could  continue  for  a  few  but  not  all  current  preferred- rate  mailers. 
No  details  of  this  proposal  were  provided.  (OMB,  Budget  of  the 
United  States  Government,  Fiscal  Year  1986,  Appendix) 

February  1985         The  Reagan  Administration's  efforts  to  stem  the  flow  of  unclassified 
information  to  the  Soviet  Union  may  soon  turn  to  a  new  area:  the 
government  literature  made  available  to  the  public  through  the 


21 


March  1985 


Commerce  Department's  National  Technical  Information  Service.  A 
February  memorandum  by  Commerce  Secretary  Malcolm  Baldrige 
suggests  that  "new  legislation,  new  Executive  Orders,  and  coordi- 
nated government-wide  regulations"  may  be  required  to  stem  what 
he  calls  the  "hemorrhage"  of  information  through  NTIS.  Private 
corporations  make  extensive  use  of  NTIS  materials  as  do  scholarly 
researchers.  Baldrige  wants  much  tighter  screening  of  what  goes 
into  NTIS,  in  essence  requiring  that  documents  containing  poten- 
tially sensitive  information  be  withheld  from  NTIS  even  though  they 
are  declassified  or  unclassified.  {Science,  March  8) 

March  1985  The  Merit  Systems  Protection  Board  announced  that  it  will  no 

longer  publish  the  full  text  of  its  decisions  in  bound  volumes,  but 
referred  users  to  private  sector  sources  for  MSPB  decisions.  The 
March  4  Federal  Register  notice  (pp.  8684-8685)  listed  several 
private  publishers  which  offer  the  MSPB  decisions  in  various  for- 
mats, not  all  of  which  include  the  complete  decisions,  at  prices 
ranging  from  $250  to  $498  per  year.  The  bound  volumes  in  the  past 
have  been  provided  at  no  charge  to  472  depository  libraries,  in- 
cluding 37  federal  libraries.  In  addition,  500  to  1000  copies  of  the 
volumes  have  been  sold  by  the  Government  Printing  Office  at  a 
cost  of  approximately  $55  per  year.  Discontinuation  of  government 
publication  removes  the  item  from  the  Depository  Library  Program, 
the  GPO  sales  program,  and  inhibits  public  access  to  the  deci- 
sions. The  cost  to  the  government  itself  for  one  copy  of  the  MSPB 
decisions  for  each  of  the  federal  libraries  which  are  currently 
depository  recipients  could  be  over  $18,000.  (Statement  of  Francis 
J.  Buckley  Jr.  before  the  House  Government  Operations  Subcom- 
mittee on  Government  Information,  Justice  and  Agriculture, 
April  29) 

March  1985  At  a  speech  at  the  National  Press  Club,  Attorney  General  Edwin 

Meese  III  rejected  the  suggestion  that  the  Administration  had 
restricted  access  to  information  and  said  it  had  instead  reduced  the 
amount  of  information  that  was  classified.  "We  have  far  too  much 
classified  information  in  the  Federal  Government,"  He  pledged  an 
"open  administration"  in  his  tenure  as  Attorney  General.  "Some- 
times there  is  a  temptation  in  Government  to  close  up  sources  of 
information,"  adding  that  he  would  seek  "to  avoid  this  temptation" 
and  try  instead  "to  work  cooperatively."  {New  York  Times,  March 
21)  [Ed.  note:    However,  the  Information  Security  Oversight  Office 
says  classification  has  increased.  See  May  item.] 


22 


March  1985 


March  1985  OMB  proposed  "a  sharp  reduction  in  the  Government's  efforts  to 

gather  and  distribute  statistics  about  all  aspects  of  American  life." 
Under  the  proposal,  a  draft  circular  on  the  management  of  federal 
information  resources,  OMB  would  have  authority  over  all 
information-gathering  efforts  by  federal  agencies.  "The  agencies 
would  have  to  show  that  the  data  were  essential  to  their  mission, 
that  their  benefits  outweighed  the  collection  costs."  {New  York 
Times,  March  31)  [For  the  text  of  the  proposed  circular,  see  the 
March  15  Federal  Register,  pp.  10734-47,  with  corrections  on 
March  21,  p.  11471.] 

March  1985  Some  omissions  from  the  OMB  proposed  circular  on  management 

of  federal  information  resources  are  sure  to  spark  controversy.  "For 
instance,  while  the  proposal  warns  bureaucrats  to  be  wary  of  the 
possibility  of  price-gouging  as  the  result  of  a  contractor's  monop- 
oly over  a  government  data  base,  it  doesn't  offer  specific  safe- 
guards. .  .Agencies  are  not  reguired  to  grant  sole-source  contracts 
to  provide  data  bases  to  the  public,  but  the  SEC  and  others  have 
an  incentive  to  do  so  if  in  return  they  get  an  internal  system  from 
the  contractor  at  no  cost."  (Business  Week,  March  25) 

March  1985  Using  its  authority  under  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act,  OMB 

rejected  all  or  parts  of  several  forms  proposed  by  the  Department 
of  Housing  and  Urban  Development  and  the  Veterans  Administra- 
tion to  collect  racial  and  ethnic  data  on  beneficiaries  of  federal 
programs.  The  information  is  collected  in  a  attempt  to  detect  and 
prevent  discrimination.  (New  York  Times,  March  25)  [Ed.  note:  In 
June,  OMB  reversed  its  decision  to  bar  HUD  and  VA  from  collect- 
ing information  about  the  race,  sex  and  ethnic  background  of 
applicants  for  home  mortgage  insurance.  In  a  May  letter,  five  Re- 
publican and  seven  Democratic  senators  urged  President  Reagan 
to  overrule  OMB,  Washington  Post,  June  26.] 

March  1985  The  Consumer  Information  Center,  part  of  the  General  Services 

Administration,  has  raised  fees  for  some  of  its  publications,  and  is 
now  charging  for  other  publications  it  formerly  distributed  free  of 
charge.  A  March  30  Washington  Post  story  about  these  changes 
stated:  "about  70  percent  of  the  publications  listed  in  the  1981 
catalog  were  free,  compared  to  50  percent  today,"  and  "in  1981,  the 
most  expensive  publication  in  the  catalog  cost  $2;  today,  the  top 
price  is  $7."  As  a  result,  the  CIC's  distribution  of  publications  over 
the  last  four  years  has  plummented  by  about  77  percent. 


I 


23 


April  1985 


April  1985  The  Department  of  Defense  told  the  Society  of  Photo-Optical  In- 

strumentation Engineers,  sponsors  of  an  April  technical  symposium 
in  Washington,  that  it  must  cancel  the  presentation  of  about  a 
dozen  unclassified  research  papers  because  the  information  might 
help  the  enemies  of  the  U.S.  In  addition,  DOD  ordered  the  Society 
to  restrict  the  audience  that  attends  the  presentation  of  two  dozen 
other  technical  papers  that  also  are  unclassified.  The  Pentagon 
contended  it  has  the  authority  to  limit  distribution  of  information 
under  the  Export  Control  Act,  which  bars  export  of  sensitive  tech- 
nology without  a  license.  When  speeches  and  papers  are  involved, 
DOD  maintains  that  the  presence  of  foreign  scientists  in  the  audi- 
ence could  lead  to  unauthorized  export  of  information.  Leading 
universities  and  professional  associations  have  objected  to  the 
restrictions,  and  have  been  working  with  the  Pentagon  to  try  to 
resolve  the  conflict.  {New  York  Times,  April  8) 

April  1985  According  to  an  April  18  Washington  Post  article,  the  Reagan 

Administration  is  drafting  guidelines  to  classify  all  national 
security-related  information  throughout  the  federal  government — 
including  civilian  agencies — as  part  of  an  effort  to  increase  com- 
puter and  telecommunications  security.  Much  of  the  information 
now  in  government  computers  is  unprotected  and  is  widely  availa- 
ble. A  special  national  security  committee  will  decide  how  much  of 
that  information  needs  protection  and  how  to  protect  it.  As  the 
federal  government  relies  on  computer  networks  and  ordinary 
telephone  conversations  to  conduct  even  the  most  sensitive  busi- 
ness, traditional  methods  of  classification  for  paper  files  and  docu- 
ments are  seen  as  no  longer  adequate.  The  fact  that  computer  and 
telecommunications  technologies  can  be  breached  by  electronic 
intercept  and  entry  has  prompted  the  decision  to  launch  a  set  of 
security  countermeasures  in  both  classification  and  technology. 
One  result  could  be  that  sensitive  information  now  stored  in  civil- 
ian agency  computers  would  fall  under  a  new  national  security 
classification. 

April  1985  The  Department  of  Energy  issued  final  regulations  in  the  April  22 

Federal  Register,  pp.  15818-29,  to  prohibit  the  unauthorized  dis- 
semination of  certain  information  identified  as  Unclassified  Con- 
trolled Nuclear  Information.  These  regulations  describe  how 
government  information  is  determined  to  be  UCNI,  establish  mini- 
mum protection  standards,  specify  who  may  have  access  to  UCNI, 
and  establish  procedures  for  the  imposition  of  penalties  for  viola- 
tion of  these  regulations. 


24 


April  1985 


April  1985  "According  to  a  UPI  report  of  April  8,  Senator  William  Proxmire 

has  threatened  to  try  to  cut  funds  for  a  newly-created  White  House 
News  Service  if  it  shows  signs  of  expansion  into  the  nation's  'first 
government  operated  and  controlled  news  service'  or  of  being 
replicated  in  other  government  agencies."  {Library  Hotline, 
April  29) 

April  1985  OMB  is  imposing  administrative  budget  cuts  on  agencies  which 

are  forcing  reductions  in  publication  programs  without  adeguate 
consideration  of  the  utility  of  the  information  in  meeting  the  agen- 
cy's mission  and  in  serving  the  public  interest.  For  example,  the 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  is  being  forced,  among  other  cuts,  to 
reduce  the  Monthly  Labor  Review  to  a  guarterly  publication  and  to 
eliminate  the  following  items:  How  the  Government  Measures 
Unemployment,  Questions  and  Answers  on  Male  and  Female 
Earnings,  A  Profile  on  Black  Workers,  Historical  Supplement  to 
Employment  and  Earnings,  Family  Employment  Characteristics 
Data  Book,  Handbook  of  Labor  Statistics,  and  Productivity  and 
Manufacturing.  (Statement  of  Francis  J.  Buckley  Jr.  before  the 
House  Government  Operations  Subcommittee  on  Government 
Information,  Justice  and  Agriculture,  April  29.)  [Ed.  note:  The 
Monthly  Labor  Review  continued  as  a  monthly.  ] 

April  1985  The  former  U.S.  Court  of  Claims  published  its  Cases  Decided 

through  the  GPO.  As  a  result,  copies  were  distributed  to  557  de- 
pository libraries  and  about  300  copies  were  sold  by  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Documents  for  about  $82  in  1982,  the  last  year  they 
were  published.  The  reports  of  the  U.S.  Claims  Court  are  being 
published  commercially  for  $219  for  six  volumes  to  bring  the  set 
up  to  date,  plus  an  estimated  $102  per  year  for  future  issuances. 
The  new  Court  Judges  and  Clerk  are  provided  free  copies  by  the 
commercial  publisher,  but  the  Court  purchases  copies  for  its  own 
library  as  must  all  other  government  agencies,  libraries,  and  the 
public.  (Statement  of  Francis  J.  Buckley  Jr.  before  the  House  Gov- 
ernment Operations  Subcommittee  on  Government  Information, 
Justice  and  Agriculture,  April  29.) 

April  1985  "A  decision  by  the  Nuclear  Regulatory  Commission  to  reduce 

public  access  to  meetings  and  reduce  the  availability  of  transcripts 
from  closed  meetings  is  causing  a  stir  in  Congress.  In  late  April 
the  NRC  voted  3-2  to  immediately  implement  these  rule  changes 
proposed  by  chairman  Nunzio  Palladino,  without  first  holding 
public  hearings  on  the  matter."  (Science,  May  10) 


25 


May  1985 


May  1985  OMB  issued,  May  2,  Circular  No.  A-3  (Revised),  "Government 

Publications,"  which  prescribes  the  policies  and  procedures  for 
approving  funding  for  government  periodicals,  and  for  reporting 
periodicals  and  non-recurring  publications.  This  revision  institutes 
an  annual  review  of  federal  periodicals  and  establishes  guidelines 
and  procedures  for  a  coordinated  and  uniform  method  of  agency 
reporting  and  OMB  approval.  A  new  policy  section  states:  "Expen- 
diture of  funds  shall  be  approved  only  for  periodicals  that  provide 
information,  the  dissemination  of  which  is  necessary  in  the  transac- 
tion of  the  public  business  reguired  by  law  of  the  agencies.  The 
OMB-approved  control  system  shall  continue  to  be  implemented 
and  used  to  monitor  periodicals  and  non-recurring  publications. 
Periodicals  and  non-recurring  publications  will  be  prepared  and 
disseminated  in  the  most  cost-effective  manner  possible."  The  con- 
trol system  referred  to  was  set  up  in  1981  through  OMB  Bulletin  81- 
16  and  supplement  No.  1,  which  "initiated  a  program  to  cut  waste 
in  Government  spending  on  periodicals,  pamphlets,  and  audiovi- 
sual products." 

May  1985  On  May  2,  OMB  issued  OMB  Bulletin  No.  85-14  providing  instruc- 

tions and  materials  to  the  heads  of  executive  departments  for  the 
submission  of  the  Annual  Report  on  Government  Publications.  "In 
the  Annual  Report  on  Publications,  due  June  30,  1985,  agencies 
shall  reguest  approval  for  all  periodicals,  both  those  proposed  and 
those  already  being  published,  form  the  Director  of  OMB."  This 
bulletin  implements  Title  44  of  the  U.S.  Code,  section  1108,  and 
OMB's  revised  Circular  A-3. 

May  1985  The  Reagan  Administration,  under  a  1982  executive  order  (E.O. 

12356)  that  spelled  out  new  rules  for  defining  government  secrets, 
has  been  classifying  more  documents  and  declassifying  far  fewer. 
According  to  the  annual  report  of  the  Information  Security  Over- 
sight Office,  the  total  number  of  "classification  decisions"  in  fiscal 
1984  was  19,607,736,  an  increase  of  nine  percent  over  the  year 
before.  The  systematic  declassification  of  old  records  has  flagged 
under  the  Reagan  order,  but  proceeded  faster  in  1984  than  in 
1983.  {Washington  Post,  May  8) 

May  1985  Responses  were  overwhelmingly  negative  to  the  OMB  proposed 

circular  on  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources  pub- 
lished in  the  March  15  Federal  Register.  While  there  were  a  few 
defenders  among  the  309  comments  filed  for  public  review  in  the 
OMB  library,  most  were  highly  critical  of  the  proposal.  Of  the 
comments  received  as  of  May  31,  1985,  169  were  from  the  library 

26 


May  1985 


and  university  community,  88  from  other  members  of  the  pubhc, 
and  52  from  federal  agencies.  Many  of  the  comments  contended 
that  the  proposed  policy  would  make  government  information  less 
accessible  and  more  costly. 

In  a  May  14  letter  to  OMB,  ALA  stated  that  the  proposed  circular, 
if  implemented  as  written,  will  systematically  deprive  the  American 
people  of  information  by  and  about  their  government.  ALA  said 
the  proposal  still  requires  major  amplification  and  revision,  and 
another  draft  should  be  issued  for  public  comment.  In  addition,  it 
should  be  submitted  to  Congress  for  policy  review  because  its 
provisions  reach  far  beyond  mere  management  considerations. 
ALA's  ten-page  response  is  available  by  sending  a  self-addressed 
mailing  label  to  the  ALA  Washington  Office,  110  Maryland  Ave., 
N.  E.,  Washington,  D.  C,  20002.  {ALA  Washington  Newsletter, 
May  29,  and  June  17) 

May  1985  In  a  May  24  editorial,  "Statistical  Error,"  the  Washington  Post 

called  the  OMB  proposed  circular  on  the  management  of  federal 
information  resources  "an  innocuous- sounding  proposal  that  would 
destroy  important  and  useful  government  services."  The  editorial 
concluded: 

The  government  and  the  public  need  more  and  better,  not 
less  and  more  expensive,  statistical  information.  The  amounts 
that  can  be  saved  by  OMB's  proposals  are  nickels  and 
dimes.  The  things  that  could  be  destroyed  are  gold.  We  put 
to  the  side  a  thought  that  has  crossed  some  people'e  minds: 
that  the  administration  is  trying  to  suppress  statistics  and 
information  that  could  be  politically  inconvenient.  Let's  just 
say  that  what  they're  doing  is  wrongheaded,  and  should  be 
stopped. 

May  1985  Bechtel  North  American  Power  Corporation  has  been  awarded  a 

contract  to  record  Securities  Exchange  Commission  filings  onto 
microfilm  and  disseminate  them.  Starting  Oct.  1,  Bechtel  is  to 
provide  an  estimated  250,000  microfiche  a  year  to  the  SEC's  public 
reference  rooms.  Bechtel  is  expected  to  earn  between  $4  million 
and  $6  million  a  year  from  sales  of  the  information,  depending  on 
the  number  of  filings.  {Washington  Post,  May  29) 

May  1985  The  U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture  announced  that  time-sensitive 

information  currently  available  both  electronically  and  in  print 
form  from  several  USDA  agencies  will  be  available  July  1  from  a 


27 


June  1985 


single  electronic  source:  Martin  Marietta  Data  Systems.  Users  of 
the  service,  which  are  expected  to  be  organizations  that  further 
distribute  USDA  information,  will  pay  a  minimum  fee  of  $150  a 
month,  plus  costs  of  special  hardware  and  software,  to  access  the 
system.  USDA  and  land-grant  universities  will  pay  the  usual  com- 
puter time-share  fees,  but  not  a  monthly  minimum.  With  the  proper 
equipment,  such  as  high-speed  modems,  farmers  and  other  indi- 
viduals could  also  access  the  new  service  for  a  fee.  The  new  ser- 
vice will  disseminate  daily  and  weekly  market  reports  from  the 
Agricultural  Marketing  Service;  crop  and  livestock  reports  from 
the  Statistical  Reporting  Service;  outlook  and  situation  reports  from 
the  Economic  Research  Service,  foreign  agricultural  situation 
reports,  export  sales  reports,  and  foreign  trade  leads  from  the 
Foreign  Agricultural  Service;  news  releases  from  the  Office  of 
Information  and  other  perishable  information.  {Agricultural  Li- 
braries Information  Notes,  May  1985) 

USDA  elicited  a  commitment  from  Martin  Marietta  to  charge  no 
more  than  the  standard  time- sharing  charges  to  information  ven- 
dors purchasing  the  bulk  data  on  the  Martin  Marietta  system. 
However,  USDA  does  not  plan  to  exercise  control  over  the  fees 
information  vendors  charge  the  public  to  access  the  data  on  the 
vendor's  systems.  In  addition,  USDA  hopes  that  disseminating  the 
data  on  the  Martin  Marietta  system  will  eliminate  the  need  to  dis- 
seminate the  data  in  paper  copy. 

OMB  regards  the  USDA  program  as  a  prototype  for  electronic 
dissemination  of  information,  and  Environmental  Protection 
Agency  and  several  other  agencies  have  expressed  an  interest  in 
participating  in  the  USDA  system.  (Government  Documents  Round 
Table,  ALA,  Documents  to  the  People,  June  1985,  p.  59) 


June  1985 


The  June  12  edition  of  the  Bureau  of  National  Affairs  Daily  Report 
for  Executives  has  a  seven-page  article  which  gives  a  good  sum- 
mary of  the  issues  relating  to  the  proposed  OMB  circular  on  Man- 
agement of  Federal  Information  Resources  (March  15  Federal 
Register).  The  article  has  numerous  quotes  from  the  more  than  300 
comments  OMB  received  about  their  proposal  (BNA  Daily  Report 
for  Executives,  Regulatory  and  Legal  Analysis,  pp.  C-1  to  C-7) 


June  1985 


28 


The  Department  of  Educations's  Pubhcation  and  Audiovisual  Advi- 
sory council  barred  17  federally  supported  education  laboratories 
from  issuing  98  of  438  publications  related  to  research  contracted 
for  by  the  department.  The  move  marks  the  first  time  that  the  de- 
partment has  a  applied  1981  order  intended  to  curb  wasteful  fed- 


July  1985 


eral  publishing  to  projects  it  has  sponsored  at  the  regional 
laboratories  through  the  National  Institute  of  Education.  (Education 
Week,  June  19) 

June  1985  In  the  wake  of  alleged  spying  by  former  and  current  military  per- 

sonnel, the  House  of  Representatives  approved,  333  to  71,  an 
amendment  to  the  Defense  Department  authorization  bill,  which 
would  give  the  Pentagon  broad  power  to  subject  to  lie  detector 
tests  more  than  four  million  military-civilian  employees  with  access 
to  classified  information  and  would  require  polygraphs  before 
granting  the  highest  level  clearances.  The  Senate  has  already 
passed  a  defense  authorization  bill  that  provides  for  a  much  more 
limited  polygraph  program.  The  two  bills  will  have  to  be  recon- 
ciled in  a  conference  committee.  (Washington  Post,  June  17) 

July  1985  At  a  July  17  hearing  of  the  House  Government  Operations  Sub- 

committee on  Employment  and  Housing  chaired  by  Rep.  Barney 
Frank  (D-MA),  Rep.  Major  R.  Owens  (D-NY)  said:  "It  appears  that 
OMB  has  zeroed  in  on  the  cost  of  information  while  remaining 
cynically  unaware  of,  or  ignoring,  its  value."  Carol  Turner  of  Stan- 
ford University  testified  for  ALA  and  reaffirmed  the  Association's 
view  that  if  OMB  implemented  its  draft  circular  as  proposed  in  the 
March  15  Federal  Register,  there  would  be  a  drastic  reduction  in 
the  flow  of  government  information  to  the  public.  (Washington 
Post,  July  18)  [Ed.  note:  The  transcript  of  the  hearing,  OMB's 
Proposed  Restrictions  on  Information  Gathering  and  Dissemination 
by  Agencies,  is  available  from  the  Subcommittee  (202/225-6751).] 

July  1985  Reps.  William  H.  Gray  (D-PA)  and  David  R.  Obey  (D-WI)  criti- 

cized the  Administration's  plan  to  stop  issuing  the  government's 
annual  report  on  after-tax  income.  The  latest  report,  June  27, 
showed  the  wealthy  are  getting  wealthier  and  the  poor,  poorer; 
households  in  all  but  the  top  20  percent  received  a  smaller  share 
of  after-tax  income  in  1983  than  in  1980.  The  Congressmen  noted 
that  the  report  indicated  the  share  of  after-tax  income  going  to 
those  with  incomes  of  more  than  $60,000  a  year  rose  to  42  percent, 
from  40.6  percent  in  the  1980-1983  period,  a  shift  of  nearly  $25 
billion.  In  a  letter  to  Commerce  Secretary  Malcolm  Baldrige,  they 
protested  the  decision  to  stop  issuing  the  report  in  order  to  cut 
costs.  (New  York  Times,  July  9) 

In  August,  Baldrige  wrote  Gray  that  he  had  ''reevaluated  the  Cen- 
sus Bureau's  recommendation  and  have  concluded  that  we  should 
continue  doing  the  report."  (Washington  Post,  August  30) 


29 


August  1985 


August  1985  Attorney  General  Edwin  Meese  III  and  Assistant  Attorney  General 

for  Civil  Rights  William  Bradford  Reynolds  are  leading  an  effort  to 
revise  Executive  Order  11246,  the  20-year-old  directive  mandating 
egual  employment  efforts  on  the  part  of  federal  contractors.  Busi- 
ness organizations  joined  civil  rights  activists  and  members  of 
Congress  in  challenging  a  draft  executive  order  which  would 
abolish  rules  requiring  some  government  contractors  to  meet  nu- 
merical goals  in  hiring  minorities  and  women.  Sen.  Howard  M. 
Metzenbaum  (D-OH)  said:  "When  you  make  an  effort  to  determine 
whether  there's  been  discrimination,  you  have  to  use  whatever 
evidence  is  available.  Doing  away  with  the  ability  to  use  statistical 
data  is  tantamount  to  making  it  almost  impossible  to  make  a  case." 
(Washington  Post,  August  15  and  16) 

August  1985  The  Public  Health  Service's  National  Center  for  Health  Statistics 

has  been  keeping  track  of  the  births,  illnesses,  disabilities  and 
deaths  of  Americans — and  a  host  of  other  health  facts — for  25 
years.  Critics  have  voiced  concern  that  Reagan  Administration 
budget  cuts  may  have  undermined  some  of  the  center's  record- 
keeping ability,  particularly  the  frequency  of  surveys.  The  Center's 
Director,  Dr.  Manning  Feinleib,  acknowledged  that  "government- 
wide  constraints  on  budget  and  positions  have  resulted  in  changes 
in  the  original  periodicity"  of  some  surveys.  (Washington  Post, 
August  23) 

August  1985  To  save  storage  and  mailing  expenses.  Department  of  Agriculture 

officials  are  junking  thousands  of  copies  of  county  soil  profiles  that 
cost  the  government  large  amounts  of  money  to  produce  and  pub- 
lish. One  clerk  estimated  that  40,000  surveys,  some  as  thick  as 
telephone  books,  will  be  dumped.  County  soil  surveys  and  maps 
are  vital  tools  to  farmers,  developers,  land  appraisers,  home  build- 
ers, engineers  and  recreation  planners  in  determining  what  can  be 
done  on  which  soils.  Over  the  years,  the  Department  has  compiled 
surveys  for  1,908  counties.  The  survey  trashing  was  ordered  by  the 
Soil  Conservation  Service,  which  oversees  the  compilation  and 
distribution  of  the  documents.  The  division  decided  that  it  would 
be  the  most  cost-effective  way  of  solving  a  budget  problem,  and 
would  save  $67,000  a  year  by  giving  up  storage  for  which  it  is 
charged  "rent"  by  the  General  Services  Administration.  It  was 
estimated  that  it  would  cost  $57,000  to  send  the  surveys  to  the 
respective  states.  However,  some  copies  will  be  available  to  the 
public  in  state  capitals.  (Washington  Post,  August  28) 


30 


September  1985 


September  1985 


The  September  AGNET  Newsletter  (University  of  Nebraska- 
Lincoln)  informed  readers  that  AGNET,  an  electronic  system, 
would  carry  a  reduced  number  of  U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture 
reports  in  the  future.  'The  reason  for  this  is  USDA's  new  EDI  (Elec- 
tronic Dissemination  of  Information)  system  developed  and  run  by 
Martin  Marietta  Data  Systems.  Even  if  current  technical  problems 
can  be  worked  out,  the  cost  structure  will  not  allow  us  to  recover 
our  expenses  of  retrieving  most  reports.  MMDS  is  charging  five 
cents/line  to  view  the  menu  of  available  reports,  and  two  cents/line 
for  transmitting  the  reports — including  blank  lines.  The  line 
charges  are  in  addition  to  long  distance  and  connect  charges .... 
Since  Central  AGNET  is  a  self-funded  operation  (not  tax  sup- 
ported), we  cannot  subsidize  projects  or  absorb  costs  we  are  un- 
able to  recover."  The  newsletter  pointed  out  to  their  clients  that  the 
option  exists  to  contract  directly  with  MMDS,  but  advised  that 
there  is  a  $150/month  minimum  fee.  (See  February  1984  "Less 
Access ..."  entry. ) 


September  1985 


In  a  September  17  letter  to  Defense  Secretary  Caspar  W.  Wein- 
berger, the  presidents  of  17  American  scientific  and  engineering 
societies  accused  the  Defense  Department  of  creating  a  new  system 
of  classification  on  research  and  declared  that  their  organizations 
will  no  longer  sponsor  restricted  sessions  at  their  meetings.  The 
effect  of  the  presidents'  actions  would  be  to  shut  out  from  their 
society  meetings  the  papers  of  any  defense-funded  scientists  work- 
ing in  "sensitive"  but  nevertheless  unclassified  areas.  The  letter 
said,  in  effect,  that  if  the  Pentagon  wants  certain  subjects  re- 
stricted, it  should  take  them  out  of  open  meetings  or  set  up  classi- 
fied meetings.  {Washington  Post,  September  21) 


September  1985 


The  Department  of  Education  reversed  controversial  decisions 
made  last  spring  by  its  Publications  and  Audiovisual  Advisory 
Council  to  bar  publication  of  some  education- research  materials. 
The  action  by  Under-Secretary  of  Education  Gary  L.  Bauer  will 
allow  researchers  at  several  federally  sponsored  education- research 
laboratories  to  publish  materials  that  they  had  agreed  to  produce 
as  part  of  their  contracts  with  the  agency.  The  researchers  had 
been  asked  to  halt  the  publication  of  some  materials  by  PAVAC  to 
cut  the  agency's  printing  costs.  Some  education  researchers 
charged  that  the  panel  had  over-reached  its  mandate  to  trim 
spending  and  had  tried  to  censor  the  publication  of  certain  types 
of  research.  Bauer  said,  however,  that  he  had  found  no  evidence  of 
censorship.  {Chronicle  of  Higher  Education,  September  25) 


31 


November  1985 


November  1985 


In  an  essay  in  the  November  Harper's  "Liberty  Under  Siege,"  Wal- 
ter Karp  uses  a  chronological  format  to  document  what  he  con- 
siders " .  .  .an  unflagging  campaign  to  exalt  the  power  of  the 
presidency  and  to  undermine  the  power  of  the  law,  the  courts,  the 
Congress,  and  the  people."  His  chronicle  is  not  a  secret  history,  but 
a  record  of  events  which  have  been  reported  in  daily  newspapers. 
Karp  warns:  "When  a  concerted  assault  on  the  habits  of  freedom 
ceases  to  shock  us,  there  will  be  no  further  need  to  assault  them, 
for  they  will  have  been  uprooted  once  and  for  all." 


