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IowaSt^oe  I 

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

A  1990  Chronology:  June  -  December 


JAN  ^^    1991 

}■  Scter.ce  .-tno  Tecnnoiogy 


Prepared  by  the 

Amencan  Library  AssociatioQ 

Washington  Office 

December  1990 


INTRODUCTION 

Dunng  the  past  nine  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has  documented 
administration  efforts  to  rcstnct  and  privatize  government  information. 
A  combination  of  specific  policy  decisions,  the  administration's 
interpretations  and  implementations  of  the  1980  Paperwork  Reduction 
Act  (PL  96-511,  as  amended  by  PL  99-500).  implementation  of  the 
Grace  Commission  recommendations,  and  agency  budget  cuts  have 
significantly  limited  access  to  public  documents  and  statistics. 

The  pending  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  should 
provide  an  opportunity  to  limit  OMB's  role  in  controlling  information 
collected,  created,  and  disseminated  by  the  federal  government. 
However,  the  bills  that  were  considered  in  the  101st  Congress,  but  did 
not  become  law,  would  have  accelerated  the  current  trend  to 
commercialize  and  privatize  government  information. 

Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  governments  16,000  publications 
has  been  ehminated.  Since  1985,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget 
has  consolidated  its  government  information  control  powers,  particularly 
through  Circular  A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information 
Resources.  This  circular  requires  cost-benefit  analysis  of  government 
information  activities,  maximum  reliance  on  the  pnvate  sector  for  the 
dissemination  of  government  information,  and  cost  recovery  through 
user  charges.  OMB  has  announced  plans  to  revise  this  controversial 
circular  in  1991. 

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,  retneval,  and 
dissemination.  This  trend  has  resulted  in  the  increased  emergence  of 
contractual  arrangements  with  commercial  firms  to  dissemmatemforma- 
tion  collected  at  taxpayer  expense,  higher  user  charges  for  government 
information,  and  the  prohferation  of  government  information  available 
in  electronic  format  only.  While  automation  clearly  offers  promises  of 
savings,  will  public  access  to  government  information  be  further 
restricted  for  people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for  computer 
time?  Now  that  electronic  products  have  begun  to  be  distributed  to 
federal  depository  libraries,  public  access  to  government  information 
will  be  increased. 

During  1990.  at  a  time  when  the  American  economy  never  has  been 
more  complex,  increasing  numbers  of  news  articles  showed  that  federal 
statisticians  are  losing  the  ability  to  track  the  changes. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open  government  is 
vital  to  a  democracy  in  a  resolution  passed  by  Council  in  January  1984 


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which  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and'rcady  access  lo  data 
collected,  compiled,  proijuced,  and  published  in  any  fomiat,  by  ilic 
government  of  the  United  ^taies."  In  lanuaryl'985Tt?ouncil  established 
an  Ad  Hoc  Committee  to  Form  a  Coalition  on  Government  Information. 
The  CoaUtion's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts 
which  hmit  access  to  government  information  and  to  develop  support 
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  creates  a  climate  in  which 
government  information  activities  are  suspect.  Previous  chronologies 
were  compiled  in  an  ALA  Washington  Office  publication.  Less  Access 
to  Less  Information  By  and  About  the  US.  Government:  A  1981-1987 
Chronology .  The  following  chronology  continues  two  updates  published 
in  1988,  two  m  1989,  and  one  m  1990. 

CHRONOLOGY 

JUNE  -  For  more  than  four  decades,  the  United  Slates  and  its  allies 
kept  a  secret  list  of  computers,  machine  tools,  telecommunications 
equipment,  and  other  high-technology  products  that  could  not  be  sold 
to  the  Soviet  Union  or  its  East  Bloc  satellites.  However,  high-tech 
companies  in  the  Western  alliance  never  knew  what  products  were  on 
the  list,  which  was  compiled  by  a  17-nation  group  that  polices 
technology  sales,  the  Coordinating  Committee  for  Multilateral  Export 
Controls,  known  as  Cocom.  With  the  Cold  War  winding  down.  East 
Bloc  turning  capitalist  and  Cocom  making  more  advanced  technologies 
available  to  Moscow,  all  that  has  changed.  In  May.  the  State  Depart- 
ment bowed  to  a  Freedom  of  Information  Act  request  and  made  the 
Cocom  hst  public.  It  acted  11  years  after  Congress  said  the  list  should 
be  readily  available.  ("High-Tech  List  Comes  Out  of  Cold,"  The 
Washington  Post,  June  22) 

JUNE  -  Retired  Admiral  Elmo  R.  Zumwalt  Jr.  accused  government  and 
industry  scientists  of  manipulating  research  data  to  hide  what  he  called 
clear  evidence  that  Agent  Orange  may  have  caused  cancers,  birth 
defects  and  a  wide  variety  of  other  ailments  in  Americans  who  fought 
in  Southeast  Asia  and  their  offspring.  The  admiral,  who  recently 
reviewed  studies  on  the  widely  used  defoliant  for  the  Department  of 
Veterans'  Affairs,  charged  that  the  distortions  continue  to  "needlessly 
muddle  the  debate"  over  the  impact  of  dioxin-laden  chemicals  on  the 
American  public.  Forms  of  dioxins,  a  carcinogenic  agent  in  Agent 
Orange,  are  present  in  herbicides  widely  used  in  American  agriculture. 

Appearing  before  the  House  Government  Operations  Subcommittee  on 
Human  Resources  and  Intergovernmental  Relations,  Zumwalt  noted  that 
he  had  suspected  that  his  son,  a  former  naval  officer,  died  of  cancers 


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June  -  December  1990 


caused  by  Agent  Orange.  But  Zumwalt  said  that  until  recently  he  had 
also  believed  "that  there  was  insufficient  scientific  evidence  to  support 
a  linkage  between  his  illness  and  Agent  Orange  exposure.  That  was,  of 
course,  the  conventional  propaganda.  The  sad  truth  which  emerges  from 
my  work  is  not  only  is  there  credible  evidi  .ice  linking  ccrlam  cancers 
and  other  illnesses  with  Agent  Orange,  but  that  government  and 
industry  officials  credited  with  examining  such  linkage  mtentionally 
manipulated  or  withheld  compelling  information  of  the  adverse  health 
effects...."  (Ex-Admiral  Zumwalt  Claims  Manipulation  on  Agent 
Orange,"  The  Washington  Post.  June  27) 

JULY  -  "TTie  federal  government  has  come  up  with  a  novel  approach 
for  handling  bad  economic  news:  it  has  decided  to  stop  reporting  it.  The 
statistic  in  question  is  the  annual  assessment  of  America's  global 
investment  standing,  which  in  the  past  few  years  has  shown  that  the 
United  States  has  gone  from  being  the  world's  largest  creditor  nation 
to  being  the  largest  debtor  nation.  The  government  says  the  figure  is  no 
longer  reliable.  Critics  say  the  Bush  administration  is  playing  politics 
by  not  releasing  it."  ("Bad  News  Is  No  News,"  Newsday,  July  2) 

JULY  -  A  top  Air  Force  general  knew  that  the  Stealth  fighter  plane  had 
missed  its  targets  in  its  first  combat  mission,  but  he  did  not  tell  his 
superiors  at  the  Pentagon,  a  classified  report  says.  The  lapse  left  De- 
fense Secretary  Dick  Cheney  bragging  about  the  plane's  "pinpoint 
accuracy"  in  the  Panamanian  invasion  even  though  one  of  the  bombs 
missed  its  target  by  160  yards. 

The  general,  Robert  D.  Russ,  chief  of  the  Tactical  Air  Command, 
which  controls  the  Air  Force  fighter  planes,  knew  shortly  after  the 
mission  about  the  flaws  in  their  performance  and  should  have  kept  his 
superiors  fully  informed  about  problems  m  the  raid  by  the  planes,  the 
report  said.  Asked  about  the  report.  General  Russ  issued  a  statement 
saying  that  the  Army  commanders  who  led  the  invasion  were  responsi- 
ble for  telling  top  Pentagon  officials  about  what  happened  in  the  attack. 
Soon  after  the  invasion.  Cheney  said  that  each  of  the  fighters  had 
delivered  a  2,(XX)-pound  bomb  with  "pinpomt  accuracy,"  based  on 
information  provided  to  him  by  the  military.  And  for  months  after,  the 
Pentagon  continued  to  insist  that  it  had  been  a  picture-perfect  operation. 
But  in  early  April,  after  a  New  York  Times  reporter  showed  a  senior  Air 
Force  official  a  picture  of  the  bombed  site,  Cheney  learned  that  the 
bombs  had  missed  their  targets.  Soon  after,  he  commissioned  the 
report.  ("Report  Says  General  Knew  of  Stealth  Fighter's  Failure,"  The 
New  York  Times,  July  2) 

JULY  -  TTie  Bush  administration  is  seeking  a  change  in  the  federal 
computer  espionage  law  that  would  open  the  door  to  prosecution  and 
conviction  of  whistle-blowers  and  journalists  as  well  as  spies.  TTie 
Justice  Department  said  the  proposal  would  make  the  espionage  law 
"more  useful."  It  would  eliminate  a  provision  in  current  law  requiring 
proof  of  espionage  and  make  it  a  crime  to  use — or  cause  the  use  of— a 
computer  to  obtain  classified  information  without  authorization.  The 
penalties  would  be  the  same  as  they  are  now.  Violators  would  be 
subject  to  10  years  in  prison  for  a  first  offense,  or  'an  attempt  to 
commit  such  an  offense."  Second  offenders  could  be  imprisoned  for  20 
years. 

The  proposal  was  submitted  to  Congress  in  June  by  the  Justice 
Department  as  part  of  a  package  of  changes  in  the  computer  fraud  and 
abuse  statute  of  1986.  "It  seems  they  want  to  make  far  more  people 
spies  than  actually  are,"  said  Rep.  Charles  E.  Schumer  (D-N'Y), 
chairman  of  the  House  Judiciary  Subcommittee  on  Criminal  Justice. 


Another  part  of  the  Justice  Department  package  that  drew  cnticism  was 
a  provision  that  would  define  information  in  a  computer,  as  well  as 
computer  processmg  lime,  as  "property."  "The  thrust  of  that  is  to  say 
that  if  you  lake  information,  that's  property  and  you  can  be  accused  of 
stealing,"  Schumer  said.  "I  think  that's  very  dangerous.  We  need  a  law 
more  finely  honed  than  that." 

Morton  Halperin,  Washington  director  of  the  American  Civil  Liberties 
Union,  said  the  proposals  call  to  mind  the  controversial  1985  prosecu- 
tion of  former  naval  intelligence  analyst  Samuel  Loring  Morison.  the 
first  person  convicted  under  espionage  laws  for  leaking  documents 
"relating  to  the  national  defense"  to  the  news  media.  Morison's  lawyers 
contended  that  the  sections  of  espionage  law  used  in  the  case  were 
meant  to  apply  only  m  a  clandestine  setting,  to  spies  and  saboteurs,  and 
not  to  disclosures  to  the  news  media.  As  for  the  theft  charges,  they 
protested  that  making  the  law  applicable  to  government  "information" 
would  give  the  executive  branch  unbridled  discretion  to  control  what  the 
pubhc  may  be  told. 

Under  the  Justice  Department  computer  espionage  proposal,  it  could  be 
even  more  dangerous  to  take  the  secrets  from  a  computer  than  to  get 
them  on  paper.  The  bill  would  make  it  a  crime  to  pluck  from  a 
computer  any  "classified"  information,  even  items  stamped  secret, 
because  disclosure  would  be  embarrassing.  That  is  a  much  broader 
category  than  documents  "relating  to  the  national  defense." 

Halperin  said.  "Given  the  amount  of  information  that  is  classified  and 
the  degree  to  which  debate  in  the  United  Stales  depends  on  that 
information,  we  have  consistently  opposed  criminalizing  access  to 
classified  information  by  private  citizens,  except  where  it  involves 
transfer  to  foreign  powers."  Justice  Department  officials  acknowledged 
that  their  proposal  would  cover  whistle-blowers  and  journalists.  "No 
one  considered  that  in  the  drafting  of  it."  said  Grace  MastaUi.  special 
counsel  in  the  Justice  Department  Office  of  Policy  Development.  But 
she  said  it  was  "probably  not  possible  to  narrow  it  without  destroying 
the  purpose  of  the  bill."  ("A  Revised  Computer  Espionage  Law?"  The 
Washington  Post,  July  5) 

JULY  -  At  a  time  when  the  American  economy  never  has  been  more 
complex,  federal  statisticians  are  losing  the  ability  to  track  the  changes. 
The  official  statistics  report  that  the  nation  is  in  the  midst  of  a  penod 
of  unsurpassed  prosperity — a  peacetime  record  of  I'/i  years  without  a 
recession.  But  private  economists  say  many  of  the  statistics  spewed  by 
the  government  each  month  that  purport  to  track  the  economy  are 
seriously  flawed.  Some  are  so  suspect  that  analysts  ignore  them  in 
preparing  forecasts  rather  than  face  embarrassment  when  the  govern- 
ment totally  revises  its  original  report.  "History  is  being  rewritten  on 
a  monthly  basis."  said  Allen  Sinai,  chief  economist  of  the  Boston  Co. 
"It  makes  it  very  hard  for  private-sector  analysts  and  public  policy 
makers  to  come  to  correct  conclusions." 

Bad  data  triggers  more  than  bad  government  pohcy.  A  number  of 
economists  believe  the  Federal  Reserve  has  been  forced  to  keep  interest 
rates  higher  this  year  because  of  a  mistaken  easing  in  credit  last  year 
resulting  from  a  mistake  in  the  monthly  report  on  retail  sales.  The 
government  first  reported  retail  sales  fell  by  0.1  percent  in  May  1989 
only  to  discover  belatedly  that  the  survey  had  overlooked  $1.4  billion 
in  sales.  This,  a  small  decline  turned  into  a  sizable  0.8  percent  increase. 
TTie  initial  erroneous  report  was  picked  up  in  the  government's  broadest 
measure  of  economic  activity — the  gross  national  product— which 
originally  showed  an  anemic  1 .7  percent  growth  rate  during  the  spring. 


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After  Ihc  error  in  retail  sales  was  caught,  the  GNP  report  was  revised 
to  show  the  economy  growing  at  a  much  more  respectable  2.5  percent. 
But  the  correction  came  too  late  to  stop  pohcy  makers  at  the  Federal 
Reserve  from  actmg  to  cut  interest  rates  for  fear  the  economy  was 
headed  into  recession. 

In  studymg  government  data,  everyone  from  the  National  Academy  of 
Sciences  to  the  National  Association  of  Business  Economists  has 
reached  the  same  conclusion:  there  are  senous  problems  regarding  the 
accuracy  and  usefulness  of  the  statistics.  ("Economists  Question 
Accuracy  and  Value  of  U.S.  Statistics,"  The  Washtnglon  Post,  July  5) 

JULY  -  Officials  of  Richard  Nixon's  presidential  hbrary  said  the  library 
will  pick  and  choose  who  can  do  rese-arch  there  and  probably  will  keep 
out  Pulitzer  Prize-winning  Watergate  reporter  Bob  Woodward.  The 
library  also  will  lack  a  full  set  of  memos,  letters,  and  other  documents 
from  Nixon's  White  House  years  when  it  opens  later  in  July.  The 
onginals  are  in  the  custody  of  the  government,  and  Nixon  has  chosen 
to  copy  only  those  he  considers  important  to  the  library.  The  actions 
have  irked  some  scholars  who  say  they  mistrust  a  library  where 
documents  will  be  screened.  The  library's  director,  Hugh  Hewitt,  says 
every  document  of  any  importance,  including  many  relating  to 
Watergate,  will  be  m  the  library.  But  he  acknowledged  that  Woodward 
probably  would  not  be  allowed  to  study  them.  "I  don't  think  we'd  ever 
open  the  doors  to  Bob  Woodward,  he's  not  a  responsible  journalist," 
Hewitt  said. 

The  Richard  M.  Nixon  Presidential  Library  will  be  able  to  use  its 
autonomy  as  a  privately  run  facility  to  choose  the  scholars  it  allows  to 
do  research.  Of  the  nation's  other  presidential  libranes,  only  the 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes  library  is  pnvately  operated.  Eight  are  run  by  the 
National  Archives,  which  will  also  control  the  Ronald  Reagan  library 
in  California.  ("Nix  on  Library  to  Screen  Visiting  Researchers,"  The 
Washington  Post,  July  9) 

[Ed.  note:  A  July  12  editonal  in  The  Washington  Post,  "Access  to  the 
Nixon  Library,"  said  that  after  the  preceding  story  appeared,  inquiries 
came  quickly  from  Nixon  scholars  and  others,  who  pointed  out  that  no 
reputable  research  library  screens  access  to  researchers  on  the  basis  of 
possible  disagreement  with  their  conclusions.  Library  Director  Hewitt 
then  said  he  had  been  mistaken  and  that  the  library's  not-yet-assembled 
archives  would  be  open  to  all  comers.) 

JULY  -  The  Government  AccountabiUly  Project  filed  suit  against  the 
Agriculture  Department  to  obtam  a  report  on  its  beef  inspection 
procedures.  The  suit  is  the  latest  flurry  in  a  long-running  battle  pitting 
the  USDA  against  consumer  groups  and  dissident  federal  food  inspec- 
tors who  charge  that  the  USDA  Streamlined  Inspection  System  is 
putting  dirtier  and  more  dangerous  beef  in  supermarkets.  Partly  in 
response  to  pubUc  criticism,  the  department  last  year  contracted  with 
the  National  Academy  of  Sciences  to  study  the  inspection  system  to 
ascertain  whether  it  posed  unacceptable  food  risks.  The  department  later 
gave  the  academy  its  own  report  on  the  program,  but  refused  to  make 
it  public.  This  prompted  GAP  to  file  suit  in  U.S.  District  Court  to 
obtain  the  report  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act. 

"We  have  very  strong  suspicion  that  the  USDA  defense  of  the  Stream- 
lined Inspection  System  is  a  bureaucratic  bluff,"  said  Thomas  Devine, 
the  project's  legal  director.  "The  reason  they  won't  release  it  is  that  the 
assertions  they  make  couldn't  withstand  outside  scrutiny."  Agriculture 
Department  spokesman  David  Schmidt  said,  however,  that  the  agency 


had  decided  not  to  release  its  report  until  the  academy  had  finished  its 
study.  The  academy  said  publication  was  expected  at  the  end  of 
September.  "Releasing  the  report  would  compromise  and  pohticize  the 
results  of  a  scientific  study,"  Schmidt  said.  "We  don't  feel  we  need  to 
release  it  to  a  group  that  has  no  expertise  in  the  subject."  ("USDA  Is 
Sued:  Where's  the  Beef  Report?"  The  Washington  Post.  July  10) 

JULY  -  In  a  move  that  will  provide  more  access  to  government 
information.  Secretary  of  Health  and  Human  Services  Louis  Sullivan 
proposed  a  set  of  uniform  defmitions  that  would  clarify  and  standardize 
the  labels  on  virtually  every  food  product  sold  in  the  United  States.  The 
4C)0-page  proposal,  which  will  be  published  m  the  Federal  Register, 
updates  and  expands  the  hst  of  what  nutnents  should  and  should  not  be 
listed  on  food  labeling  and  defines  precisely  what  is  meant  by  previous- 
ly confusing  terms  such  as  "cholesterol-free"  and  "reduced  cholesterol" 
that  manufacturers  have  used  at  their  own  whim.  Officials  of  the  Food 
and  Drug  Administration  said  that  in  the  coming  months  they  will 
follow  with  two  more-detailed  proposals.  The  first  will  set  precise 
standards  for  use  of  terms  such  as  "high  in  fiber,"  "lite,"  and  "fresh," 
and  the  second  will  set  out  guidelines  for  how  food  labels  should  be 
designed.  Final  rules  are  expected  to  be  in  place  by  this  fall  and  full 
industry  compliance  is  expected  a  year  later. 

"Amencan  consumers  should  have  full  access  to  information  that  will 
help  them  make  informed  choices  about  the  food  they  eat,"  said 
SuUivan.  Sullivan  said  the  administration  had  not  yet  decided  whether 
the  federal  rules  would  preempt  states  in  food  labeling.  Both  the  Office 
of  Management  and  Budget  and  senior  White  House  officials  apparently 
oppose  the  idea.  ("Uniform  Food  Labels  Proposed,"  The  Washington 
Post,  July  13) 

JULY  -  In  early  July,  President  Bush  signed  a  classified  order  that 
revises  National  Security  Decision  Directive  145  and  eliminates 
National  Security  Agency  oversight  of  federal  computers  containing 
sensitive  but  unclassified  information.  Duane  Andrews,  assistant  defense 
secretary  for  Command,  Control,  Communications  and  Intelligence  told 
about  the  Bush  action  at  a  hearing  on  government  compliance  with  the 
Computer  Security  Act  held  by  the  House  Science,  Space,  and 
Technology  Subcommittee  on  Transportation,  Aviation,  and  Materials. 

The  order  revises  NSDD  145  to  clarify  the  computer  security  pohcy 
role  of  NSA  and  the  National  Institute  of  Standards  and  Technology  and 
brings  federal  computer  security  regulations  in  line  with  the  computer 
security  legislation  enacted  more  than  three  years  ago,  the  official  said. 
The  changes  to  NSDD  145  may  resolve  an  ongoing  turf  battle  between 
NSA  and  NIST,  which  share  responsibility  underthe  Computer  Security 
Act  for  monitoring  government  computer  security  plans.  Under  the 
changes,  NSA  no  longer  will  have  responsibility  for  computer  systems 
handling  sensitive  but  unclassified  information.  As  stated  in  the  act,  that 
responsibihty  will  be  solely  NISTS's.  The  new  directive  also  removes 
any  reference  to  federal  authority  over  private-sector  computer  systems, 
Andrews  said.  ("Bush  Revises  NSDD  145,"  Federal  Computer  Week, 
July  16) 

JULY  -  A  substantial  proportion  of  people  who  call  the  Social  Security 
"800"  hotline  and  are  told  that  a  local  Social  Security  office  will  call 
them  back  never  receive  the  follow-up  telephone  call,  the  General 
Accounting  Office  reported.  Critics  have  claimed  that  Social  Security 
began  the  toll-free  telephone  line  in  an  attempt  to  save  money  on 
personnel  and,  in  effect,  has  reduced  the  amount  of  services  available 
at  local  offices. 


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The  GAO  findings  showed  that  of  callers  who  were  instructed  to  expect 
a  return  call  at  a  specific  time,  89  percent  reported  getting  the  call  and 
being  pleased  with  the  help  they  received.  However,  about  24  percent 
of  those  who  expected  to  be  called  back  to  arrange  for  an  application 
for  benefits  said  they  never  received  a  call,  the  GAO  reported.  Of  those 
receiving  benefits  who  wanted  to  be  called  back  to  discuss  problems, 
42  percent  said  they  never  received  a  call.  In  all  cases,  the  follow  up 
did  not  occur  until  at  least  two  to  three  weeks  had  passed  from  the  date 
the  person  initially  called  1-800-234-5772.  ("GAO  Faults  Social 
Sccunty  '800'  HotUne,"  The  Washington  Post.  July  18) 

AUGUST  -  A  test  a  decade  ago  revealed  an  apparent  flaw  in  the  main 
mirror  of  the  blurry-eyed  Hubble  Space  Telescof)e,  but  key  officials  of 
the  National  Aeronautics  and  Space  Administration  and  outside  experts 
charged  with  overseeing  the  project  say  they  were  never  informed  of 
the  problem.  Tests  on  the  telescope's  main  mirror  in  1981  uncovered 
a  defect  called  sphencal  aberration,  according  to  scientists  investigating 
the  problem  and  an  optical  expert  who  worked  on  the  mirrors  at 
Perkin-Elmer  Corp.,  the  company  that  designed,  built,  and  tested  the 
telescope's  optical  system.  The  test  that  detected  the  aberration  was 
discounted  because  another  testing  device  believed  to  be  more  sophisti- 
cated found  no  such  (law,  according  to  a  former  Perkin-Elmer 
employee,  who  asked  not  to  be  identified.  NASA  officials  said  they 
knew  of  no  one  at  the  agency  who  was  aware  of  the  discrepancy  in  the 
lest  results.  Former  employees  of  Perkin-Elmer,  on  the  other  hand,  said 
that  NASA  representatives  were  mformed  at  the  time. 

By  discounting  the  results  of  one  test,  the  engineers  at  Perkin-Elmer 
were,  in  essence,  relying  on  a  single  test  to  assure  the  mirror  was 
perfect  Optical  experts  say  now  that  Perkin-Elmer  and  NASA  should 
have  challenged  the  mirror  with  at  least  two  or  three  independent  tests. 
Perkin-Elmer's  bid  for  the  project  did  not  include  independent  tests, 
although  a  losing  bid  submitted  by  Eastman  Kodak  did.  According  to 
documents  oblamed  by  the  Associated  F*ress,  Perkin-Elmer  was  awarded 
the  optics  contract  for  $64  milhon  against  a  Kodak  bid  of  $100  million. 
Because  of  massive  cost  overruns,  Perkin-Elmer  was  eventually  paid 
$451  million.  ("Hubble  Raw  Was  Found  in  '81 ,"  The  Washington  Post, 
August  6) 

AUGUST  -  Reporters  and  photographers  who  sought  to  cover  the 
landing  of  American  troops  m  Saudi  Arabia  were  barred  from  accompa- 
nying military  personnel  by  the  Pentagon,  which  said  it  was  honoring 
a  Saudi  request  to  keep  the  media  at  bay.  Thus,  the  beginnings  of  the 
largest  U.S.  military  operation  in  the  Middle  East  ui  three  decades  went 
unseen  and  unheard  by  the  American  public. 

The  last  time  the  Defense  Department  allowed  reporters  to  accompany 
the  military  into  combat  was  during  the  invasion  of  Panama  in 
December.  Even  by  the  Pentagon's  account,  the  "press  pool"  arrange- 
ment worked  badly:  journalists  who  had  been  given  credentials  to  join 
front-line  combat  troops  were  kept  far  from  the  action  by  U.S.  officials. 
The  sequestering  of  reporters  in  Panama  kept  vital  pieces  of  information 
from  the  public,  such  as  the  military's  treatment  of  Panamanian  citizens 
and  the  performance  of  U.S.  personnel  and  weaponry.  Recalling  that 
fiasco  and  the  total  blackout  of  the  media  during  the  United  States' 
1983  invasion  of  Grenada,  some  journalists  suggested  that  the  Bush 
administration  had  more  to  do  with  keeping  the  media  out  of  Saudi 
Arabia  than  Cheney  let  on.  ("Media  Shut  Out  at  the  Front  Lines,"  The 
Washington  Post,  August  9) 

[Ed.  note:  In  an  August  11  editorial,  "Getting  Behind  'Desert  Shield'," 


The  New  York  Times  said  that  in  a  wise  change  of  course,  the  Bush 
administration  has  prevailed  upon  Saudi  Arabia  to  permit  firsthand 
coverageof  the  U.S.  troop  deployment  by  Amencan  journalists.  A  pool 
of  representative  reporters  will  be  admitted.) 

AUGUST  -  According  to  John  Markoff  in  an  August  19  New  York 
Times  article,  "Washington  is  Relaxing  Its  Stand  on  Guarding  Computer 
Security,"  President  Bush  has  ordered  a  quiet  dismantling  of  an  aggres- 
sive Reagan  administration  effort  to  restrict  sources  of  computerized 
information,  including  databases,  collections  of  commercial  satellite 
photographs,  and  information  compiled  by  university  researchers.  The 
article  gives  the  background  of  the  controversy  regarding  the  creation 
of  a  new  security  classification,  "sensitive  but  classified  information," 
which  was  aimed  at  reducing  unauthorized  uses  of  computerized 
information  and  at  restricting  authorized  uses  so  that  foreign  countries 
could  not  piece  together  sensitive  information  to  learn  the  nation's 
secrets. 

However,  the  Bush  administration  move  to  revise  the  Reagan 
administration  poUcy  has  caused  some  computer  security  experts  to  say 
that  they  are  concerned  that  the  Bush  move  goes  too  far  in  decentraliz- 
ing oversight  for  computer  security.  A  National  Security  Agency 
official  warned  that  the  United  Slates  was  now  in  danger  of  losing  its 
leadership  in  computer  security  to  European  countries  that  have  been 
investing  heavily  in  new  technologies. 

AUGUST  -  A  lack  of  adequate  computer  security  in  the  Department  of 
Justice  is  endangering  highly  sensitive  information,  ranging  from 
identities  of  confidential  informants  to  undercover  operators,  the 
General  Accounting  Office  has  concluded  in  a  report  to  be  issued  soon. 
Although  the  department  moved  its  main  data  center  last  year  to  a  new 
"state-of-the-art"  facility,  GAO  said  that  unauthorized  users  still  could 
enter  and  exit  the  system  without  being  detected.  "The  threat  of 
mtrusion  into  these  systems  is  serious,  and  there  are  criminals  who 
could  benefit  immensely  from  such  covert  encroachments,"  Rep.  Robert 
E.  Wise  Jr.  (D-WV)  said  in  a  letter  urging  Attorney  General  Dick 
Thomburgh  to  "immediately  correct"  the  security  flaws.  A  department 
official  who  requested  anonymity  said  he  was  dismayed  that  the  GAO 
assessment  failed  to  cite  "a  lot  of  corrective  action  already  taken  and 
more  that  is  under  way."  ("Justice  Data  Security  Faulted  in  GAO 
Report,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  23) 

AUGUST  -  In  a  three-page  article,  "Science,  Technology,  and  Free 
Speech,"  in  the  Summer  1990  Issues  in  Science  and  Technology,  Allen 
M.  Shinn  Jr.  observed  that  now  that  industrialization  has  spread  techno- 
logical and  scientific  capabilities  around  the  globe,  there  is  an  increased 
need  for  American  researchers  to  talk  freely  with  colleagues  in  other 
nations.  Yet  the  export  laws— in  particular,  the  Export  Administration 
Act,  the  Arms  Export  Control  Act,  and  the  Invention  Secrecy  Act— may 
stand  in  their  way.  Ironically,  what  was  intended  to  further  national 
security  may  now  actually  hurt  it.  These  laws  frequently  have  been 
criticized  on  economic  grounds.  But  there  is  another,  largely  unex- 
plored avenue  to  their  reform:  as  applied  to  control  information,  the 
laws  arc  probably  unconstitutional. 

Shinn  says  the  export  laws  violate  the  First  Amendment  in  three  ways: 
(1)  they  impose  controls  through  administrative  licensing,  a  form  of 
prior  restraint  that  has  been  almost  uniformly  rejected  by  the  courts 
since  the  18th  century;  (2)  the  defmitions  of  controlled  information  arc 
overbroad;  and  (3)  the  laws  are  ineffective  in  protecting  national 
security.  He  says  that  new  regulations  under  the  Export  Administration 


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Act  have  both  defined  and  greatly  relaxed  controls  on  "fundamental" 
research.  The  new  regulations,  final  in  1989,  remove  constraints  on 
technical  data  that  are  "publicly  available."  that  result  from  fundamental 
research  (essentially,  research  intended  to  be  published),  or  that  are 
"educational  infonmation." 

Shinn  believes  that  these  changes  eslabhsh  a  policy  against  using  the 
export  control  laws  agamst  academic  research.  Although  they  represent 
real  progress,  the  new  rules  still  suffer  from  constitutional  defects  He 
makes  a  ease  that  when  revised,  the  laws  should  make  clear  that  the 
government  can  require,  at  most,  notification  of  mtent  to  export,  with 
actual  control  dependent  on  its  willingness  to  go  into  court  and  seek  an 
injunction.  Shin  says:  "TTiat  is  what  the  First  Amendment  requires." 

SEPTEMBER  -  Writing  in  the  September  1990  issue  of  Natural 
History.  Michele  Stenehjem  says  that  for  40  years  scientists  knew  that 
radionuclides  from  reactors  along  the  Columbia  River  accumulated  in 
body  tissue.  They  decided  to  keep  the  information  to  themselves 

In  an  eight-page  article,  "Indecent  Exposure,"  Stenehjem  describes  how 
the  Hanford  Engineer  Works  m  Washington  produced  the  plutonium  for 
the  world's  first  atomic  explosion.  The  secret  project  was  created  m 
early  1943  to  produce  plutonium  for  the  first  Amencan  atomic 
weapons.  The  enterprise,  operated  on  contract  for  the  federal  govern- 
ment, brought  spectacular  results  and  for  40  years  afler  the  war,  the 
endeavor  was  praised  by  those  involved  or  interested  m  atomic  energy 

In  1986,  however,  with  the  release  of  some  19,000  pages  of  environ- 
mental monitoring  reports,  engineering  reports,  office  memoranda,  and 
letters  concerning  Hanford's  early  history,  the  world  learned  that  there 
had  been  a  darker  side  to  the  vast  undertaking  These  documents,  many 
previously  classified,  and  the  40,000  pages  subsequently  released, 
disclose  that  in  the  course  of  producing  plutonium  for  World  War  11 
and  the  cold  war  that  followed,  the  Hanford  Works  released  radioactive 
wastes  totahng  millions  of  cunes. 

The  facility  released  billions  of  gallons  of  liquids  and  billions  of  cubic 
meters  of  gases  containing  contaminants,  mcluding  plutonium  and  other 
radionuclides,  into  the  Columbia  River  and  into  the  soil  and  air  of  the 
flat,  wide  Columbia  Basin.  Some  of  the  releases  were  caused  by 
leakage  or  faulty  technology;  others  were  the  result  of  deliberate 
policies  set  by  scientists  convinced  of  the  acceptability  of  these 
emissions.  In  the  years  of  peak  discharges,  1944  to  1966,  these 
scientists  and  policy  makers  never  informed  the  residents  of  the  region 
of  the  emissions  or  warned  them  of  any  potential  or  real  dangers,  even 
when  the  releases  far  exceeded  the  "tolerance  levels"  or  "allowable 
limits"  defined  as  safe  at  the  time.  Instead,  on  many  occasions  they  told 
the  public  that  Hanford's  operations  were  controlled  and  harmless. 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  Bush  administration  opposed  a  House  Democratic 
leadership  proposal  to  create  a  federal  technology  database  that  would 
help  American  companies  compete  against  foreign  rivals.  The  White 
House  said  such  a  program  would  be  costly  and  unnecessary.  The 
legislation  is  part  of  a  Democratic  package  intended  to  enhance  the 
competitiveness  of  American  companies  and  signals  growing  congres- 
sional concern  over  the  problems  American  companies  encounter  in 
competing  with  foreign  rivals.  The  proposed  database  would  include  all 
industrial  technology  (dealing  with  physics,  chemistry,  biology, 
communications,  transportation,  medicine,  and  other  sciences) 
developed  with  the  aid  of  federal-  and  state-fmanced  research.  The 
federal  government  spent  $6  billion  last  year  on  university-sponsored 


research.  But  the  administration  said  that  the  final  project  would 
duplicate  existing  government  databases  and  that  a  $25  miUion  pilot 
project  would  be  too  costly. 

House  Democratic  leaders  contend,  however,  that  the  government's 
approach  has  been  piecemeal  and  that  access  to  the  current  databases 
depends  on  knowledge  of  their  existence  and  protocols— rules  governing 
the  communication  and  transfer  of  data  between  machines.  They  argue 
that  technology  transfer  through  databases  provides  the  biggest  return 
for  the  mvestment.  Rep.  John  LaFalce  (D-NY),  chair  of  the  House 
Small  Business  Committee,  said  that  under  existing  programs  a  business 
in  need  of  technical  assistance  had  to  know  "10  different  protocols 
needed  to  access  10  different  data  bases."  Joe  Shuster  of  Teltech  Inc., 
a  Minneapolis  information  systems  company,  said  that  "smart, 
world-class  competitors  are  constantly  looking  for  leverage,  and  nothing 
today  provides  more  economic  leverage  than  technical 
knowledge — nothing."  ("Democrats'  Data  Plan  Is  Opposed,  The  New 
York  Times,  September  6) 

SEPTEMBER  -  After  a  century  of  serving  as  the  public's  eyes  and 
ears  about  the  weather,  the  National  Weather  Service  is  changmg  its 
mission.  The  agency  has  begun  to  close  its  phone  lines  and  refer  to 
pnvate  weather  companies  more  and  more  questions  it  formerly 
answered.  In  addition,  these  pnvate  companies  have  gradually  acquired 
from  the  government  the  nght  to  distribute  readings  from  federal 
observation  offices  and  pictures  from  its  radar  systems.  Some  people 
who  rely  on  Weather  Service  data  say  they  worry  that  the  government 
is  abandoning  a  long-estabhshed  duty  and  is  forcing  the  public  to  pay 
for  infonmation  it  is  used  to  getting  for  virtually  nothing. 

"It's  just  ridiculous,"  said  Albert  TTiompson,  a  cotton  grower  who  was 
recently  told  by  the  Weather  Service  in  Lubock,  Tex.,  that  he  would  no 
longer  be  told  the  rainfall  in  West  Texas  cities.  "We  pay  taxes,  and 
there  is  no  reason  we  should  not  get  that  information  from  a  Govern- 
ment office."  Weather  Service  officials  say  the  changes  are  designed  to 
get  the  government  out  of  the  business  of  distributing  routine  weather 
information,  so  it  can  concentrate  on  the  difficult  job  of  spotting  and 
reporting  dangerous  weather  conditions.  Dr.  Elbert  W.  Friday  Jr..  the 
director  of  the  Weather  Service,  said  he  believes  that  the  change— in 
effect,  making  private  companies  the  middlemen  between  the  public  and 
its  government — is  going  to  provide  greater  access  to  the  information 
and  save  the  Weather  Service  money. 

Dave  Powell,  president  of  the  National  Weather  Service  Employees 
Organization  said:  "The  specialized  services  they  are  talking  about 
really  are  things  we  have  been  providing  since  1890.  A  lot  of  the 
people  we  serve  are  on  a  shoestring,  farmers  and  contractors." 

Perhaps  the  clearest  example  of  the  changing  Weather  Service  missions 
is  the  signing  of  13  contracts  with  private  companies  in  the  South.  In 
each  case,  the  agency  closed  phone  lines  providing  recorded  weather 
information  just  as  a  private  company  opened  its  own  lines,  providing 
a  similar  message  but  preceded  with  advertisements.  The  private 
weather  industry  has  grown  to  include  more  than  100  companies  that 
together  make  $200  million  a  year. 

In  Atlanta,  for  example,  the  Weather  Service  is  paying  the  Contel 
Corporation  to  electronically  distribute  national  weather  information. 
Contel  can  charge  the  public  for  the  information.  Contel  classified  the 
Associated  Press,  with  thousands  of  clients,  as  a  reseller  and  asked  for 
$1.6   million    from   the   news  agency   for  the   right  to   transmit  the 


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informalion.  The  agency  objected  to  any  reseller  fee  and  decided  to  use 
a  service  operated  by  the  government.  That  service  has  no  reseller  fee 
but  gives  less  information  and  is  slower,  said  John  Reid,  vice  president 
and  director  of  communications  and  technology  for  the  news  agency. 
He  said  there  have  been  times  when  sever-  weather  warnings  arrived 
at  the  news  agency  after  the  wammgs  had  expired.  ("What's  the 
Weather.'  Don't  Ask  the  Service,"  The  New  York  Tunes.  September  10) 

(Ed.  note:  In  a  related  story,  people  in  Miami  phoning  to  find  out  the 
time  and  temperature  got  somelhmg  else:  soft  pornography.  A  voice 
welcomed  them,  saying,  "She's  all  alone  m  the  tub.  Jump  in.  It's  all 
wet.  "  Then  it  gave  a  976  telephone  number,  told  listeners  that  it  would 
cost  them  $19.95  for  a  three-minute  call,  and  finally  gave  the  tempera- 
ture and  time.  "We  have  received  complamts  relative  to  this  ad,"  said 
Gary  AUington,  Southern  Bell  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Co.  By 
mid-moming  the  tape  was  replaced  with  an  ad  for  a  psychic.  Southern 
Bell  leases  the  time  number  to  Ryder  Communications  of  Coral 
Springs,  Fla.,  which  sells  ad  space  on  it.  ("Soft-Pom  Ad  on  Bell  Firm's 
Tape  Pulled,"  The  Washington  Post.  December  13)] 

SEPTEMBER  -  Citing  budget  constraints  and  agency  policy,  only  news 
media,  university  libraries,  heads  of  university  departments,  members 
of  Congress,  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  government  officials 
can  continue  to  receive  the  monthly  publication.  World  Agriculture 
Supply  and  Demand  Estimate,  free  of  charge.  TTie  announcement  was 
made  in  a  September  1 1  letter  to  "Dear  Reader"  from  Raymond  Bridge, 
information  officer  for  the  Department  of  Agnculture  World  Agncul- 
lural  Outlook  Board.  Others  who  want  the  publication  were  invited  to 
subscnbe  for  $20  a  year. 

SEPTEMBER  -  New  York  City  officials  challenged  preliminary  1990 
census  figures,  charging  that  the  count  conducted  this  spring  and 
summer  missed  254,534  housmg  units  in  the  city  and,  as  a  result, 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  New  Yorkers.  The  city  said  its  records 
showed  that  the  census  overlooked  at  least  five  housmg  units  on  each 
of  11,957  blocks,  or  43  percent  of  the  city's  blocks.  New  York  City  has 
been  particularly  vigorous  in  challenging  census  findings,  in  part 
because  federal  funding  is  tied  to  population  totals.  Officials  estimate 
that  the  city  receives  about  $150  annually  for  each  of  its  residents. 
Also,  preliminary  census  figures  indicate  that  the  slate  will  lose  three 
congressional  seats,  in  part  because  of  population  shifts  away  from  New 
York  City. 

The  city  has  participated  m  a  lawsuit  to  force  the  Census  Bureau  to  use 
a  statistical  adjustment  to  compensate  for  residents  missed  by  the 
census.  Other  cities  also  have  challenged  Census  Bureau  figures.  Los 
Angeles  officials  said  they  found  nearly  50,000  units  not  included  on 
census  lists,  and  Detroit  officials  said  they  found  errors  on  almost  all 
of  the  city's  13,000  blocks.  ("New  York  City  Disputes  1990  Census," 
The  New  York  Tunes,  September  20) 

SEPTEMBER  -  TTie  National  Library  of  Medicine  announced  a  new 
fee  schedule  effective  February  1,  1991,  for  CD-ROM  products 
containing  MEDLARS  dau  in  the  September-October  1990  NLM 
Technical  Bulletin.  Among  the  categories  of  annual  subscnption  fees: 

1)  For  a  copy  of  the  database  on  a  stand-alone  station,  the  charge  to  the 
vendor  from  NLM  will  be  (and  currently  is)  $100. 

2)  For  the  same  subscription  on  a  network  of  two  to  five  stations,  the 
charge  is  $1000. 


3)  For  the  same  subscription  on  a  network  of  five  or  more  stations, 
libranans  have  estimated  the  charge  to  be  between  $7,500  and  $10,000, 
since  the  NLM  newsletter  gave  a  formula    instead  of  a  specific  figure. 

These  are  the  charges  to  the  vanous  Medline  vendors;  the  vendors  are 
likely  to  pass  the  fee  changes  on  to  their  users.  Concerns  have  been 
expressed  in  the  library  community  that  these  NLM  charges  will 
discourage  network  access  to  CD-ROM  MEDLINE. 

OCTOBER  -  Wassily  Leontief,  awarded  the  Nobel  Prize  in  Economic 
Science  in  1973,  decried  the  "sad  state  of  the  Federal  statistical  system" 
in  an  op-ed  piece  in  The  New  York  Times.  He  said  that  while  our 
system  employs  very  dedicated,  highly  quahfied  individuals,  the  funds 
appropriated  for  their  task  fall  far  short  of  what  is  needed.  Moreover, 
with  a  rapidly  changing  economy,  the  job  has  become  more  complex. 
Leontief  said  in  his  own  field — the  compilation  of  the  input-output  tables 
that  descnbe  the  flow  of  goods  and  services  between  the  different 
sectors  of  the  U.S.  economy  in  a  given  year — the  situation  is  as  bad  as 
the  current  difficulties  with  the  U.S.  census. 

The  federal  input-output  unit  has  been  reduced  to  22  people.  There  is 
a  hiring  freeze.  "No  wonder  the  input-output  tables  for  1972  have  not 
yet  come  out.  With  the  changes  in  our  economy,  these  figures,  when 
published,  will  be  only  of  historical  interest."  By  contrast,  in  Japan  the 
compilation  of  input-output  tables  is  done  by  200  economists  and 
statisticians.  A  four-volume  table  for  1975  was  published  m  March 
1979.  The  1985  table  has  already  been  published. 

Leontief  concluded:  "Some  proponents  of  privatization  suggest  that 
diminished  support  for  Federal  statistical  services  will  eventually  be 
compensated  by  private  corporate  dala-gathenng  organizations.  This 
solution  seems  about  as  effective  as  replacing  the  klieg  lights  in  a 
baseball  stadium  with  player-held  flashlights.  As  the  U.S.  struggles  to 
maintain  its  competitive  position  in  the  world,  we  can  ill  afford  further 
deterioration  in  the  data  base  indispensable  to  the  efficient  conduct  of 
all  public  and  pnvate  business."  ("Federal  Statistics  Are  in  Big 
Trouble,"  The  New  York  Tunes,  October  1) 

OCTOBER  -  The  government's  special  nutrition  program  for 
low-income  women,  infants,  and  children  (WIC)  sharply  reduces  later 
Medicaid  health  outlays  for  the  mother  and  child,  and  also  results  in 
improved  birthweights,  according  to  a  Agriculture  Department  study. 
TTie  long-awaited  study  has  special  significance  because  of  a  protracted 
dispute  over  a  study  four  years  ago  that  came  to  the  same  basic 
conclusion:  that  WIC  enhances  the  health  of  the  mother  and  child. 
Despite  its  findings,  and  for  reasons  never  made  clear,  the  Agriculture 
Department  altered  the  summary  statement  of  the  1986  fmdings  to  play 
down  the  beneficial  health  effects.  The  new  study,  in  contrast,  was 
hailed  by  the  current  Secretary  of  Agriculture,  Clayton  Yeutter. 
("Mothers'  Nutrition  Program  is  Effective,  U.S.  Study  Finds,"  The 
Washington  Post,  October  19) 

OCTOBER  -  When  Congress  passed  the  1991  military  spending  bill  in 
October,  it  imposed  little-noticed  but  significant  new  restrictions  on  the 
President's  power  to  spend  billions  of  dollars  on  classified  programs. 
Legislators  and  administration  officials  struggled  over  a  section  of  the 
bill  requiring  the  administration  to  use  money  earmarked  for  secret 
programs  precisely  as  Congress  prescribes.  At  stake  is  control  over  a 
"black  budget"  of  more  than  $35  billion  hidden  in  the  military  spending 
bill  for  numerous  secret  weapons  programs  and  intelligence  activities. 


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June  -  December  1990 


In  the  past,  Congress  has  attached  classified  reports  to  military 
appropriations  saying  how  this  secret  money  should  be  spent.  But  the 
admmistration  has  treated  the  mstructions  in  these  classified  "annexes" 
as  mere  expressions  of  congressional  wishes  rather  than  actual  law. 
When  President  Bush  signed  the  1990  mililary  appropriations  bill  on 
November  21,  1989.  he  expressed  concern  about  restrictions  that 
Congress  tned  to  impose  through  a  classified  report  on  the  bill.  "Con- 
gress cannot  create  legal  obligations  through  report  language,"  he 
insisted.  But  now,  after  a  year  marked  by  several  disputes  over  the 
administration's  refusal  to  comply  with  secret  directives  from  congres- 
sional committees.  Congress  has  given  the  classified  annexes  the  force 
of  law.  ("Congress  Changes  Spenduig  Rules  on  Secret  Programs  for 
Pentagon,"  The  New  York  Times,  October  30) 

OCTOBER  -  The  Army  fired,  handcuffed,  and  removed  from  office 
a  veteran  engineer  for  threatening  to  disclose  that  many  troop-carrying 
helicopters  pnmed  for  war  m  Saudi  Arabia  lack  protection  against  Iraqi 
hcat-secking  missiles.  Calvin  Weber,  a  16-year  Army  civilian  employ- 
ee, was  fired  for  seeking  information  about  the  vulnerabilities  of  Army 
helicopters  now  in  Saudi  Arabia  and  "intimating"  he  would  make  it 
public,  the  Army  said  yesterday  "Information  regarding  equipment 
vulnerabilities,  especially  dunng  the  pendency  (sic|  of  Operation  Desert 
Shield,  is  very  sensitive,  and  its  disclosure  could  be  highly  detrimental 
to  the  security  of  the  United  States,"  Col.  Thomas  Reinkober  told 
Weber  in  a  one-page  memo  ordering  him  to  leave  his  office  at  the 
Army  Aviation  Systems  Command  in  St    Louis. 

The  Army  has  about  300  Blackhawk  helicopters  in  Saudi  Arabia— more 
than  any  other  type — to  ferry  troops  to  the  front  and  to  evacuate 
casualties  from  the  battlefield.  Weber  estimates  about  200  hundred  of 
Ihem  lack  suppressors  which  are  muffier-like  devices  installed  over  the 
engmes.  TTiey  are  designed  to  cool  the  exhaust  before  it  leaves  the 
engines  and  hide  the  turbine  blades  from  heat-secking  missiles.  A  1985 
Pentagon  study  concluded  that  90  percent  of  the  aircraft  downed  in 
combat  in  the  previous  10  years  were  destroyed  by  heat-secking 
missiles.  Most  of  the  losses  were  Soviet  aircraft  downed  by  Afghan 
rebels  equipped  with  portable,  U.S. -made,  Stinger  heat-seeking 
missiles.  ("Army  Worker  Fired  Over  Copter  Data,"  The  Washingion 
Post.  October  30) 

OCTOBER  -  The  New  York  Times  editorialized  that  "Secrecy,  which 
made  the  Iran-contra  affair  possible,  is  now  a  huge  obstacle  to  its 
cleanup.  Invoking  national  security.  Attorney  General  Dick  Thomburgh 
refused  to  allow  classified  information  for  the  perjury  trial  of  Joseph 
Fernandez,  a  former  C.l.A.  operative  at  the  Nicaraguan  end  of  the 
illicit  enterprise.  That  forced  Lawrence  Walsh,  the  independent  counsel, 
to  drop  the  case." 

After  describing  details  of  the  case,  the  editorial  went  on  to  say:  "There 
has  always  been  a  conflict  between  the  Attorney  General's  role  as 
investigator  and  as  lawyer  for  the  President.  That's  why  it  was 
necessary  to  appoint  a  special  counsel  in  the  Iran-contra  cases.  But  the 
same  conflict  exists  when  Mr.  Thomburgh  makes  a  decision  about 
classified  information.  He  left  open  the  suspicion  he's  protecting  his 
boss,  the  President."  ("Iran-Contra:  Secrecy's  Victim,"  The  New  York 
Times,  October  30) 

OCTOBER  -  TTie  Supreme  Court  considered  the  constitutionality  of 
regulations  that  prohibit  federally  funded  family  planning  clinics  from 
discussing  abortion,  with  Justice  David  Souter  expressing  concern  that 
the  rules  stop  doctors  from  giving  women  needed  medical  advice. 


Speaking  for  the  Bush  administration.  Solicitor  General  Kenneth  Staff 
defended  the  regulations,  which  bar  physicians  and  other  workers  in 
federally  funded  clinics  from  giving  women  any  information  about 
abortion,  even  on  request,  or  from  stating  if  abortion  is  medically 
indicated. 

During  oral  arguments  in  the  case,  RusI  v.  Sullivan,  Harvard  Law 
School  Professor  Laurence  Tribe  told  the  court:  "We  depend  on  our 
doctors  to  tell  us  the  whole  truth,  whoever  is  paying  the  medical  bill, 
the  patient  or  the  government,  whether  m  a  Title  X  clinic  or  in  the 
Bethesda  Naval  Hospital,"  referring  to  the  facility  where  the  justices 
receive  medical  care.  He  said  that  under  the  regulations,  "truthful 
information  that  may  be  relevant  is  being  deliberately  withheld  from 
people  who  have  every  reason  to  expect  it."  ("Souter  Questions  Federal 
Defense  of  Abortion  Counseling  Limits,"  The  Washingion  Post.  October 
31) 

NOVEMBER  -  "Newsweek  has  learned  that  there  were  three  times 
more  U.S.  casualties  from  'friendly  fire'  or  accidents  during  last 
winter's  Panama  invasion  than  the  Pentagon  has  previously  admitted 
What's  more,  according  to  a  confidential  Pentagon  report  obtained  by 
Newsweek,  the  Joint  Chiefs  of  Staff  kept  Defense  Secretary  Dick 
Cheney's  aides  in  the  dark  about  the  losses. 

Last  June,  Newsweek  reported  as  many  as  60  percent  of  U.S.  injuries 
and  nine  of  the  23  deaths  may  have  been  due  to  friendly  fire.  The 
Pentagon  denied  the  story.  But  the  report  reveals  that  the  Pentagon 
failed  to  disclose  that  72  of  312  servicemen  it  counts  among  the 
wounded  were  actually  injured  in  parachute  jumps,  not  by  enemy  fire. 
The  report  also  shows  the  U.S.  military  death  toll  was  26  not  23,  and 
at  least  six  may  have  been  the  result  of  friendly  fire. 

All  told,  the  report  concludes  that  114  of  the  338  U.S.  casualties— 34 
percent — were  caused  by  friendly  fire  or  accidents.  Highly  placed 
sources  told  Newsweek  that  even  this  percentage  was  low.  And,  the 
report  reveals,  the  staff  of  the  Joint  Chiefs  Chairman  Colin  Powell  tried 
to  paint  a  rosier  picture  for  Cheney.  An  April  4  memo  to  Cheney's  top 
aides  claimed  no  U.S.  soldiers  were  killed  by  friendly  fire.  TTie 
Pentagon's  only  comment  was  to  confirm  the  revised  figures."  ("An 
Accident-Prone  Army,"  Newsweek,  November  5) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  federal  appeals  ruling  during  D.C.  Mayor  Marion 
Barry's  tnal  that  said  federal  judges  may  not  bar  an  individual  from  a 
courtroom  "merely  because  [that  individual)  advocates  a  particular 
political,  legal  or  religious"  view  is  about  to  be  swept  into  legal 
oblivion.  The  U.S.  Court  of  Appeals  in  Washington,  D.C,  has  refused 
to  publish  the  ruling.  It  means  that  this  important  decision  can  never  be 
cited  by  other  lawyers  in  Washington,  and  many  lawyers  will  never 
even  know  about  it,  unless  they  trot  over  to  the  courthouse  and  look  up 
the  case. 

The  American  Civil  Liberties  Union,  which  challenged  the  original 
order  barring  two  controversial  men  from  the  Barry  trial,  now  is 
challenging  the  appeal  panel's  decision  not  to  publish.  "It  smacks  of  a 
system  of  secret  justice,"  said  the  ACLU's  Arthur  Spitzer.  Spitzcr 
argues  that  the  appeals  ruling — by  a  panel  composed  of  Clarence 
Thomas,  Douglas  Ginsburg,  and  Laurence  Silberman — could  be  crucial 
to  individuals  barred  from  future  trials.  He  also  argues  that  the  court  is 
flouting  its  own  rules,  which  weigh  in  favor  of  publication.  Spitzer  is 
seeking  a  rehearing  on  the  issue  and  calling  for  one  before  the  full 
court.  ("You  Could  Look  It  Up,  but...,"  "Washington  Business,"  The 


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June  -  December  1990 


Washington  Post.  November  5) 

NOVEMBER  -  "The  government's  end-of-the-year  fiscal  crunch  gave 
an  Education  Department  employee  a  novel  idea  for  promoting  a  new 
report.  The  cover  letter  sent  to  reporters  announced  that  'A  College 
Course  Map.'  which  compiles  statistics  of  what  courses  are  taken  by 
college  students,  has  been  published,  but  'nobody  has  it.  There  are 
5.500  copies  of  the  book  sitting  \n  a  warehouse.'  the  letter  said.  'But 
until  we  have  a  budget,  there  is  no  money  to  pay  the  mailmg  contrac- 
tor.' This,  the  letter  noted  enticingly,  means  that  reporters  are  bemg 
given  data  temporarily  unavailable  to  the  public.  The  publicity-hungry 
writer  even  suggested  which  pages  to  read."  (Education  Week. 
November  7) 

NOVEMBER  -  American  University  professor  Philip  Brenner  has  tned 
for  three  years  in  fe<leral  court  to  get  classified  documents  from  the 
Slate  Department  about  the  Cuban  missile  cnsis.  Last  month,  he  even 
submitted  affidavits  from  the  authors  of  the  papers— nine  former 
high-ranking  Kennedy  administration  officials— urging  their  release 

Unlike  many  citizens  who  lake  on  the  federal  government,  Brenner  may 
find  that  lime  is  on  his  side.  The  reason:  legislation  passed  by  the 
Senate  in  the  101st  Congress  would  require  automatic  declassification 
of  Slate  Department  documents  30  years  after  the  events  they  chronicle. 
For  researchers  dealing  with  the  cnsis  that  brought  ihe  United  Slates 
and  the  Soviet  Union  to  the  brink  of  nuclear  war.  the  countdown  would 
stop  at  October  1992.  The  proposed  law  would  allow  Slate  Department 
documents  to  be  kept  secret  after  30  years  only  if  they  fit  one  of  three 
stnct  exemptions:  if  their  publication  would  compromise  "weapons 
technology  important  to  the  national  defense,"  reveal  the  names  of 
informants  still  ahve  who  would  be  harmed,  or  "demonstrably  impede" 
current  diplomatic  relations. 

Congress  adjourned  before  the  House  took  up  the  measure,  but  Senate 
supporters  are  confident  of  passage  m  the  next  session.  Brenner  and 
fellow  researcher  Scott  Armstrong  have  filed  a  Freedom  of  Information 
lawsuit  to  get  access  to  4,000  documents  they  say  are  being  withheld  by 
the  Slate  Department.  ("Lifting  the  Cuban  Missile  Crisis  Veil,"  The 
Washington  Post,  November  9) 

NOVEMBER  -  Treatment  with  steroid  hormones  can  halve  the  death 
rate  from  the  pneumonia  that  is  the  leading  killer  of  people  with  AIDS, 
a  panel  of  experts  has  concluded.  But  it  was  five  months  before  the 
government  agency  that  had  convened  the  experts  notified  AIDS  doctors 
of  the  finding.  In  part  because  the  experts  were  concerned  that  early 
notification  might  jeopardize  the  publication  of  their  conclusions  in  a 
prestigious  medical  journal.  Even  now,  six  months  after  the  finding, 
many  doctors  who  treat  AIDS  patients  say  they  have  not  been  informed 
of  it. 

The  expert  panel  was  convened  by  the  National  Institute  of  Allergy  and 
Infectious  Diseases  last  spring  to  determine  whether  steroids  would  be 
effective  in  treating  the  AIDS-related  pneumonia.  TTie  panel  reached  its 
conclusion  May  15  after  reviewing  five  studies  of  the  treatment,  some 
of  whose  authors  were  among  the  panel's  members.  But  it  delayed 
announcing  its  conclusion,  said  Dr.  Paul  Meier,  the  panel's 
vice-chairman,  because  Ihc  members  could  not  agree  on  how  to  work 
their  statement.  And  part  of  the  reason  they  could  not  agree,  he  said, 
was  that  their  papers  had  not  yet  been  accepted  at  the  prestigious 
medical  journal,  and  they  feared  that  an  announcement  of  the  fmding 
would  jeopardize  publication.  Many  medical  journals  have  a  policy 


against  publishing  studies  that  have  been  previously  described  in  the 
general-circulation  press. 

The  institute  did  not  alert  doctors  to  the  findings  until  October  10,  when 
it  mailed  a  letter  to  2,500  practitioners  on  a  list  obtained  from  a 
pharmaceuticals  company  which  makes  a  drug  used  to  prevent  Ihe 
pneumonia.  The  delay  has  infuriated  some  advocates  for  people  with 
AIDS.  Dr.  Jerome  Goopman,  an  AIDS  researcher  at  the  New  England 
Deaconess  Hospital  in  Boston,  said  the  episode  showed  that  it  was  time 
that  researchers,  administrators,  and  editors  of  medical  journals  together 
set  ground  rules  for  the  dissemination  of  mformation  that  could  save 
patients'  fives.  ("News  of  AIDS  TTierapy  Gain  Delayed  5  Months  by 
Agency,  The  New  York  Times,  November  14) 

[Ed.  note:  Responding  to  criticism  that  it  had  delayed  announcing  a 
Ufesavmg  treatment  for  people  with  AIDS,  the  federal  government 
issued  a  defense  in  the  form  of  an  elaborate  chronology  of  the  events 
that  occurred  over  a  five-month  period  before  letters  were  sent  to 
doctors  informing  them  of  the  treatment.  ("US.  Denies  Any  Delay  in 
Announcing  Treatment  for  AIDS  Patients."  The  New  York  Tunes, 
November  16)] 

NOVEMBER  -  Former  Secretary  of  Defense  Caspar  Weinberger  and 
former  Secretary  of  State  George  Shullz  made  special  arrangements  to 
get  thousands  of  pages  of  classified  mformation  to  help  them  wilh  their 
memoirs.  The  General  Accounting  Office  says  it  found  irregulanties  in 
the  handling  of  the  papers  for  both  Reagan  Cabinet  officers.  In  a  report 
to  Sen.  David  Pryor  (D-AR),  the  GAO  auditors  were  especially  cntical 
of  the  arrangement  for  the  Weinberger  papers,  which  were  deposited  at 
the  Library  of  Congress  as  though  he  owned  them.  "There  appears  to 
be  an  mverse  relationship  between  the  level  one  attams  in  the  executive 
branch  and  one's  obhgation  to  comply  with  the  law  governing  access 
to,  and  control  of,  classified  information,"  Pryor  charged  in  releasing 
the  report.  ("Special  Privileges  for  Ex-Cabinet  Members,"  The 
Washington  Post,  November  14) 

NOVEMBER  -  A  federal  judge  has  ordered  the  Food  and  Drug 
Admmistration  to  release  more  safety  data  on  silicon  breast  implants, 
a  move  the  Public  Citizen  Health  Research  Group  said  will  allow 
patients  more  access  to  mformation  about  the  safety  and  effectiveness 
of  drugs  and  medical  devices.  The  Federal  District  Court  judge,  Stanley 
Sporkin,  ruled  that  the  FDA  has  to  release  information  voluntarily 
submitted  by  manufacturers.  The  ruling  provides  a  long-sought  goal  of 
freeing  up  health  data  sought  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act. 

"It's  a  major,  major  victory,"  Dr.  Sidney  Wolfe,  director  of  the 
Washington-based  group,  said.  "We've  been  aUemptmg  since  1972  to 
get  the  courts  to  say  that  data  on  safety  and  effectiveness  of  drugs  and 
medical  devices  should  be  public.  If  upheld  on  appeal...,  we  will  use 
this  precedent  to  get  a  lot  of  data  that  will  help  us  oversee  what  the 
F.D.A.  is  doing."  The  Dow  Coming  Corporation,  the  country's  major 
maker  of  silicon  breast  implants,  said  it  would  appeal  to  prevent 
disclosure  of  what  it  considers  information  that  could  be  used  by  its 
competitors.  TTie  FDA  has  denied  some  information  act  requests,  saying 
certain  data  submitted  voluntarily  includes  trade  secrets  or  material  that 
is  company  property.  ("F.D.A.  Is  Ordered  to  Release  Data  on  the 
Safety  of  Breast  Implants."  The  New  York  Tunes,  November  29) 

NOVEMBER  -  In  memoirs  scheduled  for  publication  in  February 
1991.  former  senator  John  Tower  says  President  Reagan  and  his  top 


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June  -  December  1990 


jidcs  Incd  to  mislead  the  Tower  commission  and  cover  up  White  House 
involvement  in  a  kcv  aspect  ol  the  Iran-contra  allair  Tower  said  he  was 
shocked  when  Reagan  denied  that  the  White  House  j;avc  advance 
approval  for  an  Auj;ust  1985  shipment  ol  missiles  to  Iran,  in  contra- 
diction of  an  earlier  statement  by  the  fop.ier  president  Portions  of 
Tower  s  book.  Consequences  A  Personal  ami  Political  Memoir,  were 
published  in  the  November  29  Dallas  Tunes  Herald  Tower  wrote  that 
Reagan's  about-face  seemed  part  of  a  "deliberate  effort"  to  cover  up 
then-White  House  Chief  of  Suff  Donald  Regan's  involvement  m  the 
affair.  The  Tower  commission  report  had  noted  Reagan  s  shifting 
stones  about  the  missile  sale.  But  the  book  marks  the  first  time  a 
pnncipal  figure  has  suggested  the  changes  were  part  of  a  cover  up. 
I  Tower  Book  Accuses  Reagan  of  Coverup.  '  The  Washini^ion  Post. 
November  30) 


Edward  Kennedy  (D-MA),  asking  whether  the  Soviet  Union  had  located 
ihe  plane's  wreckage  or  the  passengers'  remains  No  answer  to  cither 
letter  has  been  received 

The  recent  letters  came  after  months  of  efforts  bv  the  senators  and 
several  colleagues  to  try  to  gel  American  authonties  to  help  fill  in  the 
j;aps  in  the  story  of  Korean  Air  Lines  Flight  007  Strong  cnticism  has 
been  directed  at  the  Federal  Aviation  Administration  and  the  State 
Department  for  taking  months  to  reply  to  senatonal  requests  for 
information  An  aide  to  Sen  Kennedy  said  that  replies  by  the  FAA  to 
specific  questions  about  communications  with  an  air  traffic  control  unit 
in  Alaska  the  night  of  the  incident  were  nonresponsive  and  evasive  " 
t  "Senators  Seek  Soviet  Answers  on  Flight  007."  The  New  York  Tunes. 
December  16) 


DECEMBER  -  Rep  Jack  Brooks  (DTX).  Chairoflhe  House  Judiciary 
Committee  has  accused  the  Justice  Department  ol  withholding  docu- 
ments to  frustrate  his  panels  probe  of  alleged  impropnelies  m  the 
departments  dealings  with  Inslaw  Inc  .  a  Washmgton-bascd  computer 
software  company  The  committee  is  considenng  whether  to  subpoena 
the  documents  or  to  attempt  in  some  other  way  to  lorce  the  department 
lo  produce  the  documents 

The  case  involves  Inslaw.  which  wrote  a  computer  program  that  allows 
the  Justice  Department  lo  keep  track  of  a  large  number  of  court  cases 
Inslaw  and  iLs  top  executive.  William  A  Hamilton,  have  accused  the 
department  of  conspiring  to  dnve  Inslaw  out  of  business  so  that  fnends 
of  high  ranking  Reagan  administration  officials  could  get  control  of  the 
program  and  market  it  profitably  Hamilton's  testimony  reasserted  those 
claims  A  federal  bankruptcy  judge  concluded  that  the  Justice  Depart- 
ment "stole"  Inslaws  propnetary  software  and  did.  in  fact,  try  lo  dnve 
the  firm  out  of  business.  Those  findings  were  upheld  on  appeal  by  a 
US.  distnct  judge,  but  the  legal  bailie  continues  (  "Justice  Department 
AccusedofKeepmg  Inslaw  Evidence.  '  77i^  Washington  Post.  December 
6) 

DECEMBER  -  Actmg  on  behalf  of  the  nation's  mayors.  New  York 
Mayor  David  Dmkins  made  a  final  plea  to  the  Bush  administration  to 
adjust  1990  census  totals  to  compensate  for  people  missed  in  the  census. 
In  a  meeting  with  Commerce  Secretary  Robert  Mosbacher.  Dinkins 
reiterated  his  concern  that  ihe  census  had  missed  millions  of  Amencans, 
many  of  ihem  low-incomc  minonties  hvmg  m  big  cities.  In  his  city 
alone,  census  work  conducted  over  the  past  months  has  missed  around 
800,000  residents,  DiiJans  said.  Dinkins  said  that  without  an  adjust- 
ment, which  would  add  or  subtract  population  based  on  a  statistical 
model,  "it  could  cost  us  a  billion  dollars  over  the  nexi  10  years." 
Commerce  officials,  who  oversee  the  Census  Bureau,  said  they  remam 
open  lo  an  adjusUnenl,  but  a  decision  will  not  be  made  until  next 
summer.  ("Adjust  Census,  Mayors  Urge  Admmistralion,"  77i* 
Washington  Post,  December  13) 

DECEMBER  -  Four  United  States  Senators  have  written  President 
Mikhail  Gorbachev  requesting  on  humanitarian  grounds  that  he  help 
clear  up  remaining  mystenes  about  the  Korean  airliner  shot  dowTi  m 
1983.  Several  days  after  the  crash,  Moscow  acknowledged  thai  the 
jumbo  jet  had  been  downed  by  a  Soviet  fighter.  But  it  is  not  known  m 
the  Western  world  whether  the  Soviet  authonties  ever  found  ihe  mam 
wreckage  or  remains  of  the  victims.  Sen.  Bill  Bradley  (D-NJ)  wrote  the 
Soviet  President  in  August  urging  that  the  official  findings  of  his 
country's  inquiries  be  made  public.  In  November,  a  letter  was  sent  to 
Gorbachev  by  Sens.  Sam  Nunn  (D-GA),   Carl  Levin  (D-MI),   and 


DECEMBER  -  Physicians  and  patients  told  a  congressional  panel  of  an 
array  ol  health  problems  associated  with  silicone  breast  implants,  and 
urged  that  Congress  require  safely  testing  and  nsk  disclosure.  The  Food 
and  Drug  Administration  has  received  2,017  reports  of  adverse 
reactions  from  silicone  implants,  according  to  Walter  Gundaker,  acting 
director  of  ihe  FDA  Center  lor  Devices  and  Radiological  Health  "We 
were  misled,  ill  Informed  and  even  sometimes  misinformed  by  people 
we  should  have  been  able  lo  trust."  said  Sybil  Niden  of  Beverly  Hills. 
Calif.,  who  sulferexJ  severe  complications  from  breast  implants  alter  a 
mastectomy  "What  we  needed,  what  is  still  needed,  is  more  mforma- 
lion,"  she  lold  the  House  Government  Operations  Subcommittee  on 
Human  Resources 

Silicone  breast  implants  have  been  used  since  the  early  1960s  When 
1976  amendments  to  the  Food,  Drug,  and  Cosmetic  Act  required 
regulations  of  medical  devices,  breast  implants  were  "grandfathered" 
into  the  market,  meaning  they  did  not  fall  under  the  new  regulation  In 
1 982.  the  FDA  proposed  that  silicone  implants  be  classified  as  high-nsk 
devices  FDA  officials  said  they  expect  a  rule  would  be  in  force  by 
March  requiring  manufacturers  lo  submit  safely  data  or  remove  thcu- 
products  from  the  market.  ("Hill  Told  of  Silicone  Breasl  Implant  Prob- 
lems," The  Washington  Post.  December  19) 


Earlier  chronologies  of  this  publication  were  combined  inlo 
an  indexed  version  covering  the  penod  April  1981  -December 
1987.  Updates  are  prepared  at  six-month  intervals.  Less 
Access...  updates  (from  the  January-June  1988  issue  lo  the 
present  publication)  are  available  for  $1.00;  the  indexed 
version  is  $7.00;  the  complete  set  is  $13.00.  Orders  must  be 
prepaid  and  include  a  self-addressed  mailing  label.  All 
orders  must  be  obtained  from  the  Amencan  Library  Associa- 
tion Washington  Office,  110  Maryland  Ave.  NE.  #101, 
Washmgton,  DC  20002-5675;  tel.  no.  202-547-4440,  fax  no. 
202-547-7363. 


Page  9 


DEC   ^^'  199^ 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1  10  Maryland  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel.  202-547-4440;  Fax  202-547-7363;  ALANET  ALA0025 

June  1991 


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

A  1991  Chronology:  January  -  June 
INTRODUCTION 


During  the  past  ten  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has  docu- 
mented administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize  govern- 
ment information.  A  combination  of  specific  policy  decisions, 
the  administration's  interpretations  and  implementations  of 
the  1980  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  (PL  96-511,  as  amended 
by  PL  99-500)  and  agency  budget  cuts  have  significantly 
limited  access  to  public  documents  and  statistics. 

The  pending  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act 
should  provide  an  opportunity  to  limit  OMB's  role  in 
controlling  information  collected,  created,  and  disseminated 
by  the  federal  govenmient.  However,  the  bills  that  have  been 
introduced  in  the  102nd  Congress  would  accelerate  the 
current  trend  to  commercialize  and  privatize  government 
information. 

Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  government's  16,000 
publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since  1985,  the  Office  of 
Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its  government 
information  control  powers,  particularly  through  Circular 
A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources.  This 
circular  requires  cost-benefit  analysis  of  government  informa- 
tion activities,  maximum  reliance  on  the  private  sector  for  the 
dissemination  of  government  information,  and  cost  recovery 
through  user  charges.  OMB  has  announced  plans  to  revise 
this  controversial  circular  in  1991,  but  a  draft  revision  is  not 
yet  available. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  utilize 
computer  and  telecommunications  technologies  for  data 
collection,  storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend 
has  resulted  in  the  increased  emergence  of  contractual 
information   collected    at    taxpayer    expense,    higher   user 


arrangements  with  commercial  firms  to  disseminate  charges 
for  government  information,  and  the  proliferation  of  govern- 
ment information  available  in  electronic  format  only.  While 
automation  clearly  offers  promises  of  savings,  will  public 
access  to  government  information  be  further  restricted  for 
people  who  catmot  afford  computers  or  pay  for  computer 
time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have  begun 
to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public  access 
to  government  information  will  be  increased. 

The  restrictive  and  controversial  information  policy  imposed 
by  the  administration  during  the  Persian  Gulf  War  was  the 
most  prominent  government  information  issue  of  the  first  half 
of  1991. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolu- 
tion passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and 
ready  access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  pub- 
lished in  any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States." 
In  1986,  ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Informa- 
tion. The  Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention 
on  all  efforts  that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and 
to  develop  support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government 
information. 

With  access  to  information  a  major  ALA  priority,  members 
should  be  concerned  about  this  series  of  actions  which  creates 
a  climate  in  which  government  information  activities  are 
suspect.  Previous  chronologies  were  compiled  in  an  ALA 
Washington  Office  publication.  Less  Access  to  Less  Informa- 
tion By  and  About  the  U.S.  Government:  A  1981-1987 
Chronology.  The  following  chronology  continues  semiannual 
updates  published  in  1988,  1989,  and  1990. 


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1991 


CHRONOLOGY 


JANUARY  -  Workers  at  a  training  complex  in  West  Milton, 
N.Y.,  have  accused  the  Navy's  nuclear  reactor  program  of 
serious  safety  lapses  and  say  they  were  disciplined  for  raising 
safety  concerns.  Their  allegations,  denied  by  program  officials, 
have  contributed  to  pressure  for  wider  scrutiny  of  the  training 
and  research  centers,  which  make  up  the  only  branch  of  the 
government's  nuclear  defense  program  with  its  secrecy  mostly 
intact. 

Federal  officials  and  executives  of  General  Electric,  which 
runs  several  facilities  for  the  Navy,  said  the  program  had  an 
enviable  safety  record  and  no  serious  operating  problems.  But 
they  acknowledge  that  this  was  impossible  for  an  outsider  to 
verify,  because  the  records  are  classified.  The  classified  records 
include  virtually  all  the  information  on  whether  the  program  has 
suffered  accidents,  as  four  long-time  workers  assert. 

Sen.  John  Glenn  (D-OH),  the  chief  legislative  force  behind 
revealing  shortcomings  of  the  nuclear  weapons  program,  said: 
"If  there's  one  thing  we  have  found  in  the  rest  of  the  nuclear 
weapons  facilities,  it's  that  secrecy  bred  comer-cutting  that  got 
us  into  deep  trouble,  and  has  bred  contempt  for  safety  and  for 
waste  concerns." 

Navy  officials  contend:  "A  self-regulating  organization,  such 
as  Naval  Reactors,  which  demands  technical  excellence  and  high 
standards,  and  employs  strict  discipline  and  encourages  self- 
criticisms,  can  do  its  job  well."  But  critics— most  prominently, 
long-time  employees  no  longer  at  the  plant — say  that  self- 
regulation  has  meant  no  regulation. 

The  struggle  over  information  has  at  times  taken  bizarre 
twists.  Aided  by  the  Government  Accountability  Project, 
workers  sued  General  Electric  over  a  "security  newsletter"  that 
threatened  life-time  imprisonment  for  disclosing  information 
without  prior  approval.  After  the  suit  was  filed,  the  lab  issued  a 
second  newsletter  diluting  the  first.  In  May  1990,  it  issued  a 
third  newsletter  incorporating  some  of  the  same  language  as  the 
first,  and  in  June  a  fourth  notice  retracted  the  third,  saying  it  had 
been  distributed  in  error. 

Illustrating  the  degree  to  which  security  considerations 
pervade  discussions  of  safety,  a  G.E.  official  said  that  the 
reactor  facility  had  been  the  subject  of  dozens  of  articles  in  The 
Schenectady  Gazette  in  the  last  two  years  and  that  an  adversary, 
by  accumulating  facts  that  were  individually  unrevealing,  could 
piece  together  classified  information.  Asked  if  any  classified 
information  had  been  thus  revealed,  he  replied  that  the  answer 
to  that  question  was  classified.  ("Questions  Raised  About  the 
Safety  of  Navy  Reactors,"  The  New  York  Times,  January  1) 

JANUARY  -  The  Pentagon  was  eager  to  aimounce  how  many 
tanks,  troops,  and  airplanes  it  had  arrayed  against  Iraq.  The 
Pentagon  spoke  in  less-specific,  less-grand  terms  about  how 
many  U.S.  soldiers  could  die  if  war  broke  out  in  the  Persian 
Gulf.  But  what  the  Pentagon  would  not  say  was  how  many  body 


bags  and  coffins  it  had  stockpiled  in  Saudi  Arabia  to  handle 
those  casualties.  That  information  was  "classified."  ("Pentagon 
Classifies  Talk  of  Body  Bags, "  The  Washington  Post,  January  2) 

JANUARY  -  The  Pentagon's  release  of  guidelines  for  media 
coverage  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  including  a  controversial  require- 
ment that  journalists  submit  their  war  coverage  to  military 
review,  signaled  the  beginning  of  what  became  the  biggest 
government  information-related  story  thus  far  in  1991. 

Gone  from  the  rules  as  proposed  the  previous  week  was  a 
provision  that  prohibited  reporters  from  approaching  military 
officials  unaimounced  for  spontaneous  interviews.  Also  dropped 
was  an  outright  ban  on  publication  of  photographs  or  video 
showing  troops  in  agony  or  "severe  shock."  Instead,  the 
Pentagon  requested  that  such  photographs  or  video  not  be 
released  before  next  of  kin  have  been  notified. 

The  security  review  would  force  journalists  who  cover  the 
war  from  Pentagon  combat  press  pools  to  submit  their  work  for 
review  by  military  public  affairs  officers.  The  new  language  for 
this  controversial  process  indicated  that  any  material  that  did  not 
pass  review  would  be  the  subject  of  discussions  between 
Pentagon  spokesman  Pete  Williams  and  news  executives. 
Williams  stressed  that  such  a  procedure  meant  the  review  could 
not  and  would  not  become  censorship.  ("Rules  Set  for  Media," 
The  Washington  Post,  January  4) 

JANUARY  -  The  U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture  has  7,(XX) 
federal  inspectors  who  inspect  meat  and  poultry  products.  But 
the  program  has  become  increasingly  expensive  and  threats  of 
inspector  furloughs  continually  hang  in  the  air.  So  do  charges 
from  consumer  groups  and  others  that  the  system  is  inade- 
quate—inspectors cannot  detect  by  sight  or  feel  chemical  residues 
or  bacteria  on  meat  and  poultry  that  can  make  people  sick.  In  the 
meantime,  health  authorities  have  become  more  vocal  in  their 
concern  about  the  growing  number  of  food  poisoning  out- 
breaks— and  meat  and  poultry  get  a  large  share  of  the  blame. 

Officials  at  the  Food  Safety  and  Inspection  Service,  the 
USDA  agency  responsible  for  meat  and  poultry  inspection,  are 
currently  trying  to  modernize  80-year-old  systems  amid  a 
barrage  of  criticisms  about  how  they  are  going  about  it.  The 
latest  plan  to  upgrade  inspection  is  being  heavily  promoted  by 
the  agency,  although  many  charge  that  FSIS  is  more  interested 
in  reducing  its  own  costs  and  keeping  the  industry  happy  than  in 
protecting  public  health. 

"USDA's  approach  to  modernization  is  for  fewer  inspectors 
to  spend  less  time  looking  at  more  food  whizzing  by  at  drastical- 
ly faster  line  speeds.  That's  a  recipe  for  food  {K)isoning,"  said 
Thomas  Devine  of  the  Government  Accountability  Project. 

FSIS  has  been  conducting  research  in  a  poultry  slaughtering 
plant  in  Puerto  Rico  for  the  past  several  years  to  find  out  where 
in  the  slaughtering  process  birds  might  be  spreading  harmfiil 


ALA  Washington  Oflke 


June  1991 


Less  Access... 


January  -  June  1991 


bacteria,  but  has  so  far  refused  to  divulge  the  results.  A  former 
agency  microbiologist,  Gerald  Kuester,  publicly  accused  FSIS 
last  year  of  hiding  the  damaging  news  that  nearly  80  percent  of 
the  birds  that  left  the  plant  were  salmonella-contaminated.  "You 
never  release  scientific  data  until  it's  been  peer  reviewed,  and  it 
will  be,"  said  Lester  Crawford,  administrator  of  FSIS.  Since  the 
study  was  begun,  however,  its  focus  has  shifted  to  finding  ways 
to  prevent  the  birds  from  coming  into  the  plants  contaminated, 
since  it  appears  difficult  with  current  slaughtering  methods  to 
keep  contamination  from  spreading  to  other  birds.  ("Can  USD  A 
Inspectors  Do  More  With  Less?"  The  Washington  Post,  January 
9) 

JANUARY  -  A  six-page  article,  "Dr.  Nogood,"  in  the  January 
1 1  City  Paper  discussed  the  long-awaited  National  Practitioner 
Data  Bank,  a  computerized  record  of  medical  malpractice 
payments  and  disciplinary  actions  against  physicians,  dentists, 
psychotherapists,  and  other  medical  professionals.  Author  Peter 
Blumberg  {X)inted  out: 

As  a  repository  of  critical  information  about  misdiag- 
noses, mistreatment,  and  professional  misconduct,  the 
Data  Bank  is  supposed  to  provide  a  screening  tool  for 
hospitals  and  other  institutions  that  hire  doctors,  and  to 
expose  bad  doctors  who  shed  their  reputations  by  moving 
from  state  to  state  every  time  they  get  in  trouble.  The 
Data  Bank  makes  finding  the  skeletons  in... [a]  closet  as 
simple  as  dialing  a  toll-free  line  and  paying  a  $2  fee. 

But  there's  a  catch — the  public  is  explicitly  forbidden  to  tap 
into  the  Data  Bank.  The  authorizing  legislation,  the  Health  Care 
Quality  Improvement  Act  of  1986,  makes  the  information 
available  only  to  "authorized  parties."  The  authorized  parties 
include  hospitals,  health  maintenance  organizations,  group 
practices,  state  licensing  boards  of  medicine,  and  professional 
societies,  all  of  which  are  required  to  query  the  Data  Bank 
before  granting  any  staff  or  membership  privileges  to  a  physi- 
cian. Any  member  of  the  general  public  who  extracts  informa- 
tion from  the  Data  Bank  is  subject  to  a  $10,000  civil  fme. 

Why  would  Congress  create  an  information  clearinghouse  to 
protect  the  public  from  bad  doctors  and  then  make  it  off-limits 
to  the  very  people  it  seeks  to  protect?  The  short  answer: 
Organized  medicine  pressured  legislators  to  make  Data  Bank 
information  confidential.  The  prevailing  attitude  of  the  medical 
community— then  and  now— is  that  if  the  records  were  open, 
people  would  make  the  wrong  judgments  about  doctors  for  the 
wrong  reason. 

Sidney  Wolfe,  head  of  the  Public  Citizen  Health  Research 
Group,  says:  "This  idea  that  the  public  is  too  dumb  and  will 
misunderstand  the  information  is  just  an  incredible  slap  in  the 
face  of  patients.  This  'Don't  you  trust  me?'  attitude  on  the  part 
of  doctors  is  unacceptable  in  1990.  It  should  have  been  unac- 
ceptable in  1 890,  but  it  reflects  several  millennia  of  physicians 
believing  they  are  above  and  beyond  their  patients. " 


JANUARY  -  The  National  Weather  Service's  $3  billion 
upgrading  is  so  far  behind  schedule  that  the  agency  is  forced  to 
rely  on  deteriorating  equipment,  a  dependence  that  meteorolo- 
gists in  and  out  of  government  say  could  jeopardize  the  service's 
ability  to  warn  of  dangerous  storms. 

One  agency  report  said  a  new  radar  systems  that  should  have 
been  installed  beginning  last  year  may  not  be  ready  until  1997. 
Another  report,  written  by  an  agency  consultant,  said  that 
management  problems  have  led  to  costly  delays  in  the  program, 
the  most  comprehensive  retooling  in  the  service's  100-year 
history.  Many  weather  experts  who  once  viewed  the  program  as 
the  opening  to  a  new  age  of  modem  meteorology  now  say  that 
these  problems  could  leave  forecasters  without  the  ability  to 
gather  much  of  the  basic  information  they  need  to  predict  the 
weather. 

Most  of  the  report  on  the  new  radar  describes  problems  the 
government  perceives  with  Unisys,  the  large  computer  manufac- 
turer. Company  executives  said  that  its  serious  financial  prob- 
lems would  not  affect  its  ability  to  fulflll  the  contract. 

Staffing  cuts  present  still  more  problems.  Three  hundred 
fewer  employees  are  working  in  Weather  Service  offices  around 
the  country  than  there  were  10  years  ago,  because  the  agency 
began  to  trim  to  a  level  appropriate  for  the  new  equipment  even 
though  it  is  not  yet  installed.  Richard  J.  Him,  the  general 
counsel  for  the  union  of  Weather  Service  employees,  said  the 
unfilled  jobs  hurt  the  service's  ability  to  issue  warnings. 

A  flood  in  Shadyside,  Ohio,  that  killed  26  people  last 
summer  is  cited  by  the  union  and  the  Weather  Service  as  an 
example  of  the  risks  the  public  faces  because  of  problems  at  the 
agency.  The  Weather  Service  said  the  radar  outside  Akron, 
Ohio,  was  too  weak  to  determine  the  extent  of  the  storm,  which 
could  have  led  to  warnings.  The  union  said  staffmg  cuts  at  the 
Akron  office  left  meteorologists  there  unable  to  gather  enough 
information  to  adequately  warn  the  public.  ("Costly  Errors 
Setting  Back  Weather  Service,"  The  New  York  Times,  January 
13) 

JANUARY  -  The  Defense  Department  is  facing  a  formidable 
enemy — multimillion-dollar  computer  systems  that  are  so 
complex  they  threaten  to  immobilize  weapons.  Some  of  the 
Pentagon's  big-ticket  items  are  being  held  hostage  to  their 
computers.  According  to  two  congressional  investigations,  the 
Army's  Apache  helicopter,  the  Air  Force's  B-IB  and  "stealth" 
B-2  bombers,  the  Navy's  Los  Angeles-class  attack  submarines, 
and  the  Trident  II  missile  program  all  have  suffered  cost 
ovemms  and  production  delays  because  of  the  computer  system 
they  have  in  common— called  embedded  computer  systems. 

Bugs  and  design  changes  in  the  BUSY  1  and  2  and  the 
ALQ-161  embedded  computer  systems  have  left  some  of  the 
newest  weapons  of  war  brainless.  Govemment  documents 
obtained  by  Jack  Anderson's  reporter  Paul  Parkinson  show  that 
it  takes  more  than  800  software  programmers  to  input  3.2 
million  lines  of  instructions  in  the  BUSY  2  so  the  Navy's  latest 
super  submarine,  the  Seawolf,  can  be  launched.  ("U.S.  Weapons 


ALA  Washington  OfTice 


June  1991 


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1991 


at  Mercy  of  Computers,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  16) 

JANUARY  -  A  strict  information  policy  was  imposed  by  the 
Bush  administration  on  the  war  against  Iraq,  with  few  specific 
details  made  available  to  reporters  and  the  public  about  the  first 
day  of  the  bombing  against  targets  in  Baghdad  and  Kuwait. 

In  the  first  hours  of  the  war,  reporting  pools  were  deployed 
to  watch  as  fighter  planes  took  off  from  Saudi  Arabian  bases  and 
were  allowed  to  speak  with  returning  pilots.  Both  print  and  video 
reports  were  screened,  and  while  there  did  not  appear  to  be 
significant  censorship  of  the  earliest  dispatches,  reporters  said 
some  deletions  had  been  made  by  military  officers. 

The  reporting  regulations  are  the  most  restrictive  since  the 
Korean  War  and  in  some  ways  even  more  so,  since  reporters 
then  were  not  confined  to  escorted  pools.  American  reporters 
generally  accepted  censorship  in  both  world  wars  and  Korea,  but 
there  were  few  restrictions  on  reporting  in  Vietnam:  reporters 
were  free  to  make  their  way  around  combat  areas  and  their 
reports  were  not  screened.  There  is  widespread  agreement  that 
the  distrust  of  the  press  inherent  in  the  Pentagon's  rules  for 
coverage  of  the  gulf  war  is  part  of  the  legacy  of  Vietnam. 
("Government's  Strict  Policy  Limit  Reports,"  The  New  York 
Times,  January  18) 

JANUARY  -  Journalists  covering  the  war  against  Iraq  were  not 
the  only  ones  complaining  about  censorship  by  the  Defense 
Department.  Some  of  the  troops  complained  too.  American 
soldiers  interviewed  in  remote  camps  in  the  Saudi  desert  said 
that  the  amount  of  news  programming  on  Armed  Forces  Radio 
broadcast  in  Saudi  Arabia  had  been  sharply  reduced  since  the 
war  began  the  previous  week.  "It's  the  lack  of  news  that  gets 
people  anxious,"  said  Capt.  Roger  Wandell  of  Orlando,  Fla. 
"You  start  to  wonder  what  they  are  keeping  from  us."  ("Soldiers 
Fault  Lack  of  News  Since  War  Began,"  The  New  York  Times, 
January  22) 

JANUARY  -  An  appeals  board  will  not  give  115  fired  Chicago 
air  traffic  controllers  another  chance  at  their  old  jobs,  despite 
evidence  that  their  agency  falsified  some  of  their  employment 
records.  The  Merit  Systems  Protection  Board  said  it  did  "not 
[emphasis  in  original]  condone  the  undisclosed  alteration  of 
agency  records  submitted  for  inclusion  in  the  official  record." 
But  controllers  failed  to  p>ersuade  the  board  that  those  records 
were  changed  purposely  to  give  the  false  appearance  that  the 
controllers  had  gone  out  on  the  illegal  1981  strike.  President 
Reagan  fired  all  striking  controllers. 

The  controllers  asked  the  board  to  take  another  look  at  their 
cases  after  a  congressional  oversight  subcommittee  reported  the 
Federal  Aviation  Administration  doctored  records  to  justify  the 
firing  of  the  controllers.  The  appeals  court  upheld  the  decision 
of  the  MSPB:  "Because  of  their  reliance  on  a  broadside  attack 
against  the  [FAA's]  case,"  the  court  wrote,  the  controllers 
"failed  to  address  or  counter  in  any  way  the  crucial  findings... on 
the  accuracy  and  the  reliability  of  the  documents."  ("Despite 


Falsified  Records,  Fired  Controllers  Still  Off  the  Job,"  Federal 
Times,  January  31) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  a  three-page  essay  in  Time,  Lance  Morrow 
asks,  "Where  was  the  truth?"  as  he  describes  the  allies'  struggle 
to  control  the  flood  of  news  as  Saddam  forced  battered  prisoners 
of  war  to  tell  lies  on  Iraqi  television.  Quoting  Senator  Hiram 
Johnson's  1917  statement:  "The  first  casualty  when  war  comes 
is  truth."  Morrow  then  goes  on  to  say: 

But  that  is  too  simple  a  metaphor  for  what  is  happen- 
ing in  the  first  war  of  the  age  of  global  information. 
Truth  and  elaborate  lies,  hard  fact  and  hallucination,  have 
become  central  motifs  in  the  gulf.  A  war  of  words  and 
images  has  taken  up  a  life  of  its  own,  parallel  to  the  one 
in  the  sand. . . . 

The  Pentagon  and  the  Bush  Administration  have  come 
close  to  achieving  their  goal  of  forcing  journalists— and 
the  public— to  rely  solely  on  the  information  supplied  by 
briefers  or  gathered  in  pool  interviews  in  the  field.  Doing 
away  with  independent  reporting  has  been  the  Pentagon's 
goal  ever  since  Vietnam.  The  military  has  set  up  a  system 
of  media  p>ools  to  cover  the  initial  stages  of  the  operation, 
controlling  reporters'  movements  and  their  access  to 
sources.  The  system  works  brilliantly  from  the  Penta- 
gon's point  of  view,  but  it  has  subverted  the  coverage  of 
the  war  and  given  it  a  dismal,  canned  quality. 

In  the  midst  of  all  the  spectacle,  items  of  honest  truth 
have  died  of  manipulation  and  censorship.  The  drama  in 
the  gulf  commands  eerie  and  unprecedented  high-tech 
global  attention,  and  yet  the  volume  of  real  information 
about  the  conduct  of  the  war  is  small.  The  public  does 
not  know  how  effective  the  allied  strikes  against  Iraq 
have  been,  for  example,  or  how  heavy  the  civilian 
casualties  may  have  been.  Clausewitz's  "fog  of  war" — a 
phrase  endlessly  repeated  these  days — has  become  a 
bright  electrical  cloud  of  unknowing. 

("The  Fog  of  War,"  Time,  February  4) 

FEBRUARY  -  A  book  by  a  former  Iran-Contra  prosecutor 
accused  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  of  bribing  officials  in 
Costa  Rica  to  allow  the  construction  of  an  airstrip  to  resupply 
the  Nicaraguan  rebels.  The  book,  by  Jeffrey  R.  Toobin,  also 
said  the  CIA  hampered  the  subsequent  criminal  investigation  into 
the  payments  to  Costa  Rican  officials.  The  CIA  operation  in 
Costa  Rica,  which  would  have  violated  federal  law  against  aiding 
the  rebels  in  Nicaragua,  is  one  of  several  previously  undisclosed 
incidents  described  in  the  book.  Opening  Arguments.  The  affair 
centered  on  efforts  to  provide  military  aid  to  rebels  in  part  using 
profits  of  secret  arms  sales  to  Iran  from  1984  to  late  1986.  The 
book  provides  the  strongest  evidence  yet  that  the  United  States 
used  its  money  and  influence  in  Central  America  to  persuade 
governments  there  to  assist  the  Contras.  President  Bush  has 


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denied  that  any  such  quid  pro  quo  agreements  existed.  Interviews 
by  the  prosecutors  with  CIA  officials  provided  little  help.  "Our 
iiriends  at  the  agency  did  not  remember  anything,"  Toobin 
wrote.  "With  a  few  courageous  exceptions,  most  of  our  CIA 
witnesses  suffered  stunning  memory  lapses. "  The  book  has  been 
at  the  center  of  a  long  prepublication  legal  battle.  The  book  was 
filed  under  seal  in  court  as  part  of  the  case,  and  in  early 
February,  Federal  District  Judge  John  Keenan  in  Manhattan 
ruled  that  Penguin  USA  was  free  to  publish  it  over  the  objections 
of  Lawrence  Walsh,  the  Iran-Contra  independent  prosecutor. 
("Book  Accuses  the  C.I. A.  in  a  Contra  Aid  Scheme,"  The  New 
York  Times,  February  5) 

FEBRUARY  -  Jack  Anderson  reported:  "The  Environmental 
Protection  Agency's  habit  of  keeping  dirty  secrets  to  itself  could 
prove  deadly  in  several  communities  across  the  nation."  Govern- 
ment investigative  reports  he  has  obtained  show  widespread 
lapses  in  the  EPA's  handling  of  the  banned  herbicide  Dinoseb. 
Huge  stockpiles  of  the  chemical  are  stored  around  the  country 
waiting  for  EPA  disposal.  And  some  of  those  stockpiles  are 
leaking,  unbeknownst  to  the  emergency  planners  in  the  cities  and 
states  where  the  chemical  is  stored. 

In  Goldsboro,  N.C.,  nearly  32,000  gallons  of  Dinoseb  were 
temporarily  stored  at  a  warehouse  near  the  river  that  is  the 
source  of  drinking  water  for  70,000  people.  In  1989,  the  EPA 
inspector  general  checked  the  site  and  found  some  containers 
were  rusted  and  leaking,  taking  the  risk  of  poisoning  ground- 
water. City  officials  did  not  know  it  was  there.  Laboratory 
animals  exposed  to  Dinoseb  had  offspring  with  serious  birth 
defects.  Researchers  found  increased  incidence  of  sterility  among 
farm  workers  using  it.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  water  in 
Goldsboro  has  been  tainted  by  Dinoseb,  but  it  appears  that  the 
EPA  is  not  interested  in  assuring  that  it  will  not  be  tainted  in  the 
future. 