November  1985 


"A  dozen  annual  reports  recently  were  placed  on  the  hit  list  of  the 
White  House  budget  office— and  five  of  them  come  out  of  ED.  The 
reasons  cited  by  the  budget  office  for  refusing  to  fund  publication 
of  the  reports:  The  annual  report  of  the  Centers  on  Education 
Media  and  Materials  for  the  Handicapped  contained  no  useful 
information  not  reported  elsewhere;  the  annual  report  of  the  Na- 
tional Advisory  Council  on  Continuing  Education  duplicates  other 
reports,  the  biennial  report  of  the  Office  of  Education  Professional 
Development  was  moot  because  the  office  was  abolished  in  1981; 
and  two  reports  on  the  allocation  of  ED  employee  time  by  work- 
years  contained  information  already  provided  in  annual  budget 
reguests."  {American  School  Board  Journal,  November  1985) 


November  1985 


Then  Assistant  Education  Secretary  Anne  Graham  was  criticized  at 
a  November  13  hearing  of  the  House  Government  Operations 
Subcommittee  on  Intergovernmental  Relations  and  Human  Re- 
sources for  her  role  as  chairman  of  an  in-house  advisory  group 
that  reviewed  federal  education  research  projects  and  blocked 
many  from  being  published.  In  her  testimony  Graham  said  that  the 
advisory  group  was  established  in  response  to  OMB's  Bulletin  No. 
81-16  which  provided  procedures  and  guidelines  to  implement  the 
President's  April  1981  moratorium  on  the  publication  and  creation 
of  periodicals,  pamphlets  and  audiovisual  products  until  systems 
were  established  and  approved  by  OMB.  (See  April  1981  entries  in 
"Less  Access  to  Less  Information  By  and  About  the  U.S.  Govern- 
ment.") In  a  November  15  article  in  the  Washington  Post,  Rep.  Ted 
Weiss  (D-NY),  who  chaired  the  hearing,  said:  "The  hearings  con- 
firmed that  there  is  no  legal  role  for  PAVAC  in  educational  re- 
search or  program  development."  He  added  that  "PAVAC's  real 
impact  is  restricting  the  free  flow  of  information  necessary  to  im- 
prove education  in  our  country."  [Ed.  note:  PAVAC,  the  Publication 
and  Audiovisual  Advisory  Council,  has  been  restructured  and  is 
now  called  the  Publications  Review  Board.] 


32 


December  1985 


November  1985 


A  U.S.  District  Court  judge  ruled  that  federal  agencies  must  tell 
the  public  the  topics  of  regulations  that  are  under  consideration 
and  how  long  the  agencies  have  been  considering  them.  The  rul- 
ing said  that  disclosure  of  such  "limited  information"  under  the 
Freedom  of  Information  Act  would  "at  most"  allow  the  public  "to 
ascribe  responsibility  for  delay  to  a  particular  agency."  Though  the 
ruling — that  "regulatory  logs"  are  public  information — seems  on 
the  surface  to  be  a  technicality,  the  Public  Citizen  Health  Research 
Group  which  brought  the  suit  against  the  Department  of  Health 
and  Human  Services  contends  it  could  have  important  conse- 
guences  if  widely  applied  in  practice.  President  Reagan  gave  OMB 
authority  early  in  his  presidency  to  review  all  significant  govern- 
ment regulations,  and  critics  have  long  charged  that  the  Adminis- 
tration uses  the  OMB  to  stall  and  eventually  kill  regulations  without 
public  scrutiny.  Robert  Bedell,  an  OMB  deputy  administrator,  said 
that  OMB  tells  the  heads  of  virtually  all  agencies  whether  their 
proposed  regulations  are  consistent  with  the  Administration's  prin- 
ciples. The  Public  Citizen  Health  Research  Group  has  been  lobby- 
ing the  Food  and  Drug  Administration  since  1982  to  require  a  label 
warning  parents  not  to  give  aspirin  to  children  with  flu  or  chicken 
pox.  {Washington  Post,  November  28) 


December  1985 


ALA  joined  the  American  Council  of  the  Blind,  the  Blinded  Vet- 
erans Association,  and  Playboy  Enterprises,  Inc.,  in  filing  a  com- 
plaint against  the  Librarian  of  Congress  who  followed  the  intent  of 
Congress  to  deny  FY  1986  funds  for  the  braille  edition  of  Playjboy 
under  LC's  books  for  the  blind  and  physically  handicapped  pro- 
gram. The  suit  was  filed  December  4  in  U.S.  District  Court  for  the 
District  of  Columbia,  and  announced  at  a  Dec.  4  press  conference 
at  which  Reps.  Vic  Fazio  (D-CA)  and  Jerry  Lewis  (R-CA)  said  they 
would  submit  an  Amicus  Curiae  brief  in  support  of  the  suit. 


ALA  President  Beverly  Lynch,  speaking  at  the  press  conference, 
said  the  Congressional  amendment  which  caused  the  LC  action 
restricts  and  suppresses  access  of  the  blind  to  viewpoints,  ideas 
and  information  expressed  in  a  single,  lawful  magazine,  otherwise 
available  to  sighted  readers,  solely  because  the  government  deems 
those  ideas  to  be  dangerous,  bad,  immoral  or  otherwise  undesir- 
able. The  suit  requests  a  judgment  either  declaring  that  the  Wylie 
amendment  does  not  prohibit  LC  from  producing  Playboy  in 
braille  or  ruling  the  intent  of  the  amendment  to  be  unconstitu- 
tional. 


33 


December  1985 


The  issue  arose  on  July  18  when  the  House  accepted  an  amend- 
ment to  HR  2942,  the  FY  '86  Legislative  Branch  Appropriations 
Bill,  offered  by  Rep.  Chalmers  Wylie  (R-OH)  to  reduce  the  Library 
of  Congress  budget  by  $103,000.  The  test  of  the  amendment  did 
not  indicate  the  purpose  of  the  amendment,  but  Rep.  Wy lie's  re- 
marks made  clear  its  intent  was  to  prohibit  LC  from  reproducing 
and  distributing  Playboy  in  braille.  The  vote  and  remarks  appear 
on  pp.  H5932-35  of  the  July  18  Congressional  Record  (daily  edi- 
tion). The  Senate  did  not  restore  the  funds.  HR  2942  was  later 
given  final  Congressional  approval  and  signed  into  law  (PL  99-151) 
November  13.  (News  Release:  American  Library  Association,  No- 
vember 1985) 


December  1985 


A  group  of  15  independent  documentary  film  makers  and  produc- 
tion companies  filed  suit  on  December  5  in  the  Los  Angeles  Fed- 
eral District  Court,  charging  that  the  federal  government  had 
severely  limited  the  distribution  of  their  films  abroad  because  of 
differences  in  political  ideology.  The  film  makers  charged  that 
regulations  issued  by  the  United  States  Information  Agency  were 
being  used  "as  a  political  censorship  tool  to  hinder  distribution"  of 
their  films.  The  film  makers  asked  a  federal  judge  to  order  that  six 
films  be  given  the  certification  they  say  is  necessary  to  make  for- 
eign distribution  reahstically  possible.  The  subjects  of  the  films 
include  childhood  in  America,  uranium  mining,  nuclear  war  and 
Nicaragua.  The  film  makers  say  that  unless  USIA  issues  a  certifi- 
cate stating  that  a  film  is  educational,  scientific  or  cultural  in  nat- 
ure, the  films  are  subject  to  high  import  taxes  from  the  foreign 
countries  and  voluminous  paper  work  that  makes  distribution  to 
schools  and  libraries  abroad  virtually  impossible.  {New  York  Times, 
December  6) 


December  1985 


The  Office  of  Personnel  Management,  in  a  move  prompted  by  the 
prosecution  of  former  Navy  intelligence  analyst  Samuel  Loring 
Morison,  asked  the  military  services  for  nominations  to  "Security 
Hearing  Boards"  that  could  lead  to  the  summary  removal  of  civil- 
ian employees  "in  the  interests  of  national  security."  OPM  said  that 
the  plan  had  been  shelved,  at  least  for  the  moment,  in  light  of 
Morison's  post-conviction  resignation  from  the  government.  But  at 
the  Defense  Department,  officials  said  they  were  still  mulling  the 
OPM  request.  An  OPM  spokesman,  said  that  the  "presidential 
instructions"  cited  in  a  December  2  letter  from  OPM  Director 
Constance  Horner  to  the  secretaries  of  the  Navy,  Army  and  Air 
Force  were  issued  by  President  Dwight  D.  Eisenhower  in  a  1953 
executive  order  that  laid  the  basis  for  the  Federal  Loyalty-Security 
Program  of  the  1950s.  {Washington  Post,  December  14) 


34 


December  1985 


December  1 985       After  it  was  revealed  in  the  news  media  on  December  1 1 ,  the 

White  House  announced  that  President  Reagan  signed  a  secret 
directive  reguiring  thousands  of  Administration  officials  and  per- 
haps some  Cabinet  members,  to  submit  to  polygraph  tests  as  part 
of  a  counterespionage  crackdown  throughout  the  government.  The 
President  signed  National  Security  Decision  Directive  196  on  No- 
vember 1.  It  applies  to  officials  with  access  to  "sensitive  compart- 
mental  information"  (SCI);  more  than  182,000  federal  employees 
and  contractor  personnel  would  be  subject  to  the  tests.  {Washing- 
ton Post,  articles  on  December  12,  20,  21  and  25) 

NSDD  196  is  classified,  thus  it  is  not  known  if  it  contains  a  prepub- 
lication  review  system  for  speechs  and  writings  of  current  and 
former  government  employees.  However,  such  a  system  is  already 
in  effect.  According  to  a  lune  1984  General  Accounting  Office 
report,  every  employee  with  access  to  SCI  is  being  required  to 
sign  a  lifelong  prepublication  censorship  agreement.  Form  4193. 
(See  "Less  Access.  .  ."  item,  June  1984) 

December  1985       Despite  Congressional  and  public  pressure  for  an  opportunity  for 
further  review  of  the  final  draft,  OMB  issued  its  policy  directive, 
OMB  Circular  A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Re- 
sources, on  December  12.  The  text  was  published  in  the  December 
24  Federal  Register,  pp.  52730-51,  with  corrections  in  the  January 
6  FR,  p.  461.  A  provision  that  agencies  must  arrange  to  make 
government  publication  available  to  federal  depository  libraries 
was  added  to  the  final  version  in  response  to  public  criticism  of  the 
controversial  first  draft  published  in  the  March  15  FR. 

The  basic  considerations  and  assumptions  have  been  amended  and 
broadened  to  reflect  criticism  that  these  statements  in  the  March 
draft  were  too  narrowly  conceived.  However,  the  final  circular 
requires  cost-benefit  analysis  of  government  information  activities, 
"maximum  feasible  reliance  on  the  private  sector"  for  the  dissemi- 
nation of  government  information  products  and  services,  and  cost 
recovery  through  user  charges  where  appropriate. 

December  1985       While  trying  to  help  a  friend  find  a  government  job,  a  Washington- 
area  man  found  that  locating  the  phone  numbers  to  find  the  jobs  is 
difficult.  He  found  that  most  government  agency  employment  hot 
lines  are  unlisted,  but  uncovered  about  70  of  those  unlisted  num- 
bers. To  make  the  task  easier  for  the  public — and  money  on  the 
side — Ed  Streeky  has  published  his  own  phone  listings  The  Book: 
A  Directory  of  Federal  Job  Information  Phone  Numbers  Plus  Un- 
listed Numbers  for  Dial-a-Vacancy  24-hour-hothnes.  It  retails  for 

35 


December  1985 


December  1985 


$6.95  in  Washington  bookstores.  ("Finding  Federal  Job  Hot  Lines 
Can  Be  Harder  Than  Finding  Jobs,"  Washington  Post, 
December  28) 

In  an  article  in  the  December  20  Publisher's  Weekly,  "New  Dan- 
gers to  Press  Freedom,"  Martin  Garbus  said  that  the  conviction  of 
Samuel  Morison  in  a  Baltimore  Federal  Court  on  October  17,  1985, 
creates  a  serious  danger  to  publishers.  "The  case  has  received 
little  attention  from  the  publishing  community,  but  it  should;  for 
the  prosecution  is  part  of  a  larger  Reagan  administrative  strategy 
to  cut  down  on  leaks  and  their  appearance  in  books,  newspaper 
articles  and  television  reports." 


December  1985 


In  a  December  23  editorial,  the  Washington  Post  said  that  damage 
may  be  done  by  the  OMB  circular  issued  with  the  "sleep-inducing 
title  'Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources."'  It  observed 
that  "the  proposal  would  likely  reduce  the  number  of  printed  gov- 
ernment publications  available  in  libraries  or  at  low  cost  and  in- 
crease the  already  widespread  practice  of  private  outfits 
interfacing  with  government  computers  and  providing  printouts  for 
users  at  hefty  fees."  The  editorial  concluded:  "It  is  saving  pennies 
and  squandering  dollars  for  the  government,  in  the  name  of  cost- 
cutting,  paperwork-reduction,  and  privatization,  to  starve  the 
statistical  agencies  and  choke  off  the  flow  of  federal  statistics  from 
the  government  agencies  to  the  people.  Rep.  Glenn  English  (D- 
OK)  spoke  out  last  spring  against  the  earlier  draft  version  of  this 
circular,  and  OMB  made  some  improvements.  But  there's  still 
plenty  for  Mr.  English  and  others  in  Congress  to  complain — and  do 
something — about."  ("Privatizing  the  Numbers,"  Washington  Post, 
December  23) 


December  1985 


December  1985 


Herbert  I.  Schiller  urged  "a  national  debate  about  the  character, 
objectives  and  direction  of  the  information  society"  in  a  December 
28  article  in  the  Nation  titled,  "Information — A  Shrinking  Re- 
source." He  believes  that  the  national  information  supply  is  an 
endangered  resource,  particularly  threatened  by  the  privatization 
and  commercialization  of  government  information. 

The  Treasury  Department  has  been  releasing  its  daily  cash  balance 
to  a  California  computer  service  a  day  before  it  is  released  to  the 
general  public.  The  150  subscribers  to  the  $1200-a-year  service 
include  a  handful  of  the  36  primary  bond  dealers.  After  Dow  Jones 
and  Co.  news  wires  carried  a  report  about  the  18  1/2-hour  gap,  the 
Treasury  announced  it  will  formally  release  the  cash  balance  data 


36 


January  1986 


at  4  p.m.  to  anyone  who  wants  it  starting  December  30.  One  money 
market  economist,  who  had  not  been  aware  of  the  commercial 
computer  service,  said  of  the  two-tiered  release:  "No  one  is  sup- 
posed to  get  a  proprietary  advantage  where  sensitive  government 
information  is  concerned."  A  government  bond  dealer  added: 
"Why  does  Treasury  have  to  go  through  a  private  vendor  to  release 
public  information?"  Treasury  officials  indicated  the  early  release 
was  established  without  full  consideration  of  its  effect  on  financial 
markets.  {Wall  Street  Journal,  December  30) 

January  1986  In  a  January  7  letter  to  the  editor,  Wendy  L.  Gramm,  Administrator 

for  Information  and  Regulatory  Affairs,  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget,  challenged  the  Washington  Post's  assertion  that  statistical 
programs  have  been  "hacked  away  at"  by  the  Administration.  Re- 
plying to  a  December  23  editorial,  "Privatizing  the  Numbers," 
Gramm  said:  "No  one  is  proposing  to  stop  furnishing  necessary 
information.  No  one  is  proposing  to  dismantle  our  federal  statistical 
structure."  She  went  on  to  say:  "OMB's  new  policy  does  not  provide 
.  .  .  that  the  public  be  cut  off  from  government  information."  Gary 
D.  Bass,  Executive  Director  of  OMB  Watch,  in  a  January  21  letter 
to  the  Post  charged  that  Gramm's  letter  "greatly  misled  the  public." 

January  1986  Due  to  budget  cutbacks,  the  U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture  can 

no  longer  report  to  the  nation  the  total  poundage  of  food  con- 
sumed per  capita  in  the  United  States.  The  information  has  been 
lost  primarily  due  to  the  discontinuance  of  crop  reports  from 
USDA.  The  Food  Institute  says  that  the  information  as  now  pub- 
lished prevents  food  industry  researchers  from  making  any  mean- 
ingful comparisons  in  the  fruit  and  vegetable  areas,  such  as 
comparing  changes  in  the  national  diet  (like  the  changeover  from 
animal  to  crop  products),  and  a  host  of  other  analyses.  (Dear 
Friend  letter  from  Frank  J.  Panyko,  Vice  President  of  The  Food 
Institute,  January  13) 

January  1986  The  Administration  is  considering  a  change  in  federal  reporting 

requirements  that  would  eliminate  a  major  source  of  data  about 
how  much  federal  grant  and  contract  money  goes  to  minority  firms. 
Administration  officials  said  that  the  OMB  and  the  Commerce 
Department  may  adopt  a  reporting  form  similar  to  one  now  used  by 
Commerce  to  track  how  federal  grants  are  spent.  Although  the 
Commerce  guestionnaire  asks  about  funds  spent  with  minority 
contractors,  it  requires  no  data  on  how  money  is  spent  with  sub- 
contractors. Subcontracting  is  a  major  source  of  federal  funds  for 
minority  businesses  which  often  are  too  small  to  bid  for  the  overall 


37 


January  1986 


contract.  Rejection  of  data-collection  plans  and  the  move  toward  a 
standardized,  abbreviated  information-gathering  form  have  led 
critics  to  charge  that  the  Administration  wants  to  do  away  with  most 
racial  data  gathering.  {Washington  Post,  January  14) 

January  1986  The  Federal  Election  Commission  announced  that  "drastically 

curtailed  public  disclosure  of  federal  campaign  finance  informa- 
tion will  result  from  a  series  of  budget  cuts  forced  upon  the  FEC." 
Effective  March  1,  the  computerization  of  itemized  information 
filed  by  political  committees  on  the  '86  election  will  be  reduced 
severely,  although  candidate  and  political  committee  reports  will 
continue  to  be  available  on  microfilm  for  public  review  and  copy- 
ing. Among  the  effects  of  the  reduction  in  computerization  will  be 
a  reduction  in  timeliness,  since  data  entry  time  probably  will  dou- 
ble; accuracy  of  detailed  information  may  be  reduced  because  less 
expensive  methods  of  data  entry  will  be  used;  and  availability  of 
detailed  information  will  be  reduced.  (FEC,  news  release, 
January  30) 

Stepping  into  the  breach  is  Washington  Online's  Campaign  Contri- 
bution Tracking  System  which  includes  all  FEC  reports  filed  since 
1983  and  costs  $3,500  in  annual  subscriptions  for  unlimited  usage. 
("Databases,"  no  date) 

January  1986  At  its  Midwinter  Meeting,  ALA  Council  passed  a  resolution  urging 

ALA  members  to  monitor  the  effects  on  government  information 
and  publications  of  the  implementation  of  OMB  Circular  A- 130, 
Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources,  and  to  report 
problems  to  the  ALA  Washington  Office,  Members  of  Congress, 
and  OMB. 

February  1986         As  was  proposed  last  year,  the  President's  budget  would  again 

eliminate  all  postal  revenue  forgone  appropriations.  If  enacted,  this 
would  mean  that  as  of  October  1,  1986,  those  eligible  for  free  mail 
for  the  blind  would  have  to  pay  the  full  cost  of  this  mail;  and  major 
increases  would  take  effect  in  all  subsidized  rate  categories  includ- 
ing nonprofit  bulk  mail,  classroom  publications,  and  the  fourth- 
class  book  and  library  rates.  Since  rates  as  of  January  1,  1986,  are 
at  full  attributable  cost  levels,  enactment  of  the  budget  would 
eliminate  all  indirect  subsidy  and  result  in  regular  commercial 
rates.  A  two-pound  library  rate  book  package  would  be  $.94. 
(OMB,  Budget  of  the  United  States  Fiscal  Year  1987,  Appendix) 


38 


March  1986 


February  1986         For  the  fifth  year  in  a  row,  the  President's  budget  submitted  to 
Congress  proposed  to  eliminate  the  Library  Services  and  Con- 
struction Act  and  Higher  Education  Act  Title  II  library  grant  pro- 
grams. In  addition,  the  budget  included  proposals  for  FY  '86  to 
rescind  or  "unappropriate"  all  library  grant  program  funding  ex- 
cept LSCA  I  and  III  where  about  half  the  states  had  already  re- 
ceived funds.  (OMB,  Budget  of  the  United  States  Fiscal  Year  1987, 
Appendix)  [Ed.  note:  These  funds  were  released  in  mid-April  after 
Congress  did  not  agree  to  the  rescissions.  ] 

February  1986         In  the  FY  1987  budget  documents,  one  of  the  "accomplishments  in 
1985"  announced  that  departments  and  agencies  eliminated  or 
consolidated  3,848  publications,  approximately  25  percent  of  the 
federal  inventory,  to  achieve  cost  avoidances  of  $35  million,  a  20 
percent  reduction  since  1981.  (OMB,  Management  of  the  United 
States  Government,  Fiscal  Year  1987) 


February  1986 


The  Federal  Communications  Commission  will  publish  summaries 
rather  than  the  full  texts  of  Notices  of  Proposed  Rulemaking,  rule- 
making decisions  and  policy  statements  in  the  Federal  Register. 
The  FCC  decided  that  "publication  of  detailed  summaries  would 
be  a  reasonable  and  cost-efficient  way  of  apprising  the  general 
public  of  its  actions."  Federal  Register  publication  of  the  actual 
texts  of  final  rules  will  be  continued.  Budgetary  constraints  and  the 
rising  cost  of  Federal  Register  publication  were  given  as  the  ra- 
tionale for  the  cuts.  To  cut  publication  costs  further,  the  FCC  also 
amended  its  rules  to  enable  it  to  reduce  the  amount  of  material 
published  in  FCC  Reports.  Hereafter,  only  those  rulemaking  deci- 
sions and  policy  statements  summarized  in  the  Federal  Register 
and  not  published  in  Pike  and  Fischer  (a  private  sector  service 
which  costs  $1,875  to  initiate  and  $1,375  for  an  annual  subscrip- 
tion) will  be  published  in  FCC  Reports.  (FCC  News,  Report  No. 
GN-9,  February  24,  1986) 


March  1986  Birth  expectation  data  is  missing  from  the  current  (lune  1984) 

Fertility  of  American  Women  report  from  the  Bureau  of  the  Census. 
The  supplemental  guestion  reguired  to  obtain  the  information  was 
dropped  from  the  Current  Population  Survey  in  1984  because  of 
cost  considerations.  Martin  O'Connell,  Chief  of  the  Fertility  Statis- 
tics Branch  at  the  Bureau,  said  that  the  birth  expectation  data  will 
be  provided  through  external  funding  sources  in  the  1985  and  1986 
surveys.  Collection  of  the  birth  expectation  data  will  continue  to 


> 


39 


March  1986 


depend  on  external  funding  sources  unless  the  importance  and  use 
of  these  data  are  made  known  to  the  Bureau.  (National  State  Data 
Center  Steering  Committee  Newsletter,  March) 

March  1986  The  House  Appropriations  Committee  has  directed  the  Department 

of  Transportation's  Research  and  Special  Programs  Administration 
to  study  charging  user  fees  or  contracting  with  private  firms  for  its 
aviation  information  management  activities,  according  to  the 
March  3,  1986,  issue  of  Aviation  Daily.  RSPA  is  turning  data  col- 
lection functions  over  to  the  Transportation  Systems  Center,  which 
the  Department  wants  to  "privatize"  in  April  1986,  according  to 
RSPA  Administrator  Cynthia  Douglass.  On  April  1,  RSPA  an- 
nounced that  it  will  resume  production  and  distribution  of  Air 
Carrier  Traffic  Statistics,  Air  Carrier  Financial  Statistics,  and  Air 
Carrier  Industry  Scheduled  Service  Traffic  Statistics.  Subscriptions 
to  these  publications  will  be  sold  by  TSC  for  $150,  $50,  and  $50, 
respectively.  When  sold  by  the  Government  Printing  Office,  Air 
Traffic  Statistics  cost  $74  and  Air  Carrier  Financial  Statistics 
cost  $16. 

March  1986  Budget  cuts  mandated  by  the  Gramm-Rudman-Hollings  balanced 

budget  measure  brought  on  a  fiscal  emergency  at  the  Library  of 
Congress  requiring  the  elimination  of  300  positions,  the  reading 
rooms  closed  on  Sundays  and  most  evenings,  and  significantly 
fewer  items  purchased,  cataloged,  preserved,  and  made  available 
to  the  blind.  (March  4,  Congressional  Record,  pp.  E588-9) 

March  1986  The  federal  government's  spending  on  the  collection  of  data  about 

higher  education  declined  by  63  percent  between  fiscal  1974  and 
1984,  and  spending  on  education  research  dropped  by  64  percent, 
according  to  a  study  by  the  General  Accounting  Office.  In  the 
same  period,  spending  on  the  entire  Department  of  Education  rose 
by  22  percent.  At  the  request  of  the  House  Subcommittee  on  Select 
Education,  GAO  is  conducting  a  comprehensive  study,  expected  to 
be  completed  by  December,  of  the  condition  of  federally  sponsored 
education  research  and  data  collection.  Early  findings  show  that 
reductions  in  spending  on  the  gathering  of  education  statistics 
have  been  disproportionately  higher  than  cutbacks  in  other  statisti- 
cal agencies.  Between  fiscal  1980  and  1984,  the  budgets  of  most 
federal  agencies  devoted  to  the  collection  of  statistics  suffered  an 
eight  percent  reduction.  The  budget  of  the  National  Center  for 
Education  Statistics,  however,  shrank  by  28  percent  during  that 
period.  The  GAO  also  found  that  in  some  instances  NCES  has 
decreased  the  sizes  of  its  samples  and  the  frequency  of  some  types 


40 


March  1986 


of  data  collection  activities.  That,  it  said,  raised  some  concerns 
about  the  validity  and  quality  of  the  work  done  by  the  agency. 
{Chronicle  of  Higher  Education,  March  5) 

March  1986  A  federal  health  official  phoned  the  Department  of  Health  and 

Human  Service's  main  library  to  ask  for  the  March  13  issue  of  the 
New  England  Journal  of  Medicine.  He  reported,  "They  said  that 
because  of  Gramm-Rudman  we  no  longer  have  that  journal.  "Can 
you  imagine?  The  top  federal  health  agency!"  The  HHS  librarian, 
John  Boyle,  said:  "I  don't  know  whether  it  can  be  ascribed  to 
Gramm-Rudman,  but  the  department  is  holding  orders.  The  sub- 
scription has  expired  and  is  awaiting  renewal.  We  are  waiting  for 
money  to  be  approved."  {Washington  Post,  March  28) 

March  1986  The  Joint  Committee  on  Printing  in  a  March  14  letter  to  every 

Representative  and  Senator,  outlined  the  effects  of  the  Gramm- 
Rudman-Hollings  4.3  percent  cut  as  of  March  1  on  the  printing 
and  distribution  of  Congressional  publications.  They  announced 
that  the  public  will  be  referred  to  GPO  bookstores  to  purchase 
Congressional  documents  such  as  bills,  public  laws,  reports,  com- 
mittee prints,  hearing  records,  etc.  [Ed.  note:  See  May  entry  on 
this  issue.]  (Dear  Colleague  letter  from  Sen.  Charles  McC.  Mathias 
Jr.  and  Rep.  Frank  Annunzio) 

March  1986  At  a  March  17  hearing,  the  Joint  Economic  Committee  heard  from 

private  economists  who  said  that  the  quality  of  the  nation's  eco- 
nomic statistics  is  in  danger  of  being  destroyed  through  a  combina- 
tion of  budget  cuts  and  bureaucratic  neglect.  One  of  the  witnesses, 
Courtenay  Slater,  was  the  author  of  a  study  commissioned  by  the 
committee  on  problems  with  government  statistics.  For  information 
about  the  the  report,  "Opportunities  for  Improving  Economic  Sta- 
tistics" contact  the  JEC,  G-01  Dirksen  Senate  Office  Building, 
Washington,  D.  C,  20510,  202/224-5771.  {Washington  Post, 
March  16) 

March  1986  The  Defense  Department  and  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency, 

have  initiated  a  disinformation  program  which  covers  15-20  pro- 
grams, six  or  seven  of  which  are  Defense  Department  projects. 
Deliberately  false,  incomplete  and  misleading  information,  includ- 
ing altered  technical  information,  will  be  released  in  order  to 
impede  the  transfer  of  accurate  technological  information  to  the 
Soviet  Union.  A  six-inch-thick  document  outlining  the  program  to 
the  armed  services  asks  for  comments  "on  the  use  of  false  requests 
for  proposals,  false  or  misleading  information  to  be  given  at  press 


41 


March  1986 


interviews,  inaccurate  performance  figures  for  aircraft  and  weapon 
systems,  and  other  altered  technical  information."  A  Defense  De- 
partment official  said:  "If  some  of  the  results  of  the  disinformation 
activity  on  a  particular  program  get  passed  on  to  Congress 
through  hearings  or  other  means,  there  are  channels  on  the  Hill 
that  can  be  used  to  get  the  correct  information  to  the  people  who 
need  to  know."  {Aviation  Week  &  Space  Technology,  March  17) 

March  1986  In  a  March  26  letter  to  Sen.  Mathias  and  Rep.  Annunzio,  ALA 

Washington  Office  Director  Eileen  Cooke  protested  that  the  TCP 
plans  to  sell  all  Congressional  documents  "...  means  that  partici- 
pation in  an  active,  meaningful  and  timely  way  in  the  federal  legis- 
lative process  will  not  depend  on  the  ability  to  pay."  She  asked  the 
JCP  to  reconsider  the  recently  announced  restrictions  on  public 
access  to  basic  Congressional  documents.  Cooke  sent  a  letter  May 
6  to  every  Senator  and  Representative  urging  them  to  ask  ICP  to 
reconsider.  Other  groups  have  also  protested,  and  there  has  been 
increasing  publicity  about  the  proposal  in  the  Washington,  D.  C, 
area  newspapers.  (See  "Endless  Reams  of  Legislative  Paper  May  Be 
Yours.  .  .for  a  Price,"  Washington  Post,  May  13.)  [Ed.  note:  See 
May  entry  on  this  issue.] 