The  EPA  inspector  general  team  says  it  found  leaking 
containers  there,  and  put  that  in  writing  last  year.  But  an  EPA 
spokeswoman  in  Washington  says  there  were  no  leaks,  only 
rust.  And  a  regional  EPA  official  said:  "Our  records  don't 
indicate  there  was  a  leak,  so  there  is  not  a  reason  for  us  to  test 
that  area. "  The  inspector  general  also  said  local  authorities  were 
not  notified  about  the  Dinoseb  as  they  should  have  been. 
However,  EPA  headquarters  said  it's  not  their  job  to  tell  the 
local  authorities,  nor  is  the  EPA  responsible  for  making  sure  the 
storage  site  is  safe  until  the  EPA  officially  takes  over  the  site  to 
handle  disposal.  But  firefighters  in  Goldsboro,  whose  jurisdiction 
covers  the  storage  site,  did  not  know  the  Dinoseb  was  there. 
("EPA  Secrets  Seeping  Through  Cracks,"  The  Washington  Post, 
February  8) 

FEBRUARY  -  Frustration  grew  among  journalists  who  said  the 
Pentagon  was  choking  off  coverage  of  the  war  by  refiising  to 
dispatch  more  than  a  handful  of  military-escorted  pools  with 
ground  forces,  and  by  barring  those  who  ventured  into  the  desert 
on  their  own.  At  stake,  in  the  view  of  these  critical  journalists. 


is  whether  reporters  will  serve  essentially  as  conveyor  belts  for 
the  scanty  information  dispensed  at  official  briefings  and  gleaned 
from  the  limited  access  afforded  the  pools. 

Defense  officials  offered  three  basic  reasons  for  insisting  that 
coverage  be  provided  by  small  pools  of  journalists— representing 
newspapers,  television,  radio,  magazines,  and  wire  serv- 
ices—who must  give  their  colleagues  left  behind  written  reports 
of  what  they  see  and  hear.  First,  they  say  the  pools  are  neces- 
sary for  the  reporters'  physical  safety.  Second,  military  officers 
must  review  the  pool  reports  to  prevent  the  release  of  informa- 
tion that  could  jeopardize  U.S.  forces.  Finally,  officials  say,  it 
would  be  impractical  to  allow  the  more  than  800  reporters  now 
in  Saudi  Arabia  to  roam  the  desert  battlefield  at  will. 

Questions  about  the  pool  system  are  "like  asking  whether  a 
smoothly  functioning  dictatorship  is  working  well,"  said  Stanley 
Cloud,  Time  magazine's  Washington  bureau  chief.  "Yeah,  it's 
working  well,  but  we  shouldn't  have  to  put  up  with  it.  We're 
getting  only  the  information  the  Pentagon  wants  us  to  get.  This 
is  an  intolerable  effort  by  the  government  to  manage  and  control 
the  press,"  he  said.  "We  have  ourselves  to  blame  every  bit  as 
much  as  the  Pentagon.  We  never  should  have  agreed  to  this 
system  in  the  first  place."  The  pool  system  was  established  by 
the  Pentagon  in  1984  in  response  to  complaints  that  journalists 
had  been  excluded  from  the  U.S.  invasion  of  Grenada.  ("Jour- 
nalists Say  'Pools'  Don't  Work,"  The  Washington  Post, 
February  11) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  his  briefing  on  the  Department  of  Energy 
fiscal  1992  budget.  Secretary  James  Watkins  disclosed  the  cost 
of  cleaning  up  the  nuclear  and  toxic  wastes  and  restoring  the 
environment  at  the  department's  12-state  nuclear  weapons 
manufacturing  complex.  The  costs  of  the  cleanup  vary  according 
to  which  Energy  Department  activities  are  included,  but  by 
current  calculations  the  price  tag  has  risen  from  $2.3  billion  in 
1990  to  $3.5  billion  in  the  current  year  to  a  projected  $4.2 
billion  next  year.  The  costs  will  approach  $5  billion  a  year  by 
1996.  The  Energy  Department  has  said  the  task  will  take  30 
years  and  cost  many  tens  of  billions  of  dollars. 

In  a  report  released  on  February  1 1 ,  the  congressional  Office 
of  Technology  Assessment  said  bluntly  that  the  Energy  Depart- 
ment may  not  be  the  right  agency  to  manage  this  huge  task, 
partly  because  of  its  shortcomings  and  partly  because  the  public 
does  not  trust  it.  The  department's  "stated  goal — to  clear  up  all 
weapons  sites  within  30  years — is  unfounded  because  it  is  not 
based  on  meaningful  estimates  of  the  work  to  be  done  or  the 
level  of  cleanup  to  be  accomplished  at  the  end  of  that  time,"  the 
report  said.  It  said  the  department  lacks  scientific  evidence  to 
support  its  contention  that  the  factories  present  no  imminent 
public  health  danger,  adding  that  "the  technical  and  institutional 
resources  and  processes  to  make  and  implement  sound,  publicly 
acceptable  decisions"  are  not  in  place.  ("Energy's  'Mountain 
Building  Up',"  The  Washington  Post,  February  12) 

FEBRUARY  -  U.S.  officials  partially  relaxed  their  "blackout" 


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on  news  of  the  ground  invasion  of  Kuwait  less  than  12  hours 
after  it  was  imposed,  as  some  officials  conceded  the  restrictions 
had  gone  too  far  and  initial  reports  showed  allied  forces  faring 
well.  Although  Defense  Secretary  Richard  Cheney  announced 
that  briefings  on  the  war  would  be  suspended  for  an  undeter- 
mined period  of  time,  the  administration  moved  quickly  on 
February  24  to  ensure  that  positive  news  filtered  throughout  the 
blackout. 

Howell  Raines,  Washington  bureau  chief  of  the  New  York 
Times,  said  Defense  Department  officials  were  using  legitimate 
security  concerns  "as  a  means  of  imposing  the  blanket  manage- 
ment of  information  of  a  sort  we've  never  seen  in  this  country. 
If  they've  loosened  it  today,  it  was  because  they  had  good  news 
to  repwrt  and  it  was  in  their  interest  to  report  it.  What  they've 
put  in  place  is  a  mechanism  to  block  out  bad  news  and  to  keep 
good  news  in  the  forefront."  But  Army  Col.  Miguel 
Monteverde,  the  Pentagon's  director  of  defense  information,  said 
officials  simply  realized  that  some  of  the  restrictions  were 
impractical. 

The  U.S.  blackout  stood  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  1944  D-Day 
invasion  of  Normandy,  when  27  U.S.  journalists  accompanied 
allied  forces  and  filed  stories  that  day.  Military  historians  say 
blackouts  were  not  used  during  the  Korean  War  and  were  briefly 
imp>osed  only  twice  during  the  Vietnam  War.  ("U.S.  Lets  Some 
News  Filter  Through  'Blackout',"  The  Washington  Post, 
February  25) 

MARCH  -  The  Spring  issue  of  Drug  Abuse  Update  cited  the 
following  example  as  "the  grossest  misrepresentation  that  we 
have  seen,"  of  how  "some  for-profit  organizations  are  marketing 
tax -produced  publications  outside  the  spirit  of  the  law": 

A  publisher  in  New  York,  Business  Research  Publica- 
tions, Inc.,  markets  a  monthly  drug-abuse  newsletter  it 
publishes  for  an  annual  subscription  of  $189.  Subscribers 
will  receive  a  free  report  published  by  the  U.S.  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  entitled  What  Works:  Workplaces  Without 
Drugs,  that  Business  Research  Publications  has  repub- 
lished. The  marketing  piece  fails  to  say  that  the  report  is 
free  to  ALL  citizens,  regardless  of  their  decision  to  pay 
the  hefty  $189  annual  subscription  rate.  Without  a 
subscription  request,  the  report  is  still  available  from  this 
company  for  $71.  You  read  it  right— a  free  booklet 
developed  and  published  by  the  United  States  Department 
of  Labor  is  hawked  for  $71  by  this  New  York  firm. 
Another  publication  advertised  by  the  same  firm  is  Model 
for  a  Comprehensive  Drug-Free  Workplace  Program  for 
$85.  This  report  comes  from  the  National  Institute  on 
Drug  Abuse. 

Material  published  by  government  agencies  is  in  the 
public  domain.  It  is  reproducible  for  no  charge.  The 
government,  in  fact,  encourages  reproduction  to  increase 
circulation.  Any  organization  or  individual  who  reproduc- 
es a  government  publication  can  in  turn  charge  for  the 


expense  incurred  in  the  reproduction.  The  question  is,  do 
$71  and  $85  fees  constitute  a  fair-market  value  for  a 
retyped,  government-agency  booklet  bound  by  a  plastic 
spiral? 

We  need  truth  in  advertising,  but  more  important, 
profiteers  need  to  hear  this  message:  Prevention  dollars 
are  too  scarce  for  any  of  us  to  pay  twice  for  drug- 
education  publications.  Human  resource  managers  in  the 
workplace  need  to  hear  this  message:  What  Works: 
Workplaces  Without  Drugs  and  Model  Plan  for  a  Com- 
prehensive Drug-Free  Workplace  Program  may  be 
ordered  free  of  charge  from  the  National  Clearinghouse 
for  Alcohol  and  Drug  Information,  1-800-729-6686.  You 
can  learn  about  other  free  materials  by  ordering  a  catalog 
of  resources  from  the  Clearinghouse  at  the  same  number. 
("Public-Domain  Prevention  Materials  Sold  for  Big 
Bucks,"  Drug  Abuse  Update,  Spring  1991) 

MARCH  -  Federal  courts  charge  high  prices  for  providing 
copies  of  judicial  documents  to  discourage  requests.  This 
practice  is  the  subject  of  a  General  Accounting  Office  report 
requested  by  Rep.  Bob  Wise  (D-WV),  chair  of  the  House 
Subcommittee  on  Government  Information,  Justice,  and  Agricul- 
ture. GAO  found  that  the  administrative  office  of  the  U.S. 
Courts  does  not  have  a  p)olicy  on  how  courts  should  handle 
requests  for  documents.  As  a  result,  federal  district  courts  use 
widely  differing  procedures.  Many  federal  courts  charge  50  cents 
per  page,  a  fee  originally  set  in  1959.  The  high  price  was  set  to  ■ 
cut  down  on  the  workload  of  the  courts.  ' 

In  releasing  the  report.  Rep.  Wise  said:  "GAO  found 
considerable  variability  in  practice  and  procedure.  Some  courts 
are  charging  50  cents  a  page  for  copies  when  some  commercial, 
profit-making  companies  were  only  charging  3.5  cents  a  page. 
There  is  no  reason  why  any  federal  office  should  use  high  prices 
for  public  information  as  a  way  of  discouraging  requests.  Under 
the  federal  Freedom  of  Information  Act,  copying  charges  may  ■ 
not  exceed  direct  costs.  The  courts  should  be  following  the  same  ' 
policy." 

Copies  of  the  GAO  report.  Information  Requests:  Courts  Can 
Provide  Documents  in  a  More  Cost-Effective  Manner  [report 
number  GGD-91-30  (Febrtiary  13,  1991)]  can  be  requested  from 
GAO  at  202-275-6241.  ("U.S.  Courts  Charge  High  Prices  for 
Copies  of  Judicial  Documents,"  News  Release,  House  Commit- 
tee on  Government  Operations,  March  11) 

MARCH  -  A  General  Accounting  Office  official,  Howard  Rhile, 
testified  before  the  House  Subcommittee  on  Government 
Information,  Justice,  and  Agriculture  that  the  Justice  Department 
may  have  compromised  sensitive  investigations  and  jeoftardized 
the  safety  of  some  undercover  agents,  informants,  and  witnesses 
by  inadvertently  releasing  computerized  information.  GAO  said 
it  uncovered  "appalling  details"  of  the  department's  failure  to 
protect  its  secret  computer  files.  "Our  investigation  leads  to  the 
unmistakable  conclusion  that  at  present,  one  simply  cannot  trust 


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that  sensitive  data  will  be  safely  secured  at  the  Department  of 
Justice. " 

The  GAO's  investigation  followed  press  disclosures  in 
September  1990  that  the  department  had  mistakenly  traded  away 
a  federal  prosecutor's  highly  sensitive  computer  files  for  $45. 
While  auctioning  off  surplus  equipment,  the  department  sold 
computers  from  a  U.S.  attorney's  office  without  first  erasing 
electronic  copies  of  sealed  indictments  and  information  about 
confidential  informants  and  federally  protected  witnesses, 
according  to  court  records.  The  department  has  sued  the  buyer, 
a  Kentucky  businessman,  in  an  effort  to  retrieve  its  files.  ("GAO 
Faults  Release  of  Secret  Data, "  The  Washington  Post,  March  26) 

MARCH  -  Because  of  bureaucratic  foot-dragging,  complex 
directives  from  Congress  and  in  some  cases  ideological  hostility, 
the  federal  government  has  failed  to  carry  out  major  parts  of 
health,  environmental,  and  housing  laws  passed  with  much 
fanfare  in  recent  years.  The  delays  have  left  Congress  stymied, 
consumer  groups  frustrated,  and  businesses  sometimes  paralyzed 
in  the  absence  of  prescribed  regulations.  Bush  administration 
officials  acknowledge  that  they  have  missed  many  of  the  dead- 
lines set  by  Congress  for  the  new  laws.  But  they  say  Congress 
is  partly  to  blame  because  it  writes  laws  of  impenetrable 
complexity  with  countless  mandates  and  gives  federal  agencies 
insufficient  time  to  write  needed  regulations. 

For  example,  two  decades  after  Congress  ordered  the 
Environmental  Protection  Agency  to  identify  and  regulate 
"hazardous  air  pollutants,"  the  agency  has  issued  emission 
standards  for  only  seven  chemicals.  Even  when  an  agency  is 
eager  to  carry  out  a  new  law,  it  must  negotiate  with  the  Office 
of  Management  and  Budget,  which  often  demands  changes  in 
proposed  rules  to  reduce  the  cost  or  to  minimize  the  burden  on 
private  industry.  Congress  itself  may  not  provide  the  money 
needed  to  carry  out  or  enforce  a  new  law. 

Michael  Horowitz,  counsel  to  the  director  of  the  Office  of 
Management  and  Budget  from  1981  to  1985,  said  Reagan 
administration  officials  often  viewed  "nonenforcement  of  the 
law"  as  an  easy  way  to  deal  with  statutes  and  regulations  they 
disliked.  ("U.S.  Laws  Delayed  by  Complex  Rules  and  Partisan- 
ship," The  New  York  Times,  March  31) 

APRIL  -  The  operators  of  nearly  half  of  the  nation's  under- 
ground coal  mines  have  been  systematically  tampering  with  the 
dust  samples  they  send  to  federal  safety  inspectors  who  deter- 
mine the  risk  of  black  lung  to  miners,  according  to  Bush 
administration  sources.  Labor  Secretary  Lynn  Martin  announced 
that  the  government  will  seek  major  civil  penalties  against  the 
operators  of  more  than  800  of  the  nation's  approximately  2,000 
underground  coal  mines  for  tampering  with  dust  samples. 

In  recent  months,  federal  mine  safety  officials  said  they  have 
discovered  more  than  5,000  incidents  of  sampling  fraud.  In 
many  cases,  mine  operators  simply  blew  away  or  vacuumed 
some  of  the  dust  from  government-approved  sampling  equipment 
before  submitting  it  for  inspection,  officials  said.  ("Coal  Mine 


Operators  Altered  Dust  Samples,"  The  Washington  Post,  April 
4) 

APRIL  -  Jack  Pfeiffer,  a  retired  CIA  historian,  sued  the  Central 
Intelligence  Agency  over  regulations  he  said  have  blocked  him 
from  publishing  a  declassified  version  of  the  organization's  role 
in  the  ill-fated  1961  Bay  of  Pigs  invasion  in  Cuba.  The  agency, 
citing  its  strict  disclosure  rules,  has  refused  to  declassify  his 
work  and  a  federal  court  has  upheld  its  decision. 

On  April  9,  in  a  second  lawsuit  filed  in  U.S.  District  Court, 
Pfeiffer  sought  to  overturn  the  CIA's  declassification  and  review 
procedures,  contending  they  are  "overbroad"  and  violate  his  free 
speech  rights.  In  addition,  he  argued,  as  he  did  in  a  previous 
lawsuit  filed  imder  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act,  the  agency 
does  not  want  his  papers  made  public  because  his  findings  might 
embarrass  senior  agency  officials.  Public  Citizen,  an  advocacy 
group,  filed  the  lawsuit  on  Pfeiffer's  behalf,  accusing  the  CIA 
of  balking  at  giving  the  historian  complete  copies  of  its  disclo- 
sure regulations.  ("CIA  Ex -Historian  Presses  for  a  30- Year-Old 
Tale,"  The  Washington  Post,  April  10) 

APRIL  -  The  Census  Bureau  held  up  release  of  detailed  f>opula- 
tion  data  it  gathered  in  the  1990  census  while  it  negotiated  with 
advocacy  groups  over  the  agency's  count  of  the  homeless.  The 
advocates  for  the  homeless,  arguing  that  the  bureau  missed 
substantial  segments  of  the  homeless  population  in  its  1990 
count,  have  threatened  legal  action  unless  the  bureau  issues  a 
disclaimer  noting  the  inaccuracy  of  the  numbers.  "The  danger  is 
this  will  become  the  number  of  homeless  people  and  will  be 
used"  to  make  policy,  said  Maria  Foscarinis,  director  of  the 
National  Law  Center  on  Homelessness  and  Poverty.  ("Holding 
Up  the  Homeless  Tally,"  The  Washington  Post,  April  11) 

APRIL  -  U.S.  soldiers  were  poorly  trained  and  equipped  to 
confront  a  chemical  weapons  attack  in  the  months  preceding  the 
U.S.  military  buildup  in  the  Persian  Gulf  region,  GAO  conclud- 
ed in  a  re[K>rt  that  was  withheld  from  public  release  during  the 
confrontation  with  Iraq,  llie  GAO  re]x>rt,  completed  in  January, 
documents  imrealistic  Army  training  exercises,  serious  equip- 
ment shortages,  weak  planning,  inadequate  leadership  and  poor 
innovation  in  preparing  a  defense  against  possible  poison  gas 
attack. 

While  commanders  associated  with  Operation  Desert  Storm 
had  declined  to  estimate  how  many  soldiers  would  die  in 
expected  Iraqi  chemical  attacks,  the  GAO  report  stated  that  71 
Army  chemical  specialists  interviewed  for  the  report  had 
predicted  that  more  than  half  of  the  exposed  troops  would  be 
killed  in  a  fiiture  gas  attack  due  to  inadequate  training. 

Army  officials  said  they  had  ordered  increased  training  and 
provided  adequate  protective  gear  for  the  troops.  Congressional 
sources  said  the  Army  nonetheless  considered  the  report's 
conclusions  so  sensitive  that  it  ordered  the  document  be  kept 
secret  during  the  war.  The  Army  also  ordered  the  deletion  of 
two  tables  in  the  report  documenting  wide-spread  shortages  of 


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chemical  decontamination  and  protective  gear  among  U.S.  forces 
routinely  stationed  in  Europe,  evidently  including  some  deployed 
to  the  Middle  East  for  the  war.  ("Report  Withheld  from  Public 
Says  GIs  Were  Poorly  Equipped  for  Gas  Attack,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  April  13) 

APRIL  -  Sen.  Patrick  Leahy  (D-VT)  secured  an  amendment  to 
the  bill  reauthorizing  the  Commodity  Futures  Trading  Commis- 
sion (S.  207)  to  require  publication  of  any  dissenting,  concur- 
ring, or  separate  opinion  by  any  Commissioner.  He  explained 
that  his  amendment  was  prompted  by  an  incident  last  year  when 
the  CFTC  issued  an  important  and  controversial  interpretation  on 
the  regulatory  treatment  of  certain  oil  contracts.  One  CFTC 
Commissioner  dissented  and  prepared  a  detailed  statement  of  his 
reasons.  But  when  the  CFTC  submitted  its  interpretation  of  the 
oil  contract  to  the  Federal  Register  for  official  publication,  the 
dissent  was  omitted. 

Sen.  Leahy  said:  "In  this  case,  the  results  was  [sic]  especially 
unfair.  High-priced  lawyers  with  access  to  the  Commission  or  to 
expensive  private  reporting  services  had  no  trouble  getting  their 
hands  on  the  dissent.  But  members  of  the  public  who  rely  on 
official  outlets  like  the  Federal  Register  had  no  access  to  the 
document."  {Congressional  Record,  April  17,  p.  S4601) 

APRIL  -  The  National  Practitioner  Data  Bank  has  another 
problem:  missing  data.  The  1986  law  creating  the  data  bank 
requires  hospitals  and  other  medical  licensing  authorities  to 
report  adverse  disciplinary  actions  against  doctors.  The  law  also 
requires  any  malpractice  judgment  or  settlement  on  behalf  of  a 
physician  to  be  reported.  Hospital  and  medical  licensing  and 
disciplinary  authorities  in  turn  must  check  the  data  bank  before 
giving  doctors'  working  credentials. 

In  practice,  the  data  bank  is  being  undermined  by  what 
amounts  to  a  giant  loophole:  Doctors  can  avoid  being  reported 
to  the  bank  if  their  lawyers  can  get  them  removed  from  a  suit 
before  it  is  settled.  Here's  how  these  deals  work:  A  hospital  or 
some  other  entity— such  as  the  doctor's  professional  corpora- 
tion—agrees to  pay  the  plaintiff  if  the  physician  is  dropped  from 
the  suit. 

Then,  regardless  of  whether  the  rest  of  the  suit  is  settled  or 
goes  to  court,  no  doctor's  name  is  left  in  the  action  to  be  entered 
into  the  data  bank.  Even  doctors  who  are  the  central  figures  in 
suits  can  avoid  the  data  bank  this  way.  Plaintiffs  and  defense 
lawyers  alike  acknowledge  that  the  time-honored  litigation 
technique  of  getting  a  client  dismissed  from  suits  subverts  the 
policy  rationale  behind  the  National  Practitioner  Data  Bank. 

Nobody  is  sure  just  how  many  doctors  have  avoided  the  data 
bank  in  this  manner,  but  it  is  not  hard  to  find  settled  suits  around 
the  nation  that  have  been  structured  to  bypass  the  r^Mrting 
requirements.  Officials  at  the  Department  of  Health  and  Human 
Services— which  has  a  $15.8  million  contract  with  the  Unisys 
Corp.  to  run  the  data  bank— say  that  as  of  March  22,  they  had 
received  more  than  13,000  reports  of  malpractice  settlements  or 
judgments.  More  than  425,000  queries  for  information  came  in 


from  hospitals  and  other  medical  institutions. 

Federal  authorities  have  no  way,  however,  of  keeping  track 
of  malpractice  settlements  that  are  not  reported  because  doctors 
were  dismissed  from  the  suits.  Many  settlement  deals  struck 
between  plaintiffs  and  defense  lawyers  are  secret.  According  to 
some  medical  and  legal  experts,  the  public-interest  intent  in 
creating  a  full  record  of  physicians'  malpractice-claims  experi- 
ence is  not  being  served.  Dr.  Sidney  Wolfe,  of  Public  Citizen's 
Health  Research  Group,  says  the  bank's  backers  never  imagined 
that  doctors  would  be  able  to  avoid  the  system  simply  by  getting 
their  names  dropped  from  suits  before  final  settlement.  "It  flies 
in  the  face  of  the  law  for  clever  lawyers  to  make  these  end 
runs,"  Wolfe  declared.  ("Data  Bank  Has  a  Deficit,"  Legal 
Times,  Week  of  April  22) 

APRIL  -  The  Environmental  Protection  Agaicy  halted 
distribution  of  one  of  its  popular  consumer  handbooks  after 
industry  complained  that  it  recommended  home  measures,  such 
as  vinegar  and  water  to  clean  windows,  that  had  not  been 
assessed  for  their  effect  on  the  environment.  The  Environmental 
Consumer's  Handbook,  published  in  October  1990,  was  pulled 
from  distribution  in  February  after  industry  criticism  that  it  was 
imbalanced,  partly  because  of  its  suggestion  that  homemade 
cleaning  solutions  might  be  more  environmentally  benign  than 
store-bought  products. 

Industry  critics  also  faulted  the  pamphlet's  assertions  that 
disposable  products  contribute  to  litter.  "How  do  these  items 
contribute  to  litter  when  it  is  the  users  who  litter,  not  the  items?" 
noted  a  critique  by  the  Foodservice  and  Packaging  Institute,  a 
Washington-based  trade  association. 

The  pamphlet  was  prepared  by  the  EPA's  Office  of  Solid 
Waste  to  encourage  consumers  to  reduce,  reuse  and  recycle 
items  that  might  otherwise  add  to  the  burden  of  the  nation's 
landfills.  It  quickly  became  one  of  the  office's  most  requested 
documents,  with  more  than  15,000  of  30,000  copies  distributed. 

In  late  February,  E>on  Clay,  EPA  assistant  administrator, 
promised  to  move  ahead  quickly  on  a  revised  version,  saying  it 
would  be  subject  to  a  "more  comprehensive  review  process"  that 
would  include  "a  cross  section  of  interested  parties."  The 
revised  version  is  expected  to  be  available  in  30  to  60  days. 
According  to  documents  provided  to  Environmental  Action  Inc. 
under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act,  publication  of  the 
original  pamphlet  was  followed  by  a  series  of  memos  and  letters 
from  industry  critical  of  the  document.  "Clearly,  EPA's  action 
was  in  response  not  to  the  public,  but  in  response  to  the  large 
consumer  product  nunufacturers, "  said  Joanne  Wirka,  a  solid 
waste  expert  for  Environmental  Action.  "We  didn't  just  do  it 
because  industry  said  you  should  change  this,"  said  Henry  L. 
Longest  11,  acting  deputy  assistant  administrator  under  Clay, 
"but  because  the  opponents  made  good  points."  ("EPA  Pulls 
Consumer  HandbocA,"  The  Washington  Post,  April  23) 

APRIL  -  "Secrecy  is  expensive  and  the  Pentagon  has  decided 
that  it  cannot  afford  as  much  of  it  as  it  used  to  buy.  Sunday's 


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scheduled  flight  of  a  space  shuttle,  a  mission  devoted  to  experi- 
ments for  the  Strategic  Defense  Initiative,  which  in  the  past 
would  have  been  classified,  has  been  declassified. 

According  to  a  Defense  Department  spokesman,  who  spoke 
on  condition  of  anonymity,  declassifying  military  shuttle  flights 
probably  will  save  taxpayers  at  least  $80  million  a  year." 
("Pentagon  Pinching  Pennies  on  Secrecy, "  The  Washington  Post, 
April  26) 

APRIL  -  Yielding  to  pressure  from  the  meat  and  dairy  indus- 
tries, the  Agriculture  Department  has  abandoned  its  plans  to  turn 
the  symbol  of  good  nutrition  from  the  "food  wheel"  showing  the 
"Basic  Food  Groups"  to  an  "Eating  Right"  pyramid  that  sought 
to  de-emphasize  the  place  of  meat  and  dairy  products  in  a 
healthful  diet. 

The  proposed  change,  hailed  by  many  nutritionists  as  a  long 
overdue  improvement  in  the  way  the  government  encourages 
good  eating  habits,  represented  the  basic  groups  as  layers  of  a 
pyramid.  By  putting  vegetables,  fruits,  and  grains  at  the  broad 
base  and  meat  and  dairy  products  in  a  narrow  band  at  the  top, 
government  health  experts  had  hoped  to  create  a  more  effective 
visual  image  of  the  proper  proportions  each  food  group  should 
have  in  a  healthful  diet. 

But  in  meetings  with  Agriculture  officials  earlier  in  April, 
representatives  of  the  dairy  and  meat  industries  complained  that 
the  pyramid  was  misleading  and  "stigmatized"  their  products. 
The  industry  groups  said  they  were  unhappy  not  just  with  the 
suggestion  that  portions  of  meat  and  dairy  products  should  be 
relatively  small,  but  that  their  place  in  the  pyramid  was  next  to 
that  of  fats  and  sweets,  the  least  healthful  foods. 

"We  told  them  we  thought  they  were  setting  up  good  foods 
versus  bad  foods,"  said  Alisa  Harrison,  director  of  information 
for  the  National  Cattlemen's  Association.  Harrison  said  the 
group  felt  consumers  would  interpret  the  pyramid  to  mean  they 
should  "drastically  cut  down  on  their  meat  consumption." 
According  to  Marion  Nestle,  chairman  of  the  nutrition  depart- 
ment at  New  York  University  and  the  author  of  a  history  of 
dietary  guidelines,  on  several  occasions  over  the  past  IS  years 
the  department  has  altered  or  canceled  nutritional  advice 
brochures  in  response  to  industry  complaints.  ("U.S.  Drops  New 
Food  Chart,"  The  Washington  Post,  April  27) 

MAY  -  In  a  three-page  article,  Holley  Knaus  describes  "sharp 
restrictions  on  citizen  access  to  government  information"  as  a 
result  of  an  ideological  assault  on  government  activity,  coupled 
with  the  rise  of  an  "increasingly  strong  information  industry 
lobby."  As  a  result  of  "privatization,"  citizens  or  organizations 
seeking  information  from  govemmoit  agencies  as  varied  as  the 
Census  Bureau  and  the  Federal  Maritime  Commission  must 
increasingly  rely  on  data  companies  such  as  Knight-Ridder, 
Mead  Data,  McGraw  Hill,  and  Martin  Marietta  Data  Systems. 
She  writes  that  information  disseminated  through  the  private 
sector  is  much  more  remote  from  the  public,  primarily  because 
it  is  often  prohibitively  expensive.  Private  information  vendors, 


imder  no  obligation  to  provide  the  public  with  low-cost  access  to 
government  data,  "charge  exorbitant  prices  for  their  services  and 
products. " 

One  example  she  cites  concerns  the  Department  of  Com- 
merce National  Trade  Data  Bank.  According  to  the  Taxpayer 
Assets  Project,  Commerce  offers  the  NTDB,  a  database  of  more 
than  100,000  documents  containing  political,  economic,  and 
technical  information  relating  to  foreign  trade  from  16  federal 
agencies,  on  a  CD-ROM  disk  for  $35. 

However,  Congress  has  prohibited  Commerce  from  offering 
online  access  to  the  database.  To  receive  the  more  timely  online 
information,  users  are  forced  to  turn  to  commercial  vendors. 
These  commercial  vendors  receive  the  data  on  magnetic  tape  or 
CD-ROMs  at  low  rates,  and  then  program  it  so  that  it  is 
available  online  to  those  with  computers — "at  extravagant  rates. " 
McGraw  Hill's  Data  Resources,  Inc.  charges  its  users  up  to  $80 
per  hour  and  $0.54  per  number  to  receive  this  infomution. 
("Facts  for  Sale,"  Multinational  Monitor,  May  1991) 

MAY  -  The  Justice  Department  has  determined  a  strict  set  of 
conditions  governing  the  access  it  has  granted  House  Judiciary 
Committee  investigators  exploring  the  alleged  government 
conspiracy  against  Washington,  D.C.,  legal  software  developer 
Inslaw  Inc.  The  committee  has  spent  close  to  a  year  tracking  the 
Inslaw  case  and  its  possible  connection  to  Justice's  award  of  a 
$212  million  office  automation  contract  to  another  company. 
Investigators  have  sought  200  department  documents  related  to 
litigation  on  the  Inslaw  case,  as  well  as  documents  about  other 
companies  or  procurements.  Justice  has  consistently  denied  the 
request,  saying  the  papers  would  reveal  the  litigation  strategy 
involving  its  appeal  against  Inslaw  and  so  were  being  shielded 
from  Congress. 

Access  to  the  documents  will  be  tightly  controlled.  For 
example.  Justice  officials  will  be  present  while  committee 
investigators  review  the  papers.  The  investigators  will  be 
permitted  only  to  take  notes  of  the  documents.  Based  on  those 
notes,  investigators  will  have  to  formally  request  copies.  If 
additional  hearings  on  the  Inslaw  case  were  conducted,  the 
committee  would  need  to  give  the  department  "the  opportunity 
prior  to  the  hearing  or  proceedings  to  present  any  reasons  why 
the  material  or  any  portion  thereof  should  not  be  publicly 
revealed."  If  no  agreement  could  be  reached,  the  matter  would 
be  referred  to  an  executive  session  of  the  committee.  ("Justice 
Screens  Inslaw  Document  Release,"  Federal  Computer  Week, 
May  6) 

MAY  -  "Most  people  who  work  at  the  White  House  treat  an 
order  from  the  President  as  holy  writ.  So  everyone  expected 
quick  action  when  George  Bush,  embarrassed  by  news  stories  on 
the  freeloading  travels  of  chief  of  staff  John  Sununu,  directed 
him  to  'get  it  all  out'  and  make  'full  disclosure'  of  his  expensive 
trips  aboard  Air  Force  executive  jets  to  ski  resorts  in  Colorado 
and  to  his  home  in  New  Hampshire. 

Instead,  Sununu  stonewalled.  At  Bush's  insistence,  he  issued 


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a  list  of  his  White  House  travels,  but  it  has  proved  to  be 
incomplete,  inaccurate,  and  misleading.  It  conceals  crucial 
information  that  Time  has  obtained  concerning  at  least  four 
family  skiing  vacations  and  a  fifth  trip  to  his  New  Hampshire 
home  that  were  financed  by  corporate  interests— in  violation  of 
federal  ethics  laws.  Sunimu  declined  requests  for  interviews 
about  his  travels,  smugly  assuring  associates  that  if  he  simply 
hunkered  down  and  said  nothing  more,  'this  whole  thing  will 
blow  over'."  ("Fly  Free  or  Die,"  Time,  May  13) 

MAY  -  The  Iraqi  missile  that  slammed  into  an  American 
military  barracks  in  Saudi  Arabia  during  the  Persian  Gulf  war, 
killing  28  people,  penetrated  air  defenses  because  a  computer 
failure  shut  down  the  American  missile  system  designed  to 
counter  it,  two  Army  investigations  have  concluded. 

The  Iraqi  Scud  missile  hit  the  barracks  on  February  25, 
causing  the  war's  single  worst  casualty  toll  for  Americans.  The 
allied  Central  Command  said  the  next  day  that  no  Patriot  missile 
had  been  fired  to  intercept  the  Scud,  adding  that  the  Scud  had 
broken  into  pieces  as  it  descended  and  was  not  identified  as  a 
threat  by  the  Patriot  radar  system.  But  further  investigations 
determined  that  the  Scud  was  intact  when  it  hit  the  barracks,  and 
was  not  detected  because  the  Patriot's  radar  system  was  rendered 
inoperable  by  the  computer  failure. 

Army  experts  said  in  interviews  that  they  knew  within  days 
that  the  Scud  was  intact  when  it  hit,  and  that  a  technical  flaw  in 
the  radar  system  was  probably  to  blame.  The  Army  investiga- 
tions raise  questions  why  the  Pentagon  and  Central  Command 
perpetuated  the  explanation  that  the  Scud  broke  up.  Central 
Command  officials  denied  that  they  were  aware  of  the  Army's 
initial  findings  of  computer  malfunction.  "It  was  not  something 
we  had  at  all,"  said  Lieut.  Col.  Michael  Gallagher,  who  was  a 
Central  Command  spokesman  in  Riyadh. 

Family  members  of  some  of  the  victims  of  the  attack  have 
tried  to  get  more  information  from  the  Army  but  say  the  Penta- 
gon has  refused  to  release  any  details.  Rita  Bongiomi  of 
Hickory,  Pa.,  whose  20-year-old  son,  Joseph,  was  killed  in  the 
attack,  said  she  had  written  the  Secretary  of  the  Army,  Michael 
P.W.  Stone,  for  an  explanation,  but  had  received  only  a  form 
letter  saying  a  comrade  was  at  her  son's  side  when  he  died. 
When  Mrs.  Bongiomi  requested  a  detailed  autopsy  report,  she 
said  the  cause  of  death  was  listed  simply  as  "Scud  attack."  "I 
just  want  to  know  the  truth,  and  I'm  not  sure  we'll  ever  know," 
Mrs.  Bongiomi  said.  "I  don't  feel  the  Army's  been  up  front  with 
us."  ("Army  Blames  Patriot's  Computer  for  Failure  to  Stop 
Dhahran  Scud,"  The  New  York  Times,  May  20) 

MAY  -  The  head  of  a  Pentagon  intelligence  unit  assigned  to 
account  for  United  States  servicemen  missing  in  Vietnam  has 
resigned,  accusing  Bush  administration  officials  of  seeking  to 
discredit  and  perhaps  even  cover  up  reports  of  sightings  of 
Americans  in  the  country.  The  Army  officer.  Col.  Millard  A. 
Peck,  left  his  job  on  March  28,  stapling  an  unusual  memoran- 
dum and  farewell  note  to  his  office  door  that  charged  that  his 


department  was  being  used  as  a  "'toxic  waste  dump'  to  buy  the 
whole  'mess'  out  of  sight  and  mind  in  a  facility  with  limited 
access  to  public  scrutiny."  ("Bush  Is  Said  to  Ignore  the  Vietnam 
War's  Missing,"  The  New  York  Times,  May  22) 

MAY  -  The  Supreme  Court  mled  on  May  23  that  federally 
fiinded  family  planning  clinics  may  be  prohibited  from  giving 
any  information  about  abortion.  The  court,  splitting  S  to  4, 
upheld  federal  regulations  that  forbid  some  4,000  such  clinics 
that  receive  federal  nooney  from  counseling  women  about  the 
availability  of  abortion,  even  if  the  women  ask  for  the  informa- 
tion or  if  their  doctors  believe  abortion  is  medically  necessary. 
The  decision  in  the  case  turned  mostly  on  whether  the  regulation 
infringed  on  free  speech. 

Opponents  of  the  regulations,  promulgated  by  the  Reagan 
administration  in  1988,  vowed  to  press  for  congressional  repeal. 
A  similar  effort  last  year  drew  administration  threats  of  a  veto 
and  died  in  the  Senate. 

The  decision  in  Rust  v.  Sullivan  turned  on  the  question  of 
free  speech  and  whether  the  regulations  interfered  with  the 
doctor-patient  relationship,  or  kept  women  from  making 
informed  medical  decisions  about  abortion.  Justice  William  H. 
Rehnquist  said  they  did  not.  He  said  the  govenmient  is  entitled 
to  decide  what  it  wants  to  spend  its  money  on,  and  that  its 
decision  to  pay  for  family  planning  services  but  not  for  informa- 
tion about  abortion  did  not  violate  freedom  of  speech  or  any 
other  constitutional  right. 

All  four  dissenters  said  the  court  should  have  stmck  down 
the  regulations  on  statutory  grounds.  Blackmun,  Marshall,  and 
Stevens,  going  on  to  the  constitutional  questions,  said  the  mling 
represented  the  first  time  the  court  had  "upheld  viewpoint-based 
suppression  of  speech  simply  because  that  suppression  was  a 
condition  on  the  acceptance  of  public  funds."  In  addition,  they 
said,  "Until  today,  the  court  has  allowed  to  stand  only  those 
restrictions  upon  reproductive  freedom  that,  while  limiting  the 
availability  of  abortion,  have  left  intact  a  woman's  ability  to 
decide  without  coercion  whether  she  will  continue  her  pregnancy 
to  term.... Today's  decision  abandons  that  principle,  and  with 
disastrous  results." 

"This  is  worse  than  we  could  have  imagined. "  said  Rachael 
Pine  of  the  American  Civil  Liberties  Union,  which  challenged 
the  regulations  on  behalf  of  various  clinics  and  doctors.  "This 
opinion  is  close  to  giving  the  government  the  blank  check  it 
sought"  in  imposing  conditions  on  federally  fiinded  programs, 
she  said.  "It's  close  to  sanctioning  really  any  kind  of  government 
manipulation  of  information  so  long  as  it's  paid  for  by  the 
government."  ("Abortion- Ad  vice  Ban  Upheld  for  Federally 
Funded  Clinics,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  24) 

MAY  -  On  May  28  the  Supreme  Court  let  stand  a  mling  that 
threatens  the  conviction  of  Oliver  North  in  the  Iran-Contra 
affair.  It  refused  to  review  a  1990  mling  by  a  federal  appeals 
court  that  requires  prosecutors  to  re-examine  the  witnesses 
against  him  to  determine  if  any  of  them  had  prejudiced  the  trial's 


ALA  Washington  Oflke 


10 


June  1991 


Less  Access... 


January  -  June  1991 


outcome  by  hearing  his  earlier  testimony  before  Congress.  The 
Justices,  who  acted  without  comment,  raised  the  possibility  that 
much  of  the  evidence  used  to  convict  North  could  be  invalidated. 
The  Supreme  Court's  action  was  a  serious  setback  for 
Lawrence  Walsh,  the  Iran-Contra  prosecutor,  because  it  means 
he  must  now  meet  the  difficult  standards  set  by  the  appeals  court 
in  its  July  20,  1990,  decision.  North  was  convicted  on  May  4, 
1989,  of  aiding  and  abetting  in  the  obstruction  of  Congress, 
accepting  an  illegal  gratuity  in  the  form  of  a  $13,800  home 
security  system,  and  destroying  government  documents.  The 
charge  of  destroying  documents  was  voided  outright  by  the 
appeals  court.  Walsh  vowed  to  go  back  to  the  lower  court  and 
try  to  preserve  the  two  remaining  guilty  verdicts.  ("North 
Conviction  in  Doubt  as  Court  Lets  Ruling  Stand,"  The  New  York 
Times,  May  29) 

JXJNE  -  The  anticrime  bill  that  President  Bush  has  sent  to 
Congress  would  permit  the  government  to  hold  special  tribunals 
in  which  foreigners  accused  of  terrorism  would  not  be  allowed 
to  rebut  or  even  see  some  or  all  of  the  evidence  against  them. 
Justice  Department  officials  say  the  tribunals,  which  would 
require  the  approval  of  a  federal  judge,  would  give  the  govern- 
ment a  needed  mechanism  to  deport  alien  terrorists  without  being 
forced  to  disclose  evidence  that  would  reveal  the  identity  of 
confidential  sources,  make  public  the  nature  of  investigative 
methods,  or  damage  relationships  with  foreign  countries. 

But  some  civil  liberties  experts  say  the  pro]X)sal  would 
violate  fundamental  principles  of  American  law:  that  the 
government's  evidence  against  a  person  must  be  public,  and  that 
the  accused  has  a  right  to  be  informed  of  that  evidence  and  rebut 
it.  The  provision  has  been  largely  overlooked  until  now  in  the 
public  debate  over  the  anticrime  bill  but  is  drawing  increasing 
fire  from  civil  libertarians  as  the  larger  measure  nears  Senate 
consideration  in  June.  The  Supreme  Court  has  long  held  that 
aliens  living  in  the  United  States  who  face  deportation  are 
mtitled  to  constitutional  protections,  including  a  public  hearing 
in  which  the  government  is  not  entitled  to  keep  evidence  against 
them  a  secret.  ("Crime  Bill  Would  Establish  Alien  Deportation 
Tribunal,"  The  New  York  Times,  June  1) 

JUNE  -  The  Defense  Department  has  estimated  that  100,000 
Iraqi  soldiers  were  killed  and  300,000  wounded  during  the 
Persian  Gulf  war,  the  first  official  atten^t  to  fix  the  Iraqi  death 
toll  in  which  military  officials  said  was  a  "tentative"  exercise 
based  on  "limited  information."  Responding  to  a  Freedom  of 
Information  Act  request  from  the  Natural  Resources  Defense 
Council,  an  environmental  group,  the  Defense  Intelligence 
Agency  issued  a  heavily  qualified  estimate,  which  was  immedi- 
ately challenged. 

"Upon  review,  it  has  been  determined  that  little  information 
is  available  which  would  enable  this  agency  to  make  an  accurate 
assessment  of  Iraqi  military  casualties,"  said  Robert  Hardzog, 
chief  of  the  Freedom  of  Information  and  Privacy  Act  staff  of  the 
intelligence  agency,  in  a  letter  dated  May  22.  "An  analysis  of 


very  limited  information  leads  D.I. A.  to  tentatively  state  the 
following"  and  then  Hardzog  noted  parenthetically  that  the 
estimates  carried  an  "error  factor  of  SO  perc^it  or  higher." 
("Iraq's  War  Toll  Estimated  by  U.S.,"  The  New  York  Times, 
June  5) 

JUNE  -  While  the  U.S.  military  has  labored  successfully  in 
recent  years — under  the  mandate  of  federal  law — to  overcome 
long-standing  service  rivalries  and  improve  both  wartime  and 
peacetime  coordination  among  the  Army,  Air  Force,  Navy  and 
Marine  Corps,  the  Persian  Gulf  War  exposed  continued  short- 
comings from  war  planning  to  intelligence-gathering.  Senior 
military  commanders  say  cooperation  among  the  services  has 
improved.  They  say  the  services  are  now  using  the  experiences 
of  the  gulf  war  to  focus  on  deficiencies  that  slowed  operations 
and  could  have  resulted  in  serious  problems  against  a  more 
aggressive  enemy  force.  Among  the  deficiencies: 

•  The  Air  Force  could  not  transmit  bombing  target 
lists  to  Navy  pilots  aboard  ships  in  the  Red  Sea 
and  Persian  Gulf  because  of  incompatible  commu- 
nications links.  As  a  result.  Navy  officials  had  to 
hand-carry  from  Riyadh  to  ships  at  sea  computer 
disks  containing  each  day's  list  of  targets. 

•  U.S.  intelligence-gathering  operations  were  so 
cumbersome  and  compartmentalized  among  agen- 
cies that  commanders  in  the  field  frequently  could 
not  obtain  timely  intelligence  to  prepare  for  war 
operations.... 

("War  Exposed  Rivalries,  Weaknesses  in  Military,"  The  Wash- 
ington Post,  Jime  10) 

JUNE  -  A  one  and  one-half  page  story  in  the  Village  Voice  by 
James  Ridgeway  described  issues  and  problems  with  the  privat- 
ization of  government  information.  "The  result  has  been  to 
slowly  cripple  the  functions  of  government  that  we  take  for 
granted. "  Ridgeway  pointed  out  that  changes  in  the  amount  and 
type  of  statistical  information  collected  may  seem  insignificant, 
and  do  not  show  up  in  a  decline  in  actual  statistical  output  for 
several  years,  but  ultimately,  they  will  help  cloud  not  only  the 
true  effect  of  administration  policies,  but  even  future  planning 
for  economic  growth. 

For  example,  probably  the  best  single  source  of  information 
on  the  U.S.  economy  is  Japan.  The  Japanese  have  statistics  on 
their  own  economy,  and  make  their  own  informed  estimates  on 
how  the  U.S.  operates.  For  data  on  cross-border  trade  with 
Canada,  U.S.  business  now  relies  on  Canadian  statistics.  Even 
the  ability  of  elected  representatives  to  understand  what  is  going 
on  is  affected.  The  Joint  Economic  Committee  of  Congress, 
which  is  supposed  to  keep  up  on  economic  trends,  recently  made 
a  study  of  interest  rates.  Since  the  data  was  unavailable  via 
computer  firom  the  Treasury,  the  committee  ended  up  buying  it 


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Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1991 


from  a  private  company. 

The  author  says  "This  vast  subsidy  to  the  information 
industry  was  made  by...OMB  rules,  which  basically  say  that  if 
private  industry  can  make  money  distributing  info,  then  the 
govenmient  shouldn't  be  doing  it." 

Ridgeway  gives  examples,  including  high  costs,  of  the 
government's  reliance  on  private  sources  for  knowledge  it  needs 
to  govern,  using  examples  from  the  State  Department,  the 
Department  of  Agriculture,  and  the  National  Weather  Service. 
Additionally,  he  points  out: 

The  privatization  of  information  affects  the  most 
prosaic  governmental  services.  Let's  say  you  are  a 
journalist  or  scholar  or  small  businessman  anxious  to  find 
out  about  the  different  civil  rights  bills  now  pending 

before   Congress Congress   maintains  a  bill-tracking 

service  that  lists  all  these  pending  bills  and  their  sponsors 
by  computer,  but  to  get  that  information  most  people 
would  end  up  using  Legislate,  a  service  provided  by  The 
Washington  Post.  A  professor  in  Brooklyn  inquired  about 
the  cost  of  that  service  recently:  $9500  a  year  for  an 
academic,  and  $14,500  for  businesses. 