March  1986  In  a  March  29  column  in  the  Washington  Post,  Jack  Anderson  and 

Joseph  Spear  described  the  National  Wartime  Information  Security 
Program  (WISP),  "the  blueprint  for  press  censorship."  The  broad 
sweep  envisioned  for  WISP  was  described  in  an  internal  Pentagon 
memo  prepared  for  a  meeting  of  government  planners  on  Septem- 
ber 21,  1983:  "The  National  WISP  provides  for  the  control  and 
examination  of  communications  entering,  leaving,  transiting  or 
touching  the  borders  of  the  United  States,  and  voluntary  withhold- 
ing from  publication,  by  the  domestic  public  media  industries,  of 
military  and  other  information  which  should  not  be  released  in  the 
interest  of  the  safety  and  defense  of  the  United  States  and  its  al- 
lies." The  memo  included  a  bow  to  the  First  Amendment:  WISP 
was  not  to  be  used  indiscriminately — for  example,  "as  a  guardian 
of  public  morals."  Anderson  and  Spear  concluded:  "The  alarming 
thing  about  the  Pentagon  directive  is  that  it  allows  the  defense 
secretary  to  set  up  a  censorship  program  'if  the  United  States  is 
believed  about  to  be  attacked.'  Attacked  by  whom?  The  Soviet 
Union?  Libyan  hit  sguads?  Killer  bees?  The  directive  does  not 
specify.  All  the  defense  secretary  needs  is  the  president's  permis- 
sion and  the  news-media  is  silenced — at  gunpoint  if  necessary." 


April  1986 
42 


At  the  request  of  Rep.  Major  Owens  (D-NY),  the  House  Postsecon- 
dary  Education  Subcommittee  chaired  by  Rep.  William  Ford  (D- 


April  1986 


MI)  held  a  library  oversight  hearing,  on  April  8  on  OMB  Circular 
A- 130  and  its  implications  for  access  to  government  information; 
H.J.  Res.  244,  calling  for  a  White  House  Conference  on  Library 
and  Information  Services  in  1989;  and  the  impact  of  Administration 
budget  proposals  for  federal  library  programs  (including  LSCA, 
HEA,  the  ECIA  Chapter  2  school  block  grant,  and  postal  revenue 
forgone). 

April  1986  The  Council  on  Environmental  Quality  decided  to  abolish  a  rule 

that  requires  federal  agencies  to  consider  the  worst  environmental 
consequences  of  their  actions,  contending  that  the  regulation  is 
"unproductive  and  ineffective."  The  decision  caps  a  three-year 
Reagan  Administration  effort  to  limit  the  reach  of  the  National 
Environmental  Policy  Act.  Since  1970,  NEPA  has  required  federal 
agencies  to  prepare  detailed  analyses  of  the  environmental  effects 
of  dams,  nuclear  waste  disposal  sites,  pesticide- spraying  programs 
and  other  federally  financed  projects.  Final  regulations  were  pub- 
lished in  the  April  25,  Federal  Register,  p.  15618,  with  corrections 
on  May  7,  p.  16846.  National  Wildlife  Federation  official  Norman 
Dean  said  the  change  significantly  weakens  existing  rules,  which 
require  agencies  to  disclose  the  absence  of  information  in  all  in- 
stances. "The  fact  that  information  is  missing  in  the  first  place 
makes  it  almost  impossible  to  determine  if  a  significant  impact  is 
reasonably  foreseeable,"  he  said.  "Under  the  new  rule,  an  agency 
wouldn't  even  have  to  identify  the  fact  that  information  is  missing," 
Dean  observed.  {Washington  Post,  May  25) 

April  1986  The  Commerce  Department  announced  a  study  of  alternatives  for 

privatizing  the  National  Technical  Information  Service  in  the  April 
28  Federal  Register,  pp.  15868-70.  The  notice  asked  for  public 
comment  on  privatization  alternatives  (discontinuing  NTIS  com- 
pletely, selling  or  contracting  out  all  or  portions,  establishing  a 
public  or  private  special-purpose  organization)  and  on  ten  key 
issues  including  whether  government  reports  placed  in  NTIS 
should  be  copyrighted.  In  a  June  6  letter  to  the  Department  of 
Commerce,  ALA  Washington  Office  Director  Eileen  Cooke  urged 
that  NTIS  continue  to  operate  either  as,  or  within,  a  not-for-profit 
public  service  agency  with  continued  Congressional  oversight. 

April  1986  Rep.  Glenn  English  (D-OK)  chaired  an  April  29  hearing  of  the 

House  Government  Operations  Subcommittee  on  Government 
Information,  Justice  and  Agriculture,  to  review  a  controversy  about 
public  access  to  the  papers  and  recordings  of  the  Nixon  White 
House.  The  National  Archives  and  Records  Administration  pub- 
lished regulations  implementing  the  Presidential  Recordings  and 

43 


May  1986 


Materials  Preservation  Act  of  1974  in  the  February  28  Federal 
Register,  p.  7228.  Officials  from  NARA,  OMB,  and  the  Department 
of  Justice  were  questioned  about  a  February  18  Justice  memoran- 
dum (requested  by  OMB)  which  basically  allows  former  President 
Nixon  to  control  public  access  to  documents  of  his  administration. 
(OMB  Watch,  May  9) 

May  1986  The  Reagan  Administration  is  considering  the  criminal  prosecution 

of  five  news  organizations  for  publishing  information  about  Ameri- 
can intelligence-gathering  operations,  particularly  intercepted 
communication  reflecting  U.S.  code-breaking  capabilities.  "The 
president  himself  first  revealed  the  nature  of  these  intercepted 
messages,"  said  Leonard  Downie  Jr.  managing  editor  of  the  Wash- 
ington Post.  "What  we  reported  subsequent  to  that — details  of  the 
intercepts — did  not  do  anything  more  to  reveal  our  intelligence 
capabilities  than  the  president  himself  did."  (Washington  Post, 
May  7) 

May  1986  Speaking  to  a  group  of  students  on  May  21,  President  Reagan  said 

that  the  problem  of  hunger  in  the  United  States  is  caused  by  "a 
lack  of  knowledge"  about  where  to  obtain  help.  Critics  responded 
by  blaming  administration  policies.  J.  Larry  Brown  of  the  Harvard 
School  of  Public  Health,  chairman  of  the  Physicians  Task  Force  on 
Hunger  in  America,  said  the  Administration  had  eliminated  a 
program  to  inform  people  about  food  stamps  benefits.  (Washington 
Post,  May  22) 

May  1986  A  public  notice  in  the  May  22  Congressional  Record,  p.  H3161, 

announced  that  effective  June  2  new  procedures  for  public  distri- 
bution of  Congressional  documents  would  be  instituted  at  the 
House  and  Senate  Document  Rooms.  Public  distribution  of  both 
House  and  Senate  materials  will  be  handled  only  through  the 
Senate  Document  Room  located  in  Room  B-04,  Hart  Senate  Office 
Building.  The  public  will  be  entitled  to  receive  one  free  copy  of 
any  bill,  report,  resolution,  public  law  or  other  document  typically 
distributed  in  the  Document  Room.  Additional  copies  may  be 
purchased.  The  public  still  may  obtain  copies  of  committee  prints 
and  hearings  from  individual  committees.  Once  the  committee 
supply  of  each  document  has  been  exhausted,  the  public  may 
purchase  additional  copies  from  GPO's  Congressional  Sales  Office, 
North  Capitol  and  G  Streets,  N.  W.,  Washington,  D.  C,  20401. 

May  1986  "The  Pentagon,  concerned  with  the  flow  of  high  technology  to  the 

Soviet  bloc,  is  trying  to  limit  foreign  access  to  government  and 

44 


June  1986 


commercial  computer  data  bases  that  contain  sensitive  technical 
information.  A  range  of  legal  and  technological  options  are  now 
under  exploration,  from  licensing  access  to  high-tech  data  bases  to 
planting  special  computer  programs  within  the  data  bases  to  moni- 
tor who  is  seeking  what  information.  Government  officials  con- 
cede, however,  that  they  face  formidable  obstacles  in  devising  a 
workable  system,  including  such  questions  as  whether  data  bases 
enjoy  the  same  constitutional  protections  as  other  media  and  how 
to  implement  restrictions  in  ways  that  won't  deny  data-base  benefits 
to  American  users."  {Washington  Post,  May  27) 


June  1986 


OMB  has  agreed  to  fuller  disclosure  of  its  role  in  reviewing  pro- 
posed federal  regulations.  All  original  versions  of  draft  and  final 
rules  sent  to  OMB  will  now  be  made  public  upon  request,  along 
with  OMB's  written  suggested  changes  and  reasons  for  them.  At 
present,  only  the  published  version  of  a  rule — in  which  OMB's 
revisions  cannot  be  tracked — is  available.  Sen.  Carl  Levin  (D-MI) 
said:  "No  longer  will  OMB  operate  within  the  shade-drawn,  doors- 
closed,  no-fingerprints  environments  in  which  it  has  operated  for 
the  past  five  years."  Sen.  David  F.  Durenberger  (R-MN),  and  Reps. 
John  D.  Dingell  (D-MI)  and  Jack  Brooks  (D-TX)  are  other  leaders 
of  a  bipartisan  group  of  congressmen  who  are  threatening  to  cut 
OMB  funding  by  the  $5.4  million  required  to  run  the  Office  of 
Information  and  Regulatory  Affairs,  currently  headed  by  Wendy 
Lee  Gramm.  {Washington  Post,  June  17) 


June  1986 


At  a  joint  hearing  on  June  18  of  the  House  Post  Office  and  Civil 
Service  Committee  and  the  Senate  Committee  on  Governmental 
Affairs,  members  of  the  Postal  Rate  Commission  presented  results 
of  a  Congressionally  mandated  preferred  rate  mail  study.  Among 
their  recommendations  are:  1)  recalculating  the  revenue  forgone  in 
a  way  which  would  reduce  the  appropriation  by  some  $265  million 
a  year;  2)  eliminating  the  revenue  forgone  appropriation  entirely 
(except  for  the  small  amount  needed  for  free  mail  for  the  blind  and 
free  voting-rights  mail)  by  amending  the  rate-making  statute  to 
provide  separate  subclasses  for  the  eligible  nonprofit  mailers;  and 
3)  restricting  eligibility  for  advertising  or  commercialized  uses  of 
the  nonprofit  rates.  The  report  recommends  ending  eligibility  for 
publishers  and  distributors  for  books  and  other  qualifying  material 
they  mail  to  libraries  and  other  eligible  institutions. 


June  1986 


A  House  Government  Operations  Committee  report  concluded  that 
legal  ambiguities,  practice  limitations,  and  economic  constraints 
may  allow  federal  agencies  to  restrict  unduly  the  public  availability 


45 


June  1986 


of  government  data  maintained  electronically.  The  result  could  be 
diminished  public  access  to  federally  operated  public  data  bases; 
increased  agency  power  over  data  users  and  information  system 
contractors;  and  unnecessary  government  interference  in  the  mar- 
ketplace for  information  products  and  services. 

The  report  recommends  that:  agencies  use  the  new  information 
technology  to  broaden  and  improve  public  use  of  government 
information;  more  administrative  guidance  on  the  development  and 
use  of  electronic  information  systems  be  provided;  agencies  con- 
sult regularly  with  those  affected  by  electronic  information  systems; 
competitive  procurements  be  used  for  the  acquisition  of  automated 
information  products  and  services;  and  laws  that  have  been  inter- 
preted to  allow  agencies  to  maintain  exclusive  control  over  elec- 
tronic data  bases  be  modified.  (House  Committee  on  Government 
Operations,  "Electronic  Collection  and  Dissemination  of  Informa- 
tion by  Federal  Agencies:  A  Policy  Overview,"  House  Report  99- 
560,  April  29) 

June  1986  Due  to  budgetary  constraints,  the  Federal  Communications  Com- 

mission has  been  unable  to  make  available  current  editions  of  the 
loose-leaf  version  of  its  rules  and  regulations.  The  latest  edition  of 
all  volumes,  excluding  Volume  1,  available  from  the  Government 
Printing  Office  is  the  October  1982  edition.  Volume  1  has  been 
updated  through  September  1985.  The  1982  edition  of  the  rules 
will  be  discontinued  immediately.  However,  the  current  status  of 
any  of  the  Commission's  rules  may  be  determined  by  obtaining  a 
copy  of  the  appropriate  book  in  Title  47  of  the  October  1985  edi- 
tion of  the  Code  of  Federal  Regulations  also  available  from  GPO. 
The  use  of  this  annual  publication  in  conjunction  with  the  current 
edition  of  the  monthly  rules  index  entitled  "LSA-List  of  Sections 
Affected"  should  provide  users  with  the  most  current  rules 
changes.  It  is  the  Commission's  intention  to  continue  with  the 
loose-leaf  version  of  its  rules  when  possible.  (FCC,  "PubUc  Notice," 
June  19) 

June  1986  Authors  and  publishers  of  two  forthcoming  books  on  U.S.  intelli- 

gence said  yesterday  that  Central  Intelligence  Agency  Director 
William  J.  Casey  had  warned  them  that  he  believes  they  could  be 
violating  the  law  if  their  books  include  any  secret  "communications 
intelligence."  Casey  issued  the  warnings  in  telephone  calls  to  Bob 
Woodward  of  the  Washington  Post,  who  is  writing  a  book  about 
Casey  and  the  CIA,  and  to  Seymour  M.  Hersh,  who  writes  for  the 
New  York  Times  and  whose  book  involves  the  downing  of  a  Korean 

46 


July  1986 


Air  Lines  jet  by  the  Soviets  in  1983.  Casey  called  their  publishers 
to  deliver  the  same  message.  Woodward  said  that  he  took  the  call 
as  a  "friendly  warning"  from  Casey.  "There  was  nothing  blustery 
about  it,"  he  said.  "My  response  was  that  I'm  aware  of  his  position 
and  I  take  it  into  consideration  but  will  feel  my  first  allegiance  is  to 
write  and  publish  what  people  need  to  know."  ("Casey  Warns  Writ- 
ers, Publishers  About  Putting  Secrets  in  Books,"  Washington  Post, 
June  26) 

July  1986  Many  economists  and  workplace  experts  are  dissatisfied  with  the 

way  the  federal  government  measures  workplace  trends.  The  unem- 
ployment rate,  determined  in  a  monthly  survey  of  households  by 
the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  once  was  the  pivotal  measurement 
of  job  needs  and  social  distress.  Now,  some  experts  say,  the  Bu- 
reau's other  major  monthly  survey,  a  survey  of  businesses  based  on 
payroll  records,  provides  a  more  useful  measurement  of  employ- 
ment trends.  The  surveys  are  designed  to  complement  each  other, 
so  that  one  would  illuminate  areas  of  the  economy  that  the  other 
misses.  The  unemployment  rate  is  important  because  it  is  used  as  a 
key  indicator  of  national  economic  health  and  because  funds  under 
a  number  of  federal  programs  designed  to  assist  workers  and  com- 
munities in  economic  distress  are  apportioned  according  to  unem- 
ployment figures.  Critics  of  the  statistics  say  that  the  rate  does  not 
adequately  measure  unemployment  among  blacks  and  many  other 
urban  residents  and  does  not  measure  economic  distress  in  rural 
areas.  ("U.S.  Measure  of  Unemployment  Raises  Doubts  Over  Its 
Accuracy,"  New  York  Times,  July  22) 

July  1986  Federal  policy  changes  in  the  1980s  have  loosened,  and  in  many 

cases  eliminated  contractors'  reporting  requirements  for  new  tech- 
nology. "In  so  doing,  we  have  exchanged  the  future  health  of  our 
nation's  industry  for  an  easier  workday  for  federal  contractors.  The 
government  made  this  error  when  it  reversed  a  longstanding  policy 
of  claiming  the  first  rights  to  all  patents  resulting  from  federally 
funded  R&D  work."  The  government  decided  to  give  contractors 
the  first  rights  to  all  patents  in  hopes  that  they  will  do  a  better  job 
of  commercializing  their  inventions  than  federal  agencies.  These 
changes  have  merit  in  cases  where  contractors  are  interested  in 
commercializing  their  advances.  But  unfortunately,  the  government 
also  canceled  the  requirement  that  contractors  file  reports  about 
improvements  that  are  not  unique  enough  to  be  patented.  In  1980, 
Admiral  Hyman  G.  Rickover  warned  that  the  bill  incorporating 
these  changes  "would  achieve  exactly  the  opposite  of  what  it  pur- 
ports. It  would  impede,  not  enhance,  the  development  and  dissemi- 


47 


July  1986 


nation  of  technology.  It  would  hurt  small  business.  It  would  inhibit 
competition  (and)  would  be  costly  to  taxpayers."  The  less  stringent 
reporting  requirements  allow  contractors  to  use  the  technology 
they  develop  as  trade  secrets.  While  these  trade  secrets  give  indi- 
vidual contractors  an  edge  in  competition,  they  hurt  American 
industry  in  general.  And,  a  new  process  benefits  no  one  if  the 
contractor  that  develops  it  does  not  bother  to  use  it.  (N.J.  Gold- 
stone,  "How  Not  to  Promote  Technology  Transfer,"  Technology 
Review,  July  1986) 

July  1986  About  100  persons,  including  several  ALA  and  Government  Docu- 

ments Round  Table  representatives,  participated  in  the  workshop 
held  July  30  by  the  National  Technical  Information  Service  to  dis- 
cuss privatization  alternatives.  The  great  preponderance  of  com- 
ments were  from  the  library  community  on  the  usefulness  of  NTIS 
which,  as  a  part  of  the  Commerce  Department,  provides  for  the 
centralized  collection,  announcement,  and  dissemination  of  U.S. 
government-sponsored  research  and  development  reports  and 
translations  of  foreign  technical  literature. 

Librarians  questioned  the  motives  of  the  OMB  in  requesting  the 
privatization  study,  since  NTIS  already  leases  its  data  base  to  com- 
mercial firms,  and  covers  its  direct  costs  through  such  leasing  and 
selling  of  reports.  Other  questions  raised  were  whether  agencies 
and  foreign  governments  would  continue  to  provide  reports  to  a 
privatized  operation,  and  whether  NTIS,  if  privatized,  would  con- 
tinue to  archive  and  make  available  specialized  reports  which  sell 
only  a  few  copies.  Higher  prices  from  a  private  source  was  a  prin- 
cipal concern.  ("NTIS  Privatization  Study,"  ALA  Washington  News- 
letter, August  28) 

August  1986  Fred  Jerome,  Director  of  the  Media  Resource  Service  which  puts 

journalists  in  touch  with  scientists  who  have  agreed  to  answer 
media  questions  in  their  areas  of  expertise,  charges  that  the  U.S. 
government — specifically  the  Department  of  Energy  and  the  Nu- 
clear Regulatory  Commission — issued  gag  orders  instructing  their 
employees  not  to  talk  to  journalists  during  the  Chernobyl  crisis.  C. 
Anson  Franklin,  DOE  Director  of  Communications,  denies  there 
ever  was  any  gag  order.  He  says  DOE  employees  around  the  coun- 
try were  simply  "encouraged  to  avoid  speculation  but,  of  course, 
could  respond  to  questions  of  fact."  That's  not  the  way  Sue 
Stephenson,  senior  public  affairs  officer  at  the  Livermore  Lab 
remembers  it:  "I  was  told  in  no  uncertain  terms  to  stop  talking  to 
reporters  and  to  stop  my  people  from  talking  to  reporters." 

48 


September  1986 


In  his  article  Jerome  asks:  "Was  the  gag  order  simply  bureaucratic 
bungling?  Or  was  it  something  more  ominous — part  of  an  emerg- 
ing administration  policy  to  restrict  the  release  of  information 
during  times  of  crisis?.  .  .Wherever  it  originated,  the  Chernobyl 
gag  order  does  seem  to  reflect  a  pattern;  more  and  more,  U.S. 
government  officials  are  restricting  information.  .  .  .In  a  democracy, 
government  gag  orders  don't  curtail  media  coverage.  Instead,  they 
cause  the  press  and  the  public  to  wonder  what  those  who  gave  the 
orders  are  trying  to  hide."  ("Gagging  Government  Scientists:  A 
New  Administration  Policy?"  Technology  Review,  August/ 
September  1986) 


September  1986 


In  a  September  9  letter  to  Senator  Charles  McC.  Mathias  Jr.  (R- 
MD),  then  chair  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Printing,  Public  Printer 
Ralph  E.  Kennickell  Jr.  announced  that  as  of  October  1,  the  Gov- 
ernment Printing  Office  planned  to  discontinue  hard  copy  for  all 
dual  format  (microfiche  and  paper)  documents  sent  to  depository 
libraries.  Kennickell's  letter  cited  reduced  appropriations  as  the 
impetus  for  the  sudden  decision.  The  publications  included  were  a 
large  and  significant  portion  of  the  material  being  sent  to  deposi- 
tory libraries  and  included  highly  visible  and  freguently  consulted 
titles  like  the  Federal  Register,  the  Code  of  Federal  Regulations, 
the  Congressional  Record,  and  all  Congressional  hearings  and 
reports.  ALA,  its  Government  Documents  Round  Table,  and  many 
depository  librarians  wrote  and  called  their  legislators  and  GPO 
opposing  the  elimination  of  hard  copy.  Congressional  offices  re- 
ceived over  300  telephone  calls  and  letters  asking  for  intervention 
in  the  GPO  plan.  There  was  objection  to  the  material  involved,  to 
the  short  notice  given,  and  to  the  lack  of  consultation  with  deposi- 
tory librarians.  Senator  Mathias  instructed  GPO  to  put  the  plan  on 
hold  in  an  October  3  letter.  JCP  and  GPO  officials  are  still  trying 
to  determine  how  GPO  will  make  needed  budget  savings  without 
undermining  the  intent  of  the  depository  library  program. 


September  1986 


In  an  article  in  the  Detroit  Free  Press,  Larry  Olmstead  discussed 
problems  journalists  have  covering  the  news  in  Southern  Africa. 
He  said:  "The  value  of  information,  and  suspicions  about  those 
gathering  it,  both  are  heightened  in  a  nation  where  it's  hard  to 
come  by.  When  a  government  dislikes  fully  informing  its  citizens, 
anyone  seeking  information  becomes  a  threat,  whether  the  person 
is  a  spy  or  not."  ("Information  is  touchy  in  nations  that  limit  it," 
Detroit  Free  Press,  September  2 1 ) 


49 


September  1986 


September  1986 


After  a  storm  of  criticism,  the  Administration  announced  that  it  was 
suspending  a  Presidential  directive  requiring  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  officials  to  submit  to  lifelong  censorship.  However,  since 
1981  all  government  employees  with  access  to  certain  widely  used 
intelligence  data  have  been  required  to  sign  Form  4193,  which 
covers  the  same  ground  as  the  directive.  According  to  a  September 
1986  General  Accounting  Office  report,  "Information  and  Person- 
nel Security:  Data  on  Employees  Affected  by  Federal  Security 
Programs"  (GAO/NSIAD-86-189FS),  more  than  290,000  present 
and  former  federal  employees  have  now  promised  to  submit  mate- 
rial to  prepublication  review,  and  thousands  of  them  did  it  in  the 
last  year.  Not  included  in  the  figures  are  the  Central  Intelligence 
Agency  and  the  National  Security  Agency,  which  set  similar  re- 
quirements for  their  employees.  The  number  of  books,  articles  or 
speeches  submitted  for  review  is  rising:  12,934  in  1984  and  14,144 
in  1985.  According  to  GAO,  in  1985  the  number  of  known  unau- 
thorized disclosures  of  classified  information  made  through  pub- 
lished writings  or  speeches  by  then-current  employees  was  five  and 
by  former  employees  was  two.  In  1985,  approximately  136  employ- 
ees used  about  12,810  working  days  for  prepublication  reviews. 


When  the  issue  arose  two  years  ago,  civil  liberties  groups  decried 
the  reviews  as  a  impermissible  restraint  on  free  speech  and  debate 
of  officials  involved  in  national  security.  They  noted  that  a  full 
account  of  historical  events  often  emerged  years  later,  when  partic- 
ipants wrote  memoirs,  articles  or  speeches.  ("Security  Rule  Died 
but  Lived  On,"  New  York  Times,  October  23) 


September  1986 


d 


"The  Federal  Election  Commission,  which  as  a  result  of  budget 
constraints  has  significantly  cut  back  on  the  information  it  provides 
about  individual  campaign  contributors,  is  seeking  to  prevent  a 
private  company  from  selling  data  about  large  donors.  Public  Data 
Access,  Inc.,  a  New  York  firm,  working  from  FEC  records  of  con- 
tributors of  $500  or  more,  sells  detailed  breakdowns  of  contribution 
patterns  among  officials  of  specific  companies,  of  donations  to 
different  Members  of  Congress  and  other  computer  analyses. 


In  an  advisory  opinion,  the  FEC  declared  that  the  company's  sales 
violated  prohibitions  against  commercial  use  of  FEC  contributor 
data.  The  firm's  Michael  Tanzer  countered:  'We  believe  that  what 
we  are  doing  is  perfectly  legal'  and  that  the  FEC's  attempt  to  close 
the  company  is  'unconstitutional.'  Tanzei  said  Public  Data  Access 
will  continue  to  sell  the  information  in  defiance  of  the  FEC.  A 
spokesman  for  the  FEC  said  the  agency  may  take  legal  action,  but 


50 


October  1986 


that  such  a  move  would  require  either  a  complaint  from  an  outside 
party,  or  a  decision  by  the  commissioners  themselves."  ("Record 
Sales,"  Washington  Post,  September  23) 

October  1986  Hefty  price  increases  have  been  applied  to  several  of  the  most 

popular  and  essential  government  documents.  As  of  October  1,  the 
subscription  price  of  the  Federal  Register,  in  which  federal  regula- 
tory documents  are  first  published,  will  be  $340,  a  13  percent 
increase  over  the  current  price  of  $300  (July  29  FR,  p.  27017).  The 
United  States  Government  Manual,  1986-87,  the  official  federal 
government  handbook  and  directory,  is  $19,  a  27  percent  increase 
over  the  1985-86  edition,  which  was  $15.  This  follows  price  hikes 
for  the  two  previous  years  of  25  percent  ($12)  and  33  percent  ($9) 
for  a  paperback  which  has  remained  at  a  little  over  900  pages.  The 
Manual  has  risen  111  percent  in  price  over  the  last  four  years. 

October  1986  An  article  by  Bob  Woodward  revealed  that  the  Reagan  administra- 

tion launched  a  secret  and  unusual  campaign  of  deception  de- 
signed to  convince  Libyan  leader  Moammar  Gadhafi  that  he  was 
about  to  be  attacked  again  by  the  United  States  and  perhaps  be 
ousted  in  a  coup.  The  secret  plan,  adopted  at  a  White  House  meet- 
ing on  August  14,  was  outlined  in  a  three-page  memo  that  John  M. 
Poindexter,  then  National  Security  Adviser,  sent  to  President 
Reagan.  "One  of  the  key  elements"  of  the  new  strategy,  the  Poin- 
dexter memo  said,  "is  that  it  combines  real  and  illusionary 
events — through  a  disinformation  program — with  the  basic  goal  of 
making  Gadhafi  think  [word  underlined  in  the  original]  that  there 
is  a  high  degree  of  internal  opposition  to  him  within  Libya,  that  his 
key  trusted  aides  are  disloyal,  that  the  U.S.  is  about  to  move 
against  him  militarily."  ("Gadhafi  Target  of  Secret  U.S.  Deception 
Plan,"  Washington  Post,  October  2) 

An  October  5  Post  editorial  condemned  the  disinformation  plan 
and  concluded:  "The  government  is  not  meant  to  be  in  the  busi- 
ness of  organized  lying  to  the  public." 

October  1986  A  two-page  article  in  the  San  Francisco  Examiner  described  what 

the  author,  J.E.  Ferrell,  calls  a  "sticky  public  policy  problem: 
Should  taxpayers,  having  paid  the  federal  government  to  collect 
data,  receive  that  data  free?  Or  should  the  government,  recogniz- 
ing that  such  information  is  a  product  of  increasing  monetary 
value,  sell  it  to  Americans  to  provide  desperately  needed  reve- 
nues?" ALA  policies  on  this  question  are  quoted  and  she  points 
out  that  computers  installed  in  libraries  could  guarantee  everyone 


51 


October  1986 


free  access  to  government  information.  Examples  of  approaches  to 
disseminating  information  are  provided  from  the  Federal  Election 
Commission,  the  Department  of  Agriculture  and  the  Patent  and 
Trademark  Office. 

The  article  concludes: 

What  has  happened  in  the  last  five  years  is  a  disorganized, 
piecemeal  approach  to  developing  a  government  policy  on 
information  dissemination  that  leads  to  situations  like  this: 
On  May  21,  President  Reagan  said  the  problem  of  hunger  in 
the  United  States  is  caused  by  'a  lack  of  knowledge'  about 
where  to  obtain  help. 

But  the  1981  Omnibus  Budget  Reconciliation  act  prohibited 
the  use  of  food  stamp  money  to  tell  people  about  the  food 
stamp  program.  That  meant  no  pamphlets  about  the  program 
could  be  published  and  no  funds  could  be  provided  for  an 
official  to  tell  people — for  example,  senior  citizens  and  poor 
families  who  are  not  on  welfare  but  do  not  make  enough 
money  to  feed  their  children — that  they  may  gualify  for  the 
program. 

("Should  we  pay  twice  for  federal  data?  Information  now  a  valuable 
product,"  San  Francisco  Examiner,  October  2.) 

October  1986  The  House  Committee  on  Government  Operations  found  that  the 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget  abused  its  authority  under 
Executive  Order  12291  in  reviewing  the  rule  proposed  by  the  Na- 
tional Archives  and  Records  Administration  governing  access  to 
the  Presidential  historical  materials  and  tape  recordings  of  the 
Nixon  Administration.  The  Committee  also  found  that  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  Office  of  Legal  Counsel  Opinion  of  February  18, 
1986,  cannot,  as  a  matter  of  law,  dictate  the  Archivist's  exercise  of 
his  authority  and  responsibilities  under  the  final  rule.  In  addition, 
the  Committee  concluded  that  NARA  has  failed  to  respond  to  the 
challenge  to  its  statutory  and  regulatory  authority  posed  by  OMB 
and  the  Office  of  Legal  Counsel  of  DOJ.  (House  Committee  on 
Government  Operations,  "Access  to  the  Nixon  Presidential  Materi- 
als Should  Be  Governed  by  NARA  Regulations,  Not  OMB  or  DOJ 
Actions,"  House  Report  99-961,  October  3) 

October  1986  House  Report  99-978,  "The  Department  of  Education's  Limits  on 

Publications:  Saving  Money  or  Censorship?"  issued  by  the  House 
Committee  on  Government  Operations  on  October  8,  charged  that 


52 


October  1986 


the  Department  of  Education  has  censored  the  pubhcation  of  many 
research  and  classroom  materials.  The  report  contended  that  the 
department  had  tried  to  cover  up  the  alleged  censorship  by  main- 
taining that  it  was  merely  trying  to  trim  federal  spending  when  it 
refused  to  finance  the  printing  of  certain  documents.  The  Commit- 
tee concluded  a  year- long  investigation  by  saying  that  ED  had 
wrongly  refused  to  publish  some  materials  that  contained  messages 
contrary  to  the  Administration's  policies  and  had  wasted  federal 
dollars  by  using  a  publications-review  process  that  in  some  in- 
stances cost  more  to  review  documents  and  decide  whether  the 
government  would  pay  for  publishing  them  than  it  would  have  cost 
to  print  them.  The  Department's  review  system  was  set  up  soon 
after  President  Reagan  took  office  and  ordered  all  federal  agencies 
to  cut  down  on  the  publication  of  brochures  and  audio- visual  mate- 
rials that  were  not  essential.  The  Committee  said  that  the  Depart- 
ment's system  was  far  more  restrictive  than  the  President  had 
required.  Education  Department  officials  dismissed  the  charges  in 
the  report.  ("House  Panel  Report  Accuses  Education  Department  of 
Censoring  Publications,"  Chronicle  of  Higher  Education, 
October  29) 

October  1986  The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  told  the  Department  of 

Education's  Adult  Literacy  Initiative  that  its  survey  of  adult  literacy 
activities  lacks  "practical  utility"  and  cannot  be  conducted.  The 
ALI  had  argued  that  the  survey  would  be  an  "essential  component" 
of  its  activities.  In  July  1986,  ALI  requested  OMB  approval  of  a 
proposed  study  of  approximately  100  representatives  of  state  gover- 
nor's offices,  state  Adult  Basic  Education  directors,  local  govern- 
ment, and  the  private  sector.  With  the  data  from  these  interviews, 
ALI  would  determine  the  scope  and  nature  of  state  literacy  initia- 
tives and  identify  exemplary  programs.  Reportedly,  ALI  gave  up  on 
the  proposal  following  OMB's  objections.  ALI  believes  that  infor- 
mation collected  through  various  informal  sources  will  be  ade- 
quate. (OMB  Watch,  Monthly  Review,  November  26) 

October  1986  The  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  of  1980  provided  the  Office  of  Man- 

agement and  Budget  its  authority  to  develop  and  supervise  federal 
government  information  policies  and  activities,  and  established 
OMB's  Office  of  Information  and  Regulatory  Affairs.  OIRA  had 
generated  Congressional  criticism  with  its  development  of  Circular 
A- 130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources,  and  the  Act 
had  been  allowed  to  expire.  However,  in  a  surprise  move  and  with- 
out hearings,  the  Act  was  reauthorized  for  three  years  in  title  VII  of 
the  FY  1987  omnibus  funding  bill  (H.J.  Res.  738,  PL  99-500).  (In 


53 


OctoDer  1986 


daily  editions  of  the  Congressional  Record,  see  October  15,  pp. 
H 10699-702,  for  reauthorization  text;  October  16,  pp.  S16739-45, 
for  a  statement  by  Sen.  Chiles  (D-FL);  and  October  17,  pp. 
S16876-77,  for  a  statement  by  Sen.  Roth  (R-DE).) 

October  1986  In  a  move  which  should  make  it  less  expensive  for  many  users  of 

the  Freedom  of  Information  Act,  amendments  to  FOIA  included  a 
new  fee  schedule  effective  April  25,  1987,  which  limits  the  agency 
cost  to  a  reasonable  standard  charge  for  document  duplication 
when  records  are  not  sought  for  commercial  use  and  the  reguest  is 
made  by  an  educational  or  noncommercial  scientific  institution 
whose  purpose  is  scholarly  or  scientific  research,  or  by  a  represen- 
tative of  the  news  media.  The  Freedom  of  Information  Act  Reform 
Act  of  1986  was  included  as  Subtitle  N  of  the  antidrug  abuse  bill 
(HR  5484,  P,  99-570).  (See  October  15  Congressional  Record,  pp. 
HI  1233-34,  for  final  text  of  the  FOIA  changes.) 

October  1986  On  October  29,  1986,  John  M.  Poindexter,  then  National  Security 

Adviser,  signed  NTISSP  No.  2,  National  Policy  on  Protection  of 
Sensitive,  But  Unclassified  Information  in  Federal  Government 
Telecommunications  and  Automated  Information  Systems.  The  new 
guidelines,  to  be  implemented  immediately  by  federal  agencies, 
restrict  the  release  of  a  broad  range  of  government  information  that 
is  unclassified,  but  considered  "sensitive."  Included  are  "the  wide 
range  of  government-derived  economic,  human,  financial,  indus- 
trial, agricultural,  technological,  and  law  enforcement  informa- 
tion." 

A  November  13  Washington  Post  article,  "U.S.  Limits  Access  to 
Information  Related  to  National  Security,"  reported  statements  by 
Diane  Fountain,  Director  of  the  Pentagon's  Information  Systems 
Directorate,  about  the  national  security  community's  concern  that 
individuals  with  personal  computers  here  or  overseas  could  easily 
access  sensitive  material  on  computer  data  bases  such  as  Mead's 
Nexis  and  Dialog.  The  government  is  also  exploring  steps  to  curtail 
access  to  the  defense  related  information  in  the  government's  Na- 
tional Technical  Information  Service  and  the  Defense  Technical 
Information  Center.  She  said:  "I  don't  believe  the  issue  is  whether 
or  not  we're  going  to  protect — the  issue  is  what  we're  going  to 
protect  and  how."  A  December  8  Business  Week  editorial  observed: 
"Once  under  way,  censorship  like  this  typically  expands  relent- 
lessly. Already,  one  Pentagon  official  wants  to  license  foreign  users 
of  Commercial  U.S.  data  bases  and  to  develop  software  that  would 
reveal  who  is  using  a  data  base  and  what  data  they  are  calling  up." 


54 


November  1986 


November  1986 


The  Pentagon  is  quietly  pressuring  commercial  satellite  operators 
to  take  costly  precautions  against  terrorists  and  pranksters,  even 
though  many  industry  officials  are  convinced  the  safeguards  are 
unnecessary  and  a  waste  of  money.  The  controversial  satellite- 
security  policy  is  based  on  a  Presidential  directive.  The  directive 
gives  a  military-led  government  task  force  the  authority  to  protect 
all  types  of  government  information  and  communications.  Critics 
contend  that  it  could  also  put  the  vast  amounts  of  computerized 
information  on  individuals  under  the  control  of  the  military. 


"Assistant  Defense  Secretary  Donald  Latham  disagrees  and  argues 
that  the  precautions  are  essential  to  protect  sensitive  government 
information.  Because  not  all  government  information  falls  into 
existing  categories  of  classification,  the  directive  created  a  new 
category — not  yet  defined — ^of  material  that  can  be  kept  from  the 
public.  The  Pentagon  has  denied  that  the  category  is  for  embar- 
rassing information.  That  may  be  so,  but  the  ominous  direction  the 
policy  could  take  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the  National  Secu- 
rity Agency  refused  to  let  our  associate  Donald  Goldberg  see 
documents  that  described  the  debate — even  though  the  documents 
are  not  classified."  ("Dubious  Protection  Sought  for  Satellites," 
Washington  Post,  November  3) 


November  1986 


A  growing  number  of  federal  agencies  and  Members  of  Congress 
are  discovering  that  with  little  more  than  a  personal  computer  they 
can  bypass  the  Postal  Service  and  send  news  releases  directly  to 
reporters  in  Washington  and  across  the  country.  The  technique,  an 
outgrowth  of  the  electronic  mail  services  offered  by  some  computer 
data  banks,  is  expanding  rapidly  because  it  is  quicker  and 
cheaper  than  the  mail.  "Some  day,  we'll  stop  mailing.  That's  going 
to  save  a  lot  of  money.  Millions  of  dollars,"  said  an  information 
officer  who  oversees  two  electronic  news  services  offered  by  the 
Department  of  Agriculture.  ("The  Release  Often  Isn't  In  the  Mail," 
Washington  Post,  November  13) 


November  1986 


Lamenting  the  printing  drought  which  has  made  Congress's 
printed  documents  increasingly  hard  to  come  by,  David  C.  Morri- 
son in  a  National  Journal  article  says  that  less  well-heeled  public- 
interest  groups  worry  that  the  new  cash-and-carry  system  will  edge 
them  out  of  the  policy  discussion.  Congressional  committees  now 
get  only  300  hearing  volumes,  and  those  are  available  primarily  to 
Members  of  Congress  and  the  news  media.  Others  must  now  pay 
about  three  cents  a  page  for  hearings  at  GPO  bookstores.  At  those 
prices,  organizations  already  operating  on  a  fiscal  shoe-string  can 
confront  deficit  crises  of  their  own. 


55 


November  1986 


"Last  year,  the  House  and  Senate  Armed  Services  and  Appropria- 
tions Subcommittees  on  Defense  alone  published  almost  22,000 
pages  of  testimony.  The  sheer  bulk  of  this  record  dictates  that  users 
.  .  .must  scrutinize  the  hearings  at  length,  making  annotations  for 
future  reference.  This  cannot  be  done  in  a  library  or  in  an  office  of 
multiple  users  with  access  to  only  one  copy.  Tt  would  be  as  if  ev- 
eryone in  the  Vatican  had  only  one  Bible,'  complained  William  M. 
Arkin  of  the  Institute  for  Policy  Studies,  employing  a  metaphor  that 
suggests  the  immense  value  researchers  place  on  the  hearings." 

Some  hearing  volumes  cannot  be  obtained  at  any  price  simply 
because  fewer  copies  are  being  printed.  The  hardship  is  being  felt 
by  big  and  small  players.  "In  Washington,  information  is  power. 
Because  there  aren't  many  copies  of  these  things  around,  the  peo- 
ple who  have  them  are  better  able  to  understand  what's  going  on." 
("Capitol  Hill's  Costly  Paper  Lode,"  National  Journal,  November  8) 


November  1986 


A  memorandum  from  the  Department  of  Justice  to  the  heads  of  all 
federal  agencies  says  that  under  current  law  an  agency  is  not 
reguired  to  grant  Freedom  of  Information  Act  fee  waiver  to  a  li- 
brary or  other  record  repository  when  the  request  for  a  waiver  is 
based  solely  upon  its  status  as  an  institution  at  which  records  are 
generally  available.  A  specific  user  must  be  identified.  ("Additional 
Fee  Waiver  Guidance,"  Memorandum  from  Stephen  J.  Markman, 
Assistant  Attorney  General,  Office  of  Legal  Policy,  November  12) 


November  1986 


Speaking  at  the  first  Interagency  Data  Center  Managers  Confer- 
ence in  Raleigh,  N.C.,  Franklin  Reeder,  deputy  chief  of  the  OMB's 
information  policy  branch,  discussed  some  of  the  many  complex 
questions  surrounding  OMB  Circular  A- 130,  Management  of  Fed- 
eral Information  Resources.  He  said,  "Learn  the  word  benefit-cost 
analysis.  Notice  I  didn't  use  'cost-benefit,'  because  you  can't  divide 
by  zero."  It  is  a  concept  which  OMB  will  be  using  to  evaluate  infor- 
mation technology  proposals.  "We  will  support  investments  that 
show  a  positive  return  on  investment.  We  will  not  support  non- 
mandatory,  discretionary  investments  that  do  not.  That  is  a  fact  of 
life,  and  if  you  think  we've  been  hard-nosed  in  the  past,  just  wait." 

Reeder  predicted  long-term  expansion  of  electronic  exchange  of 
data  between  the  government  and  the  public.  He  said  that  such 
efforts  raise  complicated  questions,  "We  need  to  be  concerned 
from  a  policy  perspective  with  who  owns  that  information,  with 
assuring  its  integrity  and  with  assuring  appropriate  public  access 
to  electronic  data  bases,  something  that  you  will  be  seeing  a  good 


56 


December  1986 


deal  about  in  the  year  ahead."  (''Officials  Detail  Beefed-Up  Reviews 
for  OMB's  A- 130,"  Government  Computer  News,  November  21) 


November  1986 


The  federal  government  has  lost  access  to  key  data  that  experts  say 
are  vital  to  running  an  effective  national  drug  abuse  treatment 
effort.  Under  old  government  programs,  states  getting  federal  drug 
treatment  money  were  required  to  supply  the  National  Institute  on 
Drug  Abuse  with  information  about  the  availability  of  treatment 
facilities,  the  number  of  clients  and  details  about  the  drugs  they 
used.  Since  the  shift  to  block  grants,  reporting  has  been  voluntary, 
and  only  about  a  dozen  states  provide  information.  NIDA  has  plans 
to  update  its  data  base,  but  for  the  moment,  the  agency  is  flying 
somewhat  blind. 


"We  lack  the  data  for  determining  what  current  capacity  is,  what  is 
our  demand  among  drug  abusers,  how  many  that  use  drugs  have  a 
severe  enough  problem  to  warrant  intervention  and  how  many 
would  be  willing  to  come  in  if  treatment  were  available,"  according 
to  Dr.  Roy  Pickens,  Director  of  Clinical  Research  at  NIDA.  "At  the 
present  time,  we  can  only  estimate  how  many  have  problems."  Lack 
of  benchmark  data,  Pickens  said,  not  only  hurts  planning,  but 
means  the  agency  "can't  tell  if  we're  being  effective."  ("Waging  War 
on  Drugs,"  National  Journal,  November  22) 


November  1986 


Defense  Secretary  Caspar  W.  Weinberger  has  ordered  the  Penta- 
gon's periodicals  budget  slashed  by  55  percent  to  $10  million  for 
fiscal  1987.  "Only  two  years  ago,  the  services  had  more  than  $22 
million  to  spend  on  the  scores  of  journals  and  magazines  they 
publish.  Particularly  hard  hit  has  been  the  Army,  which  has  seen 
its  planned  fiscal  1987  budget  for  periodicals  plummet  from  $9.6 
million  to  $4.3  million,  according  to  the  privately  published  Army 
Times  newspaper.  The  sole  Army  survivors  of  a  ruthless  culling 
process  are  Soldiers,  Army  Reserve  and  Eur-Army,  the  latter  tar- 
geted at  U.S.  Army  personnel  serving  in  Europe.  Down  the  tubes 
are  41  periodicals  published  by  service  schools  and  other  Army 
organizations,  including  Air  Defense  Artillery  Magazine,  Military 
Police  Journal,  Military  Chaplains  Review  and  Military  Media 
Review."  {National  Journal,  November  22) 


December  1986 


Earth  Observation  Satellite  Co.  (EOSAT),  the  company  trying  to 
commercialize  the  U.S.  government's  Landsat  satellite  system,  is 
running  out  of  money  and  will  have  to  start  shutting  down  some 
operations  because  the  Reagan  Administration  is  withholding 
money  for  the  system.  EOSAT  manages  the  Landsat  program  and 


57 


December  1986 


markets  the  data  it  collects  under  a  1985  agreement  in  which  Con- 
gress pledged  up  to  $250  million  during  a  ten-year  transition  to 
private  ownership.  EOSAT  said  its  operation  generates  about  $20 
million  a  year  in  revenue  but  has  never  been  profitable.  EOSAT 
argues  that  the  private  sector  is  unwilling  to  invest  the  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars  reguired  to  build  and  launch  satellites.  Landsat 
was  launched  in  1972  as  a  government  data-gathering  operation 
that  made  data  available  to  the  public  at  low  cost,  as  a  public 
service.  ("Landsat  Management  Firm  Says  U.S.  Withholds  Funds," 
Washington  Post,  December  5) 

December  1986       "In  1980,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget,  under  the  Pa- 
perwork Reduction  Act,  got  the  authority  to  review  all  data  collec- 
tion efforts  of  executive  branch  agencies.  A  pattern  of 
obstructionism,  barring  certain  types  of  data  collection,  has  been 
charged  by  many  agencies,  and  now  the  House  Committee  on 
Science  and  Technology  has  asked  the  General  Accounting  Office 
to  investigate. 

Allegations  of  improper  use  of  its  powers  include  OMB's  hostility  to 
any  data  collection  dealing  with  minorities  and  discrimination, 
questions  concerning  the  environment  and  public  health,  and 
social  science  research  generally.  In  matters  calling  for  medical  or 
other  special  scientific  expertise,  unqualified  OMB  officers  are 
charged  with  overruling  qualified  agency  scientists. 

The  specific  agency  accused  is  OMB  Office  of  Information  and 
Regulatory  Affairs  (OIRA)."  {Library  Hotline,  December  15) 

December  1986       A  Business  Week  article  detailed  how  giving  the  private  sector  the 
job  of  computerizing  government  data  has  led  to  higher  fees  for 
the  information.  Examples  of  increased  costs  to  users  included  the 
Department  of  Agriculture,  the  National  Library  of  Medicine  and 
the  Federal  Election  Commission.  "At  the  Agriculture  Dept.,  for 
instance,  costs  have  soared  in  the  two  years  since  Martin  Marietta 
Corp.  got  exclusive  rights  to  the  mounds  of  farm  data  the  depart- 
ment gathers.  .  .  .Administration  officials  defend  the  higher  prices, 
contending  that  new  sellers  usually  enhance  government  informa- 
tion or  put  it  in  a  form  that's  easier  to  use.  But  critics  argue  that  a 
system  of  data  haves  and  have-nots  is  being  created:  Big-business 
customers  can  afford  to  buy  while  libraries,  students,  and  others 
cannot.  While  that  dispute  rages  on,  both  Congress  and  the  Office 
of  Management  &  Budget  concede  that  more  work  needs  to  be 
done  on  finding  the  best  way  to  computerize  government  services 
while  guaranteeing  public  access." 

58 


January  1987 


"Even  companies  that  might  benefit  from  a  monopoly  contract  are 
concerned  about  the  lack  of  checks  on  profiteering  because  they 
freguently  use  data  provided  by  other  companies.  *The  contractor 
often  thinks  that  this  is  the  golden  goose,  and  he  can  pull  all  kinds 
of  profit  out  of  it,'  says  a  source  at  a  major  publishing  company." 
("Computerizing  Uncle  Sam's  Data:  Oh,  How  the  Public  Is  Paying," 
Business  Week,  December  15) 


December  1986 


Scientists  at  the  National  Institute  for  Occupational  Safety  and 
Health  are  scheduled  to  start  a  major  study  to  find  out  whether 
video  display  terminals  cause  miscarriages  in  female  workers,  but 
critics  charge  that  changes  ordered  in  the  study  by  OMB  will 
seriously  hamper  its  ability  to  answer  that  guestion.  First  an- 
nounced in  1983,  the  study  has  been  delayed  more  than  two  years 
by  OMB,  which  challenged  the  study  on  scientific  grounds.  OMB 
first  rejected  the  NIOSH  proposal,  then  in  June  approved  a  revised 
version  but  ordered  NIOSH  to  delete  certain  guestions  on  stress 
and  infertility.  The  deletion  of  the  guestions  by  OMB  was  prompted 
by  the  comments  of  two  outside  consultants  hired  by  Bell  South — 
the  company  whose  workers  were  to  be  studied — to  critigue  the 
NIOSH  proposal.  Other  experts  have  charged  that  without  the 
guestions,  the  study  will  not  be  able  to  distinguish  VDT  use  from 
overall  job  stress  as  a  possible  factor  in  causing  miscarriages. 
("Modified  VDT  Study  to  Proceed:  OMB's  Changes  Draw  Criti- 
cism," Washington  Post,  December  26) 


January  1987  For  the  sixth  year  in  a  row,  the  President's  budget  submitted  to 

Congress  proposed  to  eliminate  the  Library  Services  and  Con- 
struction Act  and  Higher  Education  Act  title  II  library  grant  pro- 
grams. The  President  also  proposed  to  rescind  (or  "unappropriate") 
all  FY  1987  funds  already  appropriated  for  LSCA  II  construction, 
LSCA  VI  literacy,  HEA  II-B  training  and  research,  and  HEA  II-C 
research  library  grants.  (OMB,  Budget  of  the  United  States  FiscaJ 
Year  2988,  Appendix)  [Ed.  note:  These  funds  were  released  in 
mid-March  after  Congress  did  not  agree  to  the  rescissions.] 

January  1987  President  Reagan's  FY  1988  budget  reguested  no  funding  for  pre- 

ferred and  nonprofit  postal  rates,  only  enough  funds  to  cover  free 
mail  for  the  blind  and  transition  funding.  Elimination  of  the  postal 
revenue  forgone  appropriations  would  raise  the  cost  of  a  two- 
pound,  fourth-class  library  package  from  the  current  $.73  to  $.94, 
a  29  percent  increase,  and  the  full  commercial  rate.  (OMB, 
Budget,  of  the  United  States  FiscaJ  Year  1988,  Appendix) 


59 


January  1987 


January  1987  The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  published  proposed  guide- 

lines and  fee  schedule  to  implement  certain  provisions  of- the  Free- 
dom of  Information  Reform  Act  of  1986  (PL  99-570)  in  the  January 
16  Federal  Register,  pp.  1992-94.  ALA,  in  comments  to  OMB, 
recommended  that  the  proposed  guidelines  be  revised  and  a  new 
draft  published  for  public  comment,  because  the  proposal  exceeds 
OMB's  statutory  responsibility  and  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  legis- 
lative history  of  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act  (FOIA)  amend- 
ments. The  February  13  ALA  letter  said  the  proposed  fee  waiver 
policy  was  highly  restrictive,  and  the  proposed  guidelines  could 
have  a  detrimental  affect  on  the  ability  of  librarians,  libraries,  and 
their  users  to  secure  fee  waivers  as  public  interest  users  of  the 
FOIA. 

January  1987  "In  1980,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget,  under  the  Pa- 

perwork Reduction  Act,  got  the  authority  to  review  all  data  collec- 
tion efforts  of  executive  branch  agencies.  A  pattern  of 
obstructionism,  barring  certain  types  of  data  collection,  has  been 
charged  by  many  agencies,  and  now  the  House  Committee  on 
Science  and  Technology  has  asked  the  General  Accounting  Office 
to  investigate. 

"Allegations  of  improper  use  of  its  powers  include  OMB's  hostility 
to  any  data  collection  dealing  with  minorities  and  discrimination, 
questions  concerning  the  environment  and  public  health,  and 
social  science  research  generally.  In  matters  calling  for  medical  or 
other  special  scientific  expertise,  unqualified  OMB  officers  are 
charged  with  overruling  qualified  agency  scientists.  The  specific 
agency  accused  is  OMB  Office  of  Information  and  Regulatory 
Affairs."  ("GAO  investigating  OMB  meddling  with  data  collection," 
Library  Journal,  January  1987) 

January  1987  "The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget,  ruling  on  the  proposed 

budget  for  the  National  Technical  Information  Service,  is  reported 
to  have  ordered  full  privatization  by  the  Department  of  Commerce. 
Depending  on  whether  opposition  in  Congress  is  capable  of  block- 
ing the  move,  action  on  setting  up  bidding  procedures  could  be 
imminent.  Presumably  all  that  would  be  left  of  NTIS  as  an  agency 
would  be  a  small  contract  management  office  in  Commerce.  OMB 
plans  to  accelerate  the  process  of  privatization,  as  well  as  what  has 
developed  into  a  parallel  program  of  rigorous  auditing  under  A-76 
of  federal  agencies  to  cut  back  on  staff  and  budget."  ("OMB:  'full 
privatization'  of  NTIS  by  October  1,  1987,"  Library  Journal,  Janu- 
ary 1987) 


60 


January  1987 


January  1987  While  OMB  is  pursuing  efforts  to  catalog  public  information  prod- 

ucts and  transfer  them  to  the  private  sector,  it  has  also  been  taking 
steps  to  limit  dissemination  of  information  by  government  agencies. 
For  example,  in  January  the  General  Accounting  Office  sent  Rep. 
Ted  Weiss  (D-NY),  chair  of  the  House  Government  Operations 
Subcommittee  on  Intergovernmental  Relations  and  Human  Re- 
sources, a  report  on  federal  program  evaluation  efforts.  The  GAO 
report,  Federal  Evaluation:  Fewer  Units,  Reduced  Resources,  Dif- 
ferent Studies  from  1980  (GAO/PEMD-87-9,  January  1987),  stated 
that  "Between  1980  and  1984,  the  total  amount  of  program  evalua- 
tion resources  declined  considerably."  This  was  particularly  true  for 
departments  affected  by  block  grants,  but  was  generally  true 
across  the  board.  The  GAO  study  also  found  "that  evaluations  have 
become  less  readily  available  to  the  Congress  and  the  public .  .  . ." 
Responding  to  GAO,  OMB  maintained  that  program  evaluation  is 
primarily  to  inform  agency  decision-makers,  not  the  public  and 
Congress.  GAO  suggested  that  Congress  might  want  to  insure  the 
dissemination  and  availability  of  program  evaluations  to  the  public. 

OMB's  Assistant  Director  for  Budget  Review,  Carey  Modlin  took 
exception.  "[T]he  primary  responsibility  of  agency  program  evalu- 
ators  is  to  support  internal  decision-making,  not  to  produce  pro- 
gram evaluation  information  for  the  public  and  the  Congress." 
Such  dissemination  practices  are  "in  direct  conflict  with  this  Ad- 
ministration's and  the  Congress's  policy  of  reducing  paperwork  and 
enhancing  the  economy  and  efficiency  of  the  Government  by 
improving  Federal  information  policy-making  pursuant  to  the  Pa- 
perwork Reduction  Act  of  1980  (P.L.  96-511)." 

Thus,  it  is  OMB's  mistaken  interpretation  that  the  Paperwork  Re- 
duction Act  is  intended  (and  gives  OMB  the  power)  to  limit  the 
flow  of  government  information  to  the  public  and  the  Congress. 
(OMB  Watch,  OMB  Watcher,  March  27) 

January  1987  The  intangible  cost  of  the  Iran-Contra  arms  deal  continues  to  grow. 

Apparently,  White  House  insistence  on  keeping  the  arms  deal 
secret  resulted  in  denying  intelligence  experts  crucial  information 
on  Iran  for  more  than  a  year.  Congressional  sources  said  that 
"thousands  of  documents"  relating  to  Iran  were  probably  withheld 
from  State  and  Defense  department  analysts  to  protect  the  secret 
National  Security  Council  arms-for-hostages  operation.  Congres- 
sional sources  pointed  out  that  lack  of  information  from  the  Na- 
tional Security  Agency's  intercepts  meant  that  foreign-policy 
recommendations  were  being  made  on  the  basis  of  inadeguate 


61 


February  1987 


intelligence.  Among  the  intercepts  presumably  withheld  were 
routine  cables  telling  of  other  arms  shipments  to  Iran.  State  De- 
partment sources  say  that  intelligence  analysts  in  Foggy  Bottom  are 
furious  at  the  realization  that  vital  information  was  kept  from  them 
for  more  than  a  year.  The  realization  dawned  on  them  slowly  over 
the  months  as  they  detected  significant  gaps  in  the  cable-intercept 
material  they  were  getting  from  the  NSA.  ("Iran  Intelligence  With- 
held from  Agencies,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  29) 

February  1987         "The  State  Department  awarded  a  secret  contract  for  $276,186  last 
year  to  a  public  relations  company  that  reportedly  worked  with 
Lieut.  Col.  Oliver  L.  North  to  rally  support  for  military  aid  to  the 
Nicaraguan  rebels. 

'*The  company,  International  Business  Communications  Inc.,  held 
meetings  to  plan  a  $1  million  contra  advertising  campaign  and 
acted  as  'a  reference  library'  for  those  making  the  ads,  said  Adam 
Goodman,  spokesman  for  the  Robert  Goodman  advertising 
agency,  which  produced  the  television  spots. 

"The  contract  has  raised  guestions  about  whether  payments  breach 
a  1948  law  prohibiting  spending  Federal  money  'directly  or  indi- 
rectly' to  influence  votes  by  Congress,  except  when  Administration 
officials  provide  information  'through  proper  official  channels.' .  .  . 

"Besides  participation  in  the  ad  campaign,  sources  close  to  the 
contra  aid  network  said  the  public  relations  company  paid  for  visits 
by  contra  leaders  and  field  commanders  to  Washington  in  1985  in 
order  to  lobby  Congress  and  seek  public  support."  ("U.S.  Said  to 
Pay  for  Contra  Public  Relations  Drive."  The  New  York  Times,  Feb- 
ruary 7) 

February  1987         The  Pentagon  sought  to  classify  information  on  nuclear  testing 

issues  that  senior  Administration  officials  originally  provided  in  a 
public  Congressional  hearing.  It  also  sought  to  classify  some  of  the 
questions  that  were  asked  by  Members  of  Congress  at  that  public 
hearing,  Congressional  aids  say.  The  Senate  Armed  Services  Com- 
mittee, which  held  the  hearing,  went  along  with  the  request.  As  a 
result,  the  committee's  published  hearing  record  has  gaping  dele- 
tions. The  Senate  Foreign  Relations  Committee,  which  has  also 
held  hearings  on  nuclear  testing  issues,  has  not  deleted  any  mate- 
rial from  its  public  hearing  records.  But  that  committee  has  al- 
lowed the  Pentagon  to  retroactively  modify  the  remarks  of  a  senior 
military  official  in  a  way  that  alters  the  meaning  of  the  comments. 