Ridgeway  also  mentions  efforts  in  Congress  to  change  the 
government's  privatization  of  information  that  are  supported  by 
ALA,  Public  Citizen,  and  other  groups  that  are  pushing  to  create 
an  inexpensive  government  system  that  would  allow  people  to 
access  online  government  databases  through  the  Government 
Printing  Office.  ("Stormy  Weather,"  Village  Voice,  June  11) 

JUNE  -  U.S.  Central  Command  chief  Gen.  H.  Norman 
Schwarzkopf  charged  that  battlefield  damage  assessments  from 
national  intelligence  agencies  during  the  Persian  Gulf  War  were 
so  hedged  with  qualifying  remarks  that  they  created  serious 
confusion  for  commanders  attempting  to  make  wartime  deci- 
sions. Schwarzkopf  told  the  Senate  Armed  Services  Committee 
on  Jime  12  that  battlefield  damage  assessment  "was  one  of  the 
major  areas  of  confusion. " 

He  also  echoed  the  complaint  of  many  field  commanders 
during  the  war  that  intelligence  was  not  relayed  to  senior  officers 
on  the  ground  in  a  timely,  useful  form.  He  recommended  that 
"the  intelligence  community  should  be  asked  to  come  up  with  a 
system  that  will,  in  fact,  be  capable  of  delivering  a  real-time 
product  to  a  theater  commander  when  he  requests  that."  Such 
problems  were  compounded  by  the  inability  of  U.S.  military 
services,  especially  the  Navy  and  Air  Force,  to  share  intelligence 
information  because  of  incompatible  computer  systems, 
Schwarzkopf  said.  ("Schwarzkopf:  War  Intelligence  Flawed," 
The  Washington  Post,  June  13) 

JUNE  -  In  an  opinion  piece  in  The  New  York  Times,  Charles 
Stith,  president  of  the  National  Community  Reinvestment 
Network,  urged  defeat  of  two  amendments  in  President  Bush's 
banking  reform  bill.  Stith  maintained  that  amendments  added  by 


Rep.  Paul  Kanjorski  (D-PA)  would  gut  the  Community  Reinvest- 
ment Act.  The  "amendments  would  exempt  80  percent  of  the 
nation's  banks  from  following  the  law's  requirements.  The 
amendments  would  restrict  community  groups'  rights  to  chal- 
lenge banks  for  noncompliance  with  the  act,  as  well  as  reduce 
the  number  of  banks  required  to  report  the  home  mortgage  data 
that  would  help  identify  discriminatory  lending  patterns. "  Stith 
said  that  the  Community  Reinvestment  Act  "has  been  the  only 
leverage  poor  communities  and  nonwhite  communities  possess 
to  win  a  fair  shake  from  banks.... Enforcement  of  the  law  is 
possible  because  banks  are  required  to  keep  public  records  of 
their  business."  ("Killer  Amendmoits  In  the  Banking  Bill,"  The 
New  York  Times,  June  17) 

JUNE  -  Ron  Pollack,  of  the  Families  USA  Foundation,  charged 
that  more  than  half  of  the  elderly  Americans  living  in  poverty 
are  paying  for  Medicare  benefits  they  are  entitled  to  receive 
without  charge.  According  to  Pollack,  eligible  individuals  must 
apply  to  state  agencies  to  get  benefits  to  help  pay  for  medical 
services  and  millions  have  failed  to  do  so  because  the  state  and 
federal  governments  fail  to  notify  them  adequately. 

Rq).  Henry  Waxman  (D-CA),  principal  author  of  the  1988 
and  1990  provisions  that  entitled  the  poor  to  have  Medicaid  pay 
their  Medicare  bills,  said,  "It's  clear  that  the  Social  Security 
Administration,  Health  Care  Financing  Administration  and  states 
are  not  doing  their  job  to  get  this  information  out  to  the  elderly 
who  are  entitled  to  this  help.  We're  going  to  try  to  push  the 
Social  Security  Administration  to  send  out  notices  with  the 
checks  and  figure  out  some  way  to  get  these  people  enrolled." 
("Many  Elderly  Missing  Out  on  Medicaid  Benefits,"  The 
Washington  Post,  June  18) 

JUNE  -  The  June  17  blast  that  killed  six  workers  and  injured  23 
at  a  chemical  plant  in  Charleston,  S.C. ,  was  the  latest  in  a  series 
of  fires,  explosions  and  p>oison-gas  leaks  at  refineries  and 
chemical  plants  around  the  country.  "Since  October  1987,  when 
a  leak  of  hydrogen  fluoride  gas  at  a  Marathon  Oil  refinery 
forced  the  evacuation  of  thousands  in  Texas  City,  Tex.,  the 
American  petrochemical  industry  has  endured  one  of  the 
deadliest  periods  in  its  history,  one  that  has  baffled  Govenmient 
experts  and  alarmed  company  executives.  The  12  worst  explo- 
sions have  killed  79  people,  injured  933  and  caused  roughly  $2 
billion  in  damage." 

Although  some  aspects  of  the  explosion  were  reminiscent  of 
previous  accidents,  there  is  no  way  to  know  if  factors  similar  to 
the  previous  accidents  could  have  contributed  to  the  recent  blast. 
"And  there  is  not  a  Federal  agency  that  compiles  statistics  and 
investigates  every  accident  the  way  the  National  Transportation 
Safety  Board  does,  for  example,  with  air  crashes.  Although 
amendments  to  the  Clean  Air  Act  signed  into  law  in  1990 
established  a  Chemical  Safety  and  Hazard  Investigation  Board, 
the  White  House  has  yet  to  appoint  any  members  or  provide 
funds. "  ("Petrochemical  Disasters  Raise  Alarm  in  Industry,"  The 
New  York  Times,  June  19) 


ALA  Washington  Oflice 


12 


Juae  1991 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

110  tVlaryland  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel.  202-547-4440;  Fax  202-547-7363;  ALANET  ALA0025 

December  1991 


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

A  1991  Chronology:  June  -  December 
INTRODUCTION 


During  the  past  ten  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  A  combination  of  specific  policy 
decisions,  the  administration's  interpretations  and  implemen- 
tations of  the  1980  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  (PL  96-511,  as 
amended  by  PL  99-500)  and  agency  budget  cuts  have 
significantly  limited  access  to  public  documents  and  statistics. 

The  pending  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act 
should  provide  an  opportunity  to  limit  OMB's  role  in 
controlling  information  collected,  created,  and  disseminated 
by  the  federal  government.  However,  the  bills  that  have  been 
introduced  in  the  102nd  Congress  would  accelerate  the 
current  trend  to  commercialize  and  privatize  government 
information. 

Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  government's  16,000 
publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since  1985,  the  Office  of 
Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its  government 
information  control  powers,  particularly  through  Circular 
A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources.  This 
circular  requires  cost-benefit  analysis  of  government  informa- 
tion activities,  maximum  reliance  on  the  private  sector  for  the 
dissemination  of  government  information,  and  cost  recovery 
through  user  charges.  OMB  has  announced  plans  to  revise 
this  controversial  circular  early  in  1992,  but  a  draft  revision 
is  not  yet  available. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  utilize 
computer  and  telecommunications  technologies  for  data 
collection,  storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend 
has  resulted  in  the  increased  emergence  of  contractual 
information  collected  at  taxpayer  expense,  higher  user 
arrangements  with  commercial  firms  to  disseminate  charges 


for  government  information,  and  the  proliferation  of  govern- 
ment information  available  in  electronic  format  only.  While 
automation  clearly  offers  promises  of  savings,  will  public 
access  to  government  information  be  further  restricted  for 
people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for  computer 
time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have  begun 
to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public  access 
to  government  information  will  be  increased. 

In  the  second  half  of  1991,  numerous  articles  reported  poor 
statistics  and  inadequate  information  have  led  to  major  mis- 
calculations in  the  formulation  of  federal  policy.  Examples 
included  problems  with  federal  data  about  early  childhood 
immunizations,  prescription  drug  use,  the  consumer  price 
index,  the  1990  census,  and  the  hazardous  waste  cleanup. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
govenmient  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolu- 
tion passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and 
ready  access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  pub- 
lished in  any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States." 
In  1986,  ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Informa- 
tion. The  Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention 
on  all  efforts  that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and 
to  develop  support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government 
information. 

With  access  to  information  a  major  ALA  priority,  members 
should  be  concerned  about  this  series  of  actions  which  creates 
a  climate  in  which  government  information  activities  are 
suspect.  Previous  chronologies  were  compiled  in  an  ALA 
Washington  Office  publication.  Less  Access  to  Less  Informa- 
tion By  and  About  the  U.S.  Government:  A  1981-1987 
Chronology.  The  following  chronology  continues  semiannual 
updates  published  from  1988  to  1991. 


Less  Access., 


June  -  December  1991 


JUNE  -  The  Northrop  Corporation  has  agreed  to  pay  $8  million 
to  settle  a  lawsuit  by  two  of  its  former  employees  who  said  the 
company  falsified  tests  on  parts  for  cruise  missiles  built  for  the 
Air  Force.  The  settlement  comes  16  months  after  Northrop 
pleaded  guilty  to  federal  criminal  charges  in  the  case  filed  in 
1987  by  Leo  Barajas  and  Patricia  Meyer,  both  employees  at 
Northrop 's  plant  in  Pomona,  Calif.  They  charged  that  Northrop 
and  some  of  its  executives  had  improperly  tested  guidance 
devices  called  flight  data  transmitters  and  had  deliberately 
reported  false  results  to  the  Air  Force.  ("Northrop  Settles 
Workers'  Suit  on  False  Missile  Tests  for  $8  Million,"  The  New 
York  Times,  June  25,  1991) 

JUNE  -  The  nation's  next  generation  of  badly  needed  weather 
satellites,  designed  by  the  National  Aeronautics  and  Space 
Administration  and  built  by  aerospace  contractors,  are  so  riddled 
with  defects  that  they  may  never  be  launched.  According  to 
federal  weather  officials,  loss  of  coverage  by  these  satellites 
could  precipitate  a  national  emergency,  depriving  forecasters  of 
crucial  coverage  for  tracking  hurricanes,  floods,  and  tornadoes. 
Only  one  U.S.  weather  satellite,  the  GOES-7,  is  positioned  in 
geostationary  orbit  directly  above  the  country,  and  its  five-year 
lifespan  normally  would  end  early  next  year.  NASA  planned  to 
launch  new  weather  satellites  in  1989.  Known  as  GOES-NEXT, 
the  $1.1  billion  program  is  $500  million  over  budget  and  more 
than  two  years  behind  schedule.  Two  of  five  plaimed  GOES- 
NEXT  satellites  have  been  completed. 

GOES-NEXT  is  so  flawed  that  it  may  not  be  launched  in 
time  to  replace  the  aging  GOES-7,  National  Weather  Service 
officials  said.  John  Knauss,  head  of  the  National  Oceanic  and 
Atmospheric  Administration,  which  includes  the  National 
Weather  Service,  said  he  is  so  concerned  he  has  ordered 
contingency  plans  to  investigate  building  a  simple  satellite 
quickly  or  buying  one  from  Japanese  or  European  makers. 
Instead  of  GOES-NEXT,  he  said,  the  weather  service  is  facing 
a  "NO-GOES"  scenario.  Moreover,  Knauss  said,  he  is  prepared 
to  ask  the  Europeans  to  move  one  of  their  orbiting  satellites 
closer  to  the  eastern  United  States,  which  still  would  leave  half 
of  the  country  without  continuous  coverage.  ("Crucial  Weather 
Satellites  May  Be  Too  Flawed  to  Use,"  The  Washington  Post, 
June  28,  1991) 

JUNE  -  Recently  librarians  in  federal  depository  libraries  have 
complained  that  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  Office  is 
not  making  OMB  circulars  available  through  the  Depository 
Library  Program.  OMB  maintains  that  the  circulars — which  are 
key  documents  if  the  public  is  to  understand  federal  regulations 
and  requirements  for  public  and  private  organizations— are  for 
administrative  purposes  only,  not  subject  to  depository  require- 
ments. Now  the  public  and  libraries  can  get  access  to  the 
circulars  through  an  expensive  electronic  product  available  from 


the  National  Technical  Information  Service. 

NTIS  and  Government  Counselling  Ltd.,  through  a  joint 
venture,  have  produced  a  CD-ROM  containing  OMB  circulars, 
the  Federal  Acquisition  Regulations,  Defense  Federal  Acquisition 
Regulations,  General  Accounting  Office  decision  synopses,  and 
full-text  of  the  General  Services  Administration  Board  of 
Contract  Appeals  decisions.  The  disk  also  contains  public  laws, 
federal  information  processing  standards  publications  summaries, 
procurement  and  acquisition  checklists,  quarterly  news  bulletins, 
and  a  variety  of  commentaries  to  accompany  the  regulations. 

The  CD-ROM  is  available  from  NTIS  as  either  a  quarterly 
subscription  or  as  a  single  disk  containing  the  most  recent 
quarter  only.  The  subscription  costs  $1,495.  The  most  recent 
quarter  only  costs  $995.  In  the  future,  Government  Counselling, 
Ltd.  will  incorporate  agency-specific  information  acquired  by 
NTIS  with  its  proprietary  product  to  create  a  series  of  custom 
CD-ROMs.  ("New  CD-ROM  Makes  Government-Wide  Procure- 
ment Regs  Easy  to  Find,"  NTIS  New'sLine,  Summer  1991) 

JULY  -  Ihiblishers  and  executives  of  17  news  organizations,  still 
concerned  about  press  restrictions  during  the  Persian  Gulf  War, 
told  Defense  Secretary  Richard  Cheney  that  independent 
reporting  should  be  "the  principal  means  of  coverage"  for  all 
hiture  U.S.  military  operations.  In  a  late  June  letter,  the  news 
organizations  said  that  combat  pools— groups  of  reporters  who 
are  escorted  by  the  military  and  share  their  dispatches  with 
colleagues — should  be  used  only  for  the  first  24  to  36  hours  of 
any  deployment.  In  Saudi  Arabia,  military  officials  frequently 
detained  ref)orters  who  attempted  to  operate  outside  such  pools. 

The  media  executives  also  sent  Cheney  a  report  providing 
fresh  details  of  how  military  officials  suppressed  news,  con- 
trolled interviews,  limited  press  access,  and  delayed  transmission 
of  stories.  Such  restrictions  "made  it  impossible  for  reporters 
and  photographers  to  tell  the  public  the  full  story  of  the  war  in 
a  timely  fashion,"  the  letter  said.  "Moreover,  we  believe  it  is 
imperative  that  the  gulf  war  not  serve  as  a  model  for  future 
coverage." 

"We  welcome  these  proposals,"  said  Pentagon  spokesman 
Pete  Williams.  He  said  Cheney  "is  eager  to  sit  down  and  talk 

with  members  of  this  group Nobody  should  get  the  impression 

that  because  we  did  it  one  way  during  the  Persian  Gulf  War  that 
it's  going  to  be  that  way  forever  and  ever."  Williams  said  there 
were  good  reasons  for  the  press  restrictions  in  the  gulf,  but  that 
"some  things  worked  well  and  some  didn't." 

Among  the  items  in  the  report  were:  1)  the  Pentagon 
attempted  "to  use  the  press  to  disseminate  disinformation,"  such 
as  releasing  plans  for  an  amphibious  assault  against  Iraq  that  was 
a  ruse  to  mislead  the  Iraqis;  2)  a  Newsweek  contributor,  retired 
Army  Col.  David  Hackworth,  said  that  on  one  occasion  "U.S. 
troops  fixed  bayonets  and  charged  us;"  and  3)  two  reporters 
were  barred  from  a  Marine  unit  after  their  escorts  complained 


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that  they  had  asked  questions  forbidden  by  military  guidelines. 
("News  Media  Ask  Freer  Hand  in  Future  Conflicts,"  The 
Washington  Post,  July  1) 

JULY  -  Columnists  Jack  Anderson  and  Dale  Van  Atta  reported 
that  congressional  investigators  are  conducting  an  enormous 
probe  into  allegations  that  the  pro-Iraqi  tilt  of  the  Reagan  and 
Bush  administrations  allowed  Iraq  to  buy  technology  that  it  later 
used  in  weapons  turned  against  U.S.  troops.  In  one  case  they 
examined,  the  reporters  said  it  appears  "the  Bush  administration 
not  only  winked  at  the  export  of  sensitive  technology  to  Iraq  but 
may  have  stopped  legitimate  law  enforcement  efforts  to  interdict 
the  trade." 

Central  to  the  case  is  Bob  Bickel,  an  engineering  consultant 
and  petroleum  expert,  who  worked  for  about  20  years  as  an 
undercover  informant  for  the  U.S.  Customs  Service.  In  the 
course  of  Bickel's  engineering  work,  he  would  keep  Customs 
informed  about  what  he  thought  were  suspicious  orders  filled  for 
foreign  buyers.  Bickel  said  he  was  hired  in  1989  by  a  Houston 
firm  to  give  advice  to  a  foreign  buyer  on  oil-related  technology. 
The  buyer  turned  out  to  be  an  Iraqi,  and  the  technology  Bickel 
was  asked  to  buy  included  a  phased-ray  antenna  system  that 
could  potentially  be  used  in  a  missile  tracking  and  guidance 
system.  Bickel  alerted  the  Customs  contact  with  whom  he  had 
always  worked. 

A  Customs  investigation  did  not  get  very  far.  The  Customs 
team  sent  inquiries  to  Washington,  and  Bickel  let  the  Houston 
broker  who  had  hired  him  know  an  investigation  was  underway 
into  the  Iraqi  client.  The  broker's  response  was  unexpected;  he 
allegedly  told  Bickel  and  the  Customs  investigators  that  he  was 
cormected  to  the  U.S.  intelligence  community. 

It  was  not  long  before  Bickel  heard  that  Customs  canceled 
the  investigation.  Bickel's  contact  in  Customs  called  Washington 
and  was  told  the  State  and  Commerce  departments  were  behind 
the  decision.  Some  very  important  people  did  not  want  anyone 
nosing  around  the  technology  deal. 

Anderson  says  congressional  investigators  believe  the  Iraqi 
buyer  was  working  for  Ishan  Barbouti,  an  Iraqi  arms  dealer. 
Barbouti  is  suspected  by  U.S.  intelligence  agencies  of  having 
been  a  major  player  in  the  construction  of  a  chemical  weapons 
plant  in  Libya.  He  bankrolled  at  least  four  businesses  in  the 
United  States  that  were  producing  materials  that  may  have  been 
sent  secretly  to  Iraq  for  weapons  use.  Barbouti  died  mysteriously 
in  London  last  July.  ("How  the  U.S.  Winked  at  Exports  to 
Iraq,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  8) 

JULY  -  Census  Bureau  Director  Barbara  Everitt  Bryant  dis- 
agreed with  Commerce  Secretary  Robert  Mosbacher  on  virtually 
every  element  of  his  decision  not  to  adjust  the  1990  census  to 
compensate  for  an  undercount.  In  a  document  citing  strong 
evidence  that  the  population  of  the  United  States  is  5.3  million 
more  than  the  248  million  counted  in  the  census,  Bryant  wrote: 
"In  my  opinion,  not  adjusting  would  be  denying  that  these  5 
million  persons  exist.  That  denial  would  be  a  greater  inaccuracy 


than  any  inaccuracies  that  adjustment  may  introduce." 

On  average,  the  accuracy  of  the  census  would  be  improved 
by  a  statistical  adjustment,  Bryant  wrote  in  her  advisory  opinion, 
which  was  released  by  the  Coimnerce  Department  along  with 
other  expert  recommendations  that  went  to  Mosbacher  in  the 
weeks  before  his  decision.  Mosbacher  aimounced  he  would  rely 
on  the  results  of  the  initial  headcount,  rather  than  figures  drawn 
from  a  sample  survey  of  more  than  170,000  housing  units,  as  the  , 
basis  for  redrawing  political  boundaries  and  distributing  billions 
of  federal  dollars. 

Mosbacher  was  criticized  for  his  decision  by  Del.  Eleanor 
Holmes  Norton  (D-DC),  who  said  "The  decision  is  particularly 
harsh,  even  cruel,  because  it  comes  after  more  than  10  years  of 
huge  declines  in  federal  support  to  cities. "  District  officials  have 
estimated  that  the  city  will  lose  millions  of  dollars  in  aid  over  the 
decade.  They  and  others  concede,  however,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  calculate  accurately  the  fiscal  impact  of  the  decision,  because 
many  federal  programs  are  capped  and  rely  to  different  degrees 
on  population  data.  ("Census  Bureau  Chief  Disagreed  With 
Mosbacher  on  Adjustments,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  17) 

[Ed.  note:  The  Washington  Post  editorialized  that  Secretary  of 
Commerce  Mosbacher  "was  right  to  decide  to  stick  to  the  actual 
number  of  people  counted  last  year."  The  editorial  said  this 
intricate  quarrel  will  now  move  back  into  the  courtroom,  where 
a  judge  will  listen  to  the  statisticians  debate  their  differences.  "If 
the  country  wants  a  more  accurate  census  in  the  year  2000,  the 
way  to  get  it  is  not  to  embark  on  statistical  massaging  of 
disputed  figures  but  to  spend  more  money  to  collect  better  data 
in  the  first  place."  ("Census  Accuracy,"  The  Washington  Post, 
July  17)] 

JULY  -  The  former  head  of  the  CIA's  Central  American  task 
force  admitted  in  court  he  and  other  senior  CIA  officials  were 
aware  of  the  secret  diversion  of  funds  to  the  Contra  rebels  in 
Nicaragua  for  months  before  the  scandal  broke  in  the  fall  of 
1986.  Alan  Fiers  acknowledged  the  agency's  complicity  in 
attempts  to  cover  up  the  affair  as  he  pleaded  guilty  in  U.S. 
District  Court  in  Washington  to  two  misdemeanor  counts  of 
unlawfully  withholding  information  from  Congress.  His  pleas 
came  as  part  of  an  agreement  to  cooperate  fully  with  independent 
counsel  Lawrence  Walsh,  who  has  been  investigating  the  Iran- 
Contra  scandal  for  4'A  years. 

Fiers  said  he  willfully  withheld  information  from  Congress 
in  the  fall  of  1986  both  about  the  diversion  of  funds  and  about 
the  secret  Contra  resupply  operation  that  was  being  run  out  of 
the  Reagan  White  House.  As  a  result  of  those  admissions  and  the 
prospect  he  will  say  more,  other  officials  being  investigated  by 
Walsh  for  possible  perjury  charges  may  come  under  increasing 
pressure  to  disclose  more  than  they  have  to  date. 

At  the  same  time,  investigators  probing  the  unfolding 
investigation  of  the  Bank  of  Credit  and  Commerce  International 
told  Time  that  the  Iran-Contra  affair  is  linked  to  the  burgeoning 
bank  scandal.  Former  government  officials  and  other  sources 


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confirm  that  the  CIA  stashed  money  in  a  number  of  B.C. C.I. 
accounts  that  were  used  to  finance  covert  operations;  some  of 
these  funds  went  to  the  Contras.  Investigators  also  say  an 
intelligence  unit  of  the  U.S.  defense  establishment  has  used  the 
bank  to  maintain  a  secret  slush  fund,  possibly  for  financing 
unauthorized  covert  operations.  ("The  Cover-Up  Begins  to 
Crack,"  Time,  July  22) 

JULY  -  House  Judiciary  Committee  Chairman  Jack  Brooks 
(D-TX)  moved  to  subpoena  Justice  Department  records  to 
investigate  allegations  that  the  agency  stole  computer  software 
from  a  private  company,  Inslaw  Inc.  TTie  announcement  came 
nearly  a  week  after  Attorney  General  Dick  Thomburgh  refused 
to  testify  before  the  Judiciary  Committee.  After  Brooks' 
announcement,  a  Justice  official  said  the  department  would 
provide  the  documents  the  committee  sought  for  its  investigation 
of  the  computer  software  allegations. 

A  bankruptcy  judge  in  proceedings  involving  Inslaw  Inc. 
found  there  was  a  conspiracy  among  Justice  Department  officials 
during  the  Reagan  administration  to  steal  the  software  from 
Inslaw,  which  went  into  bankruptcy  protection  after  the  agency 
withheld  payments  on  its  government  contract.  The  software  was 
a  case-management  system  used  by  federal  prosecutors. 

The  Judiciary  Committee  announcement  also  said  Brooks 
planned  to  seek  authority  to  subpoena  a  1989  Justice  legal 
opinion  that  gives  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  authority 
to  seize  fugitives  overseas  without  permission  of  foreign 
governments.  ("Brooks  to  Seek  Justice  Data,"  The  Washington 
Post,  July  25) 

[Ed. note:  See  August  14  entry  on  same  subject.] 

AUGUST  -  The  General  Accounting  Office  evaluated  the  quality 
of  Environmental  Protection  Agency  data  that  will  be  used  to 
determine  the  need  for  mandatory  hazardous  waste  minimization 
requirements.  All  the  data  quality  problems  GAO  identified  in  its 
February  1990  report  (PEMD-90-3)  as  likely  to  occur  did  occur. 
These  problems  included  the  system's  inability  to  integrate  data, 
uncertain  data  validity  based  on  inappropriate  measurement,  and 
uncertain  data  reliability  based  on  inadequate  data  collection 
methods.  Some  of  these  problems  were  so  severe  that  EPA  had 
to  abandon  all  of  the  central  analyses  of  waste  minimization 
progress  that  the  agency  had  originally  planned  to  give  to 
Congress. 

Problems  such  as  the  extent  of  missing  data  were  of  special 
importance  in  negatively  affecting  the  assessment  of  progress  on 
hazardous  waste  minimization.  These  findings  suggest  that  the 
information  EPA  presents  to  Congress  will  not  be  helpful  in 
understanding  the  extent  and  determinants  of  waste  minimization 
or  in  determining  whether  mandatory  or  other  requirements  may 
need  to  be  included  in  the  reauthorization  of  the  Resource 
Con.servation  and  Recovery  Act.  ("Waste  Minimization:  EPA 
Data  Are  Severely  Flawed,"  GAO/PEMD-91-21,  August  5,  9 
PP) 


AUGUST  -  An  article  by  Spencer  Rich  stated  that  one  of  the 
most  confusing  incidents  in  the  debate  over  the  Medicare 
catastrophic  benefits  act  of  1988,  subsequently  repealed,  was  the 
dispute  over  the  cost  of  prescription  drug  benefits.  The  Congres- 
sional Budget  Office  originally  projected  the  drug  benefit  would 
cost  the  government  $6  billion  from  1990  to  1994  and  require 
the  elderly  to  pay  $8  billion  in  insurance.  But  revised  estimates 
later  put  the  figures  at  $12  billion  for  the  government  and  $9 
billion  for  the  elderly. 

A  new  study  from  a  National  Research  Council  panel  headed 
by  Eric  Hanushek  of  the  University  of  Rochester  explains  the 
reason  for  the  huge  jumps  in  both  figures:  The  only  available 
estimates  on  prescription  drug  use  at  the  time  the  bill  was  passed 
were  ten  years  old.  The  CBO  initially  had  to  rely  on  drug-use 
figures  from  1977-80.  A  subsequent  1987  survey  showed  that 
prescription  drug  use  had  grown  much  faster  than  the  earlier 
figures  had  suggested. 

This  example  is  one  of  a  number  cited  in  the  study,  which 
concluded  that  bad  statistics  and  inadequate  information  have  led 
to  major  miscalculations  in  the  formulation  of  federal  policy. 
The  study  notes  that  the  government  has  been  cutting  funds  for 
developing  the  statistics  that  would  enable  Congress  and  the 
White  House  to  understand  better  what  impact  new  legislation  is 
likely  to  have  on  spending  and  tax  f)olicy. 

The  article  cites  other  examples  of  poor  data  about  Individual 
Retirement  Accounts,  the  Consumer  Price  Index,  and  the 
Current  Population  Survey.  For  example,  during  the  late  1970s 
and  1980s,  the  report  says  "the  consumer  price  index  overstated 
the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  by  some  1-2  percent  a  year,  with 
serious  consequences  for  wage  escalation  and  overadjustment  of 
Social  Security  and  other  federal  entitlements."  At  least  80 
million  people  were  affected,  and  every  one  percent  error  cost 
the  government  at  least  $4.6  billion  a  year  in  extra  payments  or 
lost  tax  revenue.  ("Bad  Statistics  Cited  in  Policy  Miscalcula- 
tions," The  Washington  Post,  August  6) 

AUGUST  -  After  Rep.  Frank  Wolf  (R-VA)  met  with  two 
officials  of  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency,  the  CIA  said  it  will 
include  a  consultant's  reasons  against  moving  as  many  as  3,000 
employees  to  West  Virginia  in  a  report  that  previously  had  been 
censored.  The  agency  agreed  to  return  some  of  the  information 
to  a  version  of  the  report  prepared  for  public  release.  Wolf  is 
one  of  several  Washington,  D.C.,  area  legislators  trying  to 
thwart  an  attempt  by  Sen.  Robert  Byrd  (D-WV)  to  transfer 
thousands  of  CIA  employees  from  offices  in  Northern  Virginia 
to  Jefferson  County,  W.Va. 

Wolf  complained  that  the  CIA  was  not  making  public  the 
reasons  against  moving  to  West  Virginia.  The  reasons  were 
contained  in  a  report  released  to  the  House  Intelligence  Commit- 
tee, but  were  edited  from  the  version  made  available  to  the 
public.  How  much  information  the  agency  will  put  back  in  is 
unclear.  "It  is  our  view  that  to  release  the  study  in  its  entirety 
would  jeopardize  the  government  in  its  negotiations,"  said  CIA 
spokesman   Mark   Mansfield.   Mansfield  said   the  information 


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withheld  from  the  report  contained  analyses  of  the  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  each  parcel  at  four  sites  that  the  agency  is 
considering.  The  edited  information  also  contains  estimates  of 
the  land  costs  to  the  government  and  financial  analyses  of  the 
cost  to  develop  the  sites. 

Wolf  said  parts  of  the  report  stated  that  West  Virginia  should 
be  eliminated  as  a  site  because  a  lack  of  highways  in  the  area, 
because  commutes  would  be  too  long  for  workers  now  living  in 
the  Washington,  D.C.,  area,  and  because  the  move  would  cause 
some  key  employees  to  resign.  Wolf  questioned  the  need  for 
secrecy,  noting  "This  is  not  a  covert  operation.  They  are  not 
talking  about  mining  the  harbors  of  Nicaragua.  They  are  talking 
about  purchasing  land  for  a  building."  ("CIA  Will  Disclose 
More  on  W.Va.  Site,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  14) 

AUGUST  -  After  the  confrontation  between  House  Judiciary 
Committee  Chairman  Jack  Brooks  (D-TX)  and  the  Justice 
Department  about  a  controversial  1989  Justice  Department 
opinion  about  U.S.  authority  to  act  overseas.  Justice  officials 
sought  to  negotiate  a  compromise  that  would  include  permitting 
some  members  of  the  Judiciary  Committee  to  review  the  opinion 
without  publicly  releasing  a  copy.  However,  a  copy  of  the 
opinion  was  obtained  by  the  Washington  Post. 

TTie  opinion  concluded  that  "serious  threats"  to  U.S. 
domestic  security  from  "international  terrorist  groups  and 
narcotics  traffickers"  would  justify  the  President  to  violate 
international  law  by  ordering  abduction  of  fugitives  overseas.  It 
asserts  that  the  President  and  Attorney  General  have  "inherent 
constitutional  power"  to  order  a  wide  range  of  law  enforcement 
actions  in  foreign  countries  without  the  consent  of  foreign 
governments,  even  if  they  violate  international  treaties.  It  also 
argues  that  "as  a  matter  of  domestic  law,  the  executive  has  the 
power  to  authorize  actions  inconsistent"  with  United  Nations 
charter  provisions  barring  use  of  force  against  member  nations. 
Such  decisions  "are  fundamentally  political  questions,"  the 
opinion  states,  and  therefore  do  not  constrain  the  chief  executive 
in  fulfilling  his  law  enforcement  responsibilities. 

The  opinion  from  the  Office  of  Legal  Counsel,  written  by 
then-Assistant  and  now  Attorney  General  William  P.  Barr,  has 
been  at  the  center  of  controversy  for  nearly  two  years.  Along 
with  a  later  opinion  concluding  that  the  U.S.  military  could  make 
arrests  overseas,  it  was  relied  on  by  Bush  administration  officials 
in  launching  the  December  1989  invasion  of  Panama.  But  critics 
have  charged  that  it  amounts  to  a  dangerous  expansion  of  Justice 
Department  authority  overseas  in  violation  of  international  law. 

Justice  Department  officials  have  consistently  refused  to 
release  the  June  21,  1989,  opinion,  contending  that  its  public 
dissemination  would  inhibit  department  lawyers  writing  internal 
opinions.  They  said  it  also  had  the  potential  to  harm  the  govern- 
ment's position  in  pending  cases,  including  the  trial  of  ex- 
Panamanian  dictator  Gen.  Manuel  Antonio  Noriega,  by  giving 
defense  lawyers  ideas  about  possible  weaknesses  in  the  govern- 
ment's arguments.  ("U.S.  'Power'  on  Abductions  Detailed,"  The 
Washington  Post,  August  14) 


AUGUST  -  Two  examples  of  less  govenmient  information  being 
made  available  to  the  American  people  were  contained  in  a  letter 
to  the  editor  of  the  New  York  Times.  Ernest  B.  Dane  of  Great 
Falls,  Va.,  cited  the  annual  report  to  Congress  of  the  Secretary 
of  Defense,  which  for  many  years  served  as  a  virtual  public 
encyclopedia  of  data  about  the  defense  establishment,  and  its 
equipment  and  cost  to  the  taxpayer.  However,  for  the  last  two 
years  the  report  has  been  revised  to  exclude  most  details  needed 
for  real  understanding  of  national  security  issues. 

Dane  cited  a  second  example  of  the  Office  of  Management 
and  Budget  midsession  review  of  the  budget,  issued  annually  on 
July  15.  "This  year,  the  review  omitted  data  showing  interest  on 
the  public  debt.  The  amount  of  that  interest,  now  estimated  at 
more  than  $327  billion  for  1993,  might  seem  embarrassing,  but 
it  should  nevertheless  be  published."  ("Using  Cost-Cutting  to 
Limit  Public  Data,"  The  New  York  Times,  August  14) 

AUGUST  -  President  Bush  signed  a  bill  on  covert  operations 
intended  to  close  a  loophole  blamed  for  the  Iran-Contra  scandal. 
But  he  made  it  clear  that  he  would  use  his  own  discretion  on 
whether  to  follow  the  law's  tighter  requirements  on  notifying 
Congress  about  secret  intelligence  operations  abroad.  Bush 
protested  the  inclusion  of  the  first  legal  definition  of  "covert 
action,"  which  he  said  was  unnecessary  and  infringed  on  the 
constitutional  powers  of  the  Presidency.  The  legislation  requires 
the  President  to  provide  written  approval  of  covert  activities 
conducted  by  any  federal  agency  and  bans  retroactive  approval 
of  such  operations  by  the  President. 

During  the  Iran-Contra  affair,  former  President  Ronald 
Reagan  skirted  the  Intelligence  Oversight  Act  of  1980,  which 
requires  the  President  to  give  "prior  notice"  of  all  covert 
activities  to  the  two  congressional  intelligence  committees  or  to 
give  notice  "in  a  timely  fashion"  if  emergency  actions  are 
necessary.  He  also  signed  an  order  that  retroactively  authorized 
arms  sales  to  Iran,  and  he  did  not  inform  Congress  of  the  two 
actions  for  a  year.  ("Covert-Disclosure  Bill  Is  Signed  by 
President,"  The  New  York  Times,  August  16) 

AUGUST  -  The  General  Accounting  Office  looked  into  the 
removal  of  government  documents  during  the  Reagan  adminis- 
tration by  the  last  two  agency  heads  at  the  Departments  of 
Defense,  Justice,  State,  and  Treasury.  It  discovered  that  records 
of  departing  agency  heads  were  not  controlled  by  the  National 
Archives  and  Records  Administration,  as  is  done  for  departing 
presidents.  All  eight  of  the  former  agency  heads  removed 
documents  when  they  left  office,  and  two  of  the  four  agencies 
did  not  know  if  records  had  been  removed.  Agencies  were 
unaware  of  classified  material  in  two  removed  collections  and 
failed  to  ensure  that  required  security  restrictions  were  followed 
for  a  significant  amount  of  classified  material  in  a  third  collec- 
tion removed  to  a  private  business. 

Additionally,  at  least  half  of  the  collections  contained  original 
documents  agencies  did  not  know  had  been  removed.  As  a 
result,  GAO  believes  official  records  possibly  also  were  re- 


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moved.  Once  documents  are  moved,  the  government's  access  to 
them  is  not  ensured — as  evidenced  by  GAO's  being  denied 
access  to  three  of  the  eight  collections.  GAO  concluded  that 
current  internal  controls  do  not  adequately  ensure  that  govern- 
ment records  and  information  are  properly  protected  because  no 
independent  review  of  documents  is  made  before  they  are 
removed.  GAO  believes  the  National  Archives  and  Records 
Administration  should  oversee  plans  by  agency  heads  to  remove 
documents  and  determine  whether  their  relinquishment  and 
removal  are  consistent  with  federal  laws  and  regulations. 
("Federal  Records:  Document  Removal  by  Agency  Heads  Needs 
Independent  Oversight,"  GAO/GGD-91-1 17,  August  30,  35  pp.) 

[Ed.  note:  The  Washington  Post  included  a  story  about  this 
GAO  report  in  a  September  24  article,  "Leaving  Town  With  the 
Records."  The  article  mentions  that  the  three  who  would  not 
allow  GAO  investigators  access  to  records  they  had  taken  were 
former  Secretary  of  Defense  Caspar  Weinberger,  former 
Secretary  of  State  Alexander  Haig,  and  former  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  Donald  Regan.] 

SEPTEMBER  -  Government  studies  of  the  health  risks  from 
hazardous  wastes  at  nearly  1 ,000  Superfiind  cleanup  sites  were 
"seriously  deficient,"  the  General  Accounting  Office  reported. 
The  health  assessments,  which  the  Agency  for  Toxic  Substances 
and  Disease  Registry  was  required  by  law  to  perform  under  a 
tight  deadline,  "generally  have  not  been  useful"  to  the  Environ- 
mental Protection  Agency  and  others  supervising  the  cleanups, 
the  GAO  said  in  a  report  to  Congress.  "Because  ATSDR  health 
assessments  have  not  fully  evaluated  the  health  risks  of  many 
Superfund  sites,  communities  have  not  been  adequately  informed 
about  possible  health  effects,"  the  GAO  said. 

The  Superfund  program  was  established  to  identify  the 
nation's  worst  hazardous  waste  problems  and  make  sure  they 
were  cleaned  up.  Superfund  amendments  in  1986  gave  ATSDR 
responsibility  for  looking  into  the  dangers  to  human  health  at 
each  site  on  the  national  priority  list.  The  agency,  which  reports 
to  the  Department  of  Health  and  Human  Services,  was  so  rushed 
that  for  165  Superfund  sites,  it  simply  found  documents  already 
prepared  for  other  reasons  and  called  them  health  assessments. 

For  example,  the  agency  took  a  1984  review  by  the  Centers 
for  Disease  Control  of  a  Massachusetts  Health  Department 
cancer  mortality  study  and  called  it  a  health  assessment  of  a  site 
at  New  Bedford,  Mass. ,  even  though  the  site  was  not  mentioned. 
For  more  recent  assessments,  the  agency  has  improved  its  work 
by  visiting  all  the  sites  and  contacting  state  or  local  health 
officials,  the  GAO  report  said.  ("'Superfund'  Studies  Called 
Deficient, "  The  Washington  Post,  September  4) 

SEPTEMBER  -  According  to  Jack  Anderson,  the  Nuclear 
Regulatory  Commission  has  proposed  regulations  that  would 
permit  radioactive  wastes  to  be  recycled  into  consumer  goods 
such  as  toys,  belt  buckles,  cosmetics,  shotgun  shells,  fishing 
lures  and  frying  pans.  Anderson  said:  "Consumers  will  not  find 


a  surgeon  general's  warning  on  these  products.  That's  because 
the  NRC  has  no  plans  to  mandate  labeling." 

The  f)olicy  was  put  on  hold  after  creating  a  firestorm,  but  if 
ultimately  implemented,  the  United  States  would  allow  levels  of 
radiation  that  are  ten  times  those  suggested  by  international 
standards.  An  NRC  spokesperson  said:  "We  do  not  take  actions 
that  do  not  protect  public  health  and  safety."  But  an  internal 
briefing  pajjer  from  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency 
painted  a  different  picture:  "We  believe  this  is... not  protective 
of  the  public  health." 

The  nuclear  power  industry  clamored  for  this  change  and,  by 
some  estimates,  stands  to  save  up  to  $100  million  each  year 
from  this  cheaper  form  of  waste  disposal.  The  Nuclear  Informa- 
tion and  Resource  Service,  a  public  interest  group,  estimates  the 
savings  would  be  $  1  per  year  per  utility  customer. 

The  NRC  adopted  the  controversial  ptolicy  in  June  1990  when 
it  raised  the  level  of  certain  less  dangerous  forms  of  radiation  to 
which  humans  could  be  subjected,  abdicating  any  regulatory 
oversight  for  lower  levels.  Under  the  policy,  about  30  percent  of 
the  nation's  low-level  radioactive  waste  could  be  disposed  of  in 
a  variety  of  common  outlets,  including  sewer  systems,  incinera- 
tors, and  ordinary  landfills  where  it  could  seep  into  drinking 
water  sources.  Radioactive  waste  also,  for  the  first  time,  would 
be  allowed  as  recycled  material  in  consumer  products.  ("No 
Child's  Play  in  Recycled  Waste,"  The  Washington  Post, 
September  9) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  U.S.  Geological  Survey's  Water  Resources 
Scientific  Information  Center  announced  that  monthly  issues  of 
Selected  Water  Resources  Abstracts  (SWRA)  will  cease  with  the 
December  1991  issue.  The  1991  annual  indexes  will  not  be 
printed  at  all.  The  Geological  Survey  cited  budget  exigencies  and 
the  wide  range  of  commercial  sources  which  provide  access  to 
SWRA  as  reasons  for  discontinuing  the  printed  publication. 
Magnetic  tapes  can  be  leased  from  the  National  Technical 
Information  Service.  The  SWRA  database  of  235,000  abstracts 
is  available  online  via  DIALOG  and  the  European  Space  Agency 
Information  Retrieval  Services. 

A  CD-ROM  version  of  the  SWRA  is  available  from  several 
vendors:  the  National  Information  Services  Corporation  charges 
$595  a  year;  the  OCLC  version  costs  $750  a  year  to  nonmem- 
bers,  $700  for  members.  Since  no  government  agency  is 
producing  the  CD-ROM  version  of  the  SWRA,  it  will  no  longer 
be  available  to  federal  depository  libraries  where  the  public 
would  have  no-fee  access  to  it.  ("Selected  Water  Resources 
Abstracts  Will  Cease  Publication,"  Administrative  Notes,  U.S. 
Government  Printing  Office,  September  15) 

SEPTEMBER  -  An  article  by  Barry  Meier  highlighted  criticism 
of  the  Consumer  Product  Safety  Commission  in  its  role  as 
watchdog  of  the  safety  of  all  consumer  products  other  than  cars, 
boats,  drugs,  and  food.  One  of  the  agency's  most  contentious 
issues  concerns  how  it  discloses  information  involving  hazards. 
Under  its  rules,  the  agency  must  give  a  manufacturer  a  chance 


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to  review  and  dispute  any  data  about  a  product.  The  Consumer 
Product  Safety  Commission  is  the  only  safety  agency  that 
operates  under  such  restrictions.  Congress,  in  1981,  also 
prohibited  the  agency  from  releasing  any  data  about  product 
hazards  that  manufacturers  are  obliged  to  report  to  the  commis- 
sion. As  a  result,  preliminary  determinations  about  product 
hazards  are  no  longer  placed  in  a  public  reading  room  at  the 
agency,  said  Alan  Schoem,  a  commission  lawyer. 

Thus,  it  may  be  years  before  the  public  hears  of  suspect 
products.  In  November  1989,  the  Consumer  Product  Safety 
Commission  determined  that  a  popular  portable  heater  might 
pose  a  fire  risk.  But  it  did  not  alert  the  public  until  August  1991, 
after  the  manufacturer  agreed  to  fix  3.6  million  units.  In  those 
21  months,  while  the  agency  and  company  investigated  and 
negotiated,  eight  people  died  in  two  fires  that  may  have  been 
started  by  faulty  wiring  in  the  heaters,  said  David  Fonvielle,  a 
lawyer  in  Tallahassee,  Fla.,  for  plaintiffs  in  some  of  the  cases. 
The  manufacturer  said  the  units  caused  no  fires. 

Several  other  issues,  including  proposals  that  disposable 
lighters  should  be  made  childproof  and  ride-on  lawn  mowers 
made  less  liable  to  tip,  have  been  unresolved  for  six  years  or 
more.  Some  CPSC  problems  appear  traceable  to  its  limited 
resources  and  slow  processes.  The  FY  1991  agency  budget  was 
$37  million,  down  from  $43.9  million  in  1979.  The  agency's 
success  in  reducing  product-related  injuries  has  slowed.  The  rate 
of  injuries  per  100,000  Americans  declined  by  24  percent  from 
1978  to  1982,  but  between  1982  and  1988  that  decline  was  only 
nine  percent,  commission  data  show.  ("Product  Safety  Commis- 
sion Is  Criticized  as  Too  Slow  to  Act,"  "Die  New  York  Times, 
September  21) 

SEPTEMBER  -  At  the  insistence  of  former  President  Ronald 
Reagan,  6.3  million  pages  of  White  House  documents  will  be 
made  public  shortly  after  the  opening  of  his  presidential  library 
on  November  4.  Stung  by  earlier  press  reports  about  a  planned 
three-year  restriction  on  release  of  all  documents,  Reagan  urged 
his  staff  to  do  everything  possible  to  make  some  documents 
available  at  the  library  opening,  his  aides  said. 

In  a  letter  to  National  Archivist  Donald  Wilson,  Reagan 
waived  a  12-year  delay  on  the  release  of  1.5  million  pages  of 
selected  presidential  records  covering  routine  position  papers  and 
offering  factual  information  on  issues  ranging  from  agriculture 
to  highways  and  bridges.  Reagan  also  asked  that  the  archives 
open  up  an  estimated  4.8  million  pages  of  get-well  cards, 
birthday  greetings,  and  other  unsolicited  letters. 

The  remainder  of  the  library's  storehouse  of  55  million  pages 
of  presidential  documents — including  all  Iran-Contra  docu- 
ments— will  remain  shielded  from  public  view  for  a  decade  or 
more  by  a  variety  of  restrictions  to  protect  national  security, 
foreign  policy,  and  confidentiality.  ("Reagan  Library  Set  to 
Release  Private  Papers,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  25) 

SEPTEMBER  -  A  lobbying  disclosure  law  is  so  riddled  with 
exemptions  that  six  big  military  contractors  which  spent  $5.7 


million  lobbying  the  executive  branch  and  Congress  last  year 
only  reported  $3,547,  according  to  investigators  for  the  Senate 
subcommittee  on  oversight  of  government  management.  Sen. 
Carl  Levin  (D-MI)  chairs  the  subcommittee  which  held  a  hearing 
on  September  25  to  discuss  the  weaknesses  of  the  lobbying 
disclosure  laws,  such  as  the  1989  Byrd  Amendment  that  requires 
disclosure  by  contractors. 

In  a  statement.  Sen.  Levin  said:  "Disclosure  under  the  Byrd 
Amendment  is  almost  non-existent,  and  it's  not  because  there's 
so  little  lobbying.  Instead,  there's  a  real  problem  with  the  way 
this  law  has  been  interpreted,  applied  and  also  studiously 
avoided."  A  Pentagon  inspector  general's  survey  found  that 
lobbying  by  100-plus  consultants  was  not  disclosed  because  of 
the  way  contractors  interpreted  the  Byrd  Amendment.  Their 
reading  of  the  law  was  backed  by  the  Defense  Department  and 
the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget.  ("Senate  Panel  Looks  at 
Military  Lobbying  Law,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  26) 

SEPTEMBER  -  Proposals  by  the  Food  and  Drug  Administration 
to  improve  nutrition  labeling  on  food  and  drink  have  been 
overruled  and  weakened  by  the  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget,  a  consumer-advocacy  group  alleged.  The  Center  for 
Science  in  the  Public  Interest  released  documents  it  obtained 
showing  that  some  FDA  proposals  to  implement  the  Nutrition 
Labeling  and  Education  Act  of  1990  were  "substantially 
changed"  by  OMB.  In  the  opinion  of  CSPI,  the  changes  favor 
the  interests  of  manufacturers  and  retailers. 

However,  an  FDA  spokesman  said  the  changes  were  not 
significant  and  that  the  consumer  group  had  exaggerated  the 
issue.  An  OMB  spokesman  said  nothing  was  forced  on  the  FDA, 
which  had  agreed  to  the  changes.  According  to  CSPI,  the 
changes  would  reduce  by  about  7,000  the  number  of  grocery 
stores  required  to  post  nutrition  information  for  fresh  produce 
and  seafood.  "The  net  effect  is  that  the  consumer  is  less  likely 
to  see  nutritional  information  than  they  would  under  FDA 
proposals,"  said  Bruce  Silverglade,  CSPI  director  of  legal 
affairs. 

The  FDA  had  also  proposed  that  the  manufacturers  of  diluted 
"fruit  drinks"  use  a  standard  procedure  to  determine  the 
percentage  of  real  juice  in  their  product— a  figure  given  on  the 
label.  This  test  will  be  used  by  the  FDA  in  any  enforcement 
actions,  but  the  OMB  would  allow  manufacturers  to  use  any  test 
they  want.  "This  leaves  juice  manufacturers  free  to  use  whatever 
test  gives  them  the  highest  number  for  juice  content," 
Silverglade  said.  In  addition,  the  consumer  group  claims,  citing 
FDA  sources,  that  OMB  is  delaying  approval  of  a  study  to  test 
new  nutrition  labeling  formats  intended  to  help  consumers  better 
understand  what  is  in  their  food. 