62 


February  198": 


The  information  that  the  Pentagon  successfully  sought  to  keep  out 
of  the  public  Congressional  records  concerns  the  hotly  debated 
question  of  whether  the  Soviet  Union  is  adhering  to  two  1970s 
treaties  that  limit  the  size  of  underground  explosions.  ("How  Public 
Remarks  Became  Classified  Data,"  The  New  York  Times, 
February  20) 

February  1987         "A  brief  conversation  that  never  took  place  on  the  Senate  floor  last 
August  15,  but  which  found  its  way  into  at  least  one  version  of  the 
official  record  of  Senate  proceedings  for  that  day,  is  at  the  center 
of  a  dispute  over  enforcement  of  the  South  Africa  sanctions  legisla- 
tion enacted  last  year  over  President  Reagan's  veto.  Because  of  the 
dispute,  which  could  be  called  the  Case  of  the  Missing  Colloquy,  a 
ban  on  importing  South  African  uranium  ore  and  oxide  may  be 
relaxed  for  months  while  the  two  sides  battle  over  the  issue  again. 
The  case  illustrates  the  importance  of  establishing  an  accurate 
record  of  'legislative  intent'  during  congressional  debates,  which 
federal  agencies  can  use  in  drafting  regulations  to  enforce  the  law. 
It  also  shows  how  seemingly  decisive  votes  in  Congress  are  not 
always  the  last  word  in  policy  disputes."  ("'Case  of  the  Missing 
Colloquy'  May  Affect  S.  Africa  Sanctions."  The  Washington  Post, 
February  17) 

February  1987         A  dispute  between  the  Reagan  Administration  and  Congress  over 
funding  cutbacks  is  threatening  the  U.S.  space-photography  indus- 
try and  improving  the  prospects  of  its  foreign  competition,  accord- 
ing to  industry  executives,  customers  and  legislators.  EOSAT,  a 
joint  venture  between  Hughes  Aircraft  Co.  and  RCA  Corp.,  was 
designated  by  the  federal  government  in  1985  to  take  over  the 
operation  of  its  Landsat  program,  which  the  government  had  estab- 
lished 15  years  earlier  to  launch  and  operate  earth-observation 
satellites.  Critics  charge  that  the  Reagan  Administration  has 
rushed  the  process  of  privatizing  Landsat,  proposing  for  the  cur- 
rent fiscal  year  to  cancel  funds  that  are  needed  to  ease  the  system 
into  the  commercial  world.  Because  of  funding  problems,  observ- 
ers say,  the  satellite  program  is  on  the  verge  of  extinction.  Industry 
executives,  legislators  and  customers  say  that  new  European  com- 
petitors are  threatening  to  snare  the  lion's  share  of  future  business, 
which  is  expected  to  produce  $2  billion  in  revenue  by  the  turn  of 
the  century.  The  Landsat  program  has  been  used  by  farmers  to 
monitor  the  condition  of  their  crops,  by  federal  agencies  to  track 
disasters  and  pollution,  and  by  companies  searching  for  oil.  Intelli- 
gence agencies  have  called  on  Landsat  to  assess  foreign  military 
strength,  and  news  agencies  used  the  service  to  show  critical 


63 


February  1987 


glimpses  of  reactor  damage  at  Chernobyl.  "Much  of  the  informa- 
tion. .  .we  can  obtain  through  other  sources,"  said  Joseph  Wright, 
OMB  deputy  director.  ("Fund  Battle  Imperils  U.S.  Space  Photos," 
The  Washington  Post,  February  23) 

February  1987         The  Commerce  Department  is  drafting  regulations  that  would  allow 
the  U.S.  government  to  restrict  the  use  of  earth  observation  satel- 
lites by  private  companies,  such  as  broadcasters,  on  national  secu- 
rity grounds.  Already,  the  news  media  has  used  satellite 
photographs  of  the  Chernobyl  nuclear  reactor  disaster,  the  Iran- 
Irag  border,  a  Libyan  military  airfield  after  the  U.S.  raid  on  that 
country,  and  Soviet  naval  bases.  A  draft  of  the  new  Commerce 
rules  gives  officials  considerable  discretion  to  determine  whether  a 
national  security  problem  exists.  Media  officials  had  wanted  a  very 
limited  definition  of  national  security  issues.  If  final  Commerce 
Department  rules  remain  the  same,  broadcasters  could  be  kept  out 
of  evolving  technology  altogether  by  the  U.S.  government,  say 
some  officials.  The  licensing  rules  will  regulate  an  industry  that  is 
still  in  its  infancy  and  will  not  apply  to  companies  launching  and 
operating  systems  outside  the  United  States,  say  government  offi- 
cials. So  far,  only  two  companies,  the  U.S.  Landsat  and  Spot  Im- 
age, a  French  company,  provide  photographs  of  the  earth's  surface 
to  government  and  private  users  to  assist  in  crop  assessment,  city 
planning,  disaster  control,  and  many  other  uses.  ("U.S.  May  Re- 
strict Satellite  Photos,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  25) 

March  1987  When  Ellen  Detlefsen  of  the  University  of  Pittsburgh  testified  for 

ALA  and  the  Medical  Library  Association  at  a  March  4  hearing  of 
the  House  Science,  Space  and  Technology  Subcommittee  on  Sci- 
ence, Research,  and  Technology  on  the  proposed  privatization  of 
NTIS,  she  submitted  for  the  record  an  October  1986  report  of  the 
Department  of  Commerce  Privatization  Task  Force,  Privatization 
Proposal  for  the  National  Technical  Information  Service.  She 
pointed  out  that  a  reading  of  the  document  makes  it  clear  that 
OMB  ignored  the  results  of  the  review  process  for  the  privatization 
of  NTIS  which  encouraged  participation  by  government  agencies, 
NTIS  customers,  and  companies  in  the  information  industry.  The 
executive  summary  points  out  the  costs  and  risks  of  turning  NTIS 
over  to  the  private  sector: 

Given  a  program  so  complex  and  so  privatized,  any  decision 
to  make  further  privatization  moves  must  be  supported  by 
evidence  of  extensive  benefit  and  minimal  cost.  Such  evi- 
dence does  not  exist.  In  fact,  as  this  report  clearly  demon- 


64 


March  1987 


strates,  the  evidence  is  that  extensive  privatization  presents 
substantial  costs  and  risks  for  the  government,  for  NTIS 
customers  and  for  the  information  industry  as  a  whole. 

March  1987  "A  proposed  reorganization  of  the  NOAA  (National  Oceanic  and 

Atmospheric  Administration)  Assessment  and  Information  Services 
Center  at  the  University  of  Missouri  Cooperative  Institute  for  Ap- 
plied Meteorology  will  sharply  reduce  the  climate-related  informa- 
tion developed  at  the  Center.  Among  the  many  activities  which  will 
suffer  will  be  assessments  of  climatic  impacts  on  energy  use  and 
prices,  housing  starts,  remote  sensing  for  agricultural  planning, 
early  warning  of  developing  food  shortages  in  developing  coun- 
tries, and  related  programs.  Also  to  be  terminated,  says  a  report  in 
the  Network  Newsletter  of  the  National  Center  for  Atmospheric 
Research,  will  be  the  Agency  for  International  Development's 
Office  of  Foreign  Disaster  Assistance."  {Library  Hotline,  March  9) 

March  1987  A  presidential  panel's  report  on  outdoor  recreation  is  out  in  paper- 

back, although  the  official  version  is  still  under  wraps  at  the  Inte- 
rior Department.  Island  Press,  a  nonprofit  publisher,  said  it 
decided  to  print  the  report  of  the  President's  Commission  on  Amer- 
icans Outdoors  as  a  public  service.  The  commission  completed  its 
work  early  this  year,  but  the  lustice  Department  counseled  Interior 
officials  not  to  publish  the  300-page  report  pending  settlement  of  a 
lawsuit  charging  that  the  panel  violated  administrative  procedures. 
Interior  is  supplying  photocopies  of  the  report  under  the  Freedom 
of  Information  Act.  A  spokesman  for  Interior  said  that  they  were 
getting  the  report  ready  for  printing.  ("Nonprofit  Publisher  Beats 
U.S.  to  Press,"  The  Washington  Post,  March  16) 

March  1987  "In  the  March  1987  issue  of  the  Department  of  Education's  Security 

Awareness  Bulletin,  DOE  staff  are  taken  to  task  for  excessive  and 
unauthorized  use  of  'confidential'  as  a  document  classification  to 
restrict  access.  In  some  cases,  the  memo  indicates,  a  more  appro- 
priate classification  would  be  OUO  or  Official  Use  Only.  But  in 
both  cases,  only  individuals  expressly  authorized  to  so  label  a 
document  may  do  so.  If  this  directive  has  any  relevance  in  the  area 
of  access  to  government  information,  it  would  appear  to  be  an 
encouraging  sign  that  the  tide  is  turning  on  the  mud  flats  of  bu- 
reaucracy and  attention  is  at  last  being  paid  to  the  critics  of  gov- 
ernment restrictions  on  access."  {Library  Hotline,  May  1 1 ) 

March  1987  Buried  in  a  final  rule  amending  the  Federal  Acquisition  Regulation 

is  a  provision  which  could  eliminate  the  role  of  the  loint  Commit- 


65 


March  1987 


tee  on  Printing  in  the  regulation  of  government  printing  and  sub- 
stantially diminish  the  role  and  authority  of  the  Government 
Printing  Office  in  the  process.  The  rule,  scheduled  to  take  effect 
on  July  1,  1987,  was  published  in  the  March  20  Federal  Register, 
pp.  9036-39  without  a  request  for  public  comment.  The  section  at 
issue  is  numbered  8.802  Policy: 

(a)  The  Department  of  Justice  has  advised  that  the  require- 
ment in  44  U.S.C.  501(2)  for  the  advance  approval  of  the 
Congressional  Joint  Committee  on  Printing  (JCP)  prior  to 
conducting  field  printing  operations  (or  the  acquisition  of 
such  printing)  is  unconstitutional  under  the  Supreme  Court's 
decision  in  Immigration  and  Naturalization  Service  v. 
Chadha,  103  S.  Ct.  2764  (1983);  therefore,  that  approval 
requirement  neither  binds  the  executive  branch  nor  serves 
as  the  basis  for  any  coverage  in  this  subpart. 

A  May  21  study  on  the  FAR  revision  by  the  Library  of  Congress 
Congressional  Research  Service  concluded  that  ".  .  .the  operative 
provisions  of  the  proposed  regulation  appear  to  have  no  foundation 
in  law."  If  JCP  loses  authority  over  government  printing,  and  GPO 
prints  less,  it  is  highly  likely  that  fewer  government  publications 
will  be  included  in  the  GPO  Depository  Program. 

March  1987  OMB  published  uniform  FOIA  fee  schedule  guidelines  in  the 

March  27  Federal  Register,  pp.  10012-20,  which  are  likely  to  make 
it  more  costly  for  libraries  and  nonprofit  associations  to  use  the 
FOIA.  The  issue  is  important  for  many  libraries  and  associations 
since  they  are  likely  to  be  required  to  pay  search  costs  in  addition 
to  fees  for  the  reproduction  of  records.  Two  other  categories  of 
requesters  will  be  charged  for  the  cost  of  reproduction  alone: 
education  and  noncommercial  scientific  institutions  and  represen- 
tations of  the  news  media. 

During  April,  May  and  June,  numerous  federal  agencies  have 
published  regulations  based  on  the  OMB  guidelines  to  implement 
amendments  to  the  FOIA  which  Congress  passed  in  October  1986 
as  part  of  the  Anti-Drug  Abuse  Act  of  1986  (PL  99-570).  When  it 
passed  the  amendments  last  October,  Congress  intended  to  im- 
prove the  fee  waiver  provisions  of  the  Act  for  the  news  media  and 
public  interest  users  of  FOIA.  However,  the  definition  of  educa- 
tional institution  OMB  adopted  in  the  final  guidelines,  although 
broader  than  the  draft  version,  still  excludes  a  library  unless  it  is 
incidentally  connected  to  an  institution  which  OMB  considers 

66 


April  1987 


educational.  Thus,  a  preschool  with  a  program  of  scholarly  re- 
search might  qualify  as  an  educational  institution,  but  the  New 
York  Public  Library  would  not.  ("Freedom  of  Information  Act  Fees," 
ALA  Washington  Office,  April  1987) 

March  1987  The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  document,  Management  of 

the  United  States  Government,  Fiscal  Year  1988,  brags  about 
eliminating  one-fourth  of  the  government's  publications  in  recent 
years  and  attempts  to  trivialize  the  government's  publications  pro- 
gram in  the  following  paragraph  on  p.  76: 

Unnecessary  spending  on  the  printing  and  distribution  of 
Government  publications  can  and  has  been  eliminated.  The 
Federal  inventory,  once  numbering  more  than  16,000  publi- 
cations and  costing  more  than  $165  million  annually,  has 
been  reduced  by  more  than  25  percent  by  terminating  such 
titles  as  "How  to  Buy  a  Christmas  Tree"  and  "A  Day  in  the 
Life  of  a  Lizard."  Procedures  have  been  established  to  tightly 
control  agency  plans  to  create  new  publications  or  expand 
distribution  of  existing  ones.  In  1987  OMB  will  again  care- 
fully review  these  agency  plans  and  eliminate  those  publica- 
tions considered  unnecessary,  as  recent  analysis  shows  that 
the  number  and  cost  of  publications  is  again  creeping  slowly 
upward.  For  example,  the  Agency  for  International  Develop- 
ment eliminated  support  for  "Development  International," 
and  the  Veterans  Administration  did  not  publish  "The  Year  in 
Brief:  the  VA  in  1985."  Five  hundred  publications  amounting 
to  2  million  copies  will  be  eliminated  next  year. 

April  1987  On  April  1,  FBI  agents  to  six  cities  attempted  to  question  a  dozen 

people  who  have  visited  Nicaragua  on  behalf  of  Tecnica,  a 
California-based  group  that  regularly  sends  volunteers  there  on 
humanitarian  projects.  Under  public  guidelines,  the  FBI  cannot 
investigate  domestic  groups  unless  it  has  evidence  of  a  possible 
crime.  But  under  classified  foreign  counterintelligence  guidelines, 
the  bureau  can  investigate  if  there  is  reason  to  believe  the  target  is 
receiving  direction  or  financing  from  a  foreign  power.  FBI  spokes- 
woman Sue  Schnitzer  declined  to  explain  the  purpose  of  the  April 
interviews.  She  said  they  are  related  to  "foreign  counterintelli- 
gence investigations"  and  "fall  under  guidelines  that  are  classified, 
which  puts  us  in  a  bind  because  we  can't  tell  you  about  the  guide- 
lines." But,  Schnitzer  said,  "There's  a  well-founded  basis  for  these 
interviews.  We  don't  conduct  interviews  for  political  reasons."  ("FBI 
Probing  Nicaragua  Visitors,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  12) 


67 


April  1987 


April  1987  In  the  continuing  effort  to  place  barriers  in  the  way  of  qualification 

for  FOIA  fee  waivers,  the  Department  of  Justice  Office  of  Legal 
Policy  issued  new  fee  waiver  policy  guidance  to  all  federal  agen- 
cies on  April  2,  1987.  In  a  discussion  of  what  evidence  is  sufficient 
to  establish  that  a  contribution  to  understanding  by  the  general 
public  will  ultimately  result  from  a  disclosure,  the  DOJ  guidelines 
observed  about  libraries  that: 

This  consideration  is  not  satisfied  simply  because  a  fee 
waiver  request  is  made  by  a  library  or  other  record  reposi- 
tory, or  a  requester  who  intends  merely  to  disseminate  infor- 
mation to  such  an  institution.  Such  requests,  like  those  of 
other  requesters,  should  be  analyzed  to  identify  a  particular 
person  who  will  actually  use  the  requested  information  in 
scholarly  or  other  analytic  work  and  then  disseminate  it  to 
the  general  public;  absent  that,  it  cannot  be  determined  that 
disclosure  to  the  requester  will  contribute  to  the  public's 
understanding  of  government  operations  or  activities .... 
Thus,  such  requesters  should  make  the  same  fee  waiver 
showing  that  a  person  would  have  to  make  to  obtain  a  fee 
waiver  directly,  including  a  representation  by  that  person  of 
intent  to  perform  the  work  involved.  (Memorandum  for  the 
Heads  of  All  Federal  Agencies  from  Stephen  J.  Markman, 
Assistant  Attorney  General,  Office  of  Legal  Policy,  U.S. 
Department  of  Justice.  Subject:  New  Fee  Waiver  Policy 
Guidelines,  April  2) 

In  remarks  to  the  House  of  Representatives  on  April  22  {Congres- 
sional Record,  pp.  H2104-5),  Rep.  Glenn  English  (D-OK)  stated: 

The  one  word  that  best  describes  this  guidance  is  dishonest 
.  .  .  .Why  did  the  Department  mistake  the  record?  I  think  the 
answer  is  obvious.  The  Department  doesn't  like  the  FOIA, 
and  it  especially  doesn't  like  the  fact  that  Congress  has 
intentionally  made  the  FOIA  easier  to  use  by  liberalizing  the 
fee  waiver  rules.  Since  there  is  nothing  in  the  legislative 
history  to  support  the  Department's  objectives,  the  Depart- 
ment has  decided  to  ignore  the  legislative  history  for  the  fee 
waiver  standard. 

April  1987  "The  Federal  Trade  Commission  said  today  that  it  would  stop  test- 

ing cigarettes  for  tar  and  nicotine  and  would  rely  instead  on  data 
from  the  tobacco  industry. 


68 


April  1987 


"Daniel  Oliver,  chairman  of  the  commission,  said  the  program 
duplicated  information  available  from  the  industry.  Ending  the 
program  will  save  tax-payers  about  $200,000  a  year,  he  said. 

"The  action  was  promptly  criticized  by  the  American  Lung  Associ- 
ation. 

"Karen  Monaco,  a  spokeswoman  for  the  association,  said  the  action 
put  the  measurement  of  tar  and  nicotine  into  the  hands  of  the 
tobacco  companies,  adding,  'We  certainly  don't  trust  them.' 

"She  said  that  in  general  the  measurements  had  been  misused 
because  the  tobacco  industry  had  tried  to  make  smokers  think  that 
cigarettes  with  low  tar  and  nicotine  are  safe  to  smoke. 

"Scott  Stapf  of  the  Tobacco  Institute  responded  that  the  industry 
used  exactly  the  same  method  as  the  commission  in  its  tar  and 
nicotine  testing. 

"The  cigarette  companies  anticipate  cooperating  with  the  F.T.C. 
and  appreciate  the  confidence  expressed  by  the  agency  in  their  tar 
and  nicotine  measurement  reports,'  Mr.  Stapf  added. 

"The  commission  set  up  its  testing  laboratory  in  1966  to  establish 
uniform  standards  for  measuring  the  tar  and  nicotine  content  in 
cigarettes.  That  information  has  been  reported  in  cigarette  adver- 
tising since  1971."  ("U.S.  Stops  Cigarette  Testing,"  The  New  York 
Times,  April  16) 

April  1987  A  recent  decision  by  OMB's  Office  of  Information  and  Regulatory 

Affairs  to  withhold  approval  of  the  government's  major  source  of 
information  about  the  petroleum  industry  may  put  Americans  back 
where  they  were  during  the  1973  oil  crisis — without  the  data 
needed  to  plan  for  the  future  or  to  avert  a  crisis.  Part  of  the  prob- 
lem in  the  1970s  was  that  when  the  government  tried  to  allocate 
petroleum  products  for  critical  needs  (e.g.,  heating  oil),  it  soon 
discovered  that  it  had  no  idea  how  much  of  what  was  available, 
who  had  it,  where  it  was,  or  where  it  was  going.  The  international 
American  oil  companies  knew,  but  they  weren't  telling.  Congress 
vowed  that  the  nation  would  never  again  be  caught  napping.  In 
1973-74,  Congress  created  the  Energy  Information  Administration 
(EIA),  and  charged  it  with  compiling  and  publishing  up-to-date 
information  on  petroleum  availability  and  marketing  from  data 


69 


April  1987 


submitted  by  the  oil  companies.  Recently,  EIA  has  scaled  back  its 
information  collection  activities.  In  April,  OIRA  withheld  approval 
of  EI  As  January  information  collection  request,  asking  for  "appro- 
priate changes."  In  particular,  OIRA  sided  with  the  Sun  Oil  Com- 
pany's objection  to  correcting  data  previously  submitted  to  EIA 
unless  actual  purchase  amounts  and  wellhead  prices  were  off  by 
five  percent  or  more  (Sun  Oil  wanted  a  leeway  of  ten  percent  or  $1 
per  barrel).  Small  changes  in  oil  barrel  prices  have  massive  eco- 
nomic consequences,  because  hundreds  of  millions  of  barrels  are 
involved.  For  example,  in  the  President's  FY  1988  budget,  OIRA 
predicted  a  one  percent  fall  in  oil  prices  for  1987,  a  figure  it  used 
in  calculating  a  rosy  economic  projection  of  lower  government 
deficits.  If  OIRA  succeeds  in  setting  a  ten  percent  error  rate  for 
EIA  crude  oil  price  data,  neither  OIRA  nor  anyone  else  may  know 
which  way  oil  prices  are  going,  and  the  government  may  lose  the 
data  it  needs  to  step  in  during  a  crisis.  (OMB  Watch,  Monthly 
Review,  May  30) 

April  1987  Lt.  Col.  Oliver  North  and  his  secretary.  Fawn  Hall,  stuffed  so  many 

documents  into  a  White  House  shredder  last  November  that  they 
jammed  the  machine,  according  to  informed  sources.  The  destruc- 
tion of  the  documents — including  printouts  of  internal  National 
Security  Council  computer  messages — took  place  on  the  evening 
of  November  21,  the  day  before  Attorney  General  Edwin  Meese  III 
and  his  aides  were  expected  to  begin  reviewing  the  NSC  files. 
Independent  counsel  Lawrence  E.  Walsh,  who  is  in  charge  of  the 
criminal  investigation  into  the  Iran-Contra  Affair,  is  known  to  be- 
lieve that  there  was  a  conspiracy  to  defraud  the  government,  and  is 
hunting  for  apparent  cover-ups  that  obstructed  justice.  ("North's 
Shredder  Broke  Disposing  of  Documents,"  The  Washington  Post, 
April  17) 

April  1987  The  State  Department  swiftly  withdrew  from  circulation  a  publica- 

tion that  aroused  conservative  fury  by  describing  the  Nicaraguan 
contras  as  right-wingers  based  in  Honduras  and  Costa  Rica.  The 
definition  appeared  in  the  1987  edition  of  "Dictionary  of  Interna- 
tional Relations  Terms,"  published  by  the  department's  reference 
library.  As  the  volume  was  ordered  withdrawn  from  circulation, 
librarians  said  it  will  be  corrected  and  reissued.  The  dictionary 
said  "contras"  is  a  contraction  of  the  Spanish  word  for  "counter- 
revolutionaries" and  that  the  rebel  group  "comprises  former  mem- 
bers of  the  Somozist  National  Guard,  dissident  right-wing  former 
Sandinistas  and  the  Miskito  Indian  minority."  Larry  Byrnes,  execu- 
tive director  of  the  Council  on  Hemispheric  Affairs,  said,  "Maybe 

70 


April  1987 


Alexis  de  Tocqueville  was  right  when  he  said  that  Russia  and 
America  are  similar.  In  the  Soviet  Union,  names  of  former  officials 
are  excised  from  reference  works.  The  State  Department  has  now 
muzzled  one  of  the  first  nonideological  documents  issued  during 
the  Reagan  administration  which  vaguely  conforms  to  reality." 
("State  Dept.  to  Redefine  'Contras',"  The  Washington  Post, 
April  18) 

April  1987  Despite  a  recent  setback,  the  Reagan  Administration  is  proceeding 

with  an  effort  to  impose  unprecedented  restrictions  on  the  vast  flow 
of  computerized  information  that  fuels  American's  increasingly 
information-based  economy.  A  September  1984  directive,  NSDD- 
145,  directed  a  task  force  led  by  military  and  intelligence  agencies 
to  come  up  with  plans  for  restricting  access  to  public  information 
held  by  federal  agencies  as  well  as  private  companies.  In  October 
1986,  John  M.  Poindexter,  then  National  Security  Adviser,  signed 
NTISSP  No.  2,  National  Policy  on  Protection  of  Sensitive,  But  Un- 
classified Information  in  Federal  Government  Telecommunications 
and  Automated  Information  Systems,  which  restricted  a  broad 
range  of  government  information  that  is  unclassified,  but  consid- 
ered "sensitive."  NTISSP  No.  2  was  rescinded  in  March  1987  by 
Poindexter's  successor,  Frank  Carlucci.  "According  to  sources  in 
Congress  and  the  administration,  however,  Carlucci  has  made  it 
clear  that  the  pullback  is  only  temporary,  intended  to  disassociate 
the  plan  from  Poindexter's  name  in  the  wake  of  the  Iran-Contra 
arms  scandal."  Sen.  Patrick  Leahy  (D-VT)  said.  "The  administra- 
tion is  so  enthralled  by  the  idea  of  secrecy  they  won't  give  up  their 
attempts  to  control  the  flow  of  information."  Despite  the  pull-back 
of  Poindexter's  order  last  fall,  he  said.  "There's  no  change  of  think- 
ing on  the  issue."  NSDD-145  which  set  up  the  category  of  "sensi- 
tive, but  unclassified  information,"  remains  in  effect,  although  the 
Administration  is  reviewing  the  directive.  ("Reagan  Seeks  Controls 
on  Data-Base  Access,"  The  Boston  Globe,  April  20) 

April  1987  Officials  of  the  Department  of  Education  acknowledged  that  they 

had  paid  a  private  company  to  find  examples  of  college  adminis- 
trators who  misused  funds  and  then  tried  to  prevent  higher- 
education  representatives  from  getting  the  information.  Marion  C. 
Blakey,  of  the  Education  Department  said  the  department  paid 
Applied  Systems  Institute,  a  research  company,  $257  to  do  the 
work  after  an  editor  of  U.S.  News  &  World  Report  last  fall  asked 
for  examples  of  how  colleges  had  misspent  money.  Blakey  said, 
"We  provide  information  as  a  service  to  the  public.  It's  what  this 
agency  is  charged  with  doing."  Higher-education  representatives 


71 


April  1987 


were  outraged  by  the  incident.  The  American  Council  on  Educa- 
tion learned  of  the  inquiry  last  year  and  requested  further  informa- 
tion under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  The  department 
initially  denied  the  request,  saying  that  the  information  gathered 
by  Applied  Systems  Institute  was  prepared  "to  assist  the  depart- 
ment in  preparing  policy  options" — which  meant  the  department 
did  not  have  to  release  it.  The  A.C.E.  appealed  the  decision  and 
received  copies  of  the  memoranda  prepared  by  the  company.  Bla- 
key  later  said  the  study  had  nothing  to  do  with  policy  setting, 
although  the  study  was  requested  at  the  time  Education  Secretary 
William  Bennett  was  beginning  to  intensify  his  criticism  of  the 
increase  in  college  costs.  ("Education  Dept.  Admits  It  Paid  Private 
Company  to  Find  Examples  of  Misuse  of  Funds  on  Campuses,"  The 
Chronicle  of  Higher  Education,  April  22) 

April  1987  Former  president  Richard  M.  Nixon  has  temporarily  blocked  the 

scheduled  May  4  public  release  of  about  five  percent  of  the  1.5 
million  pages  of  his  private  presidential  papers,  the  National  Ar- 
chives announced.  ("Nixon  Blocks  May  4  Release  of  Some  Papers," 
The  Washington  Post,  April  23) 

April  1987  The  House  Foreign  Affairs  Subcommittee  on  International  Opera- 

tions voted  on  April  28  to  subpoena  State  Department  documents 
and  cables  concerning  security  problems  at  the  U.S.  embassy  in 
Moscow  after  learning  that  some  materials  the  committee  had 
requested  were  deliberately  withheld.  Subcommittee  chair  Rep. 
Daniel  Mica  (D-FL)  charged  that  the  department  had  withdrawn 
documents  from  two  thick  binders  of  information  on  embassy  secu- 
rity provided  to  the  panel.  He  said  the  panel  discovered  that  docu- 
ments were  missing  because  indexes  and  tabs  in  each  binder 
referred  to  sections  that  were  empty.  ("Panel  Votes  to  Subpoena 
Embassy  Security  Data,"  The  Washington  Post,  April  29) 

May  1987  In  1985,  when  the  Consumer  Product  Safety  Commission  (CPSC) 

learned  of  the  deaths  of  nine  children  in  recliner  chair  accidents, 
it  alerted  furniture  manufacturers  and  the  group  quickly  agreed  to 
urge  modifications  in  the  way  chairs  were  made  and  to  issue  warn- 
ings to  customers.  But  at  the  CPSC,  the  federal  agency  with  au- 
thority to  order  unsafe  products  off  the  market,  agency  economists 
also  examined  the  chair  issue,  using  a  controversial  "cost-benefit" 
formula  that  the  Reagan  Administration  has  pressed  all  regulatory 
agencies  to  employ  before  undertaking  action.  The  results  shocked 
some  agency  officials,  as  well  as  furniture  manufacturers.  The 
economists  concluded  the  agency  should  not  support  the  changes 

72 


June  1987 


in  recliners.  "It  is  our  recommendation  that  nothing  be  done  be- 
yond mentioning  (the  problem)  in  safety  alerts.  .  ."  wrote  Warren  J. 
Prunella,  an  assistant  to  the  director  of  the  agency's  economic 
analysis  staff,  in  an  internal  memo.  Even  warnings  should  be  tem- 
pered. Prunella  urged.  "The  psychic  costs  associated  with  the 
anxiety  that  accompanies  the  release  of  information  on  household 
hazards  is  to  be  considered  against  any  accompanying  benefits." 
Noting  that  the  CPSC  economics  analysis  staff  has  sometimes  used 
cost-benefit  analysis  to  argue  against  issues  news  releases  on  some 
hazards,  CPSC  compliance  director  David  Schmeltzer  said  his 
"most  serious  objection"  to  the  formula  is  a  fear  that  the  commis- 
sion's devotion  to  it  could  "result  in  consumers  being  deprived  of 
their  right  to  be  informed."  ("Formula  for  Product  Safety  Raises 
Questions  About  Human  Factor,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  26) 

May  1987  "A  report  in  the  May  21  New  York  Times  says  that  a  Japanese  em- 

ployee of  a  technical  library  on  a  United  States  Air  Base  is  among 
four  men  arrested  for  stealing  documents  on  military  aircraft  and 
passing  them  to  an  official  at  the  Soviet  Trade  Representative  Of- 
fice in  Tokyo.  The  four  are  also  suspected  of  selling  military  docu- 
ments to  the  Chinese."  {Library  Hothne,  June  1 ) 

June  1987  The  Department  of  Commerce  published  a  notice  in  the  June  10 

Commerce  Business  Daily  seeking  comments  and  expressions  of 
interest  from  those  who  might  contract  to  operate  the  National 
Technical  Information  Service.  In  addition  to  the  regular  contract- 
ing process,  the  notice  states  that  Commerce  is  considering  a 
second  option,  the  federal  employee  direct  corporate  stock  owner- 
ship plan  (Fed-Co-Op).  This  alternative  is  viewed  as  a  viable 
means  of  sharing  contract  benefits  with  affected  employees.  The 
fed  co-op  was  designed  as  an  alternative  to  A-76  and  is  based  on 
the  concept  of  an  employee  ownership  plan  (ESOP).  Under  this 
concept,  federal  employees  would  exchange  their  government  jobs 
for  salaried  jobs  with  the  contractor  as  well  as  stock  in  the  new 
contracting  firm.  Commerce  plans  to  hold  a  meeting  on  June  16  of 
potential  bidders  on  the  fed  co-op  option. 