In  a  separate  move.  Rep.  John  Conyers  (D-MI),  chairman  of 
the  House  Government  Operations  Committee,  wrote  to  the 
director  of  OMB  demanding  information  on  the  OMB  review  of 
the  FDA  proposals.  Conyers  said  OMB's  revision  "appears  to 
subvert  congressional  intent  as  expressed  in  laws  to  protect 
public  health  and  safety."  Conyers  said  the  OMB  has,  in  the 


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past,  "forced  the  FDA"  to  weaken  regulations  governing  health 
claims  on  some  food.  ("OMB  Accused  of  Weakening  Food- 
Labeling  Proposals,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  26) 

[Ed.  note:  See  November  6  entry  for  follow-up  article.] 

SEPTEMBER  -  Judge  Harold  Greene  ruled  that  a  confidentiality 
clause  in  federal  health  research  contracts,  which  bars  private 
researchers  from  publishing  their  preliminary  findings  violates 
the  First  Amendment.  The  ruling  comes  in  the  same  controver- 
sial area  of  the  law  that  the  Supreme  Court  addressed  last  May 
when  it  upheld  a  ban  on  federal  funding  for  public  clinics  that 
give  abortion  counseling.  At  issue  in  that  case.  Rust  v.  Sullivan, 
and  in  the  current  case  involving  Stanford  University  was  the 
same  question:  How  much  can  government  limit  speech  it  is 
paying  for? 

Greene  distinguished  his  ruling  from  Rust,  saying  the  earlier 
case  involved  the  government's  right  to  see  that  public  money  is 
spent  the  way  Congress  intended.  But  in  the  case  involving 
Stanford  University,  he  ruled  that  the  government  was  directly 
limiting  the  rights  of  scientists  to  talk  about  their  work.  "Few 
large-scale  endeavors  are  today  not  supported,  directly  or 
indirectly,  by  govenmient  funds,"  Green  wrote.  "If  [Rust  v. 
Sullivan]  were  to  be  given  the  scope  and  breadth  defendants 
advocate  in  this  case,  the  result  would  be  an  invitation  to 
government  censorship  wherever  public  funds  flow." 

At  issue  was  a  dispute  between  Stanford  and  the  National 
Institutes  for  Health  over  a  $1.5  million  contract  to  do  research 
on  an  artificial  heart  device  known  as  the  left  ventricular  assist 
device.  The  NIH  contract  included  a  clause  in  the  contract 
barring  Stanford  scientists  from  discussing  "preliminary" 
research  results  or  data  that  had  "the  possibility  of  adverse 
effects  on  the  public."  Stanford  objected,  saying  the  clause 
violated  its  First  Amendment  rights,  as  well  as  the  tradition  of 
academic  freedom  among  scientists  to  discuss  their  work.  Such 
confidentiality  clauses  have  become  common  in  NIH  contracts 
in  the  past  15  years  and  usually  are  invoked  in  research  involv- 
ing clinical  trials  going  on  simultaneously  at  different  universi- 
ties. ("Federal  Judge  Rules  NIH  Research  Confidentiality  Clause 
Invalid,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  27) 

OCTOBER  -  A  former  top  Central  Intelligence  Agency  official 
testified  in  Senate  confirmation  hearings  that  in  the  1980s,  the 
CIA  was  a  politicized  cauldron  in  which  estimates  were  slanted 
and  false  information  was  presented  to  the  White  House  to  match 
the  policy  objectives  of  the  agency's  director,  William  Casey. 
The  testimony  was  presented  by  Melvin  Goodman,  a  professor 
at  the  National  War  College  who  worked  as  a  Soviet  affairs 
specialist  at  the  CIA  for  24  years,  to  the  Senate  Select  Commit- 
tee on  Intelligence,  which  was  considering  the  nomination  of 
Gates  to  direct  the  CIA.  According  to  Goodman,  Gates  was 
Casey's  chief  agent  inside  the  CIA  intimidating  analysts  into 
producing  slanted  reports— especially  on  Iran,  Nicaragua  and 
Afghanistan.  However,  another  former  top  CIA  official,  Graham 


Fuller,  told  the  senators  that  Goodman  had  presented  "serious 
distortions." 

The  Senate  committee  made  public  the  testimony  by  another 
CIA  veteran,  Harold  Ford,  who  said  Gates  failed  to  take 
seriously  the  decline  of  communism  and  had  offered  memory 
lapses  to  the  Senate  committee  that  were  "clever."  Ford  cited  a 
key  analysis  he  said  overstated  the  depth  of  Soviet  influence  in 
Iran  at  a  time  when  U.S.  arms  sales  were  being  justified  as  a 
counterbalance  to  Moscow's  influence  with  Tehran.  ("Ex-Aide 
Calls  CIA  Under  Casey  and  Gates  Corrupt  and  Slanted," 
International  Herald  Tribune,  October  2) 

[Ed.  note:  See  following  entry.] 

OCTOBER  -  Robert  Gates  vigorously  denied  he  had  exerted 
pressure  on  agency  analysts  to  distort  Central  Intelligence 
Agency  reports.  He  acknowledged  that  in  a  "rough  and  tumble" 
CIA  atmosphere  during  the  1980s,  embittered  and  inflexible 
analysts  perceived  such  political  pressure.  "I  never  distorted 
intelligence  to  support  policy  or  please  a  jX)licy-maker, "  Gates 
said  in  testimony  to  the  Senate  Intelligence  Committee,  which 
was  considering  his  nomination  to  direct  the  CIA.  Gates  drew  on 
freshly  declassified  CIA  memos  to  present  a  counterattack 
against  damaging  charges  by  current  and  former  CIA  officials 
that  he  slanted  CIA  analyses  to  suit  White  House  policy  objec- 
tives and  those  of  William  Casey,  then  the  agency's  director. 
("Gates  Tells  Panel  He  Didn't  Order  Data  to  Be  Slanted," 
International  Herald  Tribune,  October  4) 

OCTOBER  -  During  the  debate  on  the  conference  report  on  HR 
1415,  the  Foreign  Relations  Authorization  Act,  Fiscal  Years 
1992  and  1993,  Sen.  Jesse  Helms  (R-NC),  ranking  minority 
member  of  the  Senate  Foreign  Relations  Committee,  discussed 
classification  of  government  information.  He  observed: 
One  of  the  handiest   tools  used   by  executive   branch 
agencies  to  keep  Congress  in  the  dark...,  is  needless 
classification   of  documents.    Proper   classification   of 
matter  relating  to  vital  national  security  concerns  of  the 
United  States  have  my  full  support.  But  classification  that 
covers  up  information  that  might  merely  provide  to  be  an 
embarrassment  is  inexcusable. 
(October  4  Congressional  Record,  p.  S 14439) 

OCTOBER  -  The  owner  and  publisher  of  the  Santa  Fe  New 
Mexican,  Robert  McKinney,  fired  its  managing  editor  and 
criticized  a  series  of  articles  detailing  safety  and  environmental 
hazards  at  Los  Alamos  National  Laboratory,  the  largest  employ- 
er in  the  Santa  Fe  area.  The  series  contained  32  articles  pub- 
lished during  six  days  in  February  1991.  The  series,  based  in 
part  on  documents  obtained  under  the  Freedom  of  Information 
Act,  stated  that  cleaning  up  1,800  sites  of  possible  contamination 
near  Los  Alamos  would  cost  $2  billion  over  a  20-year  period. 
The  articles  further  stated  that  the  lab  releases  large  amounts  of 
chemical  and  radioactive  contamination  into  the  environment 


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daily,  although  the  risk  to  public  health  is  slight  to  nonexistent. 
Lab  officials  did  not  cite  inaccuracies  in  the  series  or  ask  for 
corrections.  But  the  New  Mexican  published  critical  opinion 
pieces  by  Siegfried  Hecker,  director  of  Los  Alamos,  and  former 
director  Harold  Agnew.  "Any  activity  creates  wastes,"  Agnew 

wrote.  "Making  a  dinner  salad,  baking  a  pie Nuclear  wastes 

are  no  more  dangerous  than  many  other  wastes."  In  late  August, 
Los  Alamos  released  a  308-page  internal  evaluation  highly 
critical  of  its  failure  to  comply  with  safety  and  environmental 
regulations,  essentially  confirming  much  of  what  had  been  in  the 
paper's  February  series.  ("After  Nuclear  Series,  Paper  Melts 
Down,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  5) 

OCTOBER  -  In  1985,  at  the  midway  point  of  the  worldwide 
campaign  to  raise  childhood  immunization  rates  fourfold  to  80 
percent,  public  health  officials  in  the  United  States  stopped 
counting.  As  a  result,  the  United  States  is  the  only  country  in  the 
world  that  has  no  official  figures  on  immunization  rates  of  1-  or 
2-year-olds.  The  official  explanation  was  that  data  collection  was 
costly  and  the  methodology  was  suspect,  but  critics  contended 
that  the  Reagan  administration  was  embarrassed  by  the  contrast 
between  improving  immunization  rates  throughout  the  Third 
World  and  five  consecutive  years  of  decline  in  the  United  States. 

Even  without  comprehensive  data,  problems  are  evident. 
Nearly  28,000  cases  of  measles  were  reported  in  1990— more 
than  18  times  the  number  reported  in  1983,  when  the  disease 
reached  an  all-time  low,  and  more  than  50  times  the  goal  of  500 
cases  per  year  that  the  U.S.  surgeon  general  had  set  for  1990. 
Nearly  half  the  measles  patients  were  under  age  five.  In  the 
wake  of  the  measles  outbreak,  the  government  has  begun  to 
collect  immunization  data  again. 

The  measles  epidemic,  along  with  outbreaks  of  rubella  and 
whooping  cough,  has  sparked  a  debate  about  whether  supply  or 
demand  is  the  problem.  The  supply-siders  hold  that  federal  and 
state  funding  has  not  kept  pace  with  a  thirteenfold  rise  in  the  cost 
of  the  vaccines  during  the  past  decade.  According  to  a  survey 
last  year  by  the  Children's  Defense  Fund  and  the  National 
Association  of  Community  Health  Clinics,  72  percent  of  public 
health  clinics  experienced  spot  shortages  of  vaccines.  The 
demand-side  holds  that,  while  there  are  access  problems,  the  real 
barrier  is  a  mix  of  complacency  and  poverty.  To  combat  the 
problem,  the  administration  has  called  for  a  $40  million  increase 
in  immunization  funding  for  this  year;  Congress  is  considering 
a  $60  million  to  $80  million  increase.  ("U.S.  Immunization 
Rates  Uncertain,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  9) 

OCTOBER  -  The  fight  to  gain  release  of  the  adjusted  1990 
census  figures  has  expanded  to  include  states  and  the  House  of 
Representatives,  with  Rep.  Thomas  Sawyer  (D-OH)  saying  he 
will  seek  a  subpoena  of  the  count  from  the  Conmierce  Depart- 
ment if  necessary.  At  least  five  state  legislatures  have  filed 
Freedom  of  Information  Act  requests,  arguing  that  they  need  to 
see  the  adjusted  count  to  determine  which  set  of  figures — the 
official  census  number  of  those  adjusted  to  compensate  for  an 


undercount — should  be  used  to  redraw  political  boundaries. 
Sawyer  maintains  that  pubic  access  to  the  data  is  a  matter  of 
fairness:  "The  American  people  ought  to  be  able  to  see  and 
evaluate  those  numbers.  They  belong  to  the  American  taxpayer, 
who  paid  about  $35  million  to  generate  those  numbers." 

Commerce  Secretary  Robert  Mosbacher  has  refused  all 
requests  to  make  public  the  adjusted  figures,  saying  the  numbers 
were  flawed  and  their  release  could  disrupt  the  redistricting 
process  going  on  across  the  country.  Sawyer  said  Mosbacher's 
refusal  to  adjust  the  census  or  even  make  public  the  adjusted 
counts  "has  left  state  legislatures  all  over  the  country  struggling 
with  large  and  demonstrably  disproportionate  undercounts  of 
minorities."  ("Adjusted  Census  Figures  Subject  of  Wider  Fight," 
The  Washington  Post,  October  17) 

OCTOBER  -  TTie  White  House  Council  on  Competitiveness,  a 
regulatory  review  panel  chaired  by  Vice  President  Dan  Quayle, 
has  refused  to  turn  over  documents  to  several  congressional 
committees  seeking  to  determine  the  council's  role  in  federal 
rulemaking.  Critics  of  the  Vice  President's  council  assert  that  it 
has  become  a  "super-regulatory"  agency  beholden  to  business 
interests,  revising  regulations  after  they  are  written  by  the 
designated  agencies.  The  White  House  maintains  that  the  council 
is  simply  an  arm  of  the  President's  executive  office  and  as  such 
has  all  the  power  to  review  and  suggest  regulations  that  the 
President  gives  it.  The  council  has  claimed  executive  privilege 
to  fend  off  requests  for  information  on  its  deliberations. 

Sen.  John  Glenn  (D-OH),  chair  of  the  Senate  Governmental 
Affairs  Committee,  commented  that  presidential  regulatory 
review  is  "process  cloaked  by  mystery  and  secrecy  and  encour- 
ages the  representation  of  interests  that  may  unfairly  influence 
agency  rule  making."  ("Questions  on  Role  of  Quayle  Council," 
The  New  York  Times,  October  19) 

OCTOBER  -  The  National  Research  Council  reported  that  the 
nation's  mammoth  program  to  clear  up  toxic  waste  was  ham- 
pered by  the  inability  to  tell  the  difference  between  dumps 
posing  a  real  threat  to  human  health  and  those  that  do  not.  The 
research  council,  an  arm  of  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences, 
said  that  because  not  enough  money  was  spent  on  developing  a 
sound  scientific  system  for  setting  priorities,  the  nation  faced  the 
prospect  of  wasting  billions  of  dollars  on  dumps  that  posed  little 
or  no  risk  and  ignoring  dumps  that  were  a  true  threat  to  the 
environment  and  pubic  health. 

In  addition  to  criticizing  weaknesses  in  the  management  of 
the  Superfund  program,  the  report's  recommendations  are 
equally  applicable  to  even  more  expensive  cleanup  programs 
managed  and  paid  for  by  the  Department  of  Energy  and  the 
Department  of  Defense.  The  two  departments  are  spending  more 
than  $6  billion  this  fiscal  year  on  cleaning  up  toxic  chemical  and 
radioactive  waste  sites.  "We  shouldn't  be  making  decisions  on 
spending  billions  of  dollars  out  of  ignorance,"  said  Dr.  Thomas 
Chalmers  of  the  Department  of  Veterans  Affairs  in  Boston, 
Mass.,  a  member  of  the  committee  that  prepared  the  report. 


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"We  need  much  more  data  to  determine  which  sites  ought  to  be 
pursued  and  we  need  to  set  up  a  better  system  of  evaluating 
risks."  ("U.S.  Said  to  Lack  Data  on  Threat  Posed  by  Hazardous 
Waste  Sites,"  The  New  York  Times,  October  22) 

NOVEMBER  -  House  Democrats  accused  Interior  Secretary 
Manuel  Lujan  Jr.  of  manipulating  the  conclusions  of  a  report  to 
Congress  that  favored  development  of  a  geothermal  energy  plant 
near  Yellowstone  National  Park,  by  failing  to  tell  them  that  the 
National  Park  Service  had  dissented  vigorously.  Yellowstone's 
geysers  are  powered  by  a  vast  reservoir  of  underground  heat,  a 
resource  developers  would  like  to  tap. 

The  report,  compiled  primarily  by  the  U.S.  Geological 
Survey,  concluded  that  small-scale  geothermal  development, 
such  as  that  planned  just  outside  Yellowstone's  border  by  the 
Church  Universal  and  Triumphant,  would  pose  little  risk  to  the 
geysers  and  hot  springs  that  have  made  Yellowstone  a  worldwide 
attraction.  However,  Lujan  did  not  give  Congress  a  companion 
report  by  the  Park  Service  which  argued  that  any  such  develop- 
ment could  threaten  the  park.  ("Manipulation  Charged  on 
Yellowstone  Report,"  The  Washington  Post,  November  1) 

NOVEMBER  -  Janet  Norwood,  commissioner  of  the  Bureau  of 
Labor  Statistics,  testified  before  the  Joint  Economic  Committee 
that  the  Bush  administration  is  studying  new  jobs  data  some 
economists  said  could  mean  the  government  has  underestimated 
the  depth  of  the  recession  and  prospects  for  recovery. 
Norwood's  comments  appeared  to  provide  the  first  official 
federal  backing  for  concerns  expressed  recently  by  economists 
from  some  state  governments  that  the  BLS  estimates  earlier  this 
year  of  employment  and  payroll  figures  were  far  too  optimistic. 
Norwood  told  the  committee  that  the  BLS  is  studying  the 
states'  data,  and  the  result  could  be  a  lowering  of  first  quarter 
1991  employment  figures  and  payroll  estimates.  Payroll  data 
collected  by  state  governments  show  a  far  weaker  job  market 
than  the  BLS  estimate,  and,  if  the  states'  counts  hold  up,  they 
could  lower  the  BLS  estimates  of  employed  people  by  at  least 
650,000,  she  said.  The  BLS  numbers  are  given  to  the  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce,  where  they  are  plugged  into  the  govern- 
ment's national  economic  accounts.  While  a  decline  in  the 
payroll  numbers  does  not  necessarily  mean  a  decline  in  the  gross 
national  product,  it  means  that  "the  GNP  has  been  a  whole  lot 
weaker  than  anyone  thought,"  according  to  a  senior  congressio- 
nal economist.  ("Federal  Jobs  Data  Called  Too  Optimistic,"  The 
Washington  Post,  November  2) 

NOVEMBER  -  There  was  a  pattern  of  delay  or  denial  affecting 
nearly  every  family  that  lost  a  serviceman  to  "friendly  fire"  in 
the  Persian  Gulf  War,  according  to  an  investigation  by  the 
Washington  Post.  The  Army,  in  particular,  broke  its  own  rules 
by  concealing  basic  facts  for  months  from  the  next  of  kin,  and 
its  efforts  to  postpone  disclosure  often  led  it  to  stretch  the  truth. 
Some  families  never  suspected.  Others  found  out  through  news 
reports  or  enlisted  friends  of  the  dead  men.  Some  heard  only 


rumors  and  begged  for  details.  Still  others,  including  all  the 
Marine  families,  learned  informally  that  a  "friendly  fire" 
investigation  was  underway.  All  had  to  wait  months  for  the  final 
word. 

Senior  officers,  in  interviews,  denied  that  any  family  had 
been  deceived.  TTiey  said  the  delay  in  informing  families  was  for 
the  families'  own  good,  in  order  to  verify  all  the  facts  and 
synchronize  public  release  of  the  findings.  The  families,  almost 
unanimously,  replied  they  were  entitled  to  the  truth— as  much  as 
the  services  knew,  as  soon  as  they  knew  it. 

Military  documents  obtained  through  the  Freedom  of 
Information  Act,  together  with  interviews  with  Defense  Depart- 
ment officials  and  the  families  of  21  "friendly  fire"  casualties, 
indicated  that  local  commanders  had  clear  evidence  of  "friendly 
fire"  in  33  of  the  35  cases  by  the  end  of  March,  but  an  inter- 
service  agreement  withheld  that  information  from  the  families 
until  August.  Of  148  U.S.  battle  deaths  in  the  war,  35  were 
inflicted  inadvertently  by  U.S.  troops.  The  article  contains  many 
specifics  about  the  experience  of  several  families.  ("'Friendly 
Fire'  Reports:  A  Pattern  of  Delay,  Denial,"  The  Washington 
Post,  November  5) 

[Ed.  note:  In  a  November  5  hearing  before  the  Senate  Select 
Committee  on  POW-MIA  Affairs,  Secretary  of  Defense  Richard 
Cheney  defended  the  delays  in  information  about  "friendly  fire" 
deaths  as  "just  a  normal,  natural  part  of  the  process."  ("Casualty 
Report  Delay  Called  'Normal',"  The  Washington  Post,  Novem- 
ber 6)] 

NOVEMBER  -  In  a  move  likely  to  provide  more  access  to 
information,  the  Food  and  Drug  Administration  and  the  Agricul- 
ture Department  proposed  the  most  sweeping  set  of  new  food 
labeling  regulations  in  U.S.  history.  The  proposed  guidelines 
will  extend  nutrition  labeling  to  all  processed  foods,  force  a  far 
more  complete  listing  of  ingredients,  and  standardize  what 
previously  had  been  a  byzantine  set  of  regulations  on  health 
claims  by  food  manufacturers.  The  rules,  which  are  open  for 
comment  and  will  be  finalized  at  the  end  of  1992,  are  intended 
to  make  it  easier  for  consumers  to  cut  through  what  Health  and 
Human  Services  Secretary  Louis  Sullivan  has  called  the  "Tower 
of  Babel"  in  supermarkets  and  identify  the  most  healthful  foods. 
("Food  Label  Reforms  to  Be  Unveiled,"  The  Washington  Post, 
November  6) 

NOVEMBER  -  Former  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  Elliott 
Abrams  pleaded  guilty  in  federal  court  to  two  charges  of 
illegally  withholding  information  from  Congress  about  covert 
U.S.  support  for  the  Contra  rebels  in  Nicaragua.  The  only  State 
Department  official  to  face  criminal  charges  thus  far  for 
covering  up  key  a.spects  of  the  Iran-Contra  affair,  Abrams 
admitted  testifying  untruthfully  before  two  congressional 
committees  in  October  1986,  within  a  fortnight  of  the  crash  of 
a  Contra  resupply  plane  in  Nicaragua. 

Among  the  details  he  held  back,  Abrams  said,  was  that  he 


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had  solicited  a  $10  million  contribution  from  the  Sultan  of 
Brunei  and  had  been  informed  by  State  Department  cable  that  the 
money  was  on  its  way  to  a  Swiss  bank  account.  In  entering  the 
misdemeanor  pleas,  Abrams  averted  the  threat  of  felony  charges 
and  agreed  to  cooperate  with  independent  counsel  Lawrence 
Walsh  in  the  final  stages  of  Walsh's  investigation  of  the  Iran- 
Contra  scandal.  ("Abrams  Pleads  Guilty  in  Iran-Contra  Affair," 
The  Washington  Post,  November  8) 

NOVEMBER  -  In  late  October,  James  McConnell,  Securities 
and  Exchange  Commission  executive  director,  stopped  distribu- 
tion of  the  September/October  edition  of  SEC  Employee  News, 
which  had  already  been  printed.  McConnell  believed  an  article 
critical  about  "tension  around  race  and  gender"  within  the 
agency  was  based  on  insufficient  research  and  thus  was  unfair, 
according  to  Jessica  Kole,  special  counsel  to  the  executive 
director.  Sexual  harassment  issues  emerged  as  a  major  problem 
for  the  agency  three  years  ago. 

McConnell' s  decision  disturbed  some  SEC  employees, 
sources  said,  because  recent  events  indicated  to  them  that  serious 
problems  at  the  agency  persist.  The  agency  has  been  under  court 
order  to  stop  sexual  harassment  and  discrimination  since  1988, 
when  it  lost  a  sexual  harassment  case  involving  employees  in  its 
now-defunct  Washington,  D.C.,  regional  office.  The  newsletter 
article,  by  SEC  equal  employment  opportunity  specialist  Janis 
Belk,  said  there  were  numerous  concerns  in  the  SEC's  regional 
offices  about  the  handling  of  racial  and  gender  issues.  ("SEC 
Blocks  Newsletter  Containing  Article  on  Gender,  Racial  Issues," 
The  Washington  Post,  November  8) 

NOVEMBER  -  An  advisory  panel  told  the  Food  and  Drug 
Administration  that  silicone-gel  breast  implants  should  continue 
to  be  available  for  all  women,  despite  an  "appalling"  lack  of 
information  on  the  safety  of  the  devices  and  their  effects  on 
long-term  health.  The  panel  voted  against  approving  silicone 
implants  made  by  four  manufacturers,  but  agreed  the  devices 
should  stay  on  the  market  under  the  same  status  they  have 
always  had  while  the  manufacturers  conduct  additional  research 
on  women  who  have  the  devices.  The  panel  also  said  the  FDA 
should  see  that  women  contemplating  implant  surgery  are  given 
more  detailed  information  about  the  risks  and  benefits. 

Panel  members  prodded  the  FDA  to  demand  that  the 
manufacturers  quickly  produce  more  detailed  studies  of  the  rate 
of  rupture,  the  amount  of  silicone— a  synthetic  polymer— that 
leaks  from  the  devices,  and  the  long-term  effects  of  chronic 
seepage,  which  some  have  suggested  could  cause  cancer  or  other 
illnesses.  Breast  implants  have  been  on  the  market  for  more  than 
30  years,  and  more  than  two  million  women  have  them.  But 
because  the  devices  came  on  the  market  before  the  FDA  gained 
authority  to  regulate  medical  devices,  the  agency  has  never 
evaluated  their  safety  or  effectiveness. 

FDA  Commissioner  David  Kessler  said  the  "FDA  will  make 
sure  the  data  is  collected,  and  collected  expeditiously."  Several 
panel  members,  however,  said  they  had  been  disappointed  in  the 


past,  when  FDA  failed  in  1982  and  1988  to  push  the  manufac- 
turers to  produce  more  detailed  studies.  The  companies  that 
sought  approval  for  their  implants  were  Dow  Coming  Wright, 
Mentor  Corp.,  McGhan  Medical  Corp.,  and  Bioplasty  Inc. 
Several  other  manufacturers  had  been  asked  to  submit  safety  data 
to  the  panel;  but  rather  than  comply,  they  dropped  out  of  the 
business.  "Companies  can't  say  these  devices  are  perfectly  safe 
any  more  because  we  now  see  there  isn't  enough  evidence  to 
establish  that,"  said  Sidney  Wolfe,  director  of  Public  Citizen's 
Health  Research  Group.  ("Breast  Implants  Allowed,"  The 
Washington  Post,  November  15) 

NOVEMBER  -  Acting  outside  the  Constitution  in  the  early 
1980s,  a  secret  federal  agency  established  a  line  of  succession  to 
the  Presidency  to  assure  continued  government  in  the  event  of  a 
devastating  nuclear  attack,  current  and  former  United  States 
officials  said.  The  officials  refused  to  discuss  details  of  the  plan, 
the  existence  of  which  was  disclosed  in  a  television  program  on 
the  Cable  News  Network.  The  CNN  report  said  that  if  all  17 
legal  successors  to  the  President  were  incapacitated,  nonelected 
officials  would  assume  office  in  extreme  emergencies. 

The  secret  agency,  the  National  Program  Office,  was  created 
by  former  President  Ronald  Reagan  in  1982  to  expand  the  list  of 
successors  and  a  network  of  bunkers,  aircraft,  and  mobile 
command  centers  to  ensure  that  the  government  continued  to 
function  in  a  nuclear  war  and  afterward.  Oliver  North,  then  a 
Marine  lieutenant  colonel  and  an  aide  on  the  National  Security 
Council,  was  a  central  figure  in  establishing  the  secret  program, 
CNN  said. 

The  CNN  report  also  said  the  United  States  had  spent  more 
than  $8  billion  on  the  National  Program  Office  since  1982,  much 
of  the  money  on  advanced  communications  equipment  designed 
to  survive  a  nuclear  blast.  The  communications  systems  were 
technically  flawed,  however,  and  prevented  the  State  Depart- 
ment, Defense  Department,  Central  Intelligence  Agency,  and 
Federal  Emergency  Management  Agency  from  being  able  to 
"talk  to  each  other,"  according  to  CNN. 

Administration  officials  refused  to  discuss  the  secret  succes- 
sion plan  or  the  National  Program  Office.  A  leading  constitution- 
al scholar  who  appeared  on  the  CNN  broadcast.  Prof.  William 
Van  Alstyne  of  Duke  University,  said  the  very  secrecy  surround- 
ing the  plan  could  undermine  its  credibility  if  it  ever  had  to  be 
put  into  effect.  Who,  he  asked,  would  believe  an  obscure  figure 
claiming  to  be  President  under  a  top-secret  plan  no  one  had  ever 
heard  of?  ("Presidents'  Plan  to  Name  Successors  Skirted  Law," 
The  New  York  Times,  November  18) 

DECEMBER  -  In  June  1989,  the  FBI  raided  the  Energy 
Department  Rocky  Flats  plutonium  plant  to  check  reports  that 
workers  were  burning  hazardous  waste  in  an  illegal  incinerator 
and  violating  other  environmental  laws.  Prosecutors,  the  FBI, 
and  Rocky  Flats  managers  have  said  little  about  the  progress  of 
the  investigation,  and  no  one  has  been  indicted.  Most  of  what  is 
known  about  the  case  is  coming  from  Karen  Pitts  and  Jacqueline 


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Brever,  who  have  charged  in  a  lawsuit  that  Rocky  Flats  officials 
and  supervisors  often  disregarded  safety  rules  and  harassed  the 
two  women  for  talking  to  federal  investigators. 

Pitts  and  Brever  left  Rocky  Flats  in  April  1991.  Officially 
they  resigned,  but  they  charge  in  their  lawsuit  that  19  individuals 
mistreated  and  harassed  them.  Also  named  as  defendants  are 
EG&G  Inc.,  the  Energy  Department's  principal  Rocky  Flats 
contractor,  and  its  predecessor,  Rockwell  International  Corp. 
The  Energy  Department  is  not  a  defendant. 

The  two  women,  key  witnesses  in  the  2'/^-year  investigation 
into  alleged  illegal  activities  at  Rocky  Flats,  are  telling  their 
stories  at  public  meetings  and  on  radio  talk  shows,  in  newspaper 
and  network  interviews.  They  tell  of  routine  safety  violations, 
management  indifference  to  jxjtential  disasters,  and  intimidation 
of  workers  who  raised  questions,  and  they  have  become  the 
focus  of  public  debate  about  the  long-ruiming  investigation  at  the 
troubled  plant.  ("2  Women  at  Rocky  Flats  Plant  Tell  of  Intimida- 
tion, Safety  Violations,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  28) 

DECEMBER  -  In  a  switch  on  the  problem  of  less  access  to 
government  information,  a  Tampa  firm  is  claiming  "instant 
access"  to  a  wide  range  of  "confidential"  computer  data, 
including  government  data.  For  fees  ranging  from  $5  to  $175, 
Nationwide  Electronic  Tracking,  or  NET,  promised  it  could 
provide  customers  with  data  on  virtually  anyone  in  the  coun- 
try—private credit  reports,  business  histories,  driver's  license 
records,  even  personal  Social  Security  records  and  criminal 
history  background. 

NET  may  seem  like  a  boon  to  companies  trying  to  check  out 
job  applicants  or  even  homeowners  suspicious  of  their  new 
neighbor.  But  some  federal  officials  say  it  also  was  evidence  of 
a  growing  computer-age  menace— the  fledgling  "information 
broker"  industry  that  some  experts  fear  may  pose  one  of  the 
most  serious  threats  to  individual  privacy  in  decades. 

Law  enforcement  officials  say  that  as  the  demand  for 
personal  data  grows,  information  brokers  are  increasingly 
turning  to  illegal  methods.  In  mid-December,  NET  was  identi- 
fied by  the  FBI  as  one  player  in  a  nationwide  network  of  brokers 
and  private  investigators  who  allegedly  were  pilfering  confiden- 
tial personal  data  from  U.S.  government  computers  and  then 
selling  them  for  a  fee  to  lawyers,  insurance  companies,  private 
employers,  and  other  customers. 

The  information-broker  investigation  involved  what  officials 
say  was  the  largest  case  ever  involving  the  theft  of  federal 
computer  data  and  was  all  the  more  striking  because  it  was 
essentially  a  series  of  inside  jobs.  Among  the  16  people  arrested 
by  the  FBI  in  ten  states  were  three  current  or  former  Social 
Security  Administration  employees  (in  Illinois,  New  York  and 
Arizona)  charged  with  selling  personal  records  contained  in  SSA 
computers.  In  effect,  law  enforcement  officials  said,  information 
brokers  such  as  NET  were  bribing  the  government  employees  to 
run  computer  checks  on  individuals  for  as  little  as  $50  each. 
Computer  checks  were  being  run  "on  thousands  of  people,"  said 
Jim  Cottos,  regional  inspector  general  in  Atlanta  for  the  Depart- 


ment of  Health  and  Human  Services,  whose  office  launched  the 
investigation.  ("Theft  of  U.S.  Data  Seen  as  Growing  Threat  to 
Privacy,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  28) 

DECEMBER  -  In  an  editorial  titled,  "Say  Merry  Christmas, 
America,"  Government  Technology  editor  Al  Simmons  urged 
readers  to  ask  their  legislators  to  support  two  pending  House 
bills  that  would  increase  public  access  to  government  informa- 
tion. The  bills  are:  HR  2772  introduced  by  Rep.  Charlie  Rose 
(D-NC)  and  HR  3459  introduced  by  Rep.  Major  Owens  (D-NY). 
Simmons  called  the  two  legislators  "a  couple  of  fearless  gents 
from  the  old  school  of  representative  government  who  are  ready 
to  take  on  the  bureaucracy  and  the  private  sector  lobby  as  well." 

HR  2772  proposes  a  WINDO  (Wide  Information  Network  for 
Data  Online)  to  be  managed  by  the  Government  Printing  Office 
which  would  act  either  as  a  gateway  to  dozens  of  federal 
databases  or  to  provide  a  GPO  online  system  for  direct  access  to 
tax-payer  supported  databases.  Simmons  wrote,  "Further,  Rose 
not  only  thinks  WINDO  should  be  affordable  to  citizen  users,  he 
wants  WINDO  access  without  charge  to  the  nation's  1,400 
federal  depository  libraries  as  a  computer  extension  of  the 
depository  library  system  established  more  than  130  years 
ago...." 

The  Improvement  of  Information  Access  Act,  HR  3459, 
would  require  federal  agencies  to  store  and  disseminate  informa- 
tion products  and  services  through  computer  networks,  and  set 
the  price  of  information  products  and  services  at  the  incremental 
cost  of  dissemination. 

Simmons  took  issue  with  government  agencies  such  as  the 
Bureau  of  the  Census  that  charge  as  much  as  $250  for  a  CD- 
ROM,  even  though  the  actual  cost  is  about  two  dollars.  He  also 
pointed  out  there  are  "the  private  sector  data  vendors  who  spend 
a  lot  of  money  trying  to  discourage  the  idea  that  government 
information  should  be  accessible  by  citizens  directly  from  the 
government."  ("Say  Merry  Christmas,  America,"  Government 
Technology,  December) 


Earlier  chronologies  of  this  publication  were  combined 
into  an  indexed  version  covering  the  period  April  1982- 
December  1987.  Updates  are  prepared  at  six-month 
intervals.  Less  Access...  updates  (from  the  January-June 
1988  issue  to  the  present  publication)  are  available  for 
$1 .00;  the  indexed  version  is  $7.00;  the  complete  set  is 
$15.00.  A  new  compilation  is  expected  in  early  1992. 
Orders  must  be  prepaid  and  include  a  self-addressed 
mailing  label.  All  orders  must  be  obtained  from  the 
American  Library  Association  Washington  Office,  110 
Maryland  Ave.,  NE,  Washington,  DC  20002-5675;  tel. 
no.  202-547-4440,  fax  no.  202-547-7363. 


ALA  Washington  OfTice 


12 


December  1991 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1 10  Marylarxj  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  2CXX}2-5675 

Tel:  202-547-4440     Fax:  202-547-7363     Bitnet:  nu_alawash@cu^ 

Jun«  1992 


'€%. 


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

A  1992  Chronology:  January  -  June 
INTRODUCTION 


Dunng  the  past  eleven  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  A  combination  of  specific  policy 
decisions,  the  administration's  interpretations  and  implemen- 
tations of  the  1980  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  (PL  96-51 1 ,  as 
amended  by  PL  99-500)  and  agency  budget  cuts  have 
significantly  limited  access  to  public  documents  and  statistics. 

The  pending  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act 
should  provide  an  opportunity  to  limit  OMB's  role  in 
controlling  information  collected,  created,  and  disseminated 
by  the  federal  government.  However,  the  bills  that  have  been 
introduced  in  the  102nd  Congress  would  accelerate  the 
-urrent  trend  to  commercialize  and  pnvatize  government 
intormation. 

Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  government's  16,000 
publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since  1985,  the  Office  of 
Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its  government 
intormation  control  powers,  particularly  through  Circular 
A- 130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources.  0MB 
issued  its  proposed  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  April  29 
Federal  Register.  Particularly  troubling  is  OMB's  theory  that 
the  U.S.  Code's  definition  of  a  "government  publication  " 
excludes  electronic  publications.  Agencies  would  be  unlikely 
to  provide  electronic  products  voluntarily  to  depository 
libranes  — resulting  in  the  technological  sunset  of  the  Deposi- 
tory Library  Program,  a  primary  channel  for  public  access  to 
government  information. 

.Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  utilize 
computer    and    telecommunications    technologies    for    data 


collection,  storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  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  in  electronic  format  only.  While 
automation  clearly  offers  promises  of  savings,  will  public 
access  to  government  information  be  further  restricted  for 
people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for  computer 
time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have  begun 
to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public  access 
;o  government  information  should  be  increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  .A  January  1984  resolu- 
tion passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and 
ready  access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  pub- 
lished in  any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  Slates." 
In  1986,  ALA  initialed  a  Coalition  on  Government  Informa- 
tion. The  Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention 
un  all  efforts  that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and 
to  develop  support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government 
intormation. 

With  access  to  information  a  major  ALA  prionty,  members 
should  be  concerned  about  this  senes  of  actions  which  creates 
a  climate  in  which  government  information  activities  are 
susp>ect.  Previous  chronologies  were  compiled  in  two  ALA 
Washington  Office  indexed  publications.  Less  Access  to  Less 
I nfonmition  By  and  About  the  U.S.  Government:  A  19SI-1987 

Chronology,  and  Less  Access 4    1988-1991   Chronology. 

The  following  chronology  continues  the  tradition  of  a  semi- 
annual update. 


Less  Access.. 


January  -  Jube  1992 


CHRONOLOGY 


JA>fUARY  -  The  Army's  Strategic  Defense  Command  is  taking 
steps  to  dismiss  a  veteran  physicist  who  says  he  is  bemg 
punished  for  his  complaints  about  gross  waste  and  mismanage- 
ment m  the  multibillion-dollar  Strategic  Defense  Initiative.  In  an 
affidavit  submitted  to  lawyers  for  the  Government  Accountability 
Project,  Aldnc  Saucier,  a  civilian  scientist  at  the  Pentagon  with 
more  than  25  years  of  government  service,  said  he  had  an 
"unblemished  record  until  [he]  started  challenging  'Star  Wars' 
abuses." 

"Star  Wars,"  he  said  in  the  affidavit,  "has  been  a  high-nsk, 
space  age,  national  secunty  pork  barrel  for  contractors  and  top 
government  managers." 

House  Government  Operations  Committee  Chairman  John 
Conyers  Jr.  (D-Mich.)  said  his  subcommittee  on  legislation  and 
national  secunty  is  investigating  many  of  Saucier's  allegations. 
A  Conyers  aide  said  the  mquiry  is  just  getting  started  but  that  at 
least  one  of  Saucier's  charges — about  unauthonzed  destruction 
of  thousands  of  scientific  reports  costing  millions  of  dollars— has 
been  corroborated. 

The  embattled  scientist  said  he  repeatedly  blew  the  whistle  on 
examples  of  waste  and  mismanagement,  such  as  an  unauthonzed 
destruction  of  3,000  studies  and  reports  at  an  SDC-contractor 
library  in  Huntsville,  Ala.  ("Scientist  Says  Army  Seeks  to  Fire 
Him  for  Criticizing  SDI,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  10) 

JANUARY  -  Rep.  Thomas  Sawyer  (D-Ohio),  chairman  of  the 
subcommittee  on  census  and  p>opulation,  and  the  Commerce 
Department  came  to  an  agreement  over  the  release  of  "adjusted" 
census  figures,  ending  a  dispute  that  had  prompted  the  panel  to 
subpoena  the  data.  Commerce  agreed  to  turn  over  half  of  ihe 
fxjpulation  t'lgures.  which  have  been  statistically  weighted  to 
compensate  for  persons  missed  in  the  1990  census.  Sawyer  said 
the  subcommittee  needs  the  data  to  assess  the  quality  of  the 
census  and  determine  what  changes  should  be  made  for  the  2000 
census. 

In  a  letter  to  Commerce  Secretary  Robert  Mosbacher, 
Sawyer  chided  him  for  balking  at  the  request  for  information. 
Mosbacher.  who  resigned  his  fxjst  in  rrud-January  to  manage 
President  Bush's  re-election  campaign,  had  ignored  the  subpoena 
and  sent  a  representative  to  inform  the  subcommittee  that  the 
department  would  turn  over  only  half  of  the  numbers. 

Ctimmerce  Department  officials  have  argued  that  it  would  be 
irresponsible  to  turn  over  the  adjusted  census  figures  because 
they  are  Hawed  and  their  release  could  disrupt  redistncting 
efforts  underway  across  the  country.  However,  New  York  City 
and  other  jurisdictions  have  sued  to  overturn  that  decision, 
arguing  that  the  adjusted  figures  are  a  fairer  representation  ot  the 
nation'spopulationdistnbution.  {"Accord  Reached  on  'Adjusted' 
Census  Figures,"  The  Washini^ion  Post.  January  10) 

JANUARY  -  A  Central  Intelligence  Agency  panel,  the  Openness 


Task  Force,  established  by  Director  Robert  Gates  to  explore 
ways  to  lift  the  agency's  veil  of  secrecy,  has  recommended 
declassifying  vast  quantities  of  older  documents  and  making 
agency  officials  more  accessible  to  the  public.  Intelligence 
officials  say  the  internal  panel  has  sent  Gates  a  list  of  options 
that  also  includes  more  on-the-record  interviews,  public  sf)eech- 
es,  and  public  testimony  to  Congress  by  semor  agency  officials, 
as  well  as  the  release  of  new  matenal  to  complement  the  current 
publication  of  maps,  world  fact  books,  and  economic  reports. 

The  internal  soul-searching  stems  from  the  pragmatic  concern 
that  in  a  world  where  the  histonc  enemy  has  disappeared,  the 
intelligence  community  must  justify  its  billion-dollar  satellites 
and  thousands  of  analysts  and  spies.  Under  the  openness  panel's 
most  sweepmg  recommendations,  the  CIA  would  declassify 
millions  of  pages  of  documents,  some  of  them  dating  to  World 
War  I,  making  them  available  to  the  public,  perhaps  in  a 
computer  information  bank.  ("C.I. A.  Study  Panel  Suggests 
Openness  on  Agency  Records."  The  Sew  York  Times.  January 
12) 

I  Ed.  note:  In  May,  dunng  congressional  testimony,  CIA 
Director  Robert  Gates  expressed  detemunation  to  release  "every 
relevant  scrap  of  paper  m  CIA's  possession"  about  the  assassi- 
nation of  President  John  Kennedy  to  dispel  the  notion  that  the 
intelligence  agency  or  other  elements  of  the  government  were 
involved  in  the  murder.  ("CIA  to  Release  Some  JFK  Docu- 
ments," The  Washington  Post,  May  13) 

JANUARY  -  Communities  made  up  of  minonties— black, 
Hispanic,  and  Amencan  Indian— exp>enence  "greater  than 
average"  exposure  to  some  environmental  poLsons  according  to 
the  draft  rejwrt  of  an  Environmental  Protection  Agency  task 
torce.  The  repwrt,  "Environmental  Equity,"  says  the  environ- 
mental poisons  include  lead,  air  pollutants,  toxic  waste,  and 
tainted  fish.  But,  the  authors  said,  race  is  not  as  significant  a 
factor  as  fHDverty  in  determining  which  communities  face  the 
highest  nsk. 

,\  task  force  of  EPA  staff  members  combed  government  and 
scholarly  reports  to  determine  the  extent  and  s<iurce  of  nsk  to 
minonty  areas,  said  Robert  Wolcott,  who  heads  EPA's  water 
and  agnculture  policy  division.  Although  there  are  clear 
ditferences  in  death  and  disea.se  rates  among  ethnic  groups,  the 
task  force  was  unable  to  d(K'ument  how  much  environmental 
factors  contnbuted  to  that  rale.  .Nor  were  data  available  that 
categonzed  people  by  race  suffenng  from  environmentally 
caused  disease.  The  one  exception  was  childhotxl  lead  pois*)ning. 

The  task  force  recommended  the  development  ot  new  data 
systems  to  assess  nsk  by  race  and  income,  improve  procedures 
tor  identifying  highly  polluted  areas,  to  kx)k  \ox  ways  to  reduce 
risk  in  hard-hit  communities,  and  to  review  permits  and  entorce- 
iiient  practices  to  assure  that  all  communities  are  treated  fairly. 


ALA  WasbinKtOD  OfTice 


June  IWi 


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1992 


("Minonties"  Pollution  Risk  Is  Debated,"  The  Washington  Post, 
January  16) 

JANUARY  -  The  Food  and  Drug  Administration  told  the 
leading  manufacturer  of  silicone  gel  breast  implants  to  agree  to 
allow  the  government  to  make  public  the  confidential  new 
information  that  contributed  to  the  FDA's  voluntary  moratonum 
on  the  sale  and  use  of  implants.  A  top  FDA  official  said  the 
agency  had  detenmned  that  90  key  studies  and  memoranda 
"should  be  made  publicly  available"  and  was  prepared  to  take 
unspecified  steps  to  allow  their  release  if  the  company  did  not 
cooperate.  Normally  some  of  the  documents  would  be  treated  as 
confidential  commercial  information.  ("FDA  Presses  for 
Disclosure  on  Implants,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  20) 

JANUARY  -  President  Bush's  senior  advisers  have  recommend- 
ed that  he  stop  ail  government  agencies  from  issuing  new  rules 
tor  three  months  as  part  of  a  broad  campaign  to  revive  the 
economy  by  reducing  the  burden  of  federal  regulation.  "What 
we  envision  is  a  moratonum  on  proposing  new  regulations, 
across  the  board  in  every  agency,  except  those  rules  required  by 
statute  or  those  tfiat  stimulate  economic  growth,"  a  White  House 
official  said.  The  moratonum  would  affect  most  of  the  4,800 
regulations  being  developed  by  federal  agencies. 

White  House  officials  listed  seven  broad  areas  in  which  they 
now  hope  to  reduce  federal  regulation  on  entrepreneurs  and 
business:  environmental  protection  (including  fuel  economy 
standards  for  automobiles);  energy  (natural  gas,  electncity); 
transportation  (trucking,  ocean  shipping,  airlines);  exports; 
communications  (cellular  telephones,  cable  television);  biotech- 
nology, and  "access  to  capital." 

Rep.  Jofui  Conyers  Jr.  (D-Mich.)  and  Sen.  John  Glenn 
(D-Ohio)  have  charged  that  the  White  House  improperly  inter- 
tered  in  the  rulemaking  of  federal  agencies.  ("In  Move  to  Spur 
Economy.  Bush  is  Urged  to  Order  90-Day  Ban  on  New  Federal 
Rules,"  The  New  York  Times,  January  21) 

JANUARY  -  Senate  intelligence  committee  Chairman  David 
Boren  (D-Okla.)  declared  that  all  government  papers  on  Presi- 
dent John  Kennedy's  assassination  should  be  opened  to  clear  the 
air  on  whether  federal  agencies  were  involved  in  the  incident. 
Boren  said  all  government  documents,  including  those  now 
cla.ssified,  should  be  open  to  legitimate  histonans.  "I  have  no 
intormation  or  knowledge  which  would  lead  me  to  believe  that 
our  government  agencies  were  involved  in  any  kind  of  plot  in 
relation  to  the  death  of  President  Kennedy."  Boren  said  in  a 
statement.  The  National  Archives  has  said  about  2  percent  of  the 
documents  collected  by  the  official  Warren  Commission  investi- 
gation in  1964  remain  classified.  ("Boren  Seeks  Opening  ot 
.Assassination  Papers."  The  Washington  Post.  January  22) 

JANUARY  -  New  policy  guidance  from  Gen.  Carl  Mundy  lo 
Manne  generals  and  commanding  officers  told  them  that  family 
memf>ers  of  fnendly  fire  casualties  are  "nghtfully  entitled"  to 


"all  details"  of  fatal  accidents,  even  when  the  facts  "may 
embarrass  the  Marine  Corps  or  reflect  negatively  on  your 
command."  But  Mimdy,  the  Marme  commandant,  stopped  short 
of  establishing  a  deadline  for  disclosure.  Mundy  said  his 
guidance  responded  to  news  articles  about  the  handling  of 
friendly  fire  casualties  in  the  Persian  Gulf  War.  Since  the  war, 
many  families  have  complained  that  the  Army  and  Manne  Corps 
withheld  the  truth  for  months  about  how  their  relatives  died. 