June  1987  In  a  concluding  statement  to  the  first  phase  of  the  hearings  of  the 

House  and  Senate  panels  investigating  the  Iran-Contra  initiatives. 
House  Committee  Chairman  Lee  H.  Hamilton  (D-IN)  said  that  the 
18  witnesses  and  more  than  100  hours  of  hearings  so  far  have 
produced  "some  of  the  most  extraordinary  testimony  ever  pre- 
sented to  Congress."  That  testimony,  Hamilton  said,  told  "a  story  of 
remarkable  chaos  in  the  processes  of  government."  Several  of  the 


73 


June  1987 


findings  he  mentioned  involved  information:  private  citizens  re- 
ceived top-secret  U.S.  codes  and  coded  communications  devices;  a 
national  security  adviser  and  an  assistant  secretary  of  state  with- 
held information  and  misled  Congress  on  the  Nicaraguan  contra 
resupply  operation;  and  documents  were  altered  and  destroyed. 

In  her  testimony  on  June  8,  Fawn  Hall,  former  secretary  to  Lt.  Col. 
Oliver  North,  former  National  Security  Council  official,  told  how, 
at  North's  direction,  she  had  altered  and  shredded  documents  and, 
on  her  own  initiative,  smuggled  highly  classified  papers  out  of  the 
Old  Executive  Office  Building.  She  told  of  concealing  the  papers 
in  her  boots  and  dress  in  order  to  elude  an  NSC  official  who  was 
there  to  prevent  such  removal  in  the  face  of  a  Federal  Bureau  of 
Investigation  probe.  ("Hall  Testifies  of  Necessity  To  Go  Above 
Written  Law'."  The  Washington  Post,  June  10) 

June  1987  On  June  8,  OMB  published  OMB  Bulletin  No.  87-14,  Report  and 

Inventory  of  Government  Information  Dissemination  Products  and 
Services,  its  control  plan  for  a  comprehensive  inventory  of  each 
periodical,  machine-readable  data  file,  software  file,  online  data- 
base service,  and  electronic  bulletin  board  in  the  inventory  of  all 
federal  executive  agencies,  which  are  issued  or  disseminated  by 
agencies  to  the  genera]  pubhc.  Agencies  are  required  to  provide 
an  electronic  copy  of  its  total  agency-wide  inventory  of  all  informa- 
tion dissemination  products  and  services  by  September  11,  1987. 

An  official  of  OMB's  Office  of  Information  and  Regulatory  Affairs 
had  previously  announced  in  public  meetings  that  OMB  wants  to 
combine  OMB  Circulars  A-3,  Government  Publications,  and  Cir- 
cular A- 130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources, 
within  a  year.  Both  these  circulars  are  cited  as  authority  for  OMB 
Bulletin  No.  87-14.  The  electronic  listing  of  all  government  infor- 
mation dissemination  products  and  services  will  provide  a  conven- 
ient shopping  list  for  the  private  sector  in  search  of  public 
information  products  with  profit  potential.  One  of  the  policies  in 
Bulletin  87-14  states: 

Agencies  shall  make  such  inventories  available  to  the  pub- 
lic, either  directly  or  through  intermediaries  such  as  other 
Federal  agencies  or  private  sector  entities,  as  an  aid  in  lo- 
cating government  information  products  and  services.  Agen- 
cies shall,  however,  avoid  offering  information  services  that 
essentially  duplicate  services  already  available  from  other 
agencies  or  the  private  sector. 

74 


lune  1987 


June  1987  Two  scientists  hired  by  the  Public  Health  Service  to  prepare  a 

report  for  Congress  on  lead  poisoning  in  children  resigned  in 
protest,  contending  that  PHS  plans  to  delete  and  dilute  critical 
portions  of  their  work.  The  scientists  said  that  their  draft  report, 
which  details  the  adverse  health  effects  of  lead  at  blood  levels 
common  to  17  percent  of  urban  preschool  children,  suggested  the 
need  for  more  far-reaching  and  costly  remedies  than  the  Adminis- 
tration is  willing  to  consider.  They  said  a  condensed  version  of  a 
draft  sent  out  for  review  fails  to  present  the  national  scope  of  an 
environmental  problem  once  thought  to  be  confined  to  poor,  inner- 
city  dwellers  and  to  detail  the  health  consequences. 

"No  way  in  hell  you  can  comprehend  the  complexity  of  this  prob- 
lem in  a  boiled  down,  very  misleading,  essentially  neutral  docu- 
ment," said  author  Paul  Mushak,  adjunct  professor  of 
environmental  pathology  at  the  University  of  North  Carolina 
School  of  Medicine.  "It's  one  of  the  most  subtle,  nastiest  rewrites 
I've  ever  seen,"  said  coauthor  Annemarie  Crocetti,  retired  associate 
professor  of  community  medicine  at  New  York  Medical  College. 
Frank  Mitchell,  chief  medical  officer  of  the  PHS'  Agency  for  Toxic 
Substances  and  Disease  Registry,  said  the  330-page  draft  has  been 
cut  to  46  pages  to  create  a  "readable,  usable"  document  for  Con- 
gress complete  with  all  vital  findings.  "We're  not  suppressing  any- 
thing," Mitchell  said.  The  excised  charts,  appendices  and 
judgments  of  the  two  authors  will  be  made  available  to  Congress  as 
"backup  data,"  he  said.  Another  omission  in  the  condensed  version 
was  the  16-page  bibliography  and  extensive  references  in  the  draft. 
("Authors  Protest  Report  on  Lead  Poisoning,"  The  Washington  Post, 
June  13) 

June  1987  Nearly  a  quarter  of  the  regulations  proposed  by  agencies  and 

departments  across  the  government  were  changed  at  the  behest  of 
the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  before  they  were  issued, 
according  to  OMB  statistics.  As  a  result,  OMB  influence  over 
government  regulation  appears  to  be  increasing.  In  1981,  87.3 
percent  of  all  regulations  went  through  the  OMB  review  process 
without  change.  Last  year,  the  figure  was  68.3  percent.  OMB  offi- 
cials said  that  a  third  of  the  changes  are  insignificant,  a  few  are 
last-minute  alterations  offered  by  the  departments  and  agencies, 
and  others  are  statistical  aberrations.  Some  lawmakers  argue  that 
OMB's  economists,  statisticians  and  lawyers  have  acquired  near- 
veto  power  over  the  scientists,  engineers,  and  technical  experts 
who  write  regulations  in  agencies.  They  said  that  public  health  and 
safety  are  eroded  when  rules  are  watered  down  and  standards  are 
eased  to  save  money  or  meet  theoretical  economic  considerations. 

75 


June  1987 


The  Administration  said  it  has  cut  back  on  the  rate  of  new  regula- 
tions substantially.  The  number  of  pages  in  the  Federal  Register, 
the  official  vehicle  for  new  rules,  has  been  reduced  from  87,012  in 
1980  to  47,418  last  year.  The  number  of  proposed  rules  has  been 
cut  by  2,000,  and  the  number  of  final  rules  by  3,000,  according  to 
OMB  statistics.  ("OMB  Cracks  Whip  on  Rule-Making."  The  Wash- 
ington Post,  June  17) 

June  1987  Congressional  investigators  are  trying  to  determine  why  five  top 

secret  National  Security  Council  documents  were  released  from  a 
special  protective  file  November  21,  1988,  routed  to  then-White 
House  aide  Oliver  North,  substantially  rewritten  at  his  direction 
and  returned  four  days  later  without  guestions  being  raised  about 
the  alternations.  Fawn  Hall,  North's  former  secretary,  testified  that 
she  made  alterations,  destroyed  the  originals  and  made  copies  of 
the  new  documents  on  a  letterhead  that  had  not  been  use  in  1985. 
("Release  of  5  Documents  From  NSC  Probed."  Washington  Post, 
June  19) 

June  1987  Under  rules  set  to  take  effect  July  1,  three  major  agencies — 

Defense,  General  Services  Administration  and  National  Aeronau- 
tics and  Space  Administration— propose  to  divorce  themselves  from 
long-standing  printing  regulations  that  have  buttressed  both  the 
Joint  Committee  on  Printing's  and  the  Government  Printing  Of- 
fice's controls  on  government  printing.  The  proposed  rules  which 
were  published  in  the  March  20  Federal  Register,  pp.  9036-39, 
would  let  the  individual  agencies  make  many  of  the  decisions  the 
committee  and  GPO  now  make.  According  to  congressional 
sources,  if  the  three  agencies  are  allowed  to  bypass  the  committee 
and  GPO,  other  agencies  are  likely  to  follow. 

Members  of  the  joint  committee  demanded  that  the  three  agencies 
drop  their  plans  for  new  printing  rules.  But  the  agencies  notified 
the  panel  in  mid- June  that  they  were  proceeding  and  guestioned 
both  the  committee's  and  GPO's  ability  to  stop  them.  Administra- 
tion officials  contend  that  OMB,  which  has  trimmed  the  govern- 
ment's overall  printing  bills  sharply,  would  continue  to  exercise 
control  over  what  the  government  prints.  OMB  Watch,  a  citizen's 
group  that  monitors  OMB  actions,  said:  "Without  some  kind  of 
congressional  oversight  mechanism,  OMB's  supervision  of  execu- 
tive branch  information  activities  will  lead  to  less  information  for 
Congress  as  well  as  the  public."  In  a  memo  this  spring,  the  Con- 
gressional Research  Service  noted  that  Congress  insisted  on  direct 
control  over  printing  in  1846  because  it  believed  that  was  the  way 
to  end  scandals  over  printing  contracts.  Committee  powers  were 

76 


July  1987 


broadened  in  1895  and  have  gone  without  a  major  challenge  until 
a  1983  Supreme  Court  ruling  striking  down  legislative  vetoes. 
("Hill  Pressed  to  Ease  Grip  Over  Printing."  The  Washington  Post, 
June  19) 

June  1987  The  Federal  Statistical  Directory,  which  is  in  its  second  edition  as 

a  private- sector  publication,  now  costs  550  percent  more  than  it       . ^ 

did  when  it  was  last  a  government  document  and  is  no  longer 
available  through  the  Depository  Library  Program.  When  the  Gov- 
ernment Printing  Office  sold  the  1979  edition,  the  most  recent 
available  from  the  government,  it  charged  $5.  The  current  privat- 
ized edition  costs  $32.50.  Although  for  45  years  the  directory 
helped  researchers  identify  and  locate  the  people  and  agencies 
who  can  provide  essential  statistical  information,  OMB  scrapped 
the  government  book  as  an  unnecessary  publication.  (Publisher's 
advertisement  provided  current  price.) 

July  1987  OMB  reguested  public  comment  on  a  draft  revision  of  OMB  Circu- 

lar A-25,  User  Charges,  in  the  July  1  Federal  Register,  pp.  24890- 
92.  In  a  letter  to  OMB,  ALA  Washington  Office  Director  Eileen  D. 
Cooke  stated  that  ALA  would  strongly  object  to  the  policies  of  full 
cost  recovery  and  market  pricing  spelled  out  in  the  draft  if  those 
policies  were  applied  to  government  information  products  and 
services  since  full  recovery  of  costs  attendant  to  the  creation,  col- 
lection, processing  and  transmission  of  government  information 
will  restrict  access  by  the  public  to  that  information.  She  noted  that 
the  draft  of  A-25  appears  to  indicate  that  OMB  Circular  A- 130, 
Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources,  ".  .  .shall  be 
deemed  to  meet  the  requirements  of  this  Circular."  OMB  Circular 
A- 130  requires  user  charges  for  costs  of  dissemination  of  govern- 
ment information,  but  refers  to  Circular  A-25 — in  effect,  a  circular 
circular. 

Cooke  also  stated  that  ALA  is  disturbed  that  the  ultimate  benefi- 
ciary will  no  longer  be  considered  in  determining  when  no  charge 
should  be  made  for  services.  The  current  A-25,  which  dates  from 
1959,  provides  that  no  charge  should  be  made  for  services  when 
the  identification  of  the  ultimate  beneficiary  is  obscure  and  the 
service  can  be  primarily  considered  as  broadly  benefiting  the 
general  public.  The  draft  A-25  turns  that  policy  on  its  head  by 
stipulating  that  no  charge  should  be  made  for  services  when  the 
identification  of  the  specific  beneficiary  is  obscure.  (Letter  from 
Eileen  D.  Cooke  to  Ellen  Balis,  OMB  Budget  Review  Division, 
July  31) 

77 


July  1987 


July  1987  According  to  military  and  congressional  sources,  senior  Pentagon 

officials,  seeking  internal  approval  for  a  tentative  plan  to  deploy 
ballistic  missile  defenses  in  the  mid-1990s,  pressured  an  advisory 
panel  to  omit  sharp  criticism  of  the  plan  in  a  recent  key  scientific 
report.  A  secret  report  by  a  Defense  Science  Board  panel  con- 
cluded that  the  Pentagon's  Strategic  Defense  Initiative  deployment 
plan  was  so  "sketchy"  that  neither  its  price  nor  its  effectiveness 
could  be  determined.  This  criticism  and  a  recommendation  that 
the  board  withhold  deployment-plan  approval  for  a  year  or  two 
were  omitted  from  a  version  of  the  report  given  to  the  Defense 
Acquisition  Board,  the  Pentagon's  senior  decision  makers  on  new 
weapons  systems.  ("Science  Panel's  SDI  Criticisms  Omitted  From 
Report,"  Washington  Post,  July  9  and  "Defense  Science  Board 
Report  on  SDI,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  10) 

July  1987  Testifying  on  behalf  of  the  American  Library  Association,  Dr. 

Harold  B.  Shill  of  Western  Virginia  University,  documented  that 
user  costs  in  accessing  government  databases  through  private 
information  vendors  are  often  substantially  higher  than  those  in- 
curred in  using  databases  stored  in  government  computers.  Gov- 
ernment information  repackaged  by  the  private  sector  is  also 
usually  expensive  for  end  users.  An  appendix  attached  to  his  testi- 
mony showed  that  the  average  cost  of  government  information 
databases  provided  through  DIALOG  by  the  private  sector  is 
$93.26,  while  databases  provided  directly  to  DIALOG  by  the  col- 
lecting agencies  costs  $45.70  per  connect  hour.  Privatization  more 
than  doubles  the  cost  to  end  users.  (Hearings  on  Scientific  and 
Technical  Information:  Policy  and  Organization  in  Federal  Govern- 
ment (HR  2159  and  HR  1615),  House  Committee  on  Science, 
Space,  and  Technology,  Subcommittee  on  Science,  Research  and 
Technology,  100th  Congress,  1st  Session,  July  14  and  15,  1987) 

July  1987  In  an  opinion  piece  in  The  Chronicle  of  Higher  Education, 

Gerhard  L.  Weinberg  argued  that  the  only  realistic  solution  to  the 
practical  problems  of  declassifying  the  enormous  volume  of  re- 
cords generated  by  the  modern  state  is  to  set  up  a  system  of  auto- 
matic declassification  which  in  this  country  would  be  done  by 
amending  the  Federal  Records  Act.  Under  such  a  system,  every 
document  that  is  classified  would  have  a  declassification  schedule, 
including  dates.  No  further  review  of  the  document  would  be 
needed  unless  the  declassification  were  to  be  either  speeded  up  or 
postponed.  Weinberg  said  that  the  United  States  at  one  time  led 
the  way  among  nations  in  making  its  records  openly  and  promptly 
accessible  to  its  citizens  on  the  assumption  that  in  a  democracy  the 

78 


July  1987 


vjovernment's  records  are  the  public's  records.  "Republican  and 
Democratic  Administrations  alike  worked  toward  reasserting  the 
principle  that  the  people  should  have  access  to  the  records  of  their 
government,  and  instituted  practical  administrative  and  budgetary- 
procedures  to  accomplish  that  end.  The  declassification  process 
was  dramatically  and  emphatically  reversed  on  August  1,  1982, 
when  a  new  executive  order  on  security  classification  took  effect." 
("With  Secret  Records  Growing  Some  7  Million  Pages  a  Year,  We 
Desperately  Need  an  Automatic  Declassification  System,"  The 
Chronicle  of  Higher  Education,  July  15) 

Former  national  security  adviser  John  M.  Poindexter  told  Congress 
during  the  Iran- Contra  hearings  that  on  December  5,  1985,  Presi- 
dent Reagan  signed  a  "finding"  that,  after  the  fact,  authorized  a 
secret  arms-for-hostage  deal  with  Iran.  The  White  House  has  said 
that  Reagan  cannot  remember  signing  the  document,  and  it  has 
never  been  found  because,  as  Poindexter  testified  on  November  21, 
1986,  as  the  scandal  was  coming  to  light,  he  personally  tore  it  up 
and  put  it  in  a  basket  of  materials  to  be  burned.  Poindexter  said  he 
destroyed  the  document  "because  I  thought  it  was  a  significant 
political  embarrassment  and  I  wanted  to  protect  him."  ("Poindexter 
Says  President  Not  Told  of  Diversion,"  Washington  Post,  July  16) 

Entreated  by  the  White  House,  columnists  Jack  Anderson  and  Dale 
Van  Atta  held  a  story  that  President  Reagan  had  confidentially 
confirmed  the  existence  of  the  secret  Iran  initiative  to  them  in  a 
February  24,  1986,  interview.  "Convinced  that  a  dangerous  disin- 
formation campaign  was  in  progress,  we  began  revealing  pieces  of 
the  secret  Iranian  initiative — and  finally  stated  it  flat-out  in  a 
column  on  June  29,  1986.  'We  can  now  reveal  the  secret  negotia- 
tions over  arms  supply  and  release  of  American  hostages  have 
involved  members  of  the  National  Security  Council  and  a  former 
official  of  the  CIA  the  column  reported.  It  remained  for  an  ob- 
scure Lebanese  magazine  and  a  top  Iranian  official  to  confirm  our 
story  last  November."  ("Reagan  Interview  Worried  Poindexter."  The 
Washington  Post,  July  29) 

A  Social  Security  Administration  worker  in  Baltimore  responsible 
for  assessing  the  performance  of  caseworkers  told  a  House  Govern- 
ment Operations  subcommittee  that  she  was  pressured  repeatedly 
by  higher-ups  to  "stop  finding  deficiencies"  and  to  falsify  the  accu- 
racy of  her  ratings.  Ann  Mogenhan,  a  13-year  employee  of  the 
Office  of  Disability  Operations,  told  Congress  that  her  managers 
discouraged  her  from  conducting  tough  assessments  of  casework- 


79 


July  1987 


ers,  beginning  in  1983,  for  fear  of  lessening  output  and  jeopardiz- 
ing their  own  merit  raises.  "I  was  told  by  several  different 
managers  on  numerous  occasions  to  provide  false  accuracy  statis- 
tics on  individuals  whose  production  was  high,  since  charging 
errors  caused  them  to  drastically  reduce  their  production,"  Mo- 
genhan  said.  She  was  among  ten  current  and  former  Social  Secu- 
rity Administration  workers  and  advocates  of  beneficiaries  who 
testified  about  the  adverse  impact  of  major  staffing  reductions  and 
administrative  changes  in  the  1300  SSA  offices  throughout  the 
country.  Critics  contend  that  the  cutbacks  have  resulted  in  shoddy 
work,  unanswered  telephone  calls,  large  backlogs  of  applications 
and  administrative  appeal  rulings,  and  far  less  personal  assistance 
for  mentally  and  physically  handicapped  people  in  filling  out 
forms.  Those  allegations  were  disputed  by  Social  Security  Commis- 
sioner Dorcas  R.  Hardy  and  her  top  aides.  ("Social  Security  Ser- 
vice Scored  on  Hill,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  29) 

July  1987  OMB  asked  the  Census  Bureau  to  eliminate  about  half  the  pro- 

posed questions  on  the  1988  Decennial  Census  Dress  Rehearsal  for 
the  1990  Census,  roughly  30  questions,  including  all  questions 
about  housing  value  and  rents,  population  mobility,  energy,  unem- 
ployment and  fertility.  "OMB  is  coming  in  and  taking  the  guts  out 
of  a  lot  of  [the  Censusl,"  said  Randy  Arndt  of  the  National  League 
of  Cities.  "This  would  have  a  devastating  effect  on  the  ability  of 
local  governments  to  measure  and  evaluate  trends."  But  OMB  cites 
the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  of  1980,  which  gives  it  authority  over 
all  forms  people  have  to  answer  for  the  government.  ("Census 
Questions  in  Question,"  USA  TODAY,  July  30) 

August  1987  The  Joint  Economic  Committee,  chaired  by  Sen.  Paul  Sarbanes  (D- 

MD),  held  a  hearing  on  August  7  to  examine  the  potential  effects 
of  the  OMB  proposal  to  eliminate  or  shift  questions  in  the  Census 
dress  rehearsal.  Two  panels  representing  users  were  unanimous  in 
criticizing  the  OMB.  Rachel  Van  Wingen,  government  documents 
librarian  at  Georgetown  University,  representing  ALA  concluded: 
"Wise  policy  decisions  are  difficult  to  make  in  the  face  of  uncer- 
tainty; they're  impossible  to  make  in  the  dark.  There's  no  reason  to 
be  in  the  dark.  The  Bureau  of  the  Census  exists  with  a  mandate  to 
collect  statistics  in  the  national  interest."  ("OMB  'Unable  to  Ap- 
prove' Dress  Rehearsal,  Proposes  Alterations."  News  from  COPAFS, 
August-September  1987) 

August  1987  The  Reagan  Administration  published  a  definition  of  "classifiable" 

in  the  August  11  Federal  Register,  p.  29793,  to  clarify  a  controver- 

80 


August  1987 


sial  secrecy  pledge  required  of  civilian  and  military  personnel  with 
access  to  classified  information.  The  secrecy  agreement,  which 
already  has  been  signed  by  an  estimated  two  million  persons  in  67 
agencies  since  the  Administration  began  using  it  in  January,  has 
been  criticized  by  members  of  Congress  and  some  government 
employees  who  believe  it  is  intended  to  stifle  the  flow  of  informa- 
tion from  the  executive  branch.  The  form  requires  the  employee  to 
pledge  not  to  disclose  either  "classified"  or  "classifiable"  informa- 
tion. Sen.  Charles  E.  Grassley  (R-IA)  said  that  the  term  "classifi- 
able" could  "mean  anything.  It  will  have  a  chilling  effect  on  those 
working  for  government  who  will  not  disclose  anything  for  fear  that 
at  a  later  date  it  might  turn  out  to  have  been  classified."  At  the 
center  of  the  row  is  form  SF  189,  which  springs  from  a  controver- 
sial National  Security  Decision  Directive  issued  by  the  Reagan 
Administration  in  1983  that  authorized  polygraph  testing  and  re- 
quired prepublication  reviews.  ("Secrecy -Vow  Change  to  Be  Aired," 
The  Washington  Post,  August  1 1  and  "Taking  the  Pledge,"  The 
Washington  Post,  August  28) 

August  1987  The  Air  Force,  bucking  Administration  policy,  for  more  than  a 

year  has  required  all  its  employees — including  thousands  with  no 
access  to  secrets — to  sign  a  controversial  new  security  pledge.  The 
Air  Force  obtained  750,000  signatures  between  July  1986  and  June 
1987  of  which  at  least  150,000  apparently  came  from  employees 
without  security  clearances.  A  Reagan  Administration  regulation 
forbids  federal  agencies  to  solicit  signatures  from  employees  who 
do  not  have  security  clearances,  and  therefore  have  no  access  to 
classified  data.  The  Administration  recently  announced  it  would 
halt  the  withdrawal  of  security  clearances  from  employees  refusing 
to  sign  the  form  pending  the  outcome  of  a  lawsuit  challenging  the 
pledge.  However,  agencies  are  to  continue  requesting  employees  to 
sign  the  form.  ("Air  Force  Oversteps  Security  Policy,"  The  Wash- 
ington Post,  August  24) 

Secrecy  pledges  signed  by  an  estimated  150,000  Air  Force  person- 
nel without  any  access  to  secrets  will  be  destroyed.  ("Air  Force 
Cuts  Back  on  Secrecy  Pledges,"  Times-Herald  [Newport  News, 
Va.],  August  31) 

August  1987  Pentagon  budget  cutters  have  decided  to  stop  publishing  the  De- 

fense Management  Journal,  the  scholarly  award-winning  magazine 
that  covered  subjects  from  computers  to  managing  sick  leave. 
Defense  considers  the  publication  too  costly.  ("Thrift  Savings  Plan 
Grows,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  13) 


81 


August  1987 


August  1987  In  the  last  few  years,  as  computers  have  become  ever  more  sophis- 

ticated and  numerous,  federal  officials  have  become  increasingly 
concerned  about  unclassified  data.  They  fear  that  foreign  citizens 
might  harm  national  security  by  extracting  valuable  scientific  and 
technical  information  from  the  huge  volume  of  unclassified  mate- 
rial accessible  in  computers.  In  a  1984  directive.  President  Reagan 
likened  information  to  a  mosaic,  saying  that  bits  of  unclassified 
data,  innocuous  in  isolation,  "can  reveal  highly  classified  and 
other  sensitive  information  when  taken  in  aggregate."  The  govern- 
ment, the  directive  said,  shall  encourage,  advise  and,  where  ap- 
propriate, assist  the  private  sector  to  protect  "sensitive 
non-Government  information,  the  loss  of  which  could  adversely 
affect  the  national  security." 

Described  in  the  article  are  author  Tom  Clancy's  methods  in  using 
unclassified  materials  to  research  his  best-selling  novels.  He  be- 
lieves that  it  is  unwise  for  the  government  to  try  to  restrict  access  to 
unclassified  information  in  the  public  domain.  "One  of  the  reasons 
we  are  so  successful  is  that  we  have  a  free  society  with  open  access 
to  information.  If  you  change  that,  if  you  try  to  close  off  the  chan- 
nels of  information,  we'll  end  up  just  like  the  Russians,  and  their 
society  does  not  work.  The  best  way  to  turn  America  into  another 
Russia  is  to  emulate  their  methods  of  handling  information." 
("Washington  Feeling  Insecure  About  Non-Secret  Information,"  The 
New  York  Times,  August  30) 


September  1987 


The  American  Federation  of  Government  Employees  filed  suit 
against  the  government  on  September  1  charging  that  mandatory 
secrecy  pledges  violate  employees'  constitutional  rights.  The  law- 
suit asks  the  court  to  declare  the  pledges  illegal  and  to  rescind  the 
secrecy  agreements  signed  by  more  than  two  million  federal  em- 
ployees. The  union  argues  that  the  restrictions  interfere  with  em- 
ployees' freedom  of  speech  and  that  they  will  inhibit  employees 
who  want  to  blow  the  whistle  on  fraud,  waste  and  abuse  in  govern- 
ment. Two  types  of  secrecy  pledges  are  at  issue. 


The  more  common  pledge,  which  applies  to  3V2  to  4  million  gov- 
ernment employees  and  contractors  with  access  to  classified  infor- 
mation, requires  those  workers  to  promise  not  to  disclose  classified 
or  "classifiable"  information.  That  pledge,  known  as  Standard  Form 
189,  is  overseen  by  the  Information  Security  Oversight  Office,  a 
part  of  the  General  Services  Administration.  The  second  pledge, 
which  applies  only  to  employees  with  the  highest-level 
clearances — those  covering  Sensitive  Compartmented 


82 


September  1987 


Information — requires  such  workers  to  sign  a  lifetime  pledge  stat- 
ing that  they  will  obtain  approval  from  government  censors  for  any 
book,  speech  or  publication,  including  fictionalized  accounts, 
dealing  with  classified  material.  That  pledge,  known  as  Form  4193, 
applies  to  about  150,000  current  workers  with  SCI  clearances  and 
is  overseen  by  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency.  ("Secrecy  Pledges 
Challenged  Openly,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  2) 


September  1987 


Army  Lt.  General  William  E.  Odom,  director  of  the  National  Secu- 
rity Agency,  the  nation's  most  secret  spy  agency,  said  the  federal 
government  should  prosecute  news  organizations  that  publish 
sensitive  information.  He  said  news  leaks  in  the  last  several  years 
have  crippled  U.S.  intelligence-gathering  capabilities  in  some 
parts  of  the  world.  Odom  also  criticized  the  Reagan  Administration 
for  its  torrent  of  leaks  and  some  U.S.  officials  for  failing  to  have  the 
"appropriate  level  of  paranoia"  about  Soviet  espionage  efforts.  He 
singled  out  James  Bamford's  1982  book  on  the  National  Security 
Agency,  The  Puzzle  Palace,  for  having  "done  more  damage  to  us 
than  almost  anything  I  can  think  of."  Odom  believes  Bamford  and 
others  publishing  such  material  should  be  prosecuted  under  a 
1950  law  barring  disclosure  of  U.S.  "communication  intelligence 
activities,"  but  acknowledged  that  government  officials  who  tell 
reporters  about  sensitive  intelligence  findings  are  just  as  guilty  as 
those  who  publish  them.  ("Chief  of  Spy  Agency  Criticizes  News 
Leaks,"  Chicago  Tribune,  September  3) 


September  1987 


OMB  ended  weeks  of  dispute  with  the  Census  Bureau  by  ordering 
it  to  drop  three  of  about  70  questions  the  bureau  had  proposed  for 
the  next  census,  and  to  use  seven  others  only  on  a  "long  form"  that 
goes  to  a  limited  sample  of  houses.  The  three  deleted  questions 
involved  fuels  and  household  utilities.  The  seven  permitted  only  on 
the  long  form  involve  housing.  The  OMB  approved  all  proposed 
questions  on  fertility,  transportation  and  labor  market  participation. 
OMB  had  received  hundreds  of  letters  which  said  that  detailed 
information  about  local  neighborhoods  is  vital  in  planning  local 
transportation,  housing  and  labor  services,  and  is  available  only 
from  the  full  decennial  census.  ("OMB  Orders  Several  Questions 
Cut  from  Census,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  17) 


September  1987 


Agents  of  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  have  asked  librarians 
in  New  York  City  to  watch  for  and  report  on  library  users  who 
might  be  diplomats  of  hostile  powers  recruiting  intelligence  agents 
or  gathering  information  potentially  harmful  to  United  States  secu- 
rity. The  initiative  upset  library  officials,  who  fear  intrusions  into 


83 


September  1987 


the  privacy  and  academic  freedom  of  library  users  and  who  object 
to  what  they  called  an  effort  to  turn  librarians  into  government 
informers.  FBI  officials  acknowledged  that  staff  at  fewer  than  20 
libraries,  most  of  them  academic  rather  than  public,  had  been 
asked  to  cooperate  with  agents  in  a  Library  Awareness  Program 
that  is  part  of  a  national  counterintelligence  effort.  ("Libraries  Are 
Asked  by  F.B.I,  to  Report  On  Foreign  Agents,"  The  New  York 
Times,  September  18)  [Note:  ALAs  Intellectual  Freedom  Commit- 
tee protested  "this  attempted  infringement  of  the  right  to  receive 
information  protected  by  the  First  Amendment  to  the  U.S.  Consti- 
tution and  the  further  attempted  violation  of  the  privacy  rights  of 
all  library  patrons"  in  an  Extraordinary  Memorandum  from  ALAs 
Office  for  Intellectual  Freedom,  October  1987.] 