Mimdy,  who  requested  a  meetmg  with  a  Post  reporter  m 
November  1991,  said  then  he  was  surpnsed  to  learn  that  family 
members  would  want  to  know  that  their  loved  ones  died  tmder 
fnendly  fire.  He  said  that  if  either  of  his  sons  were  to  pensh  at 
the  hands  of  Amencan  troops,  he  would  want  to  know  only  "that 
they  died  fighting  the  enemy."  But  he  said  he  mtended  to  honor 
the  wishes  of  families  for  "accurate  and  timely  information." 

The  Army,  subject  to  far  harsher  cnticism  from  families  of 
its  21  friendly-fire  fatalities  in  the  gulf  war,  has  issued  no 
similar  guidance.  The  Army  has  not  disclosed  results  of  an 
internal  investigation  mto  alleged  deception  of  several  soldiers' 
families.  In  rmd-January,  Maj.  Gen.  Peter  Boylan,  acting 
inspector  general,  denied  a  Freedom  of  Information  Act  request 
filed  by  The  Post  for  a  copy  of  the  investigation.  ("Mannes 
Ordered  to  Reveal  Friendly  Fire  Death  Details,"  The  Washin(;ion 
Post,  January  23) 

JANUARY  -  The  Amencan  trade  deficit  is  probably  $10  billion 
to  $20  billion  a  year  smaller  than  is  officially  reported  because 
the  nation's  exp>orts  are  systematically  undercounted,  according 
to  a  study  released  yesterday  by  a  panel  of  business  leaders, 
bankers  and  academics.  According  to  the  30-monlh  study, 
performed  for  the  congressionally  chartered  National  Research 
Council,  the  true  competitive  position  of  U.S.  companies  is 
being  misrepresented  not  only  by  the  impreci.se  trade  data,  hut 
also  by  many  analysts'  failure  to  take  account  ot  the  foreign 
inanufactunng  operations  of  U.S.  firms. 

The  report  could  provide  comfort  for  the  White  House, 
which  IS  under  fire  from  Democrats  for  its  handling  of  trade 
relations,  esf>ecially  with  Japan.  Robert  Baldwin,  a  University  ot 
Wisconsin  econormcs  professor  who  was  chairman  of  the  panel, 
said  U.S.  experts  to  Japan.  Germany,  and  Bntain  were  routinely 
underrepKirted  by  about  7  p)ercent  dunng  the  1980s.  The  group 
called  for  steps  to  assure  than  U.S.  exporters  promptly  repK)rt 
their  foreign  sales  and  for  increased  automation  of  reporting  and 
tabulating  of  the  numbers.  U.S.  official  said  that  they  have 
already  made  many  of  the  changes  recommended  by  the  repH)rt. 
but  some  of  the  panel's  suggestions  would  require  ma)or 
-.pending.  ("U.S.  Trade  Deficit  Overstated,  Report  Says,"  The 
Wcishmi^ion  Post,  January  29) 

JANUARY  -  Thirteen  former  counsel  and  staff  members  ot  the 
Warren  Commission  urged  all  government  agencies,  including 
the  FBI  and  the  CIA,  to  make  public  all  records  compiled  in 
investigating  the  1963  assassination  of  President  John  Kennedy. 
In   a  joint   statement   they   said   the   reasons    for   secrecy    had 


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dissipated  after  28  yean  and  officials  should  be  guided  by  a  bias 
in  favor  of  public  disclosure.  The  13  delivered  a  letter  to  the 
Archivist  of  the  United  States,  Don  Wilson,  asking  his  help  in 
releasing  the  remaining  2  percent  of  Warren  Commission 
evidence  that  is  still  under  seal. 

Washington  lawyer  Howard  Willens,  a  spokesman  for  the 
group,  said  they  want  to  dispel  charges  of  a  governmental 
coverup  following  the  assassination  and  are  confident  that  public 
disclosure  would  bear  them  out  on  that  point,  even  though  debate 
over  what  happened  in  Dallas  Nov.  22,  1963,  probably  will 
never  end.  ("Ex-Warren  Suffers  Urge  JFK  DaU  Release,"  The 
Washington  Post,  January  31) 

JANUARY  -  Rep.  Gerry  Sikorski  (D-Minn.)  and  other  members 
of  a  House  post  office  and  civil  service  subcommittee  said  they 
were  "shocked"  by  a  former  special  agent's  testimony  that  the 
Forest  Service  logged  national  forests  illegally  and  retaliated 
against  agency  whistleblowers.  John  McCormick,  who  retired 
earlier  in  January,  said  the  agency  violated  environmental  laws, 
manipulated  scientific  evidence  to  benefit  the  timber  industry, 
and  punished  workers  who  raised  objections.  In  sworn  testimo- 
ny, McCormick  said  the  Forest  Service  covered  up  internal 
evidence  of  misconduct  and  denied  public  requests  under  the 
Freedom  of  Information  Act,  falsely  claiming  the  requested 
documents  did  not  exist.  Sikorski  said  he  will  ask  the  Justice 
Department  to  mvestigate  the  allegations.  ("Panel  Chairman  to 
Seek  Probe  of  Forest  Service,"  The  Washington  Post,  January 
31) 

FEBRUARY  -  Marshall  Turner  of  the  Bureau  of  the  Census, 
informed  recipients  of  bureau  press  releases  that  "due  to 
budgetary  constraints,  we  will  henceforth  be  able  to  provide 
copies  of  Census  Bureau  press  releases  only  to  members  of  the 
press."  Other  sources  for  press  releases  or  information  of  the 
type  provided  in  press  releases  were  identified  in  Turner's  letter: 
iwo  commercial  information  vendors.  He  also  pointed  out  that 
Mime  State  Data  Centers  may  also  provide  copies  of  the  press 
releases.  (Letter  dated  February  1992,  from  Marshall  L.  Turner 
Jr.,  Chief.  Data  User  Services  Division,  Bureau  of  the  Census, 
to  Press  Release  Users) 

FEBRUARY  -  A  task  force  commissioned  by  CIA  Director 
Robert  Gates  has  recommended  creation  of  what  would  be  the 
world's  most  exclusive  electronic  news  network,  teatunng 
-■upersecret  intelligence  reports  and  the  latest  information  from 
satellites  in  space  and  espionage  agents  around  the  globe.  The 
proposed  CIA  network  would  be  a  multimillion-dollar  proposi- 
tion, otlenng  news  bulletins  six  days  a  week  to  an  elite  audience 
.omposed  initially  ot  fewer  than  ItX)  key  government  officials. 
"This  will  be  the  only  news  network  where  the  producers  are 
trying  to  lirmt  their  audience,"  an  administration  official  said. 

Gates  has  favored  an  instant  intelligence  news  network  for 
years,  though  an  agency  official  said  the  director  has  not  yet 
given   the   go-ahead   to  the   system.    Dunng   his  confirmation 


heanngs  as  CIA  director,  Gates  said  such  a  network  was  one  of 
the  early  innovations  he  had  in  imnd  for  the  agency  as  a  way  to 
put  into  perspective  the  instantaneous  coverage  of  the  Cable 
News  Network  that  policymakers  now  all  seem  to  watch. 
Lawmakers,  however,  probably  would  not  be  among  the  early 
recipients  of  the  proposed  system,  and  it  is  uncertain  whether  the 
network  would  ever  expand  to  Capitol  Hill.  ("Clearance  Sought 
for  New  CIA  Network,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  5) 

FEBRUARY  -  Thirty  years  after  the  first  silicone-filled  breast 
prosthesis  was  implanted  in  an  American  woman,  a  special 
committee  of  the  Food  and  Drug  Admmistration  will  meet  to  ask 
whether  the  devices  are  safe  enough  to  remain  on  the  market. 
They  will  not  get  a  satisfactory  answer.  In  three  days  of 
heanngs,  no  one  will  present  defiiutive  long-term  studies  on  the 
questions  that  interest  the  FDA  most:  How  often  does  the  gel 
mside  these  implants  leak  into  the  body  and  what  happens  when 
It  does.'  These  studies  have  never  been  done. 

Manufacturers  said  they  did  their  own  inhouse  testing  of 
silicone  in  the  1960s  and  1970s  and  did  not  think  any  broader 
study  was  necessary.  The  FDA,  given  the  power  to  regulate 
implants  in  1976,  did  not  even  ask  companies  to  submit  safety 
data  on  them  until  two  years  ago.  "The  reason  we  are  still 
resolving  this  issue  30  years  later  is  that  there  are  a  lot  of  vested 
interests,"  said  FDA  Commissioner  David  Kessler.  "There  are 
people  who  think  it  is  safe  and  people  who  think  it  isn't  safe. 
There  is  tremendous  belief  on  both  sides.  But  there  isn't  the 
data.  We  have  gotten  to  this  point  without  the  data.  TTiat's  why 
we  are  in  this  difficult  situation."  ("FDA  Set  to  Begin  Heanngs 
on  Silicone  Breast  Implants,"  The  Washington  Post.  February 
17) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  1978,  a  U.S.  hank  examiner  gave  federal 
authonties  extraordinary  examples  of  the  Bank  ot  Credit  and 
Corrmierce  International's  troubled  loans,  normnee  shareholders 
and  other  problems  that  would  eventually  derail  the  foreign 
bank.  That  report  and  memos  Irom  the  Central  Intelligence 
.Agency  were  used  at  a  Senate  foreign  relations  subcommittee 
hearing  as  fresh  examples  in  a  growing  body  ot  evidence  that 
officials  in  the  Office  of  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency,  the 
Treasury,  and  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  knew  about  the 
penis  ot  BCCl  years  earlier  than  previously  reported,  but  took 
no  action  to  inform  law  enlorcement  otficials  or  other  bank 
regulators. 

Both  the  l<'78  memo  from  an  OCC  examiner  and  a  1985 
memo  from  the  CIA  that  was  hand-camed  to  the  Treasury 
Department  are  now  "lost,"  according  to  the  testimony  of  OCC 
and  CI.A  officials.  Before  the  congressional  heanng,  the  earliest 
acknowledged  government  awareness  of  BCCI's  troubles  was 
1986.  The  OCC  document,  prepared  by  bank  examiner  Joseph 
Vaez,  apparently  disappeared  from  the  OCC's  files.  Last 
.August.  Vaez  found  his  personal  copy  of  the  memo  in  a  file  in 
his  garage  and  sent  it  to  the  OCC.  When  Sen.  John  Kerry 
(D-Mass.)  requested  a  copy  from  the  OCC,  the  agency  refused 


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and  the  subcommittee  he  chairs  subpoenaed  the  document.  "It 
makes  one  wonder  whether  the  OCC  believes  it  has  something 
to  hide,"  Kerry  said  at  the  hearing.  ("U.S.  Warned  About  BCCI 
m  1978,  Panel  Told,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  20) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  a  two-part  senes  in  the  Los  Angeles  Times, 
Murray  Wans  and  Douglas  Frantz,  wrote  a  special  report 
documentmg  the  aid  provided  to  Iraq  by  the  Reagan  and  Bush 
admuustrations.  According  to  the  report,  m  the  fall  of  1989.  at 
a  time  when  Iraq's  mvasion  of  Kuwait  was  only  nme  months 
away  and  Saddam  Hussein  was  desperate  for  money  to  buy 
arms.  President  Bush  signed  a  top-secret  National  Secunty 
Decision  Directive  ordering  closer  ties  with  Baghdad  and 
opening  the  way  for  $1  billion  m  new  aid,  according  to  classified 
documents  and  mterviews. 

The  $1  billion  commitment,  in  the  form  of  loan  guarantees 
for  the  purchase  of  U.S.  farm  commodities,  enabled  Hussein  to 
buy  needed  foodstuffs  on  credit  and  to  spend  his  scarce  reserves 
of  hard  currency  on  the  massive  arms  buildup  that  brought  war 
to  the  Persian  Gulf.  Gettmg  new  aid  from  Washmgton  was 
cntical  for  Iraq  in  the  wanmg  months  of  1989  and  the  early 
months  of  1990  because  mtemational  bankers  had  cut  off 
virtually  all  loans  to  Baghdad. 

Bush's  efforts  reflected  a  pattern  of  personal  intervention  and 
support  for  aid  to  Iraq  that  extended  from  his  early  years  as  vice 
president  in  the  Reagan  administration  through  the  first  year  of 
his  own  presidency  and  almost  to  the  eve  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
War.  ("Secret  Effort  by  Bush  m  '89  Helped  Hussem  Build  Iraq's 
War  Machme,"  February  24;  and  "U.S.  Loans  Indirectly 
Financed  Iraq  Military,"  February  25,  m  the  Washington 
Edition/Los  Angeles  Times) 

FEBRUARY  -  Durmg  a  review  of  the  controversial  program  to 
develop  a  space  nuclear  reactor,  the  House  Investigations 
Subcommittee  on  Science.  Space  and  Technology  uncovered  a 
National  Aeronautics  and  Space  Administration  "how-to  manual" 
on  circumventing  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  The  outraged 
chair  of  the  subcomnuttee,  Howard  Wolf)e  (D-Mich.),  descnbed 
the  document  as  an  attempt  by  NASA  to  subvert  not  only  the 
FOIA,  but  the  right  of  Congress  to  review  agency  decision- 
making. Indeed,  the  manual  calls  for  destruction  of  documents, 
which  Wolpe  points  out  is  a  violation  of  federal  law.  Dunng  the 
Reagan  years.  NASA  regularly  sought  an  exclusion  to  the  FOIA. 
but  Congress  refused.  ("NASA  Accused  of  Attempting  to 
Withhold  Information  on  SP-lOO!"  What's  New,  February  28) 

(Ed.  note:  NASA  Admmistrator  Richard  Truly  ordered  an 
investigation  ot  the  agency's  FOIA  procedures  following  charges 
that  NASA  had  told  workers  how  to  avoid  disclosing  controver- 
sial information.  "NASA  is  strongly  comrmtted  to  full  compli- 
ance with  the  law,  and  we  repudiate  the  portions  of  this  docu- 
ment that  are  inconsistent  with  our  policy,"  Truly  said.  He  said 
he  was  countermandmg  the  document  and  was  circulating  to  all 
senior  managers  a  letter  to  "renund  them  that  NASA  places  the 


utmost  value  on  openness  and  honesty  m  government."  ("NASA 
Chief  Says  Policy  is  'Openness,  Honesty',"  The  Washington 
Post,  February  29)1 

FEBRUARY  -  The  Inspector  General  of  the  Environmental 
Protection  Agency  said  that  mismanagement  had  enabled  the 
agency's  largest  contractor  to  gain  control  of  virtually  all  of  its 
computenzed  information  systems  and  may  have  led  to  millions 
of  dollars  in  improper  payments  to  the  company.  In  a  20S-page 
report,  John  Martin,  the  Inspector  General,  said  the  contractor, 
the  Computer  Sciences  Corporation,  a  Califonua  computer 
services  company,  functioned  as  a  pnvate  government  within 
EPA  by  developmg  and  operatmg  its  most  sensitive  computer- 
ized information  and  data  retneval  systems  without  supervision. 

The  report  said  that  the  company,  which  began  working  for 
EPA  in  the  early  1970s,  had  been  so  carelessly  managed  that  the 
company  was  reviewmg  and  paying  its  own  bills,  double  billing 
for  its  work,  chargmg  full-time  wages  for  employees  who 
worked  part  time,  and  charging  the  government  for  work  that 
was  never  approved  by  the  agency.  The  Inspector  General  said 
the  company  may  have  improperly  gamed  $13  imllion  ot  the 
$67.9  million  it  earned  last  year  from  EPA. 

Computer  Sciences  is  the  largest  of  more  than  700  contrac- 
tors domg  work  for  the  agency,  and  none  has  more  sensitive 
responsibilities.  The  company  mamtains  and  controls  the  most 
highly  sensitive  data  the  agency  possess,  the  Inspector  General 
said,  but  EPA  was  not  maintaimng  any  program  of  oversight  to 
make  sure  that  data  were  secure  from  unauthonzed  access  or 
manipulation.  The  company  also  had  no  completed  background 
checks  of  employees  who  managed  the  data,  which  included 
sensitive  mformation  about  cases  agamst  polluters,  new  policies 
for  controlling  pollutants,  tracking  legal  .ses  and  agency 
payrolls. 

The  government  will  spend  $87  billion  this  year  on  service 
contracts,  according  to  the  General  Accounting  Office,  an 
investigative  arm  of  Congress.  In  1980,  the  government  spent 
S25  billion  on  service  contracts.  ("E.P.A.  Is  Called  Lax  with 
Contractor,"  The  New  York  Times,  February  29) 

FEBRUARY  -  The  Government  Pnntmg  Office  announced  that 
the  decisions  of  the  U.S.  Ment  Systems  Protection  Board  are  no 
longer  published  by  the  board,  but  are  now  published  pnvately 
by  West  Publishing  Co.  under  the  new  title  USMSPB  Reporter. 
("Whatever  Happened  To....'"  Administrative  Notes,  Febriiary 

:9) 

MARCH  -  The  PenUgon  has  its  answer  to  the  Cable  News 
.Network— the  Defense  Intelligence  Network  or  DIN.  For  almost 
12  hours  a  day,  five  days  a  week,  the  Defense  Intelligence 
.Agency  has  for  the  past  year  been  broadcastmg  top  secret  reports 
over  the  most  secure  TV  news  network  m  the  world  to  a  select 
audience  of  about  1,000  defense  intelligence  and  operations 
officers  at  the  Pentagon  and  19  other  imlitary  commands  in  the 
United  Sutes.   One  big  reason  for  the  urgency  of  this  recent 


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electronic  effort  to  speed  up  the  delivery  of  intelligence  is  that 
U.S.  intelligence  agencies  have  been  finding  their  printed  reports 
going  unread  by  policymakers  who  have  already  watched  events 
unfold  on  CNN. 

Still  evolving,  DIN's  encrypted  broadcasts  can  be  beamed 
only  to  TV  sets  and  special  computers  in  the  shielded,  compart- 
mentalized quarters  where  intelligence  and  operations  officers 
spend  their  workdays.  The  system,  which  so  far  has  cost  about 
$10  million,  did  not  receive  its  first  formal  infusion  of  money 
until  October  1991,  officials  said.  ("On  This  Network,  All  the 
News  Is  Top  Secret."  The  Washington  Post,  March  3) 

MARCH  -  A  Census  Bureau  demographer  who  was  assigned  to 
update  the  government's  population  estimate  for  Iraq  and 
released  her  findings  to  a  reporter  in  January  has  been  told  she 
IS  to  be  fired.  The  information  Beth  Osborne  Daponte  gave  to 
Robert  Bums,  an  Associated  Press  reporter,  would  have  been 
available  to  anyone  who  came  to  her  office  and  asked  for  the 
Iraqi  folder  for  the  "World  Population  1992"  handbook.  Daponte 
said  the  file  disappeared  from  her  desk  shortly  after  Bums'  story 
appeared  in  The  Washington  Post  and  is  still  missing. 

Daponte  had  no  access  to  classified  information  in  prepanng 
her  study.  She  based  it  instead  on  a  review  of  literature  un 
casualty  modeling  and  on  the  gulf  war.  Her  estimates— a  total  of 
158,000  Iraqi  dead,  including  40,000  direct  miliUry  deaths. 
13,000  immediate  civilian  deaths,  35,000  postwar  deaths  in  the 
Shiite  and  Kurdish  rebellions,  and  70,000  deaths  due  to  the 
public  health  consequences  of  wartime  damage  to  electricity  and 
sewage  treatments  plants— fall  generally  within  the  middle  range 
of  other  expert  calculations. 

Two  of  Daponte's  supervisors  later  rewrote  and  released 
Daponle's  report,  reducing  the  number  of  direct,  wartime 
civilian  deaths  from  13,000  to  5,000  and  eliminating  a  Daponte 
chart  breaking  down  the  figures  for  men,  women,  and  children. 
Daponte  had  estimated  that  86.194  men,  39.612  women,  and 
32,195  children  died  at  the  hands  of  the  Amencan-led  coalition 
forces,  dunng  the  domestic  rebellions  that  followed,  and  from 
postwar  depnvation.  "I  think  it's  rather  scary  that  if  an  employ- 
ee releases  public  information  to  the  public,  they  can  get  fired 
tor  It,"  Dap>onte  said.  "My  salary  had  been  paid  by  tax  dollars. 
I  thought  the  public  was  entitled  to  know  what  we  had  come  up 
with."  ("Census  Worker  Who  Calculated  '91  Iraqi  Death  Toll  Is 
Told  She  Will  Be  Fired."  The  Washington  Post.  March  6) 

I  Ed.  note:  A  related  article,  "Move  to  Dismiss  Census  Staffer 
Scares  Colleagues  Into  Silence,"  Federal  Times,  March  23, 
(Jescnbes  how  the  attempt  to  fire  Daponte  is  having  a  chilling 
effect  on  agency  employees  who  deal  with  the  public.  Docu- 
ments obtained  by  Federal  Times  show  that  in  the  last  two 
months.  Census  Bureau  officials  have  circulated  memoranda 
outlining  restrictions  on  contact  with  the  media.  An  April  12 
article  in  The  Washington  Post,  "Census  Bureau  Retracts  Finng 
of  Researcher,"  said  that  the  Census  Bureau  has  backed  down 
and  said  Daponte  could  keep  her  job.) 


MARCH  -  A  group  of  19  noted  historians,  political  scientists, 
and  scientists  have  sent  a  letter  to  Energy  Secretary  James 
Watkins,  protesting  Energy's  handling  of  historical  documents. 
According  to  the  scholars,  the  department's  "unabated  enthusi- 
asm for  withholding  records"  is  making  it  difficult  to  answer 
some  of  the  most  important  histoncal,  scientific,  and  public- 
health  questions  about  nuclear  energy  that  have  ansen  over  the 
last  50  years. 

The  scholars  contend  that  the  Energy  Department  has  made 
It  difficult  to  evaluate  such  issues  as  the  development  of  nuclear 
weapons  and  commercial  nuclear  power,  the  course  of  cold-war 
diplomacy,  and  scientific  claims  rangmg  from  the  feasibility  of 
the  Strategic  Defense  Initiative  to  the  safety  of  nuclear  stock- 
piles. The  problem,  they  say,  stems  from  provisions  of  the 
Atomic  Energy  Act,  passed  in  1946  and  amended  in  1954,  which 
treat  all  information  about  nuclear  weapons  as  classified. 

The  scholars  maintain  that  access  to  DOE  records  is  ham- 
pered by  two  key  problems:  The  department  lacks  an  overall 
program  to  declassify  archival  documents  routinely,  and  it  does 
not  comply  with  a  federal  requirement  that  govemment  agencies 
transfer  custody  of  documents  more  than  30  years  old  to  the 
National  Archives  and  Records  Administration.  In  addition,  the 
letter  said  that  many  Energy  Department  records  were  held  by 
pnvate  contractors  who  work  for  the  agency,  and  that  pnvileged 
access  to  documents  was  given  to  histonans  wnlmg  the  official 
history  of  the  federal  govemment's  atomic-energy  programs. 

Bryan  Siebert,  director  of  the  Energy  Department's  office  of 
classification  and  technology  policy,  says  information  relating  to 
nuclear  weapons  is  "bom  classified,"  and  that  specific  requests 
tor  documents  must  be  reviewed  according  to  cntena  in  800 
department  declassification  guides.  In  a  wntten  reply  to  the 
scholars,  Gerald  Chapp>el.  acting  director  ot  the  otfice  ot 
information  resources  management,  said  that  timetables  to 
declassify  records  were  being  developed  and  should  be  in  place 
by  1996. 

To  some  extent,  the  problems  that  scholars  tace  at  the 
Energy  Department  are  part  of  broader  problems  with  access  to 
federal  records.  Unlike  many  other  countnes,  the  United  Slates 
until  recently  has  not  mandated  schedules  (or  the  relea.sc  of 
otficial  documents,  but  has  let  individual  presidents  set  records 
policies.  When  Congress  passed  a  law  last  year  requmng  the 
Department  of  Slate  to  open  all  but  iLs  most  sensitive  records 
over  30  years  old,  "we  eot  the  beginning  of  a  corrective  to  the 
closed  fxilicy  ana  secrecy  about  recorus  that  evolved  during  the 
Reagan-Bush  years,"  says  Page  Putnam  Miller,  director  of  the 
National  Coordinating  Comnuttee  tor  die  Promotion  ot  History, 
an  alliance  of  history  and  archival  groups.  ("Scholars  Protest 
Agency's  Handling  of  Histoncal  and  Scientific  Papers."  The 
Chronicle  of  Higher  Education.  March  II) 

MARCH  -  NASA  has  decided  that  next  year  it  will  shut  down 
the  Magellan  spacecraft,  which  is  currently  mapping  Venus, 
although  It  will  still  be  gathering  e,ssential  information.  The 
decision   to   shut   Magellan  down   was   made   in   a   bargaining 


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session  between  NASA  and  the  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget.  The  amount  of  money  for  planetary  science  m  the 
administration's  budget  for  fiscal  year  1993  is  so  small  that 
NASA  has  concluded  that  Magellan  has  to  be  sacnficed  on 
behalf  of  other  missions. 

Magellan,  which  waa  launched  in  1989,  has  now  mapped 
Venus  twice,  and  has  just  begun  its  third  mapping  cycle.  Many 
questions  that  geophysicists  ask  about  Earth  may  be  answered  on 
Venus.  Given  the  cost  of  building  Magellan  and  getting  it  to 
Venus— about  half  a  billion  dollars— most  of  the  NASA  scientists 
think  that  to  turn  it  off  prematurely  is  penny-wise  and  pound- 
toolish.  ("The  Talk  of  the  Town,"  The  New  Yorker.  March  16) 

MARCH  -  In  its  latest  attack  on  federal  environmental  regula- 
tions. 0MB  blocked  a  major  health  proposal  for  workers,  saying 
that  carrying  it  out  could  be  so  expensive  it  could  force  compa- 
nies to  cut  wages  and  jobs,  thereby  making  workers'  health 
worse.  The  proposed  regulation  is  a  major  environmental 
initiative  by  the  Occupational  Safety  and  Health  Administration 
involving  standards  tor  air  contaminants  in  agncuiture  and 
industry,  including  construction  and  mantime  work.  OMB's 
decision  to  suspend  consideration  of  the  proposal  blocks  its 
adoption  because  a  1981  presidential  order  required  regulations 
to  be  approved  by  the  OMB  before  going  into  effect. 

OMB's  action  came  at  almost  the  same  time  as  the  Bush 
administration  said  automobile  manufactures  would  not  be 
required  to  install  (xsllution-control  devices  on  new  cars  to 
capture  gasoline  fumes  released  into  the  atmosphere  by  fueling. 
Instead,  the  government  will  require  gasoline  stations  to  control 
tumes  through  special  pumps  and  hoses.  The  action  comes 
dunng  a  90-day  moratonum  on  new  regulations,  but  proposals 
related  to  health  and  safety  are  generally  exempted. 

OMB's  letter  blocking  the  proposed  regulations,  wntten  by 
James  MacRae.  acting  administrator  ot  the  Office  ot  Information 
and  Regulatory  Atfairs,  "a  little  noticed  but  extremely  powerful 
iiifice  inside  the  nudget  otfice,'  said  the  analysis  conducted  bv 
ihe  satetv  administration  neglected  an  "important  question'  on 
the  permissible  exposure  limits.  The  question,  MacRae  said. 
•vas,  "How  will  comnliance  with  the  proposed  P.E.L.  rule  atfect 
vvorkers'  employment,  wages  and  iheretore,  health?"  MacRae 
arL'ued  that  less  protection  mav  save  more  lives  than  addinu 
•eguiatory  costs  to  employers. 

Representatives  ot  organized  labor  resp<inded  indignantly  to 
MacRae's  contention.  Sen.  Edward  Kermedy  (D-Mass.),  chair 
ot  the  Senate  Labor  and  Human  Resources  Committee,  said 
OMB  "is  saying  that  healthy  working  conditions  are  bad  tor 
workers'  health."  adding,  "OMB  should  stop  kowtowing  to 
business,  and  the  Labor  Department  should  get  on  with  its 
statutory  responsibility  of  issumg  these  important  health  stan- 
dards." ("Citing  Cost,  Budget  Office  Blocks  Workplace  Health 
I'roposal."  The  NeH'  York  Times,  March  16) 

lEd.  note:  See  a  related  article,  "OMB's  Logic:  Less  Protection 
Saves  Lives,"  The  Washington  Post.  March  17] 


MARCH  -  The  U.S.  Information  Agency  has  lost  yet  another 
round  in  its  long-mnning  battle  over  control  of  film  exports.  A 
group  of  independent  filmmakers  has  been  battling  the  agency 
since  I98S,  accusing  it  of  actmg  as  a  political  censor,  refiising 
to  grant  tax-free  export  status  to  documentary  films  that  USIA 
reviewers  consider  "propaganda."  Since  film  taxes  in  some 
countnes  can  be  heavy,  the  USIA's  power  is  tantamount  to 
killing  some  films,  the  filmmakers  alleged.  USIA  has  argued  that 
under  an  mtemational  agreement  for  the  exchange  of  educational 
matenals,  it  must  review  any  films  before  they  can  qiudify  for 
exemption  from  export  duties. 

The  Center  for  Constitutional  Rights,  an  advocacy  group  that 
represented  several  small  film  producers,  said  the  9th  U.S. 
Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  had  agreed  that  legislation  Congress 
passed  last  October  "has  effectively  invalidated  the  USIA's 
cntena  for  grantmg  educational  certificates  to  documentary 
tllms. "  Most  of  the  rejected  films  were  cntical  of  U.S.  govern- 
ment policy,  the  filmmakers  had  said.  David  Cole,  a  lawyer  with 
the  center,  estimated  that  the  court  case  has  cost  taxpayers 
between  $300,000  and  $400,000.  Tne  filmmakers  contend  that 
the  USIA's  review  rules  violated  their  First  Amendment  free 
speech  nghts,  and  most  court  rulings  over  the  issue  have 
supfjorted  their  view.  ("Court  Pans  USIA's  Case  on  Rating  Film 
ExpHDrts,"  The  Washington  Post.  March  17) 

MARCH  -  Citing  mdustry  savmgs  of  $210  million,  the  E>epait- 
ment  of  Agnculture  announced  that  it  was  delaying  the  deadline 
for  mandatory  nutrition  labeling  for  more  than  1  million 
processed  meat  and  poultry  products.  In  November  1991, 
Agnculture  proposed  that  the  labels  of  all  processed  meats,  from 
hot  dogs  to  chicken  pot  pies,  list  information  about  the  amount 
of  calones,  fat,  cholesterol,  and  other  nutrients.  The  postpone- 
ment will  give  manufacturers  an  additional  year  to  comply  with 
;he  regulations,  so  consumers  will  not  see  new  labels  in  super- 
:Tiarkets  until  May  1994. 

The  measure,  part  of  the  Bush  aumimstration's  90-day 
regulatory  moratonum,  could  also  delay  manufacturers'  compli- 
ance with  the  Food  and  Drug  Administration's  long-awaited 
nutntion  labeling  law.  That  would  require  mandatory  nutntion 
information  on  labels  for  all  other  tood  products  aside  from  meat 
md  p<3ultry.  Ellen  Haas,  executive  director  of  Public  Voice  for 
: \)oU  and  Health  Policy,  a  consumer  advocacy  group,  called  the 
jecision  "a  campaign  present  to  the  fixxi  industry  at  the  expense 
ol  consumer  health." 

Agnculture  Secretary  Edward  Madigan  said  the  agency  also 
vill  proptjse  allowing  meat  and  poultry  processors  to  use 
nutntion  information  from  computer  databases  instead  of  having 
laboratones  chemically  analyze  their  products.  Tlie  department 
estimated  the  savings  in  lab  costs  at  $650  million.  ("Nutntion 
Labels  Delayed  on  Processed  Meat,"  The  Washington  Post. 
.March  20) 

MARCH  -  The  once-secret  tapes  of  the  Nixon  While  House  are 
valuable  histoncal  records  that  the  public  has  the  nght  to  hear. 


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according  to  a  lawsuit  filed  seeking  to  force  the  government  to 
release  the  tapes.  The  lawsuit  filed  in  U.S.  District  Court  said 
the  National  Archives  has  taken  long  enough  to  catalog  the  4,000 
hours  of  tapes,  including  200  to  400  hours  related  to  the 
Watergate  break-m  June  1972  and  the  coverup  that  led  to 
Nixon's  1974  resignation.  The  Archives  has  released  only  60 
hours  of  Nixon  Watergate  tapes  despite  a  1974  law  that  required 
them  to  be  opened  to  public  access  at  the  "earliest  reasonable 
date,"  the  lawsuit  said. 

John  Fawcett,  assistant  archivist  for  presidential  libraries, 
said  in  a  January  letter  to  Public  Citizen's  attorney  that  "seven- 
teen years  is  not  an  unreasonable  time  for  public  access  to 
sensitive  presidential  materials. "  "Let's  have  the  whole  record 
out,"  said  University  of  Wisconsin  Professor  Stanley  Kutler. 
who  filed  the  suit  along  with  Ralph  Nader's  Public  Citizen. 
("Suit  Seeks  Quick  Release  of  All  Nixon  Tapes,"  The  Washing- 
;on  Post,  March  20) 

MARCH  -  Almost  every  Monday  for  the  past  several  months. 
Rep.  Henry  Gonzalez  (D-Tex.),  chairman  of  the  House  Banking 
Committee,  has  been  settmg  the  Bush  admimstration's  teeth  on 
edge  with  fiery  expose  about  its  courtship  of  Iraq  before  the 
invasions  of  Kuwait  m  August  1990.  Gonzalez's  "special  orders" 
are  delivered  to  a  virtually  empty  floor.  But  they  are  full  of 
excruciating  detail— much  of  it  classified  "secret"  and  "confiden- 
tial." Gonzalez's  charges  are  simple  and  direct:  Senior  Bush 
administration  officials  went  to  great  lengths  to  continue 
supF>orting  Iraqi  President  Saddam  Hussein  and  his  unreliable 
regime  long  after  it  was  prudent  to  do  so. 

Among  the  accusations  leveled  at  administration  officials  is 
that  they  kept  sharing  mtelligence  information  with  Baghdad  until 
a  few  weeks  before  Iraq's  mvasion  of  Kuwait.  TTien,  in  the  wake 
of  the  gulf  war  when  Congress  began  demanding  more  inforrru- 
lion  about  the  prewar  conduct  of  U.S.  fwlicv  toward  Iraq, 
administration  officials  tned  to  hide  their  embarrassment  under 
a  cioak  ot  national  secunty  and  created  what  Gonzalez  nas  called 
J  "cover-up  mechamsm"  to  keep  mvestigators  at  bay.  Adnunis- 
:ration  officials  strenuously  contest  the  accusations  of  impropn- 
-tv  and  illegality,  but  they  plainly  would  rather  not  talk  about 
ihem  at  all.  ("Gonzalez's  Iraq  Expose."  The  Washington  Post. 
March  22) 

MARCH  -  Here  are  lust  a  tew  ot  the  ihines  tne  t'ovemment 
Aon  t  tell  about  the  nank  and  savings  and  loan  failures  that  are 
osting  taxpayers  billions  of  dollars: 

■  SVhat  Hillary  Clinton  s  law  firm  got  paid  for  representing  an 
Arkansas  S&L  before  a  state  commissioner. 

■  What  presidential  son  Neil  Bush  paid  to  settle  the  govern- 
ment s  case  against  officials  of  Colorado-based  Silverado  Savings 
.ind  Lt^an  A.ssociation. 

■  Details  of  how  insiders  at  the  Distnct's  Madison  National 
Bank  defaulted  on  tens  of  millions  of  dollars  in  loans. 

"What  are  they  hiding.'  That's  what  we're  trying  to  lind 
lut."  said  Sen.  Timothy  Wirth  (D-Colo.),  who  is  pushing  for 


greater  federal  disclosure  of  mformation  about  failed  institutions. 
Pending  legislation  in  the  Senate  Bankmg  Committee  requires 
regulators  to  make  public  five  years  of  examination  reports  by 
bank  regulators  on  mstitutions  that  fail  and  use  taxpayer  funds  to 
cover  losses.  Advocates  of  the  legislation  cite  the  public's  right 
to  know  because  of  the  billions  of  dollars  m  taxpayer  money 
involved  in  the  S&L  cleanup.  Regulators  say  they  are  not  hiding 
anything.  They  say  the  confidentiality  is  needed  so  that  bankers 
can  be  honest  with  regulators  and  do  not  try  to  conceal  problems 
that  could  become  public  if  the  institution  fails.  ("Shedding  Light 
on  S&L  Failures,"  The  Washint^ton  Post,  March  24) 

MARCH  -  In  a  three-page  article,  Alyson  Reed  writes  of  the 
continuing  battle  over  the  1990  census:  "People  have  been 
brawling  over  the  accuracy  of  the  figures  since  before  the 
national  head  count  was  conducted,  and  the  fights  most  likely 
will  contmue  well  into  next  year.  On  the  surface,  the  struggle 
over  the  census  is  about  numbers.  How  many  Amencans  were 
missed  by  the  census?  How  manv  were  counted  more  than  once.' 
^Vhich  populations  were  overrepresented  or  underrepresented  in 
(he  tinal  census  count.'" 

In  reality,  however,  the  contmumg  struggle  over  the  census 
numbers  is  about  political  power  and  money.  Among  other 
practical  applications,  census  figures  are  used  to  distnbute 
political  representation  at  the  federal,  state,  and  community 
levels.  The  numbers  also  determine  the  amoimt  of  federal  aid  to 
which  each  state  and/or  political  Junsdiction  is  entitled.  More- 
over, because  minonties  were  missed  in  far  greater  numbers 
than  white  non-Hispaiucs,  the  struggle  over  the  data  concerns 
voting  and  civil  nghts  issues  as  well. 

No  matter  how  much  finetuning  is  applied  to  the  census 
process,  many  observers  argue  that  as  long  as  political  appoint- 
ees control  It,  achieving  the  most  accurate  count  will  remain 
econdarv  to  enhancmg  the  political  power  of  the  survey's 
overseers.  ("Wrong  Number:  The  Continuing  Saga  of  the  1990 
Census.  ■  The  National  Voter.  .March/ Apnl) 

APRIL  -  Scientists  at  the  Department  of  Energy's  Argonne 
National  Laboratory  knowingly  published  questionable  data  about 
the  metallurgy  ot  an  expenmental  nuclear  reactor,  then  forced 
out  a  colleague  who  cnticized  their  actions,  according  to  an 
mtemal  investigation  made  public.  .Xrgorme  officials  strongly 
■lected  the  report. 

The  investigation  grew  out  ot  a  dispute  between  Argonne 
scientists  over  a  report  and  chart  published  in  an  internal 
nonthly  magazine  about  the  temperature  at  which  the  fuel  rods 
might  melt.  According  to  James  Srruth.  a  rrtetallurgist  at  the 
laboratory,  his  colleagues  rebuffed  his  attempts  to  correct  their 
Jata.  circled  the  wagons  when  he  pressed  his  case  and  eventually 
forced  him  to  resign.  According  to  Argonne  officials.  Smith  was 
jn  undisciplined  and  truculent  scientist  who  was  so  busy  cn- 
icizinL'  his  colleagues  that  he  could  not  get  his  own  work  done. 

in  large  measure,  the  investigation  upheld  Smith.  Its  122- 
page  report  said  the  evidence  "tends  to  substantiate"  Smith's 


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charge  that  the  iab  "placed  a  higher  value  on  observing  social 
niceties  and  maintaming  harmony  among  its  personnel  than  it  did 
on  achieving  scientific  accuracy."  The  report  also  validated 
Smith's  charge  that  the  lab  "published  or  presented  work  that 
contained  errors,  unqualified  conclusions,  or  that  was  of 
questionable  validity"  and  refused  to  print  corrections  when  the 
errors  were  discovered.  ("Argoime  Scientists  Criticized  for 
Errors,  Treatment  of  Whistle-Blower,"  The  Washington  Post, 
April  3) 

APRIL  -  A  "Topics  of  the  Times"  piece  in  The  New  York 

Times,  said: 

Since  making  a  great  show  of  announcing  his  new  policy 
of  openness,  Robert  Gates,  the  Director  of  Central  Intelli- 
gence, has  regrettably  said  nothing  about  the  overall  size  of 
intelligence  budgets,  past  and  present.  Nor  has  he  revealed 
the  names  and  functions  of  all  U.S.  intelligence  agencies, 
including  a  few  whose  very  existence  is  not  known  to  must 
members  of  Congress  or  the  public.  This  information  would 
allow  Congress  to  exercise  more  informed  judgment  in 
allocating  the  $30  billion  believed  to  be  spent  on  vanous 
intelligence  activities  by  various  agencies. 

Mr.  Gates  did  promise  a  welcome  new  approach  to 
declassifying  the  documents  m  its  voluminous  files.  The 
C.l.  A.  would,  of  course,  contmue  to  excise  any  reference  to 
sources  and  methods  of  mtelligence-gatherug.  But  he 
strongly  impled  that  the  agency  would  no  longer  withhold 
bushels  of  documents  only  tangentially  related  to  national 
secunty. 

So  It  was  reasonable  to  expect  that  all  or  most  of  ihe 
study  by  the  C.I. A.  Openness  Task  Force,  which  served  as 
the  basis  for  Mr.  Gates'  new  policy,  would  be  made  avail- 
able to  Congress  and  the  public.  But  the  C.I.A.'s  Informa- 
tion and  Pnvacy  Coordinator  refused,  saying  the  report 
"must  be  withheld  m  its  entirety."  Even  openness  remains  a 
secret  at  the  C.I. A. 

("The  C.I. A.,  Open  and  Shut,"  The  /Veu'  York  Times,  Apnl  6) 

APRIL  -  The  Army  acknowledged  that  its  glowing  claims  ot 
success  last  year  for  the  Patnot  missile's  performance  during  the 
Persian  Gulf  War  were  based  on  faulty  data  and  indicated  it  is 
now  certain  the  missile  "lulled"  roughly  10  Iraqi  Scud  warheads 
out  of  more  than  80  fired  at  Israel  and  Saudi  Arabia.  A  senior 
.Army  olficial  said  a  new  study  shows  the  Patnot  may  have 
knocked  out  approximately  24  Scuds.  But  the  study  expresses  "a 
high  degree  of  confidence"  in  only  about  10  of  those  "warhe^id 
kills,"  which  were  defmed  as  causing  an  enemy  warhead  to 
explode,  bum  in  the  air,  or  become  a  harmless  dud. 

Dunng  the  gulf  war,  U.S.  officials  gave  the  impression  that 
Patnots  had  destroyed  or  weakened  most  of  the  Scuds  target- 
ed—an impression  bolstered  by  live  television  images.  Since 
then,  the  Patnot's  f)erformance  has  become  an  increasingly 
controversial  issue,  in  part  as  a  symbol  in  the  debate  over  the 
future  of  the  mullibillion-dollar  Strategic  Defense  Initiative  and 


in  part  because  its  effectiveness  could  be  an  important  compo- 
nent of  future  war-fighting  plans.  ("Army  Cuts  Claims  of  Patnot 
Success,"  The  Washington  Post,  Apnl  8) 

APRIL  -  The  Defense  Department  released  its  long-delayed 
official  history  of  the  Persian  Gulf  War.  The  intncate,  1,300- 
page  report  titled,  "Conduct  of  the  Persian  Gulf  War,"  pamted 
a  farmliar  Pentagon  portrait  of  the  victory  over  Iraq.  But  the 
study  contamed  no  direct  cnticism  of  any  policy  or  operatioiul 
decision,  and  it  evaded  many  of  the  central  controversies  of  the 
war.  There  was  little  or  no  mention,  for  example,  of  the 
Western  role  in  arming  Iraq,  the  failure  of  diplomacy  to  prevent 
or  reverse  that  country's  invasion  of  Kuwait,  the  civilian  and 
military  death  toll,  the  dispute  over  the  number  of  Iraqi  soldiers 
who  were  in  Kuwait,  the  tiimng  of  the  cease-fire,  or  the  war's 
role  m  prompting  bloody  and  imsuccessful  uprisings  by  Kurds 
and  Shiites  against  Iraqi  President  Saddam  Hussein. 

The  study  was  delayed  nearly  three  months  past  its  January 
1 5  deadline  by  hundreds  of  interservice  and  interagency  disputes 
over  the  way  the  war  was  fought  and  the  meanings  to  be 
extracted  from  its  outcome.  Most  disputes,  according  to  officials 
involved  in  the  drafting,  led  to  neutral  compromise  language  or 
the  deletion  of  any  mention  of  the  disputed  subject.  Among  the 
casualties  of  that  process  was  a  chapter  circulating  last  winter 
that  discussed  the  death  toll  among  Iraqis.  The  report  did  not 
even  mention  a  military  death  toll,  and  its  passing  reference  to 
"the  apparently  low  number"  of  civilian  deaths  is  unsupported 
by  any  estimate  or  evidence.  ("Gulf  War  Failures  Cited,"  The 
Washing(on  Post,  Apnl  II) 

APRIL  -  The  Energy  Department's  senior  intelligence  official 
in  1989  turned  aside  an  early  alarm  about  Iraq's  advance  effort 
10  develop  nuclear  weapons  on  grounds  that  it  did  not  warrant 
urgent,  high-level  Bush  adimnistration  attention,  according  to 
government  documents.  The  alarm  was  raised  by  mid-level 
iilficials  within  the  department  who  wanted  to  hnet  Energy 
Secretary  James  Watkins  so  he  could  alert  Secretary  of  State 
James  Baker  and  other  semor  policymakers  to  a  problem  that 
niany  officials  now  acknowledge  was  not  fully  appreciated  at  that 
time. 

But  ihe  propo.sal  for  high-level  bnefings  was  challenged  at 
the  time  by  deputy  assistant  secretary  of  energy  for  intelligence. 
Robert  Walsh,  who  testified  at  a  closed  congressional  hearing  in 
April  1991  that  he  had  considered  the  evidence  put  forward  b\ 
the  otficials  "overstated"  and  senior  policymakers  already 
adequately  informed.  In  fact,  the  dcKuments  released  indicated 
that  neither  Watkins  nor  Undersecretary  of  Energy  John  Ruck, 
who  was  responsible  for  overseeing  weafx)ns-related  issues 
within  the  department,  were  made  aware  ot  all  the  evidence 
behind  the  alarm  until  nearly  a  year  later.  ("DOE  Official 
Discounted  '89  Warning  on  Iraq's  Nuclear  Program,"  Tht 
WiLshiii^ion  Post.  .Apnl  21) 

APRIL  -  Vice  President  Dan  Quayle  and  other  senior  adminis- 


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tration  officials  remained  deadlocked  with  the  Environinenul 
Protection  Agency  over  a  bitterly  contested  EPA  proposal  that 
the  public  be  notified  when  companies  with  pollution  permits 
seek  to  raise  permissible  emissions.  At  stake  are  not  only  what 
the  White  House  says  is  billions  of  dollars  in  potential  costs  to 
thousands  of  American  companies  but  the  political  consequences 
of  havmg  to  rule  against  the  interest  of  either  the  busmess  or 
environmental  communities. 

In  carrying  out  amendments  to  the  Clean  Air  Act,  the  agency 
contends  that  the  process  by  which  compames  seek  relaxation  of 
their  pollution  liimts  should  be  open  and  should  include  require- 
ments for  public  notice  and  comment.  "There's  a  continued 
disagreement  of  the  issue  of  public  review  in  the  permits 
process,"  an  administration  official  said  after  a  White  House 
meeting  attended  by  the  principal  parties  to  the  months-long 
dispute.  The  session  included  William  Reilly,  the  EPA  Adminis- 
trator, and  Vice  President  Quayle,  leader  of  the  Bush  administra- 
tion's aggressive  deregulatory  program  and  head  of  its  Council 
on  Competitiveness.  ("Quayle  and  E.P.A.  Split  on  Emissions," 
The  New  York  Times,  Apnl  23) 

APRIL  -  President  Bush  will  issue  an  executive  order  soon 
making  it  easier  for  state  and  local  officials  to  sell  public  assets 
like  airports,  roads,  bndges,  and  sewage  treatment  plants  to 
private  busmesses.  White  House  officials  say.  Plans  for  the 
order  are  the  latest  move  in  a  campaign  of  deregulation  and 
pnvatization  dnven  in  part  by  the  administration's  ideology  but 
also  aimed  at  showing  a  President  coping  with  domestic  issues 
in  an  election  year.  In  mid-Apnl,  the  administration  announced 
new  steps  in  a  continumg  effort  to  lighten  regulation  of  financial 
institutions.  At  the  same  time.  White  House  officials  said 
President  Bush  was  expected  to  announce  an  extension,  into  the 
summer,  of  the  90-day  government  regulatory  moratonum  he 
ordered  in  January  as  one  step  to  fight  the  recession.  ("Bush  to 
.Make  It  Easier  to  Sell  Public  Property,"  The  New  York  Times. 
Apnl 26) 

MAY  -  In  a  five-page  article,  Arthur  Rowse  documents  the 
results  of  the  deregulatory  activities  of  the  Council  on  Competi- 
tiveness headed  by  Vice  President  Dan  Quayle,  and  the  secrecy 
surrounding  the  council. 