September  1987 


Vietnam  veteran  Mike  Rego  has  been  trying  for  five  years  to  learn 
more  about  an  experimental  drug  he  was  treated  with  at  a  Veterans 
Administration  hospital.  He  wonders  whether  it  may  have  been  a 
factor  in  his  contraction  of  a  fatal  and  incurable  disease.  But  infor- 
mation about  the  drug,  6-aminonicotinamide,  or  6-AN  is  scarce.  No 
one,  including  the  doctor  who  treated  Rego  with  6-AN,  the  Cana- 
dian manufacturer,  the  distributor  and  the  Food  and  Drug  Admin- 
istration, which  approved  the  drug  for  experimental  use,  will  share 
their  knowledge  of  6-AN  and  its  possible  side  effects.  Hoping  to 
learn  whether  other  patients  treated  with  6-AN  later  contracted  Lou 
Gehrig's  disease,  Rego  asked  the  FDA  for  informtion.  It  was  then, 
he  claims,  that  he  learned  6-AN  was  approved  only  for  experimen- 
tal use — and  that,  to  protect  the  manufacturer's  trade  secrets,  the 
FDA  cannot  release  information  on  the  drug.  "I  cannot  respond  to 
your  reguest  for  information  on  the  investigational  uses"  of  6-AN, 
associate  FDA  commissioner  Jack  Martin  wrote  to  Rego,  "since  any 
acknowledgement .  .  .  would  constitute  disclosure  of  confidential 
commercial  information."  ("Drug  Data  Is  Denied  to  Incurably  111 
Man,"  7726  Washington  Post,  September  24) 


September  1987 


The  number  of  publications  issued  each  year  by  the  new  Commis- 
sion on  Civil  Rights  has  declined  significantly  compared  to  the 
number  issued  by  the  old  commission.  The  largest  decline  was  in 
state  advisory  committee  reports.  The  committees  also  produce 
documents  called  briefing  memoranda — informal,  unpublished, 
internal  documents  that  describe  for  the  commissioners  the  result 
of  local  community  forums.  These  forums  enable  the  advisory 
committees  to  identify  and  share  with  the  commission  how  commu- 
nity leaders  perceive  local  civil  rights  problems.  The  chairman  of 
the  commission  believes  that  a  count  of  pubhcations  was  an  inade- 


84 


October  1987 


quate  measure  of  assessing  effectiveness  of  the  old  and  new  com- 
missions. The  commission  is  an  advisory  body  and  the  issuance  of 
publications  is  the  primary  means  by  which  it  presents  the  results 
of  its  work  to  the  public.  ("U.S.  Commission  on  Civil  Rights:  Com- 
mission Publications  During  Fiscal  Years  1978-1986,"  GAO/GGD- 
87-117BR,  September  25) 

October  1987  The  Reagan  Administration  engaged  in  illegal  "covert  propaganda 

activities"  designed  to  influence  the  news  media  and  the  public  to 
support  its  Central  American  policies,  according  to  a  report  by  the 
General  Accounting  Office  released  on  October  4.  The  report  said 
the  State  Department's  Office  of  Public  Diplomacy  for  Latin  Amer- 
ica and  the  Caribbean  had  violated  a  congressional  ban  on  the  use 
of  taxpayers'  money  for  unauthorized  publicity  and  propaganda 
purposes  in  1985.  Rep.  Dante  Fascell  (D-FL),  chairman  of  the 
House  Foreign  Affairs  Committee,  said,  "It  makes  me  wonder  what 
else  is  still  being  hidden  from  Congress  and  the  American  people." 
("GAO  Accuses  Administration  of  Illegal  Latin  Propaganda,"  The 
Washington  Post,  October  5) 

October  1987  Testifying  before  a  House  subcommittee.  Sen.  Charles  Grassley  (R- 

lA),  said:  "We  in  Congress  must  ask  ourselves  this  question:  Is  SF- 
189  a  legitimate  attempt  to  prevent  disclosures  of  classified 
information,  or  is  the  Administration  over-reaching  its  authority, 
seeking  to  gag  public  servants,  in  order  to  prevent  embarrassing 
disclosures  of  waste  and  abuse?"  His  answer:  "My  personal  in- 
volvement and  dealings  with  executive  branch  officials  on  this 
matter  indicate  to  me  an  attempt  on  their  part  to  go  way  beyond 
the  legitimate  protection  of  classified  information.  Their  intent,  in 
my  view,  is  to  place  a  blanket  of  silence  over  all  information  gener- 
ated by  the  government.  It  is  a  broad  grab  for  power  by  any  stan- 
dard, and  it  begs  to  be  addressed  immediately  by  Congress." 
(Hearings  on  Standard  Form  189,  House  Committee  on  Post  Office 
and  Civil  Service,  Subcommittee  on  Human  Resources,  100th 
Congress,  1st  Session,  October  15,  1987) 

October  1987  The  contents  of  the  still-classified  National  Security  Decision  Direc- 

tive 192,  signed  by  President  Reagan  in  August  1985,  concerning 
the  "Star  Wars"  Strategic  Defense  Initiative  were  revealed  in  a 
book  scheduled  for  release  in  November  1987.  The  book,  The 
Arms  Control  Delusion  by  Sen.  Malcolm  Wallop  (R-WY)  and 
Angelo  Codevilla,  was  given  official  advance  clearance  by  the 
CIA.  Columnist  lack  Anderson  commented:  "Either  the  agency's 
reviewers  overlooked  the  sensitive  quotes,  didn't  realize  how  sensi- 


85 


October  1987 


October  1987 


November  1987 


November  1987 


tive  they  were  or  knowingly  approved  the  book's  ad  hoc  declassifi- 
cation of  a  presidential  document."  ("Conservatives'  Book  Escapes 
Censor,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  26) 

The  Secretary  of  Defense  issued  policy  and  procedural  guidance  in 
the  October  30  Federal  Register,  pp.  41707-10,  for  considering 
national  security  in  the  dissemination  of  Department  of  Defense- 
sponsored  scientific  and  technical  information  at  meetings, 
whether  such  meetings  are  conducted  by  the  U.S.  government  or 
private  organizations. 

In  a  special  report  aired  on  November  4,  The  Secret  Government — 
The  Constitution  in  Crisis,  Bill  Meyers  characterized  Oliver  North's 
admission  during  the  Iran-Contra  hearings  that  he  had  misled 
Congress:  "Oliver  North  had  been  the  secret  government's  chronic 
liar,  long  on  zeal  for  his  president  and  the  cause.  But  he  was  not 
the  only  zealot,  not  the  only  one  to  deceive.  The  hearings  revealed 
a  wholesale  policy  of  secrecy  shrouded  in  lies,  of  passion  cloaked 
in  fiction  and  deception."  (Transcript  available  from  Journal 
Graphics,  Inc.,  267  Broadway,  New  York,  N.Y.  10007) 

The  Supreme  Court  rescued  the  Internal  Revenue  Service  from  a 
sea  of  paperwork  by  making  it  easier  for  the  IRS  to  withhold  infor- 
mation sought  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  The  court 
ruled,  6  to  0,  that  the  IRS  may  refuse  to  disclose  certain  records 
even  if  it  were  possible  to  delete  everything  linking  those  records 
to  individual  taxpayers.  "This  ruling  means  the  [IRS]  can  turn 
down  just  about  any  FOIA  request,"  said  Paul  B.  Stephan  III,  a 
University  of  Virginia  law  professor  who  studied  the  case  which 
involved  the  Church  of  Scientology  in  a  dispute  with  the  IRS. 
("Court  Eases  Way  for  IRS  to  Withhold  Information,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  November  1 1 ) 


November  1987 


In  an  extraordinary  secret  order.  President  Reagan  declared  that  if 
Congress  failed  to  provide  satisfactory  funding  and  support  for  his 
Strategic  Defense  Initiative,  he  would  abandon  the  traditional 
interpretation  of  the  U.S. -Soviet  Antiballistic  Missile  Treaty,  which 
has  been  accepted  by  every  president  since  the  treaty  was  signed 
in  1972.  The  secret  document — which  Members  of  Congress  were 
never  meant  to  see — was  National  Security  Decision  Directive  192 
signed  in  August  1985.  The  directive  laid  the  theoretical  ground- 
work for  reinterpreting  the  ABM  Treaty.  From  there,  it  was  but  a 
step  to  Reagan's  order  in  December  1986  to  proceed  with  the  Ze- 
nith Star  laser  program.  ("And  Then  There  Was  Zenith  Star,"  The 
Washington  Post,  November  15) 


86 


November  1987 


November  1987       During  Senate  debate  (November  12,  Congressional  Record,  p. 
SI 62 19),  Sen.  Alphonse  D'Amato  (R-NY)  said  that  "a  good  name 
for  OMB  would  be  'the  Office  of  Disinformation.'"  He  accused 
OMB  of  "twisting  the  figures  when  they  see  fit,  cutting  the  pro- 
grams they  may  disagree  with,  shirking  their  responsibilities  by 
failing  to  communicate  forthrightly  with  the  committees  and  the 
Members  attempting  to  work  something  out,  but  really  looking  to 
see  how  they  can  sabotage  those  programs  they  are  opposed  to — 
the  ideologs,  OMB.  They  are  not  elected  to  run  the  country."  Sen. 
D'Amato  made  his  remarks  during  debate  on  a  major  housing  bill. 
("Senate  Nears  Vote  on  a  Housing  Bill;  Reagan  Vows  Veto,"  The 
New  York  Times,  November  16) 

November  1987       The  findings  and  conclusions  in  the  executive  summary  of  the 

report  of  the  congressional  committee  investigating  the  Iran-Contra 
affair  contain  the  following  excerpts: 

The  common  ingredients  of  the  Iran  and  Contra  policies 
were  secrecy,  deception,  and  disdain  for  the  law.  A  small 
group  of  senior  officials  believed  that  they  alone  knew  what 
was  right.  They  reviewed  knowledge  of  their  actions  by 
others  in  the  Government  as  a  threat  to  their  objectives. 
They  told  neither  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  Congress  nor 
the  American  people  of  their  actions.  V\/^hen  exposure  was 
threatened,  they  destroyed  official  documents  and  lied  to 
Cabinet  officials,  to  the  public,  and  to  elected  representa- 
tives in  Congress.  They  testified  that  they  even  withheld  key 
facts  from  the  President. 

The  United  States  Constitution  specifies  the  process  by 
which  laws  and  policy  are  to  be  made  and  executed.  Consti- 
tutional process  is  the  essence  of  our  democracy  and  our 
democratic  form  of  Government  is  the  basis  of  our  strength. 
Time  and  again  we  have  learned  that  a  flawed  process  leads 
to  bad  results,  and  that  a  lawless  process  leads  to  worse.  .  . . 
The  confusion,  deception,  and  privatization  which  marked 
the  Iran-Contra  Affair  were  the  inevitable  products  of  an 
attempt  to  avoid  accountability.  Congress,  the  Cabinet,  and 
the  Joint  Chiefs  of  Staff  were  denied  information  and  ex- 
cluded from  the  decision-making  process.  Democratic  proce- 
dures were  disregarded. 

Officials  who  make  public  policy  must  be  accountable  to  the 
public.  But  the  public  cannot  hold  officials  accountable  for 
policies  of  which  the  public  is  unaware.  Policies  that  are 
known  can  be  subjected  to  the  test  of  reason,  and  mistakes 
can  be  corrected  after  consultation  with  the  Congress  and 


87 


December  1987 


deliberation  within  the  Executive  branch  itself.  Policies  that 
are  secret  become  the  private  preserve  of  the  few,  mistakes 
are  inevitably  perpetuated,  and  the  public  loses  control  over 
Government .... 

The  very  premise  of  democracy  is  that  "we  the  people"  are 
entitled  to  make  our  own  choices  on  fundamental  policies. 
But  freedom  of  choice  is  illusory  if  policies  are  kept,  not 
only  from  the  public,  but  from  its  elected  representatives. 

(Report  of  the  Congressional  Committees  Investigating  the  Iran- 
Contra  Affair  With  Supplemental,  Minority,  and  Additional  Views, 
100th  Congress,  1st  Session,  H.  Kept.  No.  100-433  and  S.  Kept. 
No.  100-216,  November  1987) 


December  1987 


Jane  E.  Kirtley,  executive  director  of  the  Reporters  Committee  for 
Freedom  of  the  Press,  and  Paul  K.  McMasters,  chairman  of  the 
freedom  of  information  committee  of  the  Society  of  Professional 
Journalists,  Sigma  Delta  Chi,  testifying  before  the  House  Commit- 
tee on  Government  Operations,  Subcommittee  on  Information, 
Justice  and  Agriculture,  accused  the  Justice  Department  of  refusing 
to  enforce  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  Kirtley  and  McMasters 
urged  Congress  to  create  an  independent  agency  to  resolve  dis- 
putes over  access  to  government  files.  Kirtley  said  the  obstacles 
faced  by  reporters  in  obtaining  government  information  had  in- 
creased because  of  the  Reagan  Administration's  "general  proclivity 
toward  secrecy"  and  the  lack  of  an  effective  enforcement  agency. 
Rep.  Glenn  English  (D-OK),  subcommittee  chair,  agreed:  "Justice 
seems  to  be  doing  all  they  can  to  undermine  the  intent  of  the  Free- 
dom of  Information  Act."  ("2  Say  Officials  Withhold  Data,"  772e 
New  York  Times,  December  2) 


December  1987 


Although  more  than  a  guarter  of  all  government  publications  have 
bitten  the  dust  since  the  Reagan  Administration  took  office,  the 
surviving  12,000  are  fodder  for  continuing  controversy  over 
whether  the  campaign  has  gone  far  enough  or  too  far,  whether  it 
has  gone  after  the  fattest  targets  or  whether  it  has  mowed  down 
some  useful  consumer  publications  while  leaving  the  more  ideolog- 
ically oriented  publications  intact.  An  article  by  Judith  Havemann 
presented  a  case  study  of  one  of  the  most  controversial  remaining 
publications.  Management,  a  slick,  glossy  publication  of  the  Office 
of  Personnel  Management.  Alan  K.  Campbell,  the  founder  of 
Management,  describes  the  publication  conceived  as  an  academic 
journal  for  government  executives  as  today  "a  little  heavy  on  the 
ideology."  But  Herb  Berkowitz,  public  relations  director  of  the 


88 


December  1987 


Heritage  Foundation,  said  that  Management  is  "probably  the  best 
publication  put  out  by  the  government."  Asked  whether  it  should 
exist,  he  said  he  would  be  "happy  to  see  them  do  away  with  every 
taxpayer-supported  publication." 

Management  sells  25,003  copies  at  a  bulk  rate,  has  2,600  sub- 
scribers at  $13  a  year,  goes  to  819  libraries,  and  is  given  away  to 
4,000  reporters  and  others  by  OPM.  When  Reagan  cracked  down 
on  government  printing,  OPM  Director  Constance  J.  Horner  was 
reguired  to  justify  Management's  existence  every  year  to  OMB. 
She  had  to  "certify  in  writing  that  it  is  necessary  in  the  transaction 
of  public  business  reguired  by  law  of  the  department,  office  or 
establishment."  The  critics  of  Management  said  its  very  existence 
shows  how  political  the  process  is.  ("Management  Magazine: 
House  Organ  With  a  'Spin,"'  The  Washington  Post,  December  2) 

December  1987       A  secret  appendix  to  the  arms  treaty  signed  by  President  Reagan 

and  Soviet  leader  Mikhail  Gorbachev  reveals  that  the  United  States 
has  deployed  dozens  more  medium-range  nuclear  missiles  in  Eu- 
rope than  it  has  previously  acknowledged,  U.S.  officials  said.  The 
114-page  treaty  appendix,  which  the  Reagan  Administration  de- 
cided to  withhold  from  the  public  without  offering  an  explanation, 
also  reveals  that  the  Soviets  currently  have  15  percent  fewer 
medium-range  missiles  than  the  Administration  has  publicly  stated 
in  recent  weeks.  The  government's  decision  not  to  release  the 
document  was  made  at  the  reguest  of  Pentagon  officials  who  ar- 
gued that  the  disclosure  could  invite  terrorist  attacks  on  the  U.S. 
military  bases  it  identifies,  according  to  senior  U.S.  officials.  But 
other  U.S.  officials,  including  Secretary  of  State  George  P.  Shultz 
and  the  chief  U.S.  negotiator  of  the  INF  pact,  Maynard  W.  Glit- 
man,  have  argued  that  the  terrorist  threat  is  minimal  because  U.S. 
nuclear  warheads  are  not  typically  stored  with  the  weapons  deploy- 
ment sites  listed.  Shultz  and  Glitman  have  protested  the  Adminis- 
tration's decision,  which  was  also  opposed  by  the  Soviets.  Gennadi 
Gerassimov,  chief  spokesman  of  the  Soviet  foreign  ministry,  said  he 
plans  to  publish  the  document  in  a  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs 
bulletin  that  he  edits.  ("U.S.  Deployed  More  Missiles  Than  Dis- 
closed," The  Washington  Post,  December  10) 


December  1987 


Public  Printer  Ralph  Kennickell,  in  a  December  10  letter  to  Joint 
Committee  on  Printing  Chairman  Rep.  Frank  Annunzio  (D-IL), 
says  he  will  "seek  proposals  from  interested  vendors  in  the  informa- 
tion services  industry .  .  .  for  dissemination  of  government  publica- 
tions to  depository  libraries ...  at  little  or  no  cost  to  the  government 


89 


December  1987 


possibly  because  of  the  development  or  enhancement  of  the  ven- 
dor's commercial  interests."  GPO  would  "supply  the  successful 
information  service  provider  with  government  publication  data 
tapes,  at  no  charge,  for  loading  onto  its  own  computers.  The  infor- 
mation would  be  retrievable  on-line  from  terminals  in  a  test  group 
of  depository  libraries,  where  information  searches  would  be  con- 
ducted for  citizens  without  charge."  The  number  of  online  access 
hours  available  to  test  libraries  would  be  limited.  An  RFP  would  be 
announced  by  February  1,  1988.  Kennickell's  letter  indicates  that 
because  "it  appears  that  Congress  will  be  denying  our  request  for 
an  additional  $800,000"  for  pilot  projects,  he  is  seeking  to  use 
existing  resources  to  comply  with  the  JCP's  desire  to  test  electronic 
formats  in  depository  libraries.  The  letter  did  not  address  potential 
changes  in  the  nature  of  the  Depository  Library  Program  and  pos- 
sible proprietary  control  of  government  information  by  the  private- 
sector  vendor. 


December  1987 


The  Senate  Iran-Contra  Committee  released  a  newly  discovered 
White  House  computer  note  from  early  1986  in  which  then-national 
security  adviser  John  M.  Poindexter  said  that  Vice  President 
George  Bush  was  "solid"  in  support  of  a  "risky  operation"  to  sell 
arms  to  Iran  to  gain  release  of  U.S.  hostages.  The  notes  were 
turned  up  by  a  new  search  of  the  NSC  computer  sought  by  the 
Iran-Contra  Congressional  Committees  last  summer.  Originally 
blocked  by  White  House  officials,  the  panels,  with  the  House  tak- 
ing the  lead,  were  finally  permitted  to  test  a  program  designed  to 
recover  messages  which  senders  thought  they  had  destroyed.  The 
Senate  panel  said  that  96  new  notes  had  been  turned  up  of  which 
the  three  released  contained  the  only  new  information.  ("Bush  was 
'Solid'  Backer  of  Iran  Deal,  Note  Says,"  The  Washington  Post, 
December  8) 


December  1987 


People  for  the  American  Way  assailed  the  Reagan  Administration 
for  an  "obsession  with  secrecy"  and  said  an  opinion  poll  shows  that 
a  majority  of  Americans  believe  "the  government  is  not  open 
enough."  In  a  142-page  report.  Government  Secrecy;  Decision 
Without  Democracy,  the  Administration  is  criticized  for  issuing 
more  than  280  "secret  laws,"increasing  the  Pentagon's  "black 
budget"  for  secret  projects  to  at  least  $22  billion,  binding  millions 
of  federal  employees  to  secrecy  contracts  and  reversing  a  30-year 
trend  toward  fewer  classified  documents.  The  group  denounced  the 
"extraordinary  power"  of  OMB  and  decried  its  authority  to  decide 
which  government  publications  are  released,  to  set  up  information- 
collection  policies  for  all  federal  agencies  and  to  rewrite  federal 


90 


December  1987 


regulations.  ("Administration  Accused  of  Secrecy  Obsession,"  The 
Washington  Post,  December  18) 


December  1987 


According  to  a  GAO  report  to  be  published  on  December  21,  the 
veil  of  secrecy  surrounding  trading  in  the  Treasury  and  agency 
securities  market  should  be  lifted.  Although  the  Treasury  securities 
market  is  the  most  active  in  the  world,  with  more  than  $100  billion 
of  trades  a  day,  there  is  no  central  exchange  where  prices  and 
trades  are  listed  as  in  the  stock  market.  Instead,  trading  is  handled 
through  brokers  acting  as  middlemen  between  major  banks  and 
securities  firms.  Individual  investors,  pension  funds  and  insurance 
companies  that  are  customers  of  the  banks  and  securities  dealers 
have  only  partial  knowledge  about  the  wholesale  prices  of  govern- 
ment securities.  While  the  Treasury  and  Federal  Reserve  endorsed 
the  GAO  report,  the  Securities  and  Exchange  Commission  said  the 
conclusions  were  too  cautious. 


Richard  G.  Ketchum,  director  of  the  division  of  market  regulation 
at  the  SEC,  said  a  specific  deadline  should  be  established  for 
broadening  access  to  price  information.  He  noted  that  established 
customers  of  the  brokers  already  have  full  access  to  price  and 
trading  information  and  may  not  find  it  in  their  best  interests  to 
make  that  information  available  to  their  trading  competitors  and 
customers.  He  recalled  that  in  the  stock  market,  the  SEC  had  to 
invoke  its  authority  to  force  securities  dealers  to  publish  the  price 
quotes  and  trade  information  on  over-the-counter  stocks.  If  brokers 
do  not  move  to  broaden  trading  access  within  two  years,  the  SEC 
said  the  issue  ought  to  be  taken  up  by  regulators  of  Congress. 
("Data  Urged  on  Trading  Securities,"  The  New  York  Times,  Decem- 
ber 21) 


December  1987 


Rep.  Lee  Hamilton  (D-IN)  disclosed  that  in  a  newly  discovered 
White  House  computer  note,  former  national  security  adviser  Ro- 
bert McFarlane  discussed  the  purging  of  National  Security  Council 
files  around  the  time  the  Iran-Contra  affair  erupted  in  late  1986. 
Hamilton,  chairman  of  the  House  Iran-Contra  panel,  said  the  note 
confirms  previous  evidence  that  "McFarlane  was  engaged  in  efforts 
to  keep  the  story  from  coming  out."  Reps.  Peter  Rodino  (D-NJ)  and 
Dante  Fascell  (D-FL)  said  the  recent  discovery  of  the  computer 
messages  demonstrates  that  there  is  still  relevant  information  that 
has  not  yet  been  made  public  about  the  Iran-Contra  affair. 
("McFar lane's  Iran  Role  Amplified,"  The  Washington  Post,  De- 
cember 22) 


91 


December  1987 


December  1987 


Congress,  making  good  on  earlier  warnings,  ordered  the  Adminis- 
tration to  stop  asking  government  workers  to  sign  controversial 
secrecy  pledges  governing  classified  information.  Congress  at- 
tached a  rider  to  the  continuing  resolution  providing  funding  for 
fiscal  year  1988  which  bars  any  department  from  spending  money 
to  implement  or  enforce  what  are  known  as  Standard  Form  189  and 
Standard  Form  4193.  The  prohibition  is  good  throughout  fiscal 
1988,  which  ends  next  September  30,  "and  should  force  the  ad- 
ministration to  come  up  here  and  work  something  out  with  us  if 
they  want  to  continue  using  such  pledges,"  a  House  staff  official 
said.  House  officials  said  the  congressional  directive  probably 
would  not  affect  enforcement  actions  involving  the  SF  4193  pre- 
publication  pledge.  ("Congress  Restricts  Use  of  Secrecy  Pledges," 
The  Washington  Post,  December  24) 


December  1987 


The  Information  Security  Oversight  Office  which  oversees  the 
implementation  of  SF  189,  "Classified  Information  Nondisclosure 
Agreement,"  further  clarified  the  term  "classifiable  information"  in 
the  December  21  Federal  Register,  p.  48367.  The  revised  definition 
states:  "Classifiable  information"  does  not  refer  to  currently  unclas- 
sified information  that  may  be  subject  to  possible  classification  at 
some  future  date,  but  is  not  currently  in  the  process  of  a  classifica- 
tion determination." 