Rowse  says  that  when  President  Bush  ran  a  similar  office 
dunng  the  Reagan  years  called  the  Presidential  Task  Force  for 
Regulatory  Relief,  there  was  some  doubt  about  whether  it  needed 
to  comply  with  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act,  since  it  was  in 
the  White  House  complex  of  executive  privilege.  That  doubt  was 
erased  in  September  1991,  when  a  federal  judge  ruled  that 
disclosure  was  required  because  of  its  regulatory  activities.  The 
Administrative  Procedures  Act  also  requires  that  the  public  be 
informed  at  all  stages  of  rulemaking.  But  the  Quayle  council 
continues  to  hide  essential  details  about  its  op>erations  from 
Congress,  the  public,  and  the  press. 

The  author  documents  the  long  delays  in  implementing  laws 
that  affect  human  life  and  health.  Rowse  says  one  reason  for 


such  delays  is  the  secrecy  that  enshrouds  them  much  of  the  time. 
Secrecy  is  standard  operating  procedure  for  the  Quayle  council. 
Little  of  its  regulation-bashing  would  be  possible  in  the  glare  of 
publicity.  All  anyone  knows  about  their  activities  comes  from 
occasional  leads  from  aggrieved  agencies  and  from  efforts  of 
congressional  committees  to  force  the  information  out  by  holding 
heanngs  and  issuing  reports.  Leading  that  effort  has  been  Rep. 
Henry  Waxman  (D-Calif.),  who  heads  a  subcommittee  on  health 
and  environment.  ("Deregulatory  Creep,"  The  Progressive, 
May) 

MAY  -  H.  Jack  Greiger,  an  epidemiologist  at  the  City  Universi- 
ty of  New  York,  and  David  Rush  of  Tufts  University  have 
conducted  a  comprehensive  review  of  all  published  studies  about 
the  health  of  workers  exposed  to  low  levels  of  radioactivity  at 
the  Energy  Department's  nuclear  weapons  factones.  They  said 
the  124  studies  from  scientific  journals— representing  most  of 
what  IS  publicly  known  about  the  health  histones  of  more  than 
600,000  people  who  have  worked  in  bomb  factones  over  the  last 
half  century — are  marred  by  flawed  data,  inconsistent  measunng 
techniques,  and  suppression  of  unwanted  fmdings. 

As  a  result,  they  said,  independent  scientists  lack  the 
information  they  need  to  assess  the  health  nsks  of  exposure  to 
low  levels  of  radiation  and  to  set  appropnate  exposure  liimts. 
They  did  not  say  that  bomb-factory  workers  are  m  grave 
jeopardy,  but  argued  that  the  Energy  Department's  refusal  to 
release  health  data  on  most  of  the  workers,  coupled  with 
inconsistencies  in  measunng  techniques  and  arbitrary  "correc- 
tions" of  radiation  measurements,  have  made  independent  nsk 
evaluation  impossible. 

Presenting  the  results  of  a  study  sponsored  by  Physicians  for 
Social  Resp>onsibility,  Geiger  and  Rush  reopened  a  long-standing 
argument.  For  40  years  the  Energy  Department  and  its  predeces- 
sor agencies  restncted  access  to  much  health  data  on  national 
secunty  grounds.  Under  pressure  from  Congress,  Energy 
Secretary  James  Watkins  sought  to  defuse  this  issue  three  years 
ago  by  announcing  the  records  would  be  made  available  to 
mdep)endent  scientists.  He  also  agreed  to  let  the  Health  and 
Human  Services  Department  take  over  responsibility  for 
sup)ervismg  research  projects.  But  Geiger  said  that  the  agreement 
with  HHS  IS  "like  a  basketball  game  plan  drawn  up  by  a  mad 
coach"  because  it  still  leaves  the  Energy  Department  responsible 
kn  deciding  which  pro|ects  will  he  funded.  ("Secrecy  Said  to 
Impede  Research  on  Radiation  Hazards,"  The  Washini^ion  Post. 
May  8) 

MAY  -  The  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  issued  its 
[proposed  revision  to  OMB  Circular  A- 130.  Management  of 
Federal  Information  Resources,  in  the  Apnl  29  Federal  Rei^isier 
(57  FR  18296-18306). 

Public  comments  are  due  by  August  27.  The  current 
circular's  heavy  emphasis  on  the  use  of  the  pnvate  sector  to 
dissermnate  government  information  has  been  of  concern  to 
public  interest   groups  and   libranans.    Tlie  proposed  circular 


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January  -  June  1992 


appears  to  soften  OMB's  stance  on  the  pnvatization  of  govern- 
ment information. 

However,  the  library  community  is  likely  to  find  problems 
with  the  revision's  treatment  of  the  Depository  Library  Program. 
0MB  asserts  that  the  statutory  definition  of  a  "government 
publication"  does  not  include  electronic  information  products. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Government  Printmg  Office,  which 
adnunisters  the  program,  has  a  legal  finding  that  it  does.  Under 
Title  44  use  federal  agencies  are  mandated  to  supply  the  GPO 
with  copies  of  all  "government  publications"  which  are  then 
distnbuted  to  the  nation's  1,400  depository  libraries  free  of 
charge.  What  is  disturbing  to  libranans  is  that  an  increasing 
amount  of  government  information  can  now  only  be  found  m 
electronic  formats.  Under  the  provision  of  the  revised  circular, 
federal  agencies  would  not  be  required  to  supply  copies  of  this 
electronic  matenal  to  GPO  for  the  Depository  Library  Program. 
("ALA  Will  Study  Document  Carefully,"  Elearonic  Public 
Information  Newsletter,  May  8) 

I  Ed.  note:  An  editonal,  "A  Document  by  Any  Other  Name...," 
in  the  May  18  Federal  Computer  Week,  stated  "a  recently 
released  policy  directive  by  the  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget  regarding  electronic  information  doesn't  make  sense  to 
us."  The  editonal  contmued:  "OMB's  theory  is  that  the  U.S. 
Code's  definition  of  a  'government  publication'  excludes 
electromc  publications.  They've  decided  this  because  the  defini- 
tion refers  to  'individual  documents.'  OMB  doesn't  see  how 
electronic  files  can  be  called  individual  documents.  It  seems  to 
us  that  OMB  is  missing  the  p>oint.  The  government's  obligation 
IS  to  make  information  available  to  the  public.  It  doesn't  matter 
how  the  information  is  formatted.") 

MAY'  -  Basic  mformation  on  birth  control— removed  from  a 
popular  health  book  on  order  from  the  administration— will  be 
mailed  to  federal  workers  who  received  the  censored  version, 
according  to  congressional  sources.  The  reversal  comes  a  month 
after  members  of  Congress  cnticized  the  decision  to  cut  the 
chapter  from  all  copies  of  "Taking  Care  of  Your  Child,"  a  best- 
selling  health  book  sent  free  to  275,000  families  m  the  Blue 
Cross-Blue  Shield  federal  employee  program.  ("That's  One  Less 
State  Secret."  The  Washinf^ton  Post,  May  8) 

MAY  -  A  federal  judge  declared  unconstitutional  a  rule  requiring 
that  AIDS  education  matenals  funded  with  federal  money  avoid 
anything  that  could  be  considered  offensive.  U.S.  Distnct  Judge 
Shirley  VV'ohl  Kram  said  the  Centers  for  Disease  Control 
overstepped  iLs  authonty  in  creating  the  rule,  which  was 
unconstitutionally  vague.  The  decision  was  hailed  by  the  attorney 
tor  several  AIDS  groups  that,  along  with  New  York  state,  hud 
sued  the  federal  government  over  the  rule.  "Federally  funded 
AIDS  education  will  be  much  more  effective  reaching  the 
audience  it  needs  to  reach,"  .said  David  Cole  of  the  Center  tor 
Constitutional  Rights.  ("AIDS  Education  Rule  Struck  Down,  " 
The  Washini^ion  Post,  May  12) 


MAY  -  Reportera  calling  the  Census  Bureau  for  mformation  now 
must  determine  in  advance  whether  they  are  playing  in  the  major 
or  nunor  leagues.  According  to  an  April  27  memo,  any  journal- 
ist deemed  to  be  part  of  the  "major  media"  will  be  referred  to 
the  bureau's  public  information  office,  no  matter  how  innocuous 
the  inquiry.  "We  cannot  even  give  out  simple  niunbere,  such  as 
the  number  of  housmg  units  m  the  U.S.  in  1990,  nor  can  we 
even  tell  a  reporter  where  to  find  certain  information,"  says  the 
directive  from  Darnel  Weinberg,  chief  of  the  Housing  and 
Household  Economic  Statistics  Division.  But  if  the  callera  are 
from  the  "minor  media,"  Census  employees  can  provide 
numbers  for  them. 

The  article  by  Howard  Kurtz  observes:  "The  press  restric- 
tions seem  somewhat  out  of  character  for  an  agency  whose  very 
purpose  is  to  collect  and  dissetmnate  information  about  the 
nation.  For  much  of  its  history,  the  agency  has  been  viewed  as 
a  quiet,  noncontroversial  and  apolitical  institution  of  number 
crunchers.  But  in  recent  years,  there  have  been  growing 
questions  about  whether  the  bureau  and  its  work  could  be 
politicized."  Discussing  the  charges  of  p>oliticalization  of  the 
Census  Bureau,  Kurtz  cites  the  battle  about  the  adjustment  of 
1990  census  figures,  and  the  attempt  to  fire  a  Census  demogra- 
pher who  released  her  estimate  of  Iraqi  deaths  in  the  Persian 
Gulf  War.  ("A  'Major'  Difference  in  Census  Access,  The 
Washington  Post,  May  12) 

MAY  -  The  Census  Bureau  released  a  report  showing  that  the 
percentage  of  full-time  workers  who  earn  less  than  $12,195 
annually  grew  sharply  in  the  last  decade,  despite  the  economic 
expansion  that  brought  increased  prospenty  to  the  affluent.  The 
report  was  quietly  made  public  after  bureau  officials  fought  for 
more  than  five  months  over  how  much  attention  to  draw  to  the 
finding.  Dated  March  1992,  the  report  was  officially  released  in 
mid-May  only  because  government  pnnters  had  begun  ia.st  week 
to  distnbute  it  through  the  mails. 

Daniel  Weinberg,  chief  of  the  bureau's  division  ot  housing 
and  household  statistics,  said  he  fought  unsuccessfully  to  have 
the  report  issued  with  a  news  release,  highlighting  iLs  findings. 
Asked  why  there  was  a  sensitivity  to  its  findings,  and  the 
resulting  several-month  delay,  Weinberg  said:  "This  is  not  good 
economic  news.  .Any  adnunistration  would  be  sensitive  about 
economic  news."  But  Karen  Wlieeless.  chief  of  the  bureau's 
public  information  office,  said  political  considerations  played  no 
role  \n  her  decision  about  v.  hen  or  how  to  make  the  report 
public.  She  said  she  decided  that  its  findings  were  tixi  similar  to 
a  report  issued  in  February  to  ment  its  own  news  release. 

The  dispute  over  the  report.  "Workers  with  Low  Earnings: 
1964  to  1990,"— however  it  was  caused— will  probably  mean 
that  It  will  receive  more  attention  than  it  otherwise  would  have. 
The  report  found  that  the  percentage  of  full-time  workers  with 
low  earnings  declined  in  the  1960s,  was  stable  in  the  70s  and 
ro.se  sharply  in  the  80s.  The  findings  come  at  a  time  of  sharp 
partisan  debate  over  questions  of  income  inequality.  ("Report. 
Delayed  Months,  Says  Lowest  Income  Group  Grew,"  The  Nevi 


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January  -  Jua*  1992 


York  Times,  May  12) 

MAY  -  Bereaved  parents  of  some  of  the  nine  British  soldiers 
killed  by  friendly  fire  from  Amencan  warplanes  dunng  the 
Persian  Gulf  War  got  sympathy  but  no  promises  from  U.S. 
Ambassador  Raymond  Seitz  in  their  quest  to  determine  why  their 
sons  died.  The  parents  are  seeking  to  obtain  direct  testimony 
from  two  American  pilots  who  fired  on  a  column  of  British 
armored  personnel  carrieis  with  air-to-ground-missiles  when  they 
mistook  the  vehicles  for  Iraqi  tanks. 

The  relatives  say  they  want  to  clear  up  discrepancies  between 
the  official  British  account  of  the  incident  and  the  version 
supplied  by  the  two  iinnamrd  pilots  and  other  American  sources 
in  wntten  sutements.  In  effect,  each  country  has  blamed  the 
other  for  the  error,  and  the  British  families  believe  they  are 
being  misled,  possibly  by  both  sides,  in  an  attempt  to  pull  an 
official  curtain  over  an  embarrassing  incident.  ("Britons  Con- 
front U.S.  Envoy  Over  Gulf  War  Friendly  Fire  Deaths,"  The 
Washington  Post,  May  13) 

MAY  -  llie  Bush  administration  and  the  chairman  of  the  House 
Banking  Committee  appeared  headed  for  a  confrontation  over 
access  to  classified  documents  about  the  government's  prewar 
courtship  of  Iraq.  Attorney  General  William  Barr  threatened  not 
to  provide  any  more  classified  records  unless  Rep.  Henry 
Gonzalez  (D-Tex.)  promised  to  protect  them  from  "unauthonzed 
disclosure"  and  stopped  puttmg  choice  selections  into  the 
Congressional  Record. 

Gonzalez  responded  with  an  indignant  speech  on  the  House 
floor,  accusing  the  Justice  Department  of  trying  to  obstruct  a 
legitimate  congressional  mquiry  and  attempting  to  cover  up  the 
details  1)1  the  failed  pwlicy  it  pursued  toward  Iraq.  Gonzalez 
maintained  that  all  of  the  documents  and  excerpts  that  he  has  put 
in  the  Record  involve  past  policies,  not  ongoing  operations,  and 
he  said  "none  of  them  compromise,  in  any  fashion  whatsoever, 
the  national  secunt y  of  the  United  States. "  I  le  has  also  asked  the 
Judii-iary  Comrmttee  to  consider  requesting  appointment  of  an 
independent  counsel  to  investigate  the  actions  of  administration 
ottlcials  on  Iraq  under  provisions  of  the  Ethics  of  Government 
Act.  ("Gonzalez,  Barr  At  Odds  Over  Iraq-U.S.  DaU,"  Vie 
Washtm^ton  Post,  May  19) 

MA^'  -  For  Albert  Casey  and  Timothy  Ryan,  the  two  men  in 
charge  of  the  cleanup  of  the  nation's  costly  savings  and  loan 
crisis,  the  end  is  in  sight.  If  Congress  keeps  the  funds  commi.', 
they  say,  there  will  not  be  any  more  tailed  S&Ls  landing  on 
government  shelves  after  the  end  of  the  year.  Ryan  is  head  ut 
the  Office  of  Thnft  Supervision,  which  decides  when  a  weak 
S&.L  needs  to  be  taken  over  by  the  government.  Casey,  head  of 
the  Resolution  Trust  Corporation,  has  decided  to  cut  in  half  the 
work  force  of  his  agency,  which  takes  charge  after  the  OTS  does 
Us  work. 

Some  members  of  Congress  and  many  inside  the  RTC  take 
a  different  view,  however,  arguing  that  the  downsizing  and  a 


"fire  sale"  of  RTC  assets,  along  with  a  slowdown  in  thnft 
closings,  are  timed  to  suggest  dunng  an  election  year  that  the 
politically  embarrassing  cleanup  is  close  to  being  completed. 
Once  the  election  is  over,  they  say,  the  issue  will  re-emerge  with 
new  force.  The  RTC  has  imposed  stnct  prohibitions  on  employ- 
ees talking  with  reporters,  and  many  of  those  interviewed  said 
they  believe  they  would  be  fired  if  quoted  by  name.  ("Rosy 
Forecasts  About  Cleanup  of  S&Ls  Come  Under  Attack,"  The 
Washington  Post,  May  18) 

MAY  -  Military  officials  and  major  news  organizations  an- 
nounced agreement  on  a  set  of  guidelines  for  future  war 
coverage  that  media  executives  hope  will  lift  many  of  the 
restrictions  that  hampered  them  dunng  the  Persian  Gulf  War. 
After  eight  months  of  negotiations,  the  Defense  Department,  key 
press  associations,  and  top  officials  from  20  news  organizations 
agreed  that  "open  and  independent  reporting"  will  be  the 
"pnncipal  means"  of  coverage  dunng  future  U.S.  wars. 

News  organizations  were  frustrated  dunng  the  war  at  the 
military's  insistence  that  combat  coverage  be  linuted  to  small 
pools  of  reporters  whose  movements  were  controlled  by  the 
Pentagon.  The  nonbinding  guidelines  say  pools  will  be  disbanded 
"when  possible"  24  to  36  hours  after  a  military  conflict  begins, 
but  can  still  be  used  for  "specific  events." 

In  a  setback  for  the  press,  however,  the  Pentagon  refused  to 
drop  Its  insistence  on  reviewing  all  stones  from  the  battlefield 
before  they  are  published.  In  the  war  against  Iraq,  a  number  of 
journalists  charged  that  reports  embarrassing  or  unfiattenng  to 
the  Pentagon  were  changed  or  delayed  for  reasons  unrelated  to 
military  secunty.  Pentagon  sp)okesman  Pete  Williams  said,  "The 
military  believes  it  must  retain  the  option  to  review  news 
material  to  avoid  the  inadvertent  inclusion  in  news  reports  of 
mtorination  that  would  endanger  troop  safety  or  the  success  of 
a  military  mission.  Any  review  system  would  be  imposed  only 
\vhen  operational  secunty  was  a  consideration."  ("Wartime 
News  Coverage  Guidelines  Set,"  The  W<tshin^ion  Post,  May  22) 

ILd.nute:  .^n  item  in  the  May  24  Parade  Mai^azine.  "Still 
Secret  information":  "The  Pentagon  was  so  successful  at 
managing  news  dunng  the  Persian  Gulf  war,  it  continues  some 
practices  tcxiay — more  than  a  year  later.  For  example,  the  anti- 
Amencan  cart(X)ns  that  ran  in  Iraqi  newspapers  during  the  war 
siill  are  treated  as  classified  information,  reports  Jack  Anderson. 
PdraJe's  VVa.shinglon  bureau  chief.  The  canoons  are  not  only 
clamped  SECRET  but  also  NOFORN— which  means  they  cannot 
c\.en  be  shared  with  our  allies."] 

MAY  -  Despite  the  collapse  of  the  Soviet  Union,  the  federal 
L'ovemment  is  still  placing  gag  orders  on  nearly  6,000  inventions 
that  It  believes  could  threaten  national  secunty,  according  to 
recent  data  obtained  by  the  Federation  ol  Amencan  Scientists. 
a  public  interest  group.  The  secrecy  orders,  impo.sed  by  the 
Patent  and  Trademark  Office  under  a  1951  law  called  the 
Invention  Secrecy  Act.  block  patents  from  being  issued  and  in 


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many  cases  prohibit  the  investors  from  selling  or  licensing  their 
technology  to  anybody  except  the  government— regardless  of 
whether  the  technology  was  developed  with  pnvate  or  govern- 
ment money. 

The  biggest  growth  in  secrecy  orders  has  not  been  those 
imposed  on  miliUry  secrets,  like  the  bluepnnts  for  making 
nuclear  weapons,  but  from  "dual  use"  technologies  that  can  be 
used  for  both  commercial  and  nuliUry  purposes.  These  can 
range  from  certain  kinds  of  computer  hardware  to  advanced 
ceramic  materials,  laser  systems,  semiconductor  manufacturing 
technologies,  and  automated  process  control  systems.  The  newly 
available  data  from  the  Patent  Offlces,  obtained  under  the 
Freedom  of  Information  Act,  show  that  the  number  of  new 
secrecy  orders  increased  steadily  from  290  in  1979  to  774  in 
1991  and  that  some  of  the  biggest  increases  took  place  in  the  last 
three  years.  The  total  number  of  secrecy  orders  in  effect  has 
grown  steadily  in  the  last  decade,  from  3,600  in  1979  to  5,893 
in  1991. 

No  complaints  have  been  heard  from  companies  that  have 
received  secrecy  orders,  which  still  amount  to  less  than  1  percent 
of  the  patents  issued  each  year.  But  the  new  numbers  surpnsed 
and  disturbed  some  patent  experts.  Steven  Aftergood,  head  of 
the  Project  on  Government  Secrecy  at  the  Federation  of  Amen- 
can  Scientists,  said  the  nse  m  secrecy  orders  was  at  odds  with 
national  interests  in  the  1990s.  "It  makes  no  sense,"  he  said.  "At 
a  time  when  the  military  threat  is  receding  and  the  economic 
threat  is  on  the  nse,  it  is  anomalous  at  best  that  restnctions  on 
new  inventions  should  be  skyrocketing." 

Robert  Garrett,  director  of  the  office  that  oversees  secrecy 
orders  at  the  Patent  and  Trademark  Office,  acknowledged  that 
the  restnctions  were  unusual  in  that  they  could  block  the 
publication  of  information  developed  entirely  by  pnvate  individu- 
als. The  only  comparable  law  is  the  one  that  prohibits  people 
from  publishing  information  about  building  atomic  weapons.  But 
Garrett  argued  that  patents  represented  a  unique  source  of  how- 
to  inlormation,  in  part  because  inventors  are  required  by  law 
fully  to  disclose  the  details  necessary  for  others  to  reproduce  the 
invention.  He  also  noted  that  the  collapse  of  Communism  in  the 
Soviet  Union  and  East  Europe  had  not  put  an  end  to  secunty 
threats  from  counlnes  like  Iraq  and  Libya  or  from  terronsts. 
("Cold  War  Secrecy  Still  Shrouds  Inventions,"  The  New  York 
Times,  May  23) 

MAY  -  A  tederal  judge  block  a  Bush  administration  plan  that 
perrruts  only  d(Ktors  to  give  abortion  counseling  at  federally 
subsidized  family  plaiming  clinics.  U.S.  Distnct  Judge  Charles 
Richey  declared  that  the  administration's  approach  is  tantamount 
to  amending  a  1988  federal  regulation  and  must  therefore  go 
through  a  public  comment  penod  before  it  can  take  effect.  The 
administration  said  in  March  that  physicians  at  4.000  family- 
planning  clinics  receiving  federal  funds  were  allowed  to  discuss 
abortion  with  pregnant  women.  But  the  adrmnistration  said  it 
would  prohibit  nurses  at  the  clinics  from  doing  so.  Richey  found 
that    nurses    histoncally    have    provided    abortion    counseling 


services  at  the  clinics  and  that  bamng  them  from  doing  so 
amoimts  to  a  rule  change.  The  clinics  serve  200,000  pregiumt 
women  a  year. 

The  Department  of  Healdi  and  Human  Services  has  begim 
enforcing  the  administration's  policy,  but  in  light  of  Richey's 
ruling  "we  will  refrain  from  doing  so,"  said  Michael  Astrue, 
general  counsel  at  HHS.  He  added  that  the  administration  would 
likely  take  the  case  to  the  U.S.  Court  of  Appeals.  He  said  a 
judge  in  a  similar  challenge  m  Colorado  ruled  that  the  admmis- 
tration's  interpretation  does  not  amount  to  amending  the 
regulations. 

The  National  Farmly  Planning  and  Reproductive  Health 
Association  sued  HHS  SecreUry  Louis  Sullivan  in  Apnl,  seeking 
to  have  the  matter  made  a  subject  of  public  comment.  Judith 
DeSamo,  an  association  spokeswoman,  said  the  ruling  will 
"assure  that  m  the  short  term,  poor  women  are  gomg  to  have 
information  they  need  to  make  informed  choices  about  their 
lives."  ("Judge  Halls  White  House  Plan  to  Limit  Abortion 
Counseling,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  29) 

JUNE  -  In  three  reports  issued  in  December  and  January,  the 
General  Accounting  Office  said  that  government  agencies  are  not 
ensunng  the  safety  of  the  nation's  food  supply: 

■  USDA.  The  U.S.  Department  of  Agnculture  "is  not  provid- 
ing pesticide  residue  daU  need  to  make  key  regulatory  decisions 
to  help  ensure  food  safety,"  the  GAG  said.  It  added  that  the  daU 
so  far  collected  by  the  USDA  "are  not  sUtistically  reliable... and 
will  therefore  be  of  litmted  use...m  making  decisions  on 
pesticide  safety  in  food  products. " 

■  EPA.  In  deciding  how  to  regulate  pesticide  use,  the  Environ- 
menul  Protection  Agency  is  supposed  to  balance  the  nsks  posed 
by  pesticides  against  their  benefits.  But,  says  the  GAO,  the 
EPA's  estimates  of  pesticides'  benefits  are  "generally  impre- 
cise... potentially  misleading... and  incomplete." 

■  FDA.  The  Food  and  Drug  Admmistration  samples  importefl 
toods  for  illegal  pesticide  residues.  It  is  supposed  to  use  comput- 
t;rs  to  decide  how  many  of  which  batches  of  which  foods  to 
sample.  But  the  agency  "operates  at  least  six  different  computer 
systems... that  are  not  integrated  with  each  other,  resulting  in 
data  gaps,  duplicate  data  entry,  and  an  mability  to  share  inlorma- 
tion nationally  on  a  timely  basis,"  the  GAO  aid.  "Often."  n 
added,  "FDA  suff  rely  on  memory  and  expenence  in  making 
monitonng  decisions...."  ("My,  GAO,  My,"  Nutniion  Aaion 
Healihleiier,  June) 

JUNE  -  The  Energy  Department  inspector  general  collaboratet) 
with  a  pnvate  company  to  defraud  state  and  federal  govern- 
ments, a  whistleblower  told  the  Senate  Govemmenul  Affairf 
Comrmttee  at  a  heanng  called  to  investigate  the  effectiveness  ol 
IGs  throughout  government.  Sonja  1.  Anderson  revised  hei 
testimony  to  include  allegations  of  collusion.  Committer 
chairman  Sen.  John  Glenn  (D-Ohio)  and  Paul  Misso,  Energy '^ 
assistant  inspector  general,  were  surpnsed  by  Anderson's  strong' 
charges.  Misso  denied  the  allegations  of  collaboration  between 


ALA  Washington  Office 


June  1992 


Less  Access... 


Janiury  -  Jua>  Iy92 


agency  IGs  and  the  firm,  Wesdnghouse  Hanford  Company  in 
Washington  state.  Glenn  granted  Misso  additional  time  to 
respond  in  writing  to  each  charge  of  corruption  by  Anderson, 
now  an  engineer  for  Kaiser  Engineering,  also  in  Washington. 

When  Anderson  worked  for  Westinghouse  Hantord,  she  said 
she  reported  to  the  inspector  general  Westinghouse 's  deliberate 
attempts  to  alter  or  eliminate  appraisal  findings  at  Westing- 
house's  plutonium  reprocessing  plant  in  Hanford.  Anderson  also 
said  she  reported  deliberate  attempts  to  falsify  envtronmenul 
discharge  records  and  to  tone  down  the  extent  of  leakage  of 
radioactive  water  and  mineral  waste.  Westinghouse,  she  charged, 
repeatedly  put  the  public  and  its  employees  in  jeopardy. 

"The  [IG's  office]  has  omitted  and  ignored  relevant  evidence, 
withheld  documents  from  this  committee,  failed  to  investigate 
potential  contractor  misconduct,  and  otherwise  conducted  its 
mvestigations  in  a  manner  designed  to  shield  the  contractor  from 
liability  under  state  and  federal  law,"  Anderson  said.  When 
Washington  state  demanded  access  to  the  file  on  the  leaking 
tank,  "Hanford  purged  the  file  system,"  Anderson  said.  Ander- 
son said  she  was  harassed  by  management  and  forced  to  leave 
her  job,  and  that  mformation  she  gave  to  the  IG  was  altered 
when  given  to  the  Govemmenul  Affairs  Committee  for  an 
earlier  heanng. 

Another  witness,  Marsha  Allen,  former  chief  of  the  housing 
management  division  of  Walter  Reed  Army  Medical  Center, 
testified  that  she  was  retaliated  against  when  she  refused  to  'take 
illegal  actions,  falsify  documents,  operate  [her]  division  contrary 
to  regulatory  guidance,  and  misappropnate  funds."  ("Inspectors 
General  Slammed  for  Breaching  Confidentiality, "Ffd^ra/  Times, 
June  1) 

JlJ>fE  -  The  Labor  Department  said  that  2.2  million  payroll  jobs 
were  lost  in  the  last  recession,  a  figure  that  is  one-third  higher 
than  the  government's  previous  job-loss  estimate.  Officials  said 
they  are  still  at  a  loss  to  totally  explain  how  such  a  huge  error 
could  have  been  made,  but  William  Barron,  acting  commissioner 
of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  said  that  there  was  "absolutely 
nothmg  that  would  support"  a  charge  that  politics  influenced  the 
government's  statistics-gathenng  process. 

Private  economists  said  the  announcement  went  a  long  way 
toward  answenng  last  year's  puzzle  of  why  confidence  surveys 
showed  Amencans  so  fearful  about  the  future  when  the  govern- 
ment's economic  statistics  were  depicting  a  mild  recession. 
("Recession  job  Losses  Higher  TTian  Reported,"  The  Washin^ioii 
Pox  I.  June  4) 

JUNE  -  Air  Force  officials  were  close-mouthed  about  the 
classified  launch  of  a  Titan  II  rocket  from  Vandenberg  .^ir  Force 
Base  in  California  on  Apnl  25.  But  the  veil  of  secrecy  was  not 
as  impregnable  as  the  Air  Force  might  have  hoped.  In  fact, 
information  on  both  the  launch  and  its  payload  had  been  publicly 
disclosed  three  days  previously  by  a  most  unlikely  source:  Tass 
Radio,  an  English-language  news  service  in  Moscow.  Tass's 
scoop   was   descnbed    in   this   month's   issue   of   "Secrecy    & 


Government  Bulletin,"  a  newsletter  put  out  by  the  Federation  of 
American  Scientists,  which  has  been  campaigning  for  greater 
openness  in  government  programs. 

Maj.  Dave  Thurston,  an  Air  Force  spokesman,  said  that 
norwithstandingTass's  reporting  efforts,  the  secrecy  surrounding 
the  Vandenberg  launch  was  justified  and  remains  so  today.  The 
Tass  scoop  probably  came  from  a  reliable  source:  The  Russian 
government  itself,  which  is  routinely  notified  in  advance  of  U.S. 
satellite  launches  as  a  precaution  against  nuclear  war.  ("The 
Shroud  of  Secrecy— Tom,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  5) 

JUNE  -  Iran-contra  prosecutors,  investigating  former  Defense 
Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger's  possible  role  in  the  scandal, 
began  presenting  evidence  before  a  new  grand  jury,  a  day  after 
the  House  voted  to  turn  over  key  documents.  The  prosecutors 
went  before  a  federal  grant  jury  that  had  been  heanng  other 
cnminal  cases.  The  case  results  from  disclosures  that  tiwney 
paid  by  Iran  for  secret  purchases  of  U.S.  arms  was  funneled  to 
Nicaragua  to  finance  the  U.S. -backed  rebellion  by  contra  forces. 
The  prosecutors  won  a  victory  on  June  4  when  the  House  voted 
to  turn  over  details  of  the  deposition  Weinberger  gave  June  17. 
1987,  to  the  special  House  committee  that  investigated  the  Iran- 
Contra  scandal. 

Rep.  Lee  Hamilton  (D-Ind.),  chair  of  the  committee,  told  the 
House  that  the  prosecutors  said  in  a  letter  they  were  mvestigating 
whether  Weinberger  made  false  sutements  under  oath  and 
deliberately  withheld  information  from  the  panel.  Weinbergers 
attorney,  Robert  Bennett,  has  released  a  polygraph  test  that 
Weinberger  recently  took  in  which  it  was  determined  that  he 
answered  truthfully  m  denying  that  he  had  engaged  in  a  coverup 
to  protect  then  President  Reagan,  that  he  had  lied,  and  that  he 
had  withheld  information  from  investigators.  ("New  Grand  Jury 
Hears  Evidence  on  Weinberger."  The  Washington  Post,  June  6) 

JUNE  -  The  U.S.  government  knew  that  some  notonous 
;..rronst  groups  were  operating  treely  from  Iraq  dunng  1982  to 
1990  when  Washington  officials  said  publicly  that  Iraq  was  not 
providing  a  haven  for  such  groups,  according  to  newly  declassi- 
fied State  Department  documents  given  to  Congress.  The 
documents,  evidently  based  on  U.S.  intelligence  reports,  state 
that  the  Abu  Nidal.  .^bul  Abbas,  and  May  15  terrorist  organiza- 
tions were  allowed  to  operate  from  Iraq  or  to  mainlam  headquar- 
ters there  despite  repeated  protests  bv  the  Reagan  and  Bush 
adrmnistrations. 

Until  1982,  Iraq  had  been  included  on  a  U.S.  government  list 
>>t  nations  supporting  terronsm;  the  list  was  established  as  a 
means  of  prohibiting  certain  high-technology  exptms  to  such 
.ountnes.  But  the  Reagan  administration  removed  Iraq  from  the 
list  pnncipally  because,  utficials  said  at  the  time,  the  .Aibu  Nidal 
.  rganization  had  been  exf>elled  by  Baghdad.  In  the  documents, 
provided  by  a  U.S.  official  to  The  Washinifion  Post,  the  Reagan 
jjid  Bush  admimstrations  subsequently  took  note  of  Iraq's 
extensive  and  continuing  terronst  ties  and  sent  several  secret 
demarches  to  Baghdad  but  opposed  congressional  calls  to  put 


ALA  Washington  OrTicc 


June  1992 


Less  Access... 


January  -  June  1992 


Iraq  back  on  the  list  of  countnes  supporting  terronst  acts.  To  do 
so  would  have  uitemipted  several  billion  dollars  in  U.S. -Iraqi 
economjc  trade. 

Not  until  September  1.  1990,  following  a  policy  review 
prompted  by  Iraq's  invasion  of  Kuwait  a  month  earlier,  did 
UndersecreUry  of  Sute  Lawrence  Eagleburger  declare  that  "Iraq 
IS  a  country  which  has  repeatedly  provided  support  for  acts  of 
international  terronsm."  By  then,  U.S.  trade  with  Iraq  had  been 
halted  by  a  presidential  order  and  a  U.N. -backed  mteniational 
embargo  designed  to  force  Iraq's  withdrawal.  ("U.S.  Aware  of 
Iraqi  Terronsm,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  6) 


ScmJ-annuii  updt—  of  thte  puMcadow  h«v« 
complad  in  two  indoxMl  votumoa  oowrtng  tfM  portods 
April  1981-Doconibf  19a7«ndJ«iu«rYl>tt  Docwnbor 
1 99 1 .  lost  >lecw«...  updalM  ar«  ovaliM*  for  #  1 .00:  tiM 
1981-1987  vokmo  la  «7.00:  ttM  198t-1tt1  vohmM  !• 
•  10.00.  To  ontar.  contact  tho  Amortoan  Ubrary  AMOOt*- 
tlon  WMhIngton  Offico,  110  Marytantf  Avo..  NE. 
Washington,  DC  20002-6875;  tai.  no.  202-647-4440, 
fax  no.  202-647-7383.  Al  ordon  muat  bo  prapaid  and 
mutt  induda  a  aalf-addraasad  maHng  labaL 


/VLA  Wasbingtoo  iKTice 


June  1992 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

110  Maryland  Avenue,  fME 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel.  202  547-4440     Fax  202-547-7363     Email  nu_alawash@cua 

December  1992 


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

A  1992  Chronology:  June  -  December 
INTRODUCTION 


During  the  past  12  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  A  combination  of  specific  policy 
decisions,  the  administration's  interpretations  and  implemen- 
tations of  the  1980  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  (P.L.  96-511, 
as  amended  by  P.L.  99-500)  and  agency  budget  cuts  have 
significantly  limited  access  to  public  documents  and  statistics. 

The  pending  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act 
should  provide  an  opportunity  to  limit  OMB's  role  in 
controlling  information  collected,  created,  and  disseminated 
by  the  federal  government.  However,  the  bills  that  were 
introduced  in  the  102nd  Congress  would  accelerate  the 
current  trend  to  commercialize  and  privatize  government 
information. 

Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  government's  16,000 
publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since  1985,  the  Office  of 
Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its  government 
information  control  powers,  particularly  through  Circular 
A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources.  0MB 
issued  its  proposed  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  April  29 
Federal  Register.  Particularly  troubling  is  OMB's  theory  that 
the  U.S.  Code's  definition  of  a  "government  publication" 
excludes  electronic  publications.  Agencies  would  be  unlikely 
to  provide  electronic  products  voluntarily  to  depository 
libraries— resulting  in  the  technological  sunset  of  the  Deposi- 
tory Library  Program,  a  primary  channel  for  public  access  to 
government  information. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  utilize 
computer    and    telecommunications    technologies    for   data 


collection,  storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  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  in  electronic  format  only.  While 
automation  clearly  offers  promises  of  savings,  will  public 
access  to  government  information  be  further  restricted  for 
people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for  computer 
time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have  begun 
to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public  access 
to  government  information  should  be  increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolu- 
tion passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and 
ready  access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  pub- 
lished in  any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States." 
In  1986,  ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Informa- 
tion. The  Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention 
on  all  efforts  that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and 
to  develop  support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government 
information. 

With  access  to  information  a  major  ALA  priority,  members 
should  be  concerned  about  this  series  of  actions  which  creates 
a  climate  in  which  government  information  activities  are 
suspect.  Previous  chronologies  were  compiled  in  two  ALA 
Washington  Office  indexed  publications,  Less  Access  to  Less 
Information  By  and  About  the  U.S.  Government:  A  1981-1987 
Chronology,  and  Less  Access...:  A  1988-1991  Chronology. 
The  following  chronology  continues  the  tradition  of  a  semi- 
annual update. 


Less  Access. 


June  -  December  1992 


CHRONOLOGY 


JUNE  -  Former  Defense  Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  was 
indicted  on  June  16  on  charges  that  he  lied  repeatedly  about  his 
knowledge  of  the  Iran-contra  affair  and  obstructed  investigators 
by  concealing  existence  of  extensive  notes  he  had  taken  at  crucial 
points  in  the  scandal.  A  federal  grand  jury  returned  five  felony 
counts  against  Weinberger,  making  him  the  highest-ranking 
Reagan  Administration  official  to  be  indicted  in  the  5 '/4 -year 
investigation  conducted  by  independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh. 

In  a  bitter  sutement  to  reporters,  Weinberger  said,  "I  am 
deeply  troubled  and  angry  at  this  unfair  and  unjust  indictment.... 
I  vigorously  opposed  the  transfer  and  sale  of  arms  to  Iran  and 
fought  it  at  every  turn  inside  the  administration."  Walsh's  top 
prosecutor,  deputy  independent  counsel  Craig  Gillen,  said  that 
the  indictment  was  not  about  what  side  Weinberger  took  on  the 
1985-86  shipments  of  arms  to  Iran  in  return  for  the  release  of 
American  hostages  held  by  pro-Iranian  militants  in  Lebanon. 
Rather,  he  said,  it  dealt  with  Weinberger's  alleged  concealment 
of  a  huge  amount  of  information,  including  more  than  1,700 
pages  of  p>ersonal  diary  notes,  when  investigators  most  needed 
them. 

The  Iran-contra  scandal  involved  the  Reagan  Administration's 
covert  arms-for-hostages  sales  to  Iran,  its  secret  military  supply 
line  to  the  contra  rebels  in  Nicaragua  and  its  diversion  of  profits 
from  the  Iranian  arms  sales  to  the  contra  cause.  According  to  the 
indictment,  Weinberger's  notes,  discovered  in  the  Library  of 
Congress  by  prosecutors  in  the  fall  of  1991,  depict  former 
President  Ronald  Reagan  as  repeatedly  being  warned  in  Decem- 
ber 1985  that  an  arms  shipment  to  Iran  he  had  approved  the 
previous  month  was  illegal.  Reagan  has  always  maintained  in 
official  testimony  that  he  was  not  aware  of  the  shipment  until 
early  the  next  year.  The  Weinberger  papers,  as  descnbed  in  the 
indictment,  provide  new  details  about  high-level  Iran-contra 
meetings  that  included  not  only  Reagan  but  Secretary  of  State 
George  Shultz,  and  then-Vice  President  Bush. 

Gillen  declined  to  tell  when  he  first  located  Weinberger's 
notes  in  the  Library  of  Congress.  Weinberger  had  placed  them 
there  after  he  resigned  to  facilitate  the  writing  of  his  memoirs. 
Under  an  "agreement  of  deposit"  with  the  library,  he  was  to 
have  control  over  access  to  the  records.  ("Weinberger  Indicted 
on  5  Counts,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  17) 

JUNE  -  A  study,  For  Their  Eyes  Only,  released  by  the  Center 
For  Public  Integrity  detailed  how  retired  public  officials  squirrel 
documents  and  records  away  from  public  scrutiny.  Among  them: 
former  Defense  Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  who  controls 
public  access  to  13,000  documents  from  his  Pentagon  files  at  the 
Library  of  Congress.  Former  Secretary  of  State  George  Shultz, 
leaving  office  in  1989,  had  60,000  classified  documents  trans- 
ferred to  the  Hoover  Institution  at  Stanford  University,  where 
they  are  out  of  reach  to  indef)endent  researchers.  Former  Nixon 
Administration  Secretary  of  State  Henry  Kissinger  turned  over 


his  files  to  the  Library  of  Congress,  but  keeps  iron-clad  control 
over  them. 

The  control  these  and  other  former  officials  exercise  over 
once-classified  documents  was  sanctioned  by  a  1982  executive 
order,  signed  by  then-President  Ronald  Reagan.  Although  legal, 
the  control  raises  questions  about  how  much  the  public  should  be 
allowed  to  know  about  the  lives  and  records  of  public  officials, 
said  Steve  Weinberg,  an  author,  investigative  reporter  and  editor 
who  wrote  the  report.  "What  these  cases  tell  me,"  said  Wein- 
berg, "is  that  our  view  of  officials  as  being  public  has  been 
turned  on  its  head.  The  way  these  men  keep  their  papers  away 
from  the  public  indicates  that  they  don't  consider  them  public  at 
all.  They  think  they  own  history." 

The  report  also  shows  how  other  retired  public  officials, 
including  former  Presidents  Lyndon  Johnson  and  Gerald  Ford, 
arranged  to  keep  their  files  out  of  the  hands  of  researchers. 
Weinberg  asserted  that  the  actions  of  Shultz,  Kissinger,  and 
Weinberger  are  egregious  because  all  three  signed  lucrative 
contracts  to  write  memoirs  in  which  they  used  the  matenal 
denied  to  other  researchers.  As  a  result,  said  Weinberg,  the 
three  former  Administration  officials  are  controlling  how  history 
will  be  recorded.  They  are  preventing  others  from  checking  the 
accuracy  of  what  they  wnte,  he  said.  ("Ex-Officials  Often  Shield 
Their  Files,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  18) 

JUNE  -  Members  of  the  Senate  Foreign  Relations  Committee 
have  struck  an  unusual  agreement  to  hold  closed-door  hearings 
into  allegations  that  the  Reagan  campaign  in  1980  conspired  with 
the  Iranian  government  to  delay  release  of  52  Americans  held 
hostage  in  the  American  Embassy  in  Tehran.  Sources  familiar 
with  the  investigation  said  the  decision  to  hold  closed  hearings 
on  the  "October  surpnse"  was  an  attempt  to  address  two  major 
concerns:  the  Democrats'  desire  for  a  full  ainng  of  the  affair, 
and  the  Republicans'  fear  that  public  heanngs  would  be  trans- 
formed into  an  election-year  "witch  himt"  unfairly  smeanng  the 
Bush  and  Reagan  Admmistrations.  ("Senators  Agree  to  Close 
'October  Surpnse'  Heanngs,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  24) 

JUNE  -  The  Bush  Administration  abruptly  ordered  researcher 
Robert  Gallo  to  cancel  his  first  public  discussion  of  the  contro- 
versy surrounding  his  laboratory's  role  in  the  discovery  of  the 
AIDS  virus.  Gallo,  a  semor  researcher  at  the  National  Cancer 
Institute,  was  to  answer  questions  about  the  longstanding  dispute 
between  France  and  the  United  States  over  who  first  identified 
the  virus  that  causes  acquired  immune  deficiency  syndrome.  The 
dispute  between  French  and  U.S.  researchers  over  who  discov- 
ered the  AIDS  virus  dates  from  1984,  and  Gallo  had  refused  to 
comment  publicly  on  accusations  about  taking  credit  for  the 
work  of  a  French  scientist,  Luc  Montagnier.  At  stake  are 
millions  of  dollars  in  royalties  both  sides  share  from  sales  of  a 
blood  test  to  detect  the  virus. 


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An  Administration  source  said  the  National  Cancer  Advisory 
Board,  which  was  sponsoring  the  discussion,  was  told  it  should 
have  delayed  holding  a  public  discussion  until  a  final  report  on 
the  investigation  of  Gallo's  laboratory  is  completed  in  a  few 
months.  Last  year,  Gallo  acknowledged  that  the  virus  he  used  in 
1983  to  develop  a  blood  test  for  AIDS  was  likely  one  sent  to 
him  by  France's  Pasteur  Institute  where  Montagnier  worked,  and 
said  it  must  have  contaminated  other  virus  cultures  used  in  his 
lab.  Currently,  the  United  States  and  France  divide  the  royalties 
equally,  but  the  Pasteur  Institute  has  said  it  is  entitled  to  all  of 
the  estimated  $50  million  that  may  result  from  sales  of  an  AIDS 
blood  test  developed  using  the  virus.  ("HHS  Blocks  Comment  by 
AIDS  Scientist,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  24) 


warships  in  the  region  had  been  fighting  a  "secret  war"  agamst 
Iran  that  went  well  beyond  their  publicly  acknowledged  mission 
of  protecting  neutral  shipping  from  attacks  by  Iranian  gimboats. 
Crowe  subsequently  approved  an  elaborate  "pastiche  of  omis- 
sions, half-truths  and  outnght  deceptions"  to  mask  the  true 
circumstances  of  the  downing,  Newsweek  said.  Crowe  heatedly 
denied  that.  "I  just  reject  and  am  offended  by  the  idea  that  this 
was  an  orchestrated  coverup,"  Crowe  said.  "Granted,  we  were 
feeling  our  way.  Granted,  we  made  some  mistakes.  But  to  leap 
from  that  to  an  orchestrated  coverup  to  deceive  the  American 
people— It  simply  isn't  true."  ("Adm.  Crowe  Denies  Coverup  in 
1988  Downing  of  Iranian  Airliner,"  The  Washington  Post,  July 
7) 


[Ed.  note:  The  fmal  report  of  the  Department  of  Health  and 
Human  Services  found  AIDS  researcher  Robert  Gallo  committed 
"scientific  misconduct"  in  connection  with  one  sentence  he  wrote 
in  a  scholarly  paper  published  eight  years  ago.  His  attorney  said 
he  will  appeal  the  fmdings.  ("New  HHS  Report  Faults  AIDS 
Researcher,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  31)) 

JUNE  -  Commerce  Department  documents  released  June  23 
raised  questions  about  whether  aides  to  former  Secretary  Robert 
Mosbacher  knew  that  department  employees  improperly  altered 
records  on  U.S.  sales  to  Iraq  before  they  sent  the  records  to 
Congress  in  late  1990.  The  documents  appear  to  challenge  the 
department's  contention  that  no  official  higher  than  a  now- 
departed  undersecretary,  Dennis  Kloske,  knew  workers  were 
changing  documents  to  disguise  the  shipment  of  militanly  useful 
equipment  and  technology  to  Iraq  before  it  invaded  Kuwait. 

The  disclosures  are  likely  to  lead  to  intensified  demands  for 
appointment  of  an  indef)endent  counsel  to  investigate  whether 
Administration  officials  broke  laws  against  misleading  Congress. 
The  Justice  Department  is  already  conducting  a  cnminal 
investigation,  but  a  number  of  Democrats  on  the  House  Judiciary 
Committee  argue  an  independent  counsel  is  necessary  because 
the  inquiry  could  lead  to  Mosbacher,  now  serving  as  general 
chairman  of  President  Bush's  re-election  campaign.  ("New  Data 
at  Odds  With  Commerce  Dept.  Stand  on  Sales  to  Iraq,"  The 
Washington  Post,  June  24) 

JULY  -  Retired  Admiral  William  Crowe  labeled  as  "absolutely 
outrageous"  news  media  reports  that  accuse  the  former  chairman 
of  the  Joint  Chiefs  of  Staff  of  covering  up  the  truth  behind  the 
downing  of  an  Iranian  airliner  by  a  U.S.  warship  four  years  ago. 
Recent  reports  on  the  ABC  News  program  "Nightline"  and  in 
the  July  13  issue  of  Newsweek  magazine  assert  that  the  USS 
Vincennes  had  been  operating  illegally  in  Iranian  territorial 
waters  when  it  fired  two  anti-aircraft  missiles  at  the  unarmed 
civilian  airplane  in  July  1988,  killing  290  jjeople. 