December  1987 


Reportedly  neither  the  Untied  States  Information  Agency  nor  the 
educational  film  industry  is  happy  with  the  interim  regulations 
published  by  USIA  in  the  November  16  Federal  Register,  pp. 
43753-57  (correction  12/11  FR,  p.  47029)  which  are  titled:  "Propa- 
ganda as  Educational  and  Cultural  Material;  World-Wide  Free  Flow 
(Export-Import)  of  Audio-Visual  Materials."  USIA  will  accept  com- 
ments on  the  notice  until  January  15,  1988.  With  the  interim  rules 
in  place,  USIA  has  begun  to  review  3,590  films,  maps,  charts  and 
other  audio-visual  materials  it  accumulated  during  more  than  a 
year  of  inaction  since  a  Los  Angeles  federal  judge  ruled  that  USIA 
exceeded  its  authority  and  acted  like  a  censor  in  deciding  what 
materials  to  recommend  for  duty-free  status  under  the  Beirut 
Agreement  of  1948.  In  November  the  filmmakers  returned  to  court, 
charging  that  USIA  again  was  attempting  to  play  censor.  (Review- 
ing USiA's  Role  as  Reviewer,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  30) 


92 


Index 


Prepared  by  Carol  Nielsen 


Academic  freedom     19,  21,  83 
Access  to  information     4,  7,  21,  65, 
78-79,  81 

Americans  outdoors     65 

campaign  finances     38 

classified  information      19,  22 

congressional  publications     41,  42,  44 

databases     58,  71 

depository  library  program     9 

documents  on  Iran     62 

Federal  Information  Centers     4 

fees     16,  18,  31,  56-61,  78 

financial  markets     36-37 

food  industry     37 

food  stamps     44 

government  information     2,  27,  45, 
51-52 

government  telephone  numbers     35 

GPO  bookstores     2 

IRS     86 

journalists     88 

Merit  Systems  Protection  Board     22 

Moscow  embassy  security 
problems     72 

National  Bureau  of  Standards     5 

National  Farmers  Union     13 

nuclear  information     7,  15,  24 

open  meetings     25 

presidential  papers     43-44,  52 

rulemaking  decisions     39 

safety  issues     72 

satellites     63,  64 

security  clearances     29 

sensitive  but  unclassified     54 

Soviet  Union     21-22,  44-45 
Accidental  death     72 
Advertising     62 
Agency  for  International 
Development     67 

Office  of  Foreign  Disaster 
Assistance     65 


AGNET  Newsletter    3 1 
Agricultural  Marketing  Service     28 

Market  News  Reports     12 
Agriculture,  Department  of     12,  13, 
27-28,  30,  37 

Economic  Research  Service     3 

electronic  publishing     31 
Air  Carrier  Statistics     40 
Air  Force     81 
Albosta,  Don     17 

American  Council  for  the  Blind  33 
American  Council  on  Education  72 
American  Federation  of  Government 

Employees     82 
American  Library  Association     7,  8,  15, 
16,  27,  29,  33,  78 

access  to  information     51-52 

and  Census     80 

Council     38 

Freedom  of  Information  Reform 
Act     60 

Government  Documents  Round 
Table     48,  49 

Intellectual  Freedom  Committee     83 

International  Relations  Committee     9 

Washington  Office     5,  9,  42,  43,  77 
American  Lung  Association     69 
Anderson,  Jack     42,  79,  85 
Annunzio,  Frank     41,  42,  89 
Anti-Drug  Abuse  Act  of  1986     66 
Applied  Systems  Institute     71 
Arkin,  William  M.     56 
The  Arms  Control  Delusion     85 
Arms  treaty     89 
Army  periodicals     57 
Army  Reserve     57 
Arndt,  Randy     80 
Atomic  Energy  Act     15 
Automobiles     21 
Aviation  Daily    40 
Aviation  management     40 


93 


Index 


Baldrige,  Malcolm     22,  29 
Bamford,  James     83 
Bauer,  Gary  L.     31 
Bechtel  North  American  Power 

Corp.     27 
Bedell,  Robert     33 
Beirut  Agreement  of  1948     91 
Bell  South     59 
Bennett,  William     72 
Berkowitz,  Herb     88 
Birth  expectation  data     39 
Blakey,  Marion  C.     71 
Blinded  Veterans  Association     33 
Block  grants     61 

drug  treatment  centers     57 
The  Book:  A  Directory  of  Federal  Job 

Information  Phone  Numbers ...     35 
Brooks,  Jack     45 
Brown,  J.  Larry     44 
Bureau  of  National  Affairs     28 
Bush,  George     90 
Byrnes,  Larry     70 

Campbell,  Alan  K.     88 
Car  Book     21 
Carlucci,  Frank     71 
Casey,  William  J.     46-47 
Censorship 

educational  films     91 

lifelong  security  pledge     50 

National  Wartime  Information  Security 
Program     42 

prepublication  agreements     13-14 

research  publications     31,  32,  52 

sensitive  but  unclassified 
information     54 
Census,  Bureau  of     4,  29,  39,  80,  83 

Fertility  Statistics  Branch     39 

interlibrary  loan     2 

1990  census     80 
Centers  on  Education  Media  and  Mate- 
rials for  the  Handicapped     32 
Central  Intelligence  Agency     41,  46, 
50,  79,  82-83,  85 


Chemical  Information  System     19 
Chernobyl     49,  64 

Chronicle  of  Higher  Education     21,  78 
Church  of  Scientology     86 
Cigarettes  testing  program     69 
Clancy,  Tom     82 

Classified  information     3,  6-7,  22,  26, 
50,  62,  80-81,  82,  85,  91 

access  for  government  employees     29 

on  computers     82 

scientific  and  technical  reports     24 

security  classification     78 
Climate-related  information     65 
Code  of  Federal  Regulations    49 
Codevilla,  Angelo     85 
Commerce  Business  Daily    73 
Commerce,  Department  of     22,  37,  43, 
60,  64,  70,  73 

contracts  for  library  services     17 

Privatization  Task  Force     64 

Office  of  Federal  Statistical  Policy  and 
Standards     14 

see  also  National  Technical  Informa- 
tion Service 
Commission  on  Civil  Rights     84 
Computer  hackers     18 
Computer  services 

protecting  sensitive  information     24 

Treasury  Department  financial  state- 
ments   36-37 
Congressional  publications     42 

budget  cuts     41 

distribution  to  the  public     44 

reports     75 
Congressional  Record    3,  44,  49 
Congressional  Research  Service     76 
Conservative  Political  Action  Confer- 
ence    6 
Consumer  Information  Catalog     1 1 
Consumer  Information  Center     1 1 ,  23 
Consumer  Price  Index     4 
Consumer  Product  Safety 
Commission     72-73 
Contracts     62 


94 


Index 


equal  employment     30 

government  personnel     6 

library  services     7-8 

non-profit  organizations     6 

privatization     23 

rights  to  patents  on  federally  funded 
projects     47 
Contras     62,  70,  74 

definition     70 
Cooke,  Eileen  D.     5,  9,  42,  43,  77 
Copyright  of  NTIS  publications     43 
Cost-benefit  analysis  of  government 

publications     35,  56 
Cost-recovery     3,  11 
Council  on  Environmental  Quality     43 
Council  on  Hemispheric  Affairs     70 
Counterfeit  Access  Device  and  Com- 
puter Fraud  and  Abuse  Act  of 
1984     18 
Crocetti,  Annemarie     75 
Crop  reports     37 
Current  Population  Survey     39 

Daily  Report  lor  Executives     28 
D'Amato,  Alphonse     87 
Danforth,  John     13 
Data  collection     60 

birth  expectation  data     39 

Census     80,  83 

health  statistics     30 

higher  education     40 

literacy  programs     53 

petroleum  availability     69 

public  good     5 

racial  and  ethnic  data     23 

review  by  OMB     58 

sample  size     40 

unemployment     47 
Databases     56,  74 

access     46,  71 

campaign  finances     38 

chemical  information     19 

cost  of  access     78 

drug  abuse     57 


fees     12 

privatization     58,  89 

satellite  protection     55 

sensitive  information     45,  54 

sole-source  contracts     23 
Dean,  Norman     43 
Declassified  information     78-79 

older  materials     26 
Defense  Acquisitions  Board     78 
Defense,  Department  of     15,  19,  24,  31, 
41-42,  44-45,  61,  62,  76,  78,  81,  89 

authorization  bill     29 

National  Wartime  Information  Security 
Program     42 

Pentagon's  Information  Systems  Direc- 
torate    54 

periodicals  budget     57 

secret  projects  budget     90 

security  hearings  for  civilian  employ- 
ees    34 
Defense  Management  Journal    81 
Defense  Science  Board     78 
Defense  Technical  Information 

Center     54 
Deficit  Reduction  Act  of  1984     19 
Depository  libraries     2,  4,  9,  15-16,  22, 
25,  35,  49,  66,  79,  89-90 

nuclear  information     15 

public  awareness     8 
Detlefsen,  Ellen     64 
Detroit  Free  Press     49 
DIALOG     78 
Dictionary  of  fnternational  Relations 

Terms     70 
Dictionary  of  Occupational  Titles     3 
Dingell,  John  D.     45 
Discrimination     23 
Disinformation     41-42,  51,  87 
Document  alteration     76,  79-80 
Document  classification     65 
Document  destruction     70,  76,  79 

paper  shredding     74 
Document  theft     73 
Dow  Jones  and  Co.     36 


95 


Index 


Drug  abuse  treatment     57 
Durenberger,  David  F.     45 

Earth  Observation  Satellite  Co. 

(EOSAT)     57-58,  63 
Economic  indicators     4 
Economic  issues     47,  75 
Economic  Research  Service     28 

Outlook  and  Siuation  Reports     12 
Economic  statistics     41 
Education,  Department  of     10,  53,  65, 
71-72 
Adult  Literacy  Initiative     53 
Publications  and  Audiovisual  Advi- 
sory Council     28,  31,  32 
Publications  Review  Board     32 
Education  for  librarianship     1 1 
Educational  film  industry     91 
Educational  institutions     66 

use  of  federal  funds     71-72 
Educational  research     32,  40 
Electronic  Collection  and  Dissemination 
of  Information  by  Federal  Agen- 
cies: A  Policy  Overview    46 
Electronic  databases     see  Databases 
Electronic  Dissemination  of  Information 

(Dept.  of  Agriculture)  31 
Electronic  information  products     27-28, 

55,  74;  see  also  Databases 
Electronic  publishing 

agricultural  information     12 
government  information     9 
Employee  stock  ownership  of  NTIS     73 
Energy,  Department  of     7,  8,  15,  24,  48 
Energy  Information  Administration     69 
English,  Glenn     12,  36,  43,  68,  88 
Environmental  impact     43 
Environmental  Protection  Agency     18, 

19,  28 
Equal  employment     30 
Eur-Army    57 
Executive  branch 

information  activities     76 
News  Service     25 
proposed  budget     59 

96 


review  of  data  collection  efforts  60 
Executive  Order  11246  30 
Executive  Order  12291  52 
Executive  Order  12356,  National  Secu- 
rity Information  3,  26 
Executive  Order  12498  20 
Export  Control  Act     24 

Fascell,  Dante     85,  91 

Fazio,  Vic     33 

FCC  Reports     39 

Fed  Co-op  plan     73 

Federal  Acquisition  Regulation     65 

Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation     67,  74, 

83-84 
Federal  campaign  finance 

information     38 
Federal  Communications  Commission 
(FCC)     39,  46 

updating  federal  rules     46 
Federal  Election  Commission     38,  50 
"Federal  Evaluation:  Fewer  Units,  Re- 
duced Resources,  Different  Studies 
from  1980"     61 
Federal  funds 

lobbying     13 

tracking  expenditures     37 
Federal  Information  Center     4 
Federal  Information  Resources     23,  36 
Federal  Job  Hotlines     35 
Federal  Loyalty- Security  Program     34 
Federal  Maritime  Commission     13 
Federal  Records  Act     78 
Federal  regulations     33,  45,  46 

government  printing     66 

OMB     90 

text  revisions     75 
Federal  Reserve  Bank     91 
"Federal  Restrictions  on  the  Free  Flow  of 
Academic  Information  and 
Ideas"     21 
Federal  Statistical  Directory     \A,  11 
Federal  Trade  Commission     68-69 
Fees     77 

access  to  government  information     54 


Index 


access  to  information     66 

agricultural  information     28 

aviation  management  information     40 

congressional  publications     42 

consumer  publications     23 

electronic  publishing     31 

FOIA     12,  18,  56,  66,  68 

government  information     8 

government  publications     3,  5 

information  requested  under 
FOIA     60 

payment- in- kind  information     13 

privatization     12,  58 

public  relations     11 
Feinleib,  Manning     30 
Ferrell,  J.  E.     51 

Fertility  of  American  Women     39 
Film  industry     34 
Foggy  Bottom     62 
Food  and  Drug  Administration     33 

experimental  drugs     84 
Food  industry     37 
Food  Institute     37 
Food  stamp  benefits     44 
Ford,  William     42-43 
Foreign  Agricultural  Service     28 

Weekly  Export  Sales  Reports     12 
Frank,  Barney     29 
Franklin,  C.  Anson     48 
Freedom  of  Information  Act  (FOIA)     2, 
4,  11,  18,  56,  65,  66,  68,  71-72,  88 

applied  to  IRS  86 

automated  records     12 

draft  federal  regulations     33 

fees     18 

toxic  products     20 
Freedom  of  Information  Act  Reform  Act 

of  1986     54 
Freedom  of  speech     50 
Freedom  of  the  press     36 
Full-cost  recovery     1,  77;  see  also  Cost 
benefit  analysis 

Gadhafi,  Moammar     51 
Galvin,  Thomas     9 


Garbus,  Martin     36 

General  Accounting  Office     14,  35,  40, 

50,  61,  85,  91 
General  Services  Administration     4,  30, 
76 

Consumer  Information  Service     23 

Information  Security  Oversight 
Office     82 
Gerasimov,  Gennadi     89 
Glitman,  Maynard  W.     89 
Gorbachev,  Mikhail     89 
Government  information 

access  for  academics     21 

computer  hackers     18 

ownership     56 

see  also  Access  to  information 
Government  Printing  Office  (GPO)     2, 
8,  9,  22,  25,  46,  49,  66,  76,  77,  89- 
90 

bookstores     2 

Depository  Program     66 

document  destruction     4 

new  rules     76 

reduction  in  publications     5 
"Government  Printing,  Binding  and 
Distribution  Policies  and  Guide- 
lines" 15 
Government  publications  10 

access  to  information     10 

availability     55-56 

ceased  publishing     81 

civil  rights     84 

consumer  information     11 

costs    3,  23,  51,  77 

discontinued     4,  21 

document  destruction     4 

format     49 

implementation  of  OMB  Bulletin 
81-16     1 

inventory     67 

periodicals     26 

prepublication  review     53 

reduction  in  number  published     1,2, 
5,  6,  9-10,  32,  39,  67 

review  of  proposed  publications     1 


97 


Index 


spending  cuts     19 
Government  Publications  Office  Deposi- 
tory Program     66 
Government  Secrecy:  Decisions  With- 
out Democracy    90 
Government  secrets 

definition     26 

see  also  Secrecy  pledges 
Government  securities  market     91 
Graham,  Anne     32 
Gramm,  Wendy  Lee     37,  45 
Gramm-Rudman-HoUings  Law     40,  41 
Grassley,  Charles  E.     81,  85 
Gray,  William  H.     29 


Hall,  Fawn     70,  74,  76 
Hamilton,  Lee  H.     73-74,  91 
Handicapped 

access  to  materials     40 
Books  by  Mail     21,38,59 
braille  materials     33-34 
Hardy,  Dorcas  R.     79 
Harper's     32 

Harvard  University     19,  21 
Hawkins,  Augustus  R.     9 
Health  and  Human  Services,  Depart- 
ment of     5,  41 
Heritage  Foundation     88-89 
Hersh,  Seymour  M.     46-47 
Higher  Education 
access  to  government 
publications     27 
data  collection     40 
Higher  Education  Act     21,  39 
Home  mortgages     23 
Horner,  Constance  J.     34,  88-89 
House  Appropriations  Committee     40 
House  Committee  on  Government  Oper- 
ations    45-46,  52,  79 
Subcommittee  on  Employment  and 

Housing     29 
Subcommittee  on  Government  Infor- 
mation, lustice,  and  Agriculture 
12,  22,  43 

98 


Subcommittee  on  Information     88 
Subcommittee  on  Intergovernmental 
Relations     32,  61 
House  Committee  on  Science,  Space, 
and  Technology     58 
Subcommittee  on  Science,  Research, 
and  Technology     64,  78 
House  Foreign  Affairs  Committee     85 
Subcommittee  on  International  Opera- 
tions    72 
House  of  Representatives     29 
House  Post  Office  and  Civil  Service 
Committee     45 
Subcommittee  on  Human 
Resources     17 
House  Postsecondary  Education  Sub- 
committee    42-43 
House  Report  99-978  "The  Department 
of  Education's  Limits  on  Publica- 
tions: Saving  Money  or  Censor- 
ship?"    52 
House  Subcommittee  on  Select  Educa- 
tion    40 
Housing  and  Urban  Development,  De- 
partment of     8,  23 

Infant  Care     5 
"Information — A  Shrinking 

Resource"     36 
Information 
costs     29,  78 
declassified     78 

see  also  Classified  information;  De- 
classified information 
"Information  and  Personnel  Security: 
Data  on  Employees  Affected  by 
Federal  Security  Programs"     50 
Information  dissemination     61 
Information  industry     64 
Information  policy     53 
Information  Security  Oversight 

Office     22,  26,  82,  92 
INS  V.  Chadha,  102  S.  Ct.  2764  (1983) 

15,  66 
Institute  for  Policy  Studies     56 


Index 


Intelligence  gathering     44,  61,  83 
interviews     67 
see  also  National  Security 
Interagency  Data  Center  Managers 

Conference     56 
Interior,  Department  of     65 
Interlibrary  cooperation     10 
Intermediate  Nuclear  Forces  Pact     89 
Internal  Revenue  Service  (IRS)     86 
International  Business  Communications, 

Inc.     62 
International  education     15 
Iran-Contra  Affair     61,  70,  71,  74,  79, 
86,  87,  91 
Congressional  Committee 

Summary     87 
see  also  Contras 
Island  Press     65 

Jerome,  Fred     48-49 
Joint  Committee  on  Printing     9,  13, 
15-16,  17,  41,  42,  49,  64-65,  76, 
89-90 
Joint  Economic  Committee     41,  80 
Journalists 

access  to  information     48-49 
FOIA     66 

freedom  of  the  press     88 
publishing  sensitive  information     83 
South  Africa     49 
Justice,  Department  of     2,  13,  15,  56, 
65,  66,  88 
Office  of  Legal  Counsel  Opinion     52 

Karp,  Walter     32 

Kennickell,  Ralph  E.,  Jr.     49,  88-89 

Ketchum,  Richard  G.     91 

Kirtley,  Jane  E.     88 

Kleis,  Tom     16 


Leahy,  Patrick     18,  71 
"Legal  Analysis  of  OMB  Circular  A-122: 
Lobbying  by  Non-Profit  Grantees  of 
the  Federal  Government"     6 
Legislative  intent     63 
Levin,  Carl     45 
Lewis,  Jerry     33 
"Liberty  Under  Seige"     32 
Librarian  of  Congress     33 
Libraries 

censorship     70 

FOIA    60,  66-67,  68 

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings     41 

grant  programs     10-11 

impact  of  federal  regulations     43 

interlibrary  loan     2 

materials  on  nuclear  research     7 

nuclear  information     15 

OMB  Circular  A-76     16 

OMB  Circular  A- 130    38 

postal  rates     11,  16,  38,  45,  59 

postal  regulations     21 

privatization  of  technical  services     6, 
17 

statistics     14 

status  of  federal  librarians     17 

see  also  Depository  libraries;  School 
library  resources 
Library  Awareness  Program     83-84 
Library  of  Congress     40 

Congressional  Research  Service     66 

Playboy  in  braille     33-34 
Library  Services  and  Construction 

Act    3,  21,  39,  59 
Lie  detector  tests  see  Polygraph  testing 
Literacy  programs     15,  53 
Livermore  Laboratory     48 
Lynch,  Beverly     33 


Labor  and  employment  information     25 
Labor  Statistics,  Bureau  of     4,  25,  47 
Landsat  satellite  system     57-58,  63 
Latham,  Donald     55 
Lead  poisoning     75 


Management    88-89 
Management  of  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, FiscaJ  Year  1988    67 
Market  pricing     77 
Markman,  Stephen  J.     68 


99 


Index 


Martin  Marietta  Data  Systems     28,  31, 

58 
Mathias,  Charles  McC,  Jr.     3,  18,  41, 

42,  49 
McFarlane,  Robert     91 
McMasters,  Paul  K.     88 
Media  Resource  Service     48 
Medical  Library  Association     64 
Meese,  Edwin,  III     10,  22,  30,  70 
Merit  Systems  Protection  Board     22 
Metzenbaum,  Howard  M.     30 
Mica,  Daniel     72 
Military  documents,  theft  of     73 
Minority  contracts     37 
Mitchell,  Frank     75 
Modlin,  Carey     61 
Mogenhana,  Ann     78-79 
Monaco,  Karen     69 
Monthly  Catalog  of  U.S.  Government 

Publications     2-3 
Monthly  Labor  Review    25 
Morison,  Samuel  Loring     34,  36 
Morrison,  David  C.     55 
Moyers,  Bill     86 
Mushak,  Paul     75 

NASA  TechBrieh  Journal     17 

Nation     36 

National  Advisory  Council  on  Continu- 
ing Education     32 

National  Aeronautics  and  Space  Admin- 
istration (NASA)     17,  76 

National  Archives  and  Records  Adminis- 
tration    2,  43,  52 
document  classification     3 

National  Bureau  of  Standards     5 

National  Center  for  Atmospheric  Re- 
search    65 

National  Center  for  Education 
Statistics     14,  40 

National  Center  for  Health  Statistics     30 

National  Commission  on  Libraries  and 
Information  Science     3,  21 

National  Environmental  Policy  Act     43 


National  Farmers  Union     13 
National  Institute  for  Occupational 

Safety  and  Health     59 
National  Institute  of  Education     30 
National  Institute  on  Drug  Abuse     57 
National  Journal     55 
National  League  of  Cities     80 
National  Library  of  Medicine     19 
National  Oceanic  and  Atmospheric 

Administration     65 
National  Policy  on  Protection  of  Sensi- 
tive, But  Unclassified 
Information     54,  71 
National  Press  Club     22 
National  Security     54,  64,  74 
classification  of  information     24 
document  classification     3 
government  employees     34 
scientific  proceedings     86 
National  Security  Agency     50,  55,  83 
National  Security  Council     61,  70,  74, 
76,  79,  90 
computer  files     91 
National  Security  Decision  Directive 

84     13-14,  81 
National  Security  Decision  Directive 

192     85,  86 
National  Security  Decision  Directive 

196     35 
National  security  information     6-7 
National  Technical  Information  Service 
(NTIS)     5,  43,  48,  54,  60,  65,  73 
privatization     2 
sensitive  information     22 
National  Wartime  Information  Security 

Program     42 
National  Wildlife  Federation     43 
Natural  Resources  Defense  Council     20 
Network  Newsletter     65 
New  England  Journal  of  Medicine     41 
New  York  Times     4,  73 
News  Digest    2 
Nicaragua     67 
Nixon,  Richard  M.     43-44,  52,  72 


100 


Index 


North,  Oliver     62,  70,  74,  76,  86 
Not-for-profit  organizations  lobbying     6, 

8,  13 
Nuclear  information     7,  15,  24 
Nuclear  missiles     89 
Nuclear  Regulatory  Commission     25,  48 
Nuclear  Testing     62 


Obey,  David  R.     29 

O'Connell,  Martin     39 

Odom,  William  E.     83 

Office  of  Education  Professional  Devel- 
opment    32 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget 

(OMB)     4,  5,  8,  12,  13,  20,  23,  25, 
27,  29,  37,  45,  52,  53,  59,  60,  61, 
63,  64,  66,  67,  74,  75,  76,  77,  80, 
83,  87,  88,  90 
Budget  of  the  United  States     59 
privatization  of  NTIS     48 
review  of  federal  regulations     33 
screening  regulations     20 
statistics     75-76 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Bulletin  81-16     1,  32 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 

Bulletin  81-16,  Supplement  No.  1      1 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Bulletin  No.  81-21     1 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Bulletin  82-25,  "Reform  88"     5-6 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Bulletin  84-17,  Supplement  No. 
1     19 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget 
Bulletin  85-14     26 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget 
Bulletin  87-14     74 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget 

Circular  A-3,  Government  Publica- 
tions    10,  26,  74 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Circular  A-25,  User  Charges     77 


Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Circular  A- 76,  "Performance  of 
Commercial  Activities"     6,  7,  17 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 

Circular  A-122,  "Cost  Principles  for 
Nonprofit  Organizations"     6,  8,  13 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget 
Circular  A- 130,  Management  of 
Federal  Information  resources     23, 
26-27,  28,  35,  38,  53,  56,  74,  77 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Information  and  Regulatory 
Affairs     37 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Memorandum  81-14     1 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Office  of  Federal  Procurement 
Policy     16 

Office  of  Management  and  Budget, 
Office  of  Information  and  Regula- 
tory Affairs    45,  53,  58,  60,  69-70 

Office  of  Personnel  Management     34, 
88-89 

Oil  prices     69 

Oliver,  Daniel     69 

Olmstead,  Larry     49 

OMB  Watch     76 

OMB's  Proposed  Restrictions  on  Infor- 
mation Gatliering  and  Dissemina- 
tion by  Agencies     29 

"Opportunities  for  Improving  Economic 
Statistics"     41 

Owens,  Major  R.     17,  29,  42-43 

Palladino,  Nunzio     25 

Paperwork  Reduction  Act  of  1980     1,5, 

8,  23,  39,  53,  58,  60,  61,  80 
Paperwork  Reduction  Act  Amendments 

of  1983     8-9 
Paperwork  Reduction  Act  Amendments 

of  1984     13 
Patent  and  Trademark  Office     12 
Patents     47 
Payment- in- kind  program     13 


101 


Index 


Pentagon  see  Defense,  Department  of 
People  for  the  American  Way     90 
Periodical  publications     26 

OMB  approval     26 
Peterson,  Sandra     7,  15 
Petroleum  industry     69 
Physicians  Task  Force  on  Hunger  in 

America     44 
Playboy    33-34 
Playboy  Enterprise,  Inc.     33 
Poindexter,  John  M.     51,  54,  71,  79,  90 
Policy  statements     39 
Polygraph  testing     6,  13,  29,  35,  81 
Postal  Rate  Commission     16,  45 
Postal  rates     3,  11,  16,  21,  38,  45,  59 
President's  Commission  on  Americans 

Outdoors     65 
The  Presidential  Directive  on  Safe- 
guarding National  Security  Infor- 
mation    7 
Presidential  papers     72 
Presidential  Recordings  and  Materials 

Preservation  Act  of  1974     43-44 
Printing  regulations     76 
Privacy  rights     83-84 
Private  sector     63,  64,  65 

confidential  commercial 
information     84 
Privatization     2,  6,  17,  36,  60,  64,  78 

agricultural  information     28 

aviation  management  information     40 

campaign  contribution  data     50 

costs    y?""} 

Court  of  Claims  cases     25 

databases     19 

Federal  data     74 

Freedom  of  speech     24 

government  information     8 

government  periodicals     2  ' 

government  publications     35,  89-90 

information  resource  centers     1 

library  services     7-8,  17 

Merit  Systems  Protection  Board  Deci- 
sions    22 


NASA  journal     17     . 

NTIS     48,  73 

rulemaking  decisions  and  policy 
statements     39 

satellites     57-58,  63 

SEC  filings     27 

sensitive  information     31 

statistics     14,  36,  37 
Privatization  Proposal  for  the  National 
Technical  Information  Service     64 
Program  evaluation     61 
Propaganda  activities     85 
"Propaganda  as  Educational  and  Cul- 
tural Materials"     92 
Proxmire,  William     25 
Prunella,  Warren  J.     73 
Public  Citizen  Health  Research 

Group     33 
Public  Data  Access,  Inc.     50 
Public  Health  Service     75 

Agency  for  Toxic  Substances  and 
Disease  Registry     75 

National  Center  for  Health 
Statistics     30 
Public  Printer     2 
Publications  Review  Board     32 
Publishing     65 

prepublication  reviews     50 

research  results     29-30 

sensitive  information     44,  46-47 
The  Puzzle  Palace     83 

Reagan  Administration     14,  20,  21-22, 
24,  26,  30,  43,  44,  51,  57,  63,  70, 
71,  72,  80-81,  85,  88-89,  90,  92 

Reagan,  Ronald     1,  3,  6,  10,  13-14,  20, 
23,  33,  35,  44,  53,  59,  63,  79,  82, 
85,  86 

Recliner  chairs     72 

Reeder,  Franklin     56 

Rego,  Mike     84 

Regulations 

reduction  in  publication     75-76 
screening     20 


102 


Index 


Reporters  Committee  for  Freedom  of  the 

Press    88 
Reynolds,  William  Bradford     30 
Rickover,  Hyman  G.     47-48 
Rodino,  Peter     91 
Roybal,  Edward     11 
Rulemaking  decisions     39 

San  Francisco  Examiner     51 
Sarbanes,  Paul     80 
Satellites     54,  55,  63,  64 

security  policy     55 
Sawyer,  Danford,  Jr.     2 
Schiller,  Herbert  I.     36 
Schmeltzer,  David     73 
Schnitzer,  Sue     67 
School  library  resources     3 
Scientific  information     60,  65,  69,  75 

access  to  information     24,  31 

on  computers     82 

editing     75,  78 

Export  Control  Act     24 

nuclear  disasters     48-49 

privatization     2 

review  by  OMB     58 

security  clearance     86 

Soviet  Union     41,  45 

UNESCO     9 
Second  Annual  Report  on  Eliminations, 
Consolidations,  and  Cost  Reduc- 
tions of  Government 
Publications     9-10 
Secrecy     86,  90 

Secrecy  pledges     50,  77,  81,  82-83,  90, 
92 

prepublication  agreements     7,  35 
The  Secret  Government — The  Constitu- 
tion in  Crisis     86 
Secretary  of  Defense     86 
Securities  and  Exchange  Commission 
(SEC)     23,  91 

electronic  publishing     12-13 

News  Digest    2 

publication  of  filings     27 


Securities  market     91 

Security  Awareness  Bulletin     65 

Security  clearance     81 

Security  pledge  see  Secrecy  pledges 

Security  problems,  Moscow 

embassy     72 
Selected  U.S.  Government 

Publications     2 
Senate  Armed  Services  Committee     62 
Senate  Committee  on  Governmental 

Affairs     45 
Senate  Document  Room     44 
Senate  Foreign  Relations  Committee     62 
Senate  official  record     63 
Sensitive  information     45,  54,  71,  82,  85 

compartmented  information     14,  35, 
82 

scientific  information     31 
Shattuck,  John     21 
Shill,  Harold  B.     78 
Shultz,  George  P     89 
Sigma  Delta  Chi     88 
Slater,  Courtenay     41 
Social  Security  Administration     79-80 

Office  of  Disability     78-79 

reductions  in  staffing     79 
Society  of  Photo-Optical  Instrumentation 

Engineers     24 
Society  of  Professional  Journalists     88 
Soil  Conservation  Service     30 
Soil  surveys     30 
Soldiers     57 
South  Africa     49 
Soviet  Foreign  Ministry     89 
Soviet  Union     19,  62 
Sowle,  Donald     16 
Spear,  Joseph     42 
Spot  Image  (earth  observation)     64 
Standard  Form  189,  Classified  Informa- 
tion Nondisclosure  Agreement     91 
Standard  Form  4193     92 
Star  Wars  Strategic  Defense 

Initiative     85 
State  block  grants     3 


103 


Index 


State,  Department  of     20,  61,  62,  70-71, 
72 

Office  of  Public  Diplomacy  for  Latin 
America     85 
Statistical  information     27 
Statistical  Reporting  Service     28 
Statistics 

birth  expectation  data     39 

data  gathering     14,  37 

economics     41 

equal  employment     30 

government  publications     14,  23 

health     30 

racial  and  ethnic  data     37-38 

reductions  in  data  gathering     4,  5 

unemployment     47 
"Status  of  the  Statistical  Community 
After  Sustaining  Budget  Reduc- 
tions"    14 
Stephan,  Paul  B.,  Ill     86 
Stockman,  David     1,  9 
Strategic  Defense  Initiative     78,  86 
Streeky,  Ed     35 
Sun  Oil  Co.     69 
Supreme  Court     77,  86 


Decided    25 

U.  S.  Geological  Survey     18 

U.  S. -Soviet  Antiballistic  Missile 
Treaty     86 

Unclassified  Controlled  Nuclear  Infor- 
mation    7,  15,  24 

Unclassified  information     19,  21 

Unemployment  rate     47 

United  Nations  Educational,  Scientific, 
and  Cultural  Organization, 
(UNESCO)     9,  20 

United  Nations  General  Assembly     20 

United  States  Government  Manual     51 

United  States  Information  Agency     34, 
91 

United  States  Postal  Service     21 

University  research,  government  restric- 
tions on     19-20 

Uranium  mines     18 

User  charges  see  Fees 

Van  Atta,  Dale     79 

Van  Wingen,  Rachel     80 

Veterans  Administration     23,  84 

Video  display  terminals  and  fertility     59 


Taxes     29 

for  advertising     29 

film  distribution  abroad     34 

Tecnica     67 

Telecommunications  security     24 

Telephone  numbers     35 

Terrorists     55,  89 

Tobacco  Institute     69 

Toxic-products  information     20 

Toxic  wastes     18 

Transportation,  Department  of     21 
Research  and  Special  Programs  Ad- 
ministration    40 

Treasury,  Department  of     36-37 

Turner,  Carol     29 

U.  S.  Court  of  Claims,  Cases 


Wallop,  Malcolm     85 

Walsh,  Lawrence  E.     70 

Washington  Online  Campaign  Contribu- 
tion Tracking  System     38 

Weapons  performance     19 

Wedgeworth,  Robert     7 

Weinberg,  Gerhard  L.     78 

Weinberger,  Caspar  W.     31,  57 

Weiss,  Ted     32,  61 

White  House  Conference  on  Library 
and  Information  Services,  1989     43 

White  House  News  Service     25 

Woodward,  Bob     46-47,  51 

Wright,  Joseph  P     10,  17,  64 

Wylie  amendment     33-34 

Wylie,  Chalmers     34 


104 


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