The  rejwrt  portrayed  the  captain  of  the  Vincennes,  Capt.  Will 
Rogers  III,  contnbutmg  to  a  series  of  blunders  that  led  the  crew 
to  its  mistaken  conclusion  that  the  ship  was  under  attack.  Tlie 
news  investigation  said  that  the  Vincennes  and  other   U.S. 


[Ed.  note:  The  July  13  Newsweek  article,  "The  Inside  Story  of 
How  an  American  Naval  Vessel  Blundered  into  an  Attack  on 
Iran  Air  Flight  655  at  the  Height  of  Tensions  Dunng  the  Iran- 
Iraq  War — and  How  the  Pentagon  Tried  to  Cover  Its  Tracks 
after  290  Innocent  Civilians  Died,"  concludes: 

The  Navy  might  have  gotten  away  with  all  these  decep- 
tions had  It  not  been  for  the  slow  gnnding  of  international 
law.  A  lawsuit  by  the  Iranian  government  has  now  forced 
Washington  to  admit,  grudgingly,  that  the  Vincennes  was 
actually  in  Iranian  waters— although  Justice  Department 
pleadings  still  claim  the  cruiser  was  forced  there  in  self- 
defense.  The  admission  is  contained  in  fine  pnnt  in  legal 
briefs;  it  has  never  received  public  attention  until  Crowe, 
confronted  with  the  evidence,  conceded  the  truth  last  week 
on  "Nightline."  Crowe  denies  any  cover-up;  if  mistakes  were 
made  he  told  Newsweek,  they  were  "below  my  pay  grade." 
Rogers  continues  to  insist  that  his  ship  was  in  international 
waters. 

Additionally,  Admiral  Crowe,  testifying  before  the  House 
Armed  Services  Committee  on  July  21,  delivered  a  27-page 
point-by-point  response  to  reports  that  the  military  had  precipitat- 
ed the  incident  in  which  the  Vincennes  shot  down  the  airliner 
and  then  lied  about  cntical  details.  ("Cover-Up  Denied  in 
Downing  of  Iranian  Passenger  Jet  in  '88,"  The  Washington  Post. 
July  22)] 

JULY  -  Senior  Navy  officials  tned  to  alter  the  language  of  a 
report  concerning  the  assault  of  26  women  last  year,  apparently 
to  make  the  incidents  seem  less  offensive.  Pentagon  officials  say. 
The  office  of  the  Naval  Inspector  General  prevailed  in  keeping 
most  of  the  original  wording  in  the  report,  but  only  after 
contentious  debates  with  superiors.  Navy  officials  said.  The 
inquiry  was  one  of  two  by  Navy  agencies  into  the  events  and 
subsequent  cover-up  at  last  year's  convention  in  Las  Vegas  of 
the  Tailhook  Association,  a  group  of  active-duty  and  retired 
naval  aviators.  ("Officials  Say  Navy  tned  to  Soften  Report,"  The 
New  York  Times,  July  8) 

JULY  -  Rep.  Henry  Gonzalez  (D-Texas),  who  has  been  highly 
cntical  of  the  Bush  Administration's  friendly  relations  with  Iraq 


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before  the  1990  invasion  of  Kuwait,  said  that  a  White  House 
official  in  late  1989  discussed  the  criminal  investigation  of  an 
Atlanta  bank's  loans  to  Iraq  with  the  federal  prosecutor  supervis- 
ing the  case,  possibly  intervening  improperly  in  the  inquiry. 
Gonzalez  charged  that  the  telephone  call  from  someone  in  the 
White  House  to  Gail  McKenzie,  an  assistant  United  States 
attorney  in  Atlanta,  was  part  of  a  pattern  by  the  White  House  to 
prevent  the  disclosure  of  information  that  would  draw  attention 
to  the  Administration's  conciliatory  policy  toward  Iraq  before  its 
August  1990  invasion  of  Kuwait. 

Gonzalez  also  revealed  the  existence  of  a  previously  undis- 
closed Central  Intelligence  Agency  report  circulated  to  Adminis- 
tration officials  on  November  6,  1989,  two  days  before  the 
Administration  approved  $500  million  in  Agriculture  Department 
loan  guarantees  for  Iraq.  The  report  indicated  that  Banca 
Nazionale  del  Lavoro,  the  primary  lender  to  Iraq  under  the 
United  States  credit  program,  had  paid  for  Baghdad's  weapons 
programs.  "The  report  indicates  that  several  of  the  B.N.L.- 
fmanced  front  companies  in  the  network  were  secretly  procuring 
technology  for  Iraq's  missile  programs  and  nuclear,  biological 
and  chemical  weapons  programs,"  Gonzalez  said.  ("White 
House  Knew  of  Possible  Fraud,"  The  New  York  Times,  July  8) 

JULY  -  U.S.  District  Judge  Royce  Lamberth  accused  Bush 
Administration  officials  of  trying  to  "thwart"  the  prosecution  of 
former  CIA  clandestine  services  chief  Clair  George  by  ignoring 
court  deadlines  for  declassifying  information  needed  for  trial. 
The  judge's  ire  was  directed  at  members  of  the  Interagency 
Review  Group,  a  Bush  Administration  panel  of  intelligence 
specialists  whose  job  is  to  censor  or  clear  documents  that  the 
government  or  defense  wants  to  use  at  trial.  Lamberth  said  the 
IRG  was  trying  at  the  last  minute  to  reclassify  details  that  had 
already  been  cleared  for  use  in  the  George  trial.  George, 
formerly  the  CIA's  deputy  director  for  operations,  faces  trial  on 
nine  counts  of  perjury,  false  statements,  and  obstruction  of 
congressional  and  grand  jury  inquiries  into  the  Iran-contra  affair. 
("Assailing  Delay,  Judge  Sees  Effort  to  'Thwart'  CIA  Ex-Aide's 
Trial,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  14) 

JULY  -  In  a  new  twist  to  a  battle  between  the  Energy  Depart- 
ment and  physicist  Dr.  P.  Leonardo  Mascheroni,  FBI  agents 
seized  from  him  several  copies  of  a  report  that  absolves  him  of 
mishandling  state  secrets.  The  federal  report,  made  public  eight 
months  ago,  belatedly  has  been  deemed  secret.  Private  experts 
say  the  case  is  one  of  a  growing  number  in  which  federal 
secrecy  rules,  meant  to  protect  national  security,  have  been 
misused  for  what  seem  to  be  political  ends.  "It's  an  abuse  of 
classification  to  stifle  debate,"  said  Steven  Aftergood,  editor  of 
the  Secrecy  and  Government  Bulletin,  published  monthly  by  the 
Federation  of  American  Scientists. 

Mascheroni,  dismissed  from  the  Los  Alamos  National 
Laboratory  in  1988  amid  a  dispute  over  how  to  advance  laser 
fusion,  says  he  was  dismissed  because  he  criticized  the  laser 
fusion  program  and  advocated  an  unorthodox  plan.  In  November 


1991,  the  top  security  official  in  Los  Alamos  for  the  Department 
of  Energy,  William  Risley,  came  to  Mascheroni's  defense. 
Risley  reported  that  Mascheroni  had  been  treated  unfairly  and 
that  the  scientist's  claims  were  generally  correct.  The  labora- 
tory's charges  of  security  violations  were  "trumped  up,"  Risley 
wrote,  identifying  officials  who  "put  false  information  into  the 
security  system."  Risley  gave  Mascheroni  a  copy  of  the  report, 
but  on  June  22,  FBI  agents  came  to  Mascheroni's  home  and 
seized  copies  of  the  report,  saying  it  had  been  classified  secret. 
("U.S.  Invokes  Secrecy  in  Fight  With  Rebel  Scientist,"  The  New 
York  Times,  July  19) 

JULY  -  During  most  of  the  negotiations  on  a  free  trade  agree- 
ment that  would  bind  the  economies  of  the  United  States, 
Canada,  and  Mexico  together  into  a  regional  trading  bloc,  the 
Bush  Administration  has  classified  all  negotiating  texts  in  an 
effort  to  forestall  public  debate  until  the  agreement  is  complete. 
But  information  is  leaking  out  from  many  people  involved 
directly  and  indirectly  in  the  negotiations.  Trade  negotiators  from 
the  three  countries  have  struck  thousands  of  compromises  during 
the  past  year.  These  deals,  typically  made  with  little  or  no  public 
debate,  will  affect  scores  of  industries  throughout  the  continent. 
During  most  of  the  negotiations,  these  deals  stayed  secret 
because  all  three  countries  classified  thousands  of  pages  of 
negotiating  documents  and  conducted  their  talks  with  the  secrecy 
and  security  once  reserved  for  wartime  military  op>erations.  With 
the  trade  talks  entering  their  final  weeks,  the  broad  outlines  of 
the  secret  arrangements— and  the  remaining  squabbles— are 
begirming  to  leak  out.  United  States  trade  representative  Carla 
Hills  and  her  office's  North  American  affairs  section  have 
imposed  strict  secrecy  on  the  free-trade  talks  for  fear  that  public 
debate  would  limit  the  ability  of  each  country  to  compromise  and 
strike  the  best  possible  deal.  Only  a  handful  of  copies  of  the 
incomplete  agreement  have  been  given  to  Congress,  and  those 
are  being  kept  in  special,  high-security  reading  rooms  and  in  the 
safes  of  several  congressional  aides  with  the  necessary  secunty 
clearances.  Even  other  government  departments  involved  in  the 
negotiations  have  been  given  information  only  about  their 
sections  of  the  free-trade  accord  and  not  about  the  overall 
agreement.  ("Trade  Pact  Details  Are  Emerging,"  The  New  York 
Times,  July  20) 

JULY  -  The  United  States  and  Saudi  Arabia,  which  have  long 
rejected  the  widespread  belief  that  they  work  together  to 
influence  the  world  oil  market,  have  in  fact  cooperated  exten- 
sively on  oil  issues  for  many  years.  State  Department  documents 
and  government  legal  papers  confirm.  During  the  Reagan  and 
Bush  Administrations,  the  documents  show,  the  Saudis  some- 
times informed  the  United  States  in  advance  of  key  moves  they 
planned  to  make  at  meetings  of  the  Organization  of  Petroleum 
Exporting  Countnes  and  consulted  U.S.  officials  about  market- 
ing initiatives. 

U.S.  officials  have  often  discussed  the  price  of  oil  with  the 
Saudis  and  other  friendly  producers,  the  documents  demonstrate. 


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not  asking  for  any  particular  price  but  emphasizing  the  negative 
consequences  if  prices  were  to  move  outside  a  certain  range. 
This  appears  to  contradict  repeated  assertions  by  the  Reagan  and 
Bush  Administrations  that  they  never  express  views  about  the 
price  of  oil  because  they  believe  it  should  be  determined  solely 
by  market  forces.  According  to  the  State  Department  documents, 
the  U.S.  government  has  commented  extensively  on  the  price  of 
oil  in  private  conversations  with  Saudi  officials.  U.S.  and  Saudi 
officials  have  discussed  the  implications  of  oil  prices  for  a  broad 
range  of  interests,  including  the  stability  of  Texas  banks  and  the 
level  of  Saudi  support  for  U.S. -backed  rebels  in  Afghanistan. 

The  documents  were  obtained  under  Freedom  of  Information 
Act  proceedings  by  Edwin  Rothschild,  energy  policy  director  of 
the  consumer  group  Citizen  Action,  a  longtime  critic  of  the 
U.S. -Saudi  relationship.  According  to  Rothschild,  this  evidence 
of  U.S.  diplomatic  efforts  to  influence  oil  prices  in  the  1980s 
shows  that  the  Administration's  free-market  rhetoric  is  "non- 
sense." He  said  the  Reagan  Administration— with  then- Vice 
President  Bush  as  its  point  man — manipulated  the  world  oil 
market  to  keep  prices  higher  than  they  should  have  been  in  the 
late  1980s,  at  a  "cost  [to]  Amencan  consumers  of  billions  of 
dollars  in  higher  gasoline  and  heating  oil  bills."  ("U.S.  Tries  to 
Influence  Oil  Prices,  Papers  Show,"  The  Washington  Post,  July 
21) 

JULY  -  Iran-contra  prosecutors  disclosed  the  belated  discovery 
of  two  boxes  of  covert  CIA  records  under  the  desk  of  the 
custodian  of  documents  for  the  agency's  directorate  of  opera- 
tions. It  was  not  clear  how  many  of  the  2,000  pages  that  were 
found  may  be  relevant  to  the  Iran-contra  scandal,  but  at  least 
some  of  the  information,  according  to  prosecutors,  is  relevant  to 
the  trial  of  Clair  George,  former  chief  of  the  CIA's  clandestine 
service.  Prosecutors  learned  of  the  existence  of  the  documents 
July  10  while  conducting  an  interview  of  the  official  custodian 
of  documents  for  the  CIA's  director  of  operations.  ("More  CIA 
Papers  Found  Before  Trial  of  George,"  The  Washington  Post, 
July  22) 

JULY  -  Lawyers  for  John  Demjanjuk  accused  the  Justice 
Department  of  withholding  crucial  evidence  showing  that 
Demjanjuk  was  not  the  savage  executioner  "Ivan  the  Terrible" 
at  the  Nazis'  Treblinka  death  camp  in  Poland.  Demjanjuk's 
lawyers  maintained  that  the  department  had  for  years  withheld 
evidence  that  would  have  cleared  their  client,  showing  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  mistaken  identity.  TTie  lawyers  said  that  while 
the  prosecutors  were  seeking  the  deportation  of  Demjanjuk  they 
had  improperly  failed  to  disclose  the  existence  of  testimony  of 
guards  at  Treblinka  indicating  that  another  man,  Ivan  Marchen- 
ko,  was  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Marchenko  was  last  seen  alive  in 
1944,  and  his  fate  is  unknown.  Demjanjuk  was  stripped  of  his 
American  citizenship  in  1981  and  deported  to  Israel  in  1986  to 
stand  trial  as  a  war  criminal.  In  1988  he  was  sentenced  to  death, 
and  is  now  awaiting  the  results  of  an  appeal  to  the  Israeli 


Supreme  Court.  ("U.S.  Accused  of  Concealing  Evidence  on 
'Ivan,'"  The  New  York  Times,  July  28) 

JULY  -  Former  CIA  official  Alan  Fiers  admitted  under  cross- 
examination  that  he  lied  rejjeatedly  about  the  Iran-contra  affair, 
then  last  year  made  a  deal  with  special  prosecutors  to  avoid 
facing  felony  charges.  Fiers,  the  chief  prosecution  witness  at  the 
trial  of  Clair  George,  said  he  realized  his  plea  bargain  would 
force  him  to  turn  on  old  colleagues  but  protecting  his  future  was 
more  important  to  him.  Former  chief  of  the  CIA  Central 
American  Task  Force  and  now  a  lobbyist  for  W.R.  Grace  & 
Co.,  Fiers  was  allowed  to  plead  guilty  in  July  1991  to  two 
misdemeanor  counts  of  withholding  information  from  Congress 
after  promising  to  cooperate  with  prosecutors  in  any  future 
proceedings.  ("Witness  Against  Spy  Chief  Admits  Lying  to  Hill 
About  Iran-Contra,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  31) 

AUGUST  -  The  Census  Bureau  postponed  deciding  whether  to 
use  population  figures  that  have  been  adjusted  to  compensate  for 
the  census  undercount,  yielding  to  the  pleas  of  political  leaders 
whose  states  stand  to  lose  federal  funding.  Census  spokeswoman 
Karen  Wheeless  said  the  matter  would  be  opened  to  public 
comment,  and  a  public  heanng  will  be  held  at  the  Suitland 
Federal  Center  on  August  21.  The  comment  period  ends  August 
28.  "We've  decided  we  do  need  some  public  input  on  this 
process,"  Wheeless  said. 

At  issue  is  whether  the  Census  Bureau  population  estimates 
are  based  on  the  results  of  the  headcount  conducted  in  1990,  or 
on  a  second  set  of  population  figures  weighted  to  take  into 
account  persons  missed  in  the  census.  ("Census  Bureau  Delays 
Move  Affecting  Funds,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  5) 

AUGUST  -  After  five  years  of  investigation  into  the  Iran-contra 
affair,  prosecutors  have  told  lawyers  for  former  Attorney 
General  Edwin  Meese  3d  that  he  is  a  subject  of  their  inquiry. 
Nonetheless,  a  lawyer  for  Meese  said  that  the  former  Attorney 
General  faces  no  immediate  danger  of  being  charged  with  a 
crime.  Disclosure  of  Meese's  status  came  after  recent  news 
reports  indicating  that  the  investigation  has  recently  shifted  its 
focus  to  re-examine  the  roles  of  Meese  and  others  at  what 
prosecutors  have  called  the  "highest  levels"  of  the  Reagan 
Administration. 

Lawyers  for  former  President  Ronald  Reagan  said  that  he 
was  not  under  scrutiny  and  was  regarded  as  a  witness  in  the 
investigation,  a  sign  that  after  more  than  five  years  the  prosecu- 
tors had  not  found  that  Reagan  engaged  in  any  cnminal  conduct. 
Lawyers  for  George  Shultz,  the  former  Secretary  of  State,  have 
said  that  Shultz  is  a  subject  of  the  inquiry.  ("Meese  Is  Termed 
a  Subject  in  Iran-Contra  Inquiry,"  The  New  York  Times,  August 
13) 

AUGUST  -  Three  major  health  organizations  say  Vice  President 
Quayle's  Council  on  Competitiveness  is  using  its  powers  to 
"reshape,  rewrite  or  eliminate"  federal  regulations  in  behalf  of 


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special  interests  that  want  to  circumvent  open  governmental 
processes.  TTie  American  Heart  Association,  the  American 
Cancer  Society,  and  the  American  Lung  Association  charged  in 
a  July  31  letter  to  President  Bush  that  the  Council  on  Competi- 
tiveness "wields  tremendous  political  and  regulatory  powers" 
and  does  so  out  of  the  public  eye. 

The  council  reviews  regulations  on  air  pollution,  food 
labeling,  access  for  the  disabled,  and  other  issues,  ordering 
changes  if  it  finds  the  rules  would  unnecessarily  burden  individu- 
als and  small  businesses.  "Our  three  organizations  represent 
millions  of  Americans  whose  views  are  not  being  heard  by  the 
council  because  it  seeks  to  conduct  its  business  under  standards 
which  do  not  lend  themselves  to  'open'  government,"  the  letter 
said.  Replying  for  the  President,  Roger  Porter,  chief  assistant  for 
economic  and  domestic  policy,  cited  a  Supreme  Court  decision 
supporting  the  Administration's  right  to  explore  alternatives  "in 
a  way  many  would  be  unwilling  to  express  except  privately." 
("3  Health  Groups  Criticize  Quayle  Panel,"  The  Washington 
Post,  August  21) 

AUGUST  -  More  than  half  the  charts  used  by  commercial 
vessels  and  pleasure  ships  in  U.S.  waters  are  based  on  informa- 
tion that  is  at  least  50  years  old,  according  to  a  National  Oceanic 
and  Atmospheric  Administration  official.  Testifying  at  an 
investigative  hearing  into  the  August  7  grounding  of  the  luxury 
liner  Queen  Elizabeth  2  off  the  Massachusetts  coast,  Capt. 
Donald  Suloff,  deputy  director  of  NOAA's  survey  branch,  said 
charts  of  the  area  were  based  on  a  1939  survey.  NOAA  issues 
the  official  charts  to  be  used  aboard  all  vessels  plying  U.S. 
waters.  He  said  surveys  are  usually  updated  only  upon  request 
because  NOAA  has  only  five  ships  for  the  entire  U.S.  coastline. 
"It's  basically  a  lack  of  resources, "  said  Lt.  Cmdr.  John  Wilder 
of  NOAA's  geodetic  survey  department.  ("Sea  Charts  Seen 
Badly  Outdated,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  27) 

AUGUST  -  Bush  Administration  claims  that  its  freeze  on  new 
government  regulations  will  save  businesses  up  to  $20  billion  in 
1992  are  merely  "an  election-year  gambit,"  two  watchdog 
groups  have  charged.  Public  Citizen  and  OMB  Watch  contend, 
in  a  recent  ref)ort,  that  "dozens"  of  health  and  safety,  civil 
rights,  and  environmental  regulations  have  been  seriously 
weakened  or  eliminated  due  to  the  210-day-old  regulatory  freeze 
and  that  the  Administration  has  failed  to  substantiate  its  claims 
about  the  economic  benefits.  In  response  to  Freedom  of  Informa- 
tion Act  requests  filed  by  the  two  groups,  federal  regulatory 
agencies  failed  to  provide  Justifications  for  their  economic 
claims,  the  groups  said.  "None  of  the  agencies  provided 
mformation  about  'cost  savings'  in  a  form  even  remotely 
understandable,"  the  report  said.  ("Regulatory  Freeze  Figures 
Disputed,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  31) 

SEPTEMBER  -  A  New  York  Times  editorial  asked,  "What  did 
George  Bush  know  about  the  Iran-contra  affair  and  when  did  he 
know  it?"  Answer:  "...a  lot,  and  early.  The  President  plausibly 


denies  being  'in  the  loop'  of  the  arms-for-hostage  Iraman 
operation  or  the  illicit  supply  of  rebels  in  Nicaragua.  But  at  least 
in  general,  he  knew  about  those  colossal  follies  and,  it  app>ears, 
did  nothing  to  stop  them." 

The  editorial  points  out  that  the  latest  indication  that  the 
President  was  "plugged  in"  is  a  memorandum  registermg  a 
complaint  by  former  Secretary  of  Defense  Caspar  Weinberger  to 
former  Secretary  of  State  George  Shultz  in  1987.  President  Bush 
was  saying  publicly  he  hadn't  known  of  their  strong  objections 
to  the  Iran  dealings.  "He  was  on  the  other  side,"  said 
Weinberger.  "Why  didn't  he  say  that?"  What  does  Bush  say 
about  that  memorandum  now?  A  spokeswoman  argues  that  Bush 
did  not  attend  the  meetings  at  which  the  strongest  objections 
were  raised.  In  a  recent  television  interview  Bush  said  mislead- 
ingly  that  he  did  not  think  Secretaries  Shultz  and  Weinberger 
doubted  his  word.  "And  I  have  nothing  to  explain,"  he  went  on. 
"I've  given  every  bit  of  evidence  I  have  to  these  thousands  of 
investigators.  And  nobody  has  suggested  that  I've  done  anything 
wrong  at  all."  ("Vice  President  Bush's  Vice,"  The  New  York 
Times,  September  19) 

SEPTEMBER  -  President  Richard  Nixon  decided  in  1973  to 
complete  the  U.S.  withdrawal  from  Vietnam  despite  strong 
indications  that  some  U.S.  pnsoners  of  war  had  not  been 
returned,  senior  officials  of  his  Administration  testified  in 
congressional  hearings.  The  officials  told  a  Senate  panel  that 
Nixon  had  little  choice  but  to  continue  the  U.S.  withdrawal, 
acting  as  if  North  Vietnam  had  carried  out  its  promises  to 
release  all  prisoners  it  held  and  to  ensure  that  prisoners  held  by 
Laos  also  would  be  freed.  "The  president  decided  not  to  scuttle 
the  [Paris]  agreement  [with  North  Vietnam)  over  the  MIA 
issue,"  said  Winston  Lord,  then  a  senior  aide  to  National 
Security  Adviser  Henry  Kissinger  and  later  ambassador  to 
China.  "It  was  a  very  tough  decision." 

Although  Nixon  declared  in  March  1973  that  "all  of  our 
American  POWs  are  on  their  way  home,"  the  former  officials 
who  were  questioned  said  this  assertion  was  probably  not 
supported  by  evidence  available  at  the  time.  For  most  of  a  long 
day  of  testimony  before  the  Senate  Select  Committee  on  POW- 
MIA  Affairs,  no  Nixon  Administration  official  challenged  an 
idea  that  once  seemed  almost  unthinkable  but  is  rapidly  becom- 
ing the  accepted  view:  Some  Amencans  known  to  have  been 
alive  in  Vietnamese  or  Laotian  custody  did  not  come  home  with 
their  comrades  in  the  spnng  of  1973,  and  in  the  absence  of 
confirmed  knowledge  about  specific  individuals  in  specific 
places,  Nixon  went  ahead  with  the  withdrawal  of  U.S.  forces 
because  there  was  no  alternative.  ("Nixon  Knew  of  POWs, 
Aides  Say,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  22) 

SEPTEMBER  -  Buried  among  1,700  pages  of  notes  written  by 
then-Defense  Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  during  the  Iran- 
contra  affair  is  one  referring  to  a  January  1986  meeting  at  which 
Weinberger  voiced  opposition  to  covert  arms  sales  to  Iran  in  the 
presence  of  George  Bush,  then  the  Vice  President.  The  note. 


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which  appears  to  contradict  Bush's  repeated  assertion  that  he  was 
never  present  when  either  Weinberger  or  then-Secretary  of  State 
George  Shultz  objected  to  the  arms  sales,  is  among  classified 
documents  being  reviewed  for  possible  use  in  Weinberger's 
upcoming  trial.  ("Bush  'Out  of  the  Loop'  on  Iran-Contra?"  The 
Washington  Post,  September  24) 

SEPTEMBER  -  According  to  Richard  Secord,  chief  logistics 
officer  for  the  Reagan  Administration's  dealings  with  Iran,  then- 
Vice  President  George  Bush  became  an  influential  "advocate"  of 
sending  arms  to  Tehran  each  time  a  U.S.  hostage  in  Lebanon 
was  released.  Secord's  allegation  appears  in  his  autobiography, 
Honored  and  Betrayed,  and  challenges  Bush's  repeated  claims 
that  he  did  not  participate  in  shaping  the  Iran  mitiative.  White 
House  spokesman  Judy  Smith  dismissed  Secord's  assertion  as 
"absolutely  false,"  adding  "there's  no  truth  to  them  whatsoev- 
er." ("Secord  Book:  Bush  Became  Arms-for-Hostages  Advo- 
cate," The  Washington  Post,  September  25) 

SEPTEMBER  -  Before  the  federal  government  accepted  a  plea 
agreement  with  the  contractor  running  an  illegally  polluted 
nuclear  bomb  factory,  the  grand  jury  hearing  the  case  so  badly 
wanted  to  indict  the  p>eople  who  ran  the  plant  that  it  wrote  the 
indictments  itself,  a  member  of  the  jury  has  said.  But  the 
prosecutor  blocked  the  grand  jury,  the  juror  said,  and  ultimately, 
no  individuals  were  charged.  In  a  breach  of  the  secrecy  that 
usually  surrounds  grand  jury  proceedings,  Westward,  a  weekly 
Denver  newspaper,  published  an  account  of  the  2'/^ -year  grand 
jury  inquiry  into  accusations  against  the  operator  of  Rocky  Flats, 
Rockwell  International,  its  executives,  and  officials  of  the 
Department  of  Energy,  which  owns  the  plant. 

Rockwell,  which  ran  the  plant  for  15  years,  pleaded  guilty  in 
March  to  10  violations  of  environmental  laws,  including  five 
felonies.  TTie  company  agreed  to  pay  an  $18.5  million  fine.  No 
employees  of  Rockwell  or  officers  of  the  Energy  Department 
were  charged  for  their  roles  in  the  pollution  at  the  plant  in  the 
northwestern  suburbs  of  Denver,  where  for  three  decades 
plutonium  triggers  for  thermonuclear  bombs  were  made.  ("Jury 
Fought  Prosecutor  on  Bomb  Plant,"  The  New  York  Times, 
September  30) 

OCTOBER  -  The  House  of  Representatives  passed,  and  sent  to 
the  White  House  for  signature,  a  comprehensive  bill  calling  for 
the  disclosure  of  virtually  all  the  government's  files  on  President 
John  F.  Kennedy's  assassination  and  setting  up  a  review  board 
to  track  them  down.  The  records,  many  still  secret,  are  held  by 
Congress,  federal  agencies,  and  presidential  libraries  and  include 
everything  from  CIA  and  FBI  reports  to  newspaper  clippings  and 
tax  returns.  ("Bill  to  Release  JFK  Files  Moves  to  White  House," 
The  Washington  Post,  October  1) 

OCTOBER  -  Seventy-six  new  regulations  prepared  by  the 
Environmental  Protection  Agency  are  being  held  up  by  the  White 
House,  some  in  violation  of  congressional  deadlines,  according 


to  a  confidential  EPA  report  dated  September  22.  The  stalled 
regulations  include  some  of  the  major  provisions  of  the  1990 
Clean  Air  Act  intended  to  control  smog,  reduce  acid  rain, 
protect  the  ozone  layer,  and  reduce  toxic  air  pollutants.  "The 
administration  is  holding  up  numerous  rules,  which  is  illegal, 
and  which  is  not  consistent  with  the  goal  of  protecting  human 
health  and  the  environment,"  said  a  senior  EPA  official.  ("EPA 
Report  Says  White  House  Stalls  76  Regulations,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  October  1) 

OCTOBER  -  Russia  is  offering  for  sale  photographs  from 
jxjwerful  space  cameras  meant  for  spying.  Espionage  photos  of 
Washington  show  features  like  the  Capitol,  the  White  House, 
and  the  Pentagon.  Private  experts  say  the  declassifications  of 
Moscow's  best  spy  photographs  may  pressure  the  American 
government  to  be  more  forthcoming  about  opening  its  own 
surveillance  archives. 

The  space  photographs  are  superior  to  those  Moscow  has 
sold  since  1987,  which  already  have  far  better  resolution  than 
any  offered  commercially  in  the  West.  The  new  ones  can 
resolve,  or  "see,"  objects  slightly  smaller  than  two  meters 
across.  The  less-sharp  images  Moscow  has  been  selling  for  years 
have  five-meter  resolution.  The  best  commercial  images  taken  by 
the  French  SPOT  satellites  have  a  resolution  of  10  meters  and 
the  ones  of  the  American  Landsat  satellite  have  30-meter 
resolution.  The  new  photos  are  being  marketed  by  Central 
Trading  Systems  of  Arlington,  Texas,  and  sell  for  $3,180.  The 
photographs  are  sent  from  Moscow  via  Federal  Express.  In 
comparison,  images  from  the  French  SPOT  satellites  cost  $700 
to  $3,000.  Those  from  the  American  Landsat  system  cost  $2(X) 
to  $4,000. 

Dr.  Peter  Zimmerman,  a  reconnaissance  expert  at  the  Center 
for  Strategic  and  International  Studies,  said  Moscow's  new 
mitiative  would  "put  political  pressure  on  the  U.S.  to  declassify 
imagery  that  might  be  socially  useful"  for  disaster  relief  and 
scientific  studies.  On  a  limited  basis,  the  Central  Intelligence 
Agency  is  beginning  to  let  certain  scientists  examine  its  recon- 
naissance records  for  clues  of  environmental  change.  ("Russia 
Is  Now  Selling  Spy  Photos  from  Space,"  The  New  York  Times, 
October  4) 

OCTOBER  -  Sen.  Urry  Pressler  (R-N.D.)  descnbed  to  his 
colleagues  how  the  commercialization  of  the  Landsat  operation 
by  the  Reagan  Administration  in  the  mid-1980s  had  "a  deleteri- 
ous effect  on  uses  of  Landsat  data  in  American  colleges  and 
research  institutions"  because  the  high  cost  of  Landsat  data 
inhibited  its  use  by  the  scientific  and  academic  communities. 
"Erratic  funding  for  the  program,  coupled  with  the  high  cost  of 
data,  $4,400  per  scene,  have  resulted  in  restricted  use  of  the  data 
and  caused  concern... over  the  future  of  the  program.  TTiis 
concern  is  shared  by  State  and  local  government  officials  and 
environmental  organizations. "  (October  7  Congressional  Record, 
pp.  S17140-2) 


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OCTOBER  -  CIA  Director  Robert  Gates  launched  a  broad 
internal  investigation  into  what  Administration  officials  described 
as  the  agency's  apparent  failure  to  provide  timely  and  accurate 
information  to  Congress  and  the  Justice  Department  about  a 
politically  sensitive  bank  scandal.  Gates'  move  came  as  U.S. 
officials  disclosed  that  the  agency  uncovered  1989  documents 
that  cast  new  doubt  on  the  government's  longstanding  contention 
that  the  scandal  was  solely  caused  by  officials  of  the  Atlanta 
branch  of  an  Italian  bank,  Banca  Nazionale  del  Lavoro. 

Tliis  contention  has  been  challenged  by  attorneys  for  the 
former  head  of  BNL's  Atlanta  branch,  the  chief  defendant  in  a 
criminal  case  arising  from  the  scandal.  The  attorneys  have 
alleged  that  the  loans  were  authorized  by  Rome  and  that 
Washington  has  concealed  evidence  of  Italian  complicity  to  avoid 
embarrassing  a  key  ally.  The  issue  is  considered  sensitive 
because  the  bank  is  owned  by  the  Italian  government  and  the 
fraud — involving  more  than  $4  billion  in  loans  and  loan  guaran- 
tees that  help>ed  Iraq  buy  weapyons  and  food  before  the  Persian 
Gulf  War— is  the  largest  in  U.S.  banking  history.  ("CIA  Begins 
Inquiry  in  BNL  Case,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  8) 

OCTOBER  -  Senate  Intelligence  Committee  Chairman  David 
Boren  (D-Okla.)  criticized  plans  by  the  Justice  Department  and 
the  FBI  to  work  together  in  probing  potential  misconduct  by 
department  officials  in  the  Banca  Nazionale  del  Lavoro  scandal. 
Other  lawmakers  called  on  Attorney  General  William  Barr  to 
ap|X)int  an  independent  counsel  to  take  over  the  department's 
probe.  Sen.  Howard  Metzenbaum  (D-Ohio)  said  that  "only  an 
independent  investigation  can  assure... that  the  executive  branch 
is  not  covering  up  major  misconduct  in  its  handling  of  the  [BNL] 
affair."  Metzenbaum  cited  press  reports  that  FBI  Director 
William  Sessions  and  his  wife  Alice  have  come  under  investiga- 
tion by  the  Justice  Department  for  possible  ethics  violations,  just 
as  Sessions  began  his  own  inquiry  into  the  role  played  by  two 
semor  Justice  Department  officials  in  the  BNL  case  last  month. 
("Boren  Criticizes  Plans  for  Justice-FBI  Probe  of  Alleged 
Misconduct  in  BNL  Case,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  14) 

OCTOBER  -  In  his  latest  attempt  to  put  the  Iran-contra  affair 
behind  him.  President  Bush  said  that  he  and  his  staff  have 
answered  thousands  of  questions  about  the  scandal  and  insisted 
that  he  was  not  present  at  a  key  January  1986  meeting  on  the 
Iran  initiative,  contradicting  two  former  Cabinet  secretaries. 
("Bush  Bristles  at  Queries  on  Iran  Initiative,"  The  Washington 
Post,  October  14) 

OCTOBER  -  First  reports  surfaced  of  the  search  of  presidential 
candidate  Bill  Clinton's  passport  and  citizenship  files  by  State 
Department  officials.  The  State  Department  said  they  were 
processing  Freedom  of  Information  Act  requests,  calling  them 
"time  sensitive"  because  of  the  im[)ending  presidential  election. 
("Aide  Sought  Prompt  Search  of  Clinton  File,"  The  Washington 
Post,  October  15) 


(Ed.  note:  Within  a  week,  Acting  Secretary  of  State  Lawrence 
Eagleburger,  asserting  that  "there  has  been  and  will  be  no 
coverup,"  ordered  the  State  Department's  inspector  general  to 
investigate.  After  first  saying  that  "there  is  no  inappropnate 
behavior  at  all  in  this,"  department  spokesman  Richard  Boucher 
amended  his  comments  and  acknowledged  that  officials  had 
deviated  from  department  rules  and  mistakenly  expedited  FOIA 
requests  regarding  Clinton.  Boucher,  however,  blamed  the  errors 
on  "low-level  people"  who  he  contended  were  not  acting  under 
political  pressure.  ("Eagleburger  Orders  Investigation  Into 
Handling  of  Clinton  File  Requests,"  The  Washington  Post, 
October  20)] 

OCTOBER  -  Public  health  surveillance  systems  are  inadequate 
to  detect  threats  from  new  diseases  and  the  re-emergence  of  old 
ones,  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences  said  in  a  report  issued 
in  Washington  in  mid-October.  It  said  the  sudden  appearance  of 
new  diseases  like  AIDS  and  the  resurgence  of  old  ones  like 
tuberculosis  that  can  kill  millions  of  people  around  the  world  are 
inevitable  despite  the  great  advances  in  medicine.  Authors  of  the 
report  said  they  were  sending  a  "wake-up  call  to  doctors, 
medical  schools,  government  officials  and  the  public  to  end 
complacency  over  infectious  diseases. " 

The  report  sharply  cnticized  the  base  of  the  national  system 
for  reporting  certain  communicable  diseases  to  the  Federal 
Centers  for  Disease  Control  in  Atlanta.  "Outbreaks  of  any 
disease  that  is  not  on  C.D.C.'s  current  list  of  notifiable  illnesses 
may  go  undetected  or  may  be  detected  only  after  an  outbreak  is 
well  under  way,"  the  report  said.  Although  current  United  States 
and  international  surveillance  efforts  can  do  well  in  detecting 
known  communicable  diseases,  they  fall  short  in  their  ability  to 
detect  new  threats,  the  report  said,  adding,  "There  has  been  no 
effort  to  develop  and  implement  a  global  program  of  surveillance 
for  emerging  diseases  or  disease  agents."  ("Surveillance  of 
Diseases  Is  Deficient,  Report  Says,"  The  New  York  Times, 
October  17) 

OCTOBER  -  Rep.  Doug  Barnard  (D-Ga.)  accused  the  Justice 
Department  of  deliberately  prolonging,  until  after  the  election, 
a  criminal  investigation  into  altered  Commerce  Department 
records  about  exports  to  Iraq.  Chairman  of  the  Government 
Operations  Subcommittee  on  Commerce,  Consumer,  and 
Monetary  Affairs,  Barnard  made  his  comments  in  testimony 
prepared  for  a  Senate  Banking  Committee  hearing.  "It  has  been 
a  year  and  three  months  since  Justice  opened  its  investigation." 
Barnard  said  he  "can  only  conclude  that  this  matter  is  too 
sensitive  to  decide  before  the  upcoming  presidential  election." 
The  investigation  into  the  altered  records  is  the  sole,  active 
criminal  investigation  sparked  by  actions  related  to  U.S.  policy 
toward  Iraq  before  the  1991  Persian  Gulf  War. 

On  a  related  matter,  a  sp>okesman  for  the  Agriculture 
Department  denied  allegations,  reported  to  Congress,  that 
department  officials  had  shredded  documents  related  to  U.S.  loan 
guarantees  granted  Iraq  before  the  Persian  Gulf  War.   House 


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Banking  Chairman  Henry  Gonzalez  (D-Texas)  cited  the 
allegations  in  a  letter  asking  Secretary  of  Agnculture  Edward 
Madigan  to  remove  all  shredders  from  offices  that  helped 
oversee  loan  guarantees.  ("Justice  Accused  of  Delaying  Probe  ot 
Altered  U.S.  Files,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  28) 

NOVEMBER  -  A  note  by  former  Secretary  of  Defense  Caspar 
Weinberger,  released  October  30  in  his  Iran-contra  indictment, 
provides  the  most  direct  contradiction  to  President  Bush's 
statements  that  he  was  "out  of  the  loop"  when  the  plan  to  sell 
arms  to  Iran  was  formulated.  The  January  7,  1986,  note  makes 
clear  that  Weinberger  considered  the  deal  for  sending  4,000 
antitank  missiles  to  Iran  in  exchange  for  the  release  of  five 
Amencan  hostages  as  an  arms-for-hostages  swap.  He  also  wntes 
that  he  and  former  Secretary  of  State  George  Shultz  objected  to 
it  and  that  Bush  was  present  and  apparently  showed  his  approval. 
For  the  several  days  before  the  election.  Bush  has  argued  there 
is  nothing  new  about  the  Weinberger  note.  ("Roots  of  Bush's 
Iran  Credibility  Gap,"  The  Washington  Post,  November  2) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  Department  of  Education  informed  ERIC 
users  that  the  Department  permitted  the  contractor  that  produces 
the  ERIC  database  tapes  to  copynght  the  ERIC  database  and  to 
collect  fees  for  commercial  and  academic  usage.  The  plan 
proposed  by  the  ERIC  contractor  calls  for  implementation  of 
usage  fees  during  1993  through  a  "Database  Licensing  Agree- 
ment," a  new  contract  instrument  executed  between  the  contrac- 
tor and  each  organization  that  will  receive  either  the  entire 
database  or  updates  to  it  in  magnetic  tape  or  machine  readable 
form.  (Letter  from  Robert  M.  Stonehill,  director.  Educational 
Resources  Information  Center  to  ERIC  User,  November  3) 

[Ed.  note:  In  a  December  16  article,  "Department  Weighing 
Plan  to  Copynght  Information  Data  Base,"  Education  Week 
called  the  ERIC  proposal  "a  dramatic  shift  from  past  practice." 
The  article  said  the  proposal  faces  stiff  opposition  from  educa- 
tion and  library  groups,  which  contend  that  it  would  restnct 
access  to  information  by  driving  up  the  cost.  The  House  of 
Representatives  passed  legislation,  which  was  not  considered  by 
the  Senate,  that  would  have  prohibited  the  department  from 
copyrighting  the  database.] 

NOVEMBER  -  A  federal  appeals  court  ruled  that  Amencan 
taxpayers  must  pay  former  President  Richard  Nixon  what  could 
amount  to  millions  of  dollars  in  compensation  for  presidential 
papers  and  tape  recordings  that  have  been  kept  under  govern- 
ment control.  A  panel  of  the  U.S.  Court  of  Appeals  overturned 
a  federal  judge's  ruling  last  year  that  the  papers  and  tapes  were 
the  projjerty  of  the  American  people  and  that  the  government 
does  not  owe  Nixon  any  money  for  taking  them.  The  court  held 
that  Nixon  was  entitled  to  compensation  for  his  papers  under  the 
"takings  clause"  of  the  Fifth  Amendment,  which  provides  that 
the  government  may  not  take  a  person's  property  without  just 
compensation. 


Lawyers  for  the  former  President  argued  that  because  all 
previous  presidents  treated  their  papers  as  personal  property  after 
they  left  office,  Nixon  reasonably  had  the  same  expectation  and 
must  be  compensated  for  being  deprived  of  his  rights.  Lawyers 
for  the  government  argued  that  Nixon  was  only  a  custodian  of 
the  records,  which  legally  were  U.S.  property.  In  1978, 
Congress  made  all  future  presidential  papers  property  of  the 
government.  Nixon's  presidential  collection  contains  42  million 
items,  including  tape  recordings  of  most  conversations  conducted 
in  the  Oval  Office,  the  Cabinet  room,  the  Lincoln  Sitting  Room, 
the  President's  private  office  in  the  Executive  Office  Building 
and  on  telephones  at  Camp  David. 

The  case  now  goes  back  to  U.S.  Distnct  Judge  John  Garrett 
Perm  for  a  tnal  on  the  issue  of  how  much  the  records  are  worth. 
The  government  has  the  options  of  seeking  a  rehearing  by  the 
panel  or  asking  the  full  appeals  court  to  hear  the  case.  It  can  also 
appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court.  ("Court  Rules  For  Nixon  on 
Records,"  TJie  Washington  Post,  November  18) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  chief  White  House  counsel.  C.  Boyden 
Gray,  has  told  President  Bush's  aides  that  they  may  destroy 
telephone  logs  and  other  personal  records  during  the  transition 
as  they  prepare  to  leave  the  government.  Congressional  staff  say 
the  legal  opinion  will  hinder  their  investigation  of  the  search 
through  President-elect  Bill  Clinton's  passport  files.  Telephone 
calls  between  the  State  Department  and  the  White  House  have 
emerged  as  a  potentially  valuable  source  of  evidence  for 
congressional  investigators  trying  to  find  out  whether  the  White 
House  was  involved  in  the  search  for  information  that  might 
have  damaged  Clinton's  presidential  campaign. 

Gray  told  White  House  employees  that  the  1978  law  prohibit- 
ing destruction  of  "Presidential  records"  did  not  cover  "'non- 
record'  matenals  like  scratch  pads,  unimportant  notes  to  one's 
secretary,  phone  and  visitor  logs  or  information  notes  (of 
meetings,  etc.)  used  only  by  the  staff  involved."  Histonans  and 
archivists  said  that  the  requirements  of  federal  law  were  more 
complicated  than  Gray  had  indicated.  In  some  cases,  they  said, 
telephone  and  visitor  logs  are  covered  by  the  law  and  should  be 
preserved. 

In  a  separate  action.  Judge  Charles  Richey  issued  a  tempo- 
rary order  preventing  the  Bush  White  House  from  destroying 
computer  records  before  leaving  office.  The  Bush  Administration 
argues  that  the  computer  tapes  in  question  are  not  records,  do 
not  have  to  be  preserved  and  are  not  subject  to  the  Freedom  of 
Information  Act.  Judge  Richey  said  that  if  tapes  are  erased  at  the 
end  of  the  Administration,  the  public's  nght  of  access  to  such 
electronic  records  "will  be  irreparably  lost."  Plaintiffs  in  the 
case  include  the  National  Secunty  Archive,  the  American 
Library  Association,  and  the  Amencan  Histoncal  Association. 
They  argued  that  the  Bush  Administration  did  not  have  adequate 
guidelines  for  federal  employees  to  decide  which  records  must 
be  saved. 

The  tapes  in  question  include  copies  of  electronic  mail  sent 
through  the  White  House  computer  system  in  the  last  four  years. 


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They  cover  topics  including  the  budget,  drug  enforcement, 
science  and  technology  policy.  United  State  relations  with  Iraq, 
and  foreign  trade  negotiations.  ("Bush's  Lawyer  Says  Aides  May 
Destroy  Records,"  The  New  York  Times,  November  21) 

[Ed.  note:  In  a  statement  filed  in  December  in  U.S.  District 
Court,  the  White  House  said  the  court's  order  does  not  cover 
records  of  individuals  and  offices  whose  "sole  responsibility  is 
to  advise  the  president."  Bush  Administration  lawyers  said  that 
they  are  free  to  destroy  virtually  all  records  of  the  Vice  Presi- 
dent, the  chief  of  staff,  and  the  Council  of  Economic  Advisers. 
("White  House  Disputes  Impact  of  Tapes  Order,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  December  10)] 

NOVEMBER  -  The  National  Security  Agency  has  reversed 
itself  and  declassified  two  cryptography  texts  that  it  previously 
had  insisted  were  secret  even  though  they  were  available  in 
public  libraries.  The  manuals  were  written  by  a  founder  of  the 
security  agency  and  make  up  two  volumes  of  a  book  on  military 
code-breaking.  John  Gilmore,  a  California  cryptographer, 
requested  the  volumes  in  a  FOIA  request.  Gilmore  believes  that 
widespread  access  to  coding  and  code-breaking  technologies  will 
make  it  easier  to  protect  personal  privacy  in  the  electronic 
information  age.  His  logic  is  that  they  more  that  is  known  about 
code-breaking,  the  easier  it  will  be  for  individuals  to  design 
computer  codes  that  would  be  almost  impossible  to  break. 
"These  are  textbooks  on  relatively  simply  cryptographic  tech- 
niques," Gilmore  said,  adding  that  the  techniques  had  been 
"known  for  centuries." 

The  dispute  is  one  of  a  series  between  the  security  agency 
and  independent  cryptographic  experts  and  business  executives 
over  how  closely  the  government  should  guard  the  technologies 
used  to  protect  national  secrets  and  break  enemy  codes.  As  more 
and  more  information  has  been  stored  and  exchanged  electroni- 
cally, there  has  been  growing  pressure  from  United  States 
computer  companies  to  make  coding  technology  available.  ("In 
Shift,  U.S.  Spy  Agency  Shrugs  at  Found  Secret  Data,"  The  New 
York  Times,  November  28) 

NOVEMBER  -  Rep.  Jack  Brooks  (D-Texas)  chairman  of  the 
House  Judiciary  Committee,  asked  the  Attorney  General  to  warn 
his  employees  not  to  inappropriately  destroy  documents.  The 
request  joins  a  chorus  of  official  and  unofficial  requests  that 
William  Barr  take  pre-emptive  action  to  prevent  destruction  of 
documents  that  relate  to  a  variety  of  scandals  that  have  touched 
the  Justice  Department  in  the  past  12  years,  including  the  theft 
of  Inslaw  software.  Inslaw  owner  Nancy  Hamilton  said  she  has 
received  a  number  of  calls  from  sources  inside  Justice  who  say 
officials  are  allowing  or  ordering  destruction  of  documents  that 
could  shed  light  on  her  company's  dispute  with  Justice. 

Brooks'  committee  this  summer  issued  a  report  (H.Rept. 
102-857)  capping  a  three-year  investigation  that  concluded  that 
Justice  officials  may  have  stolen  software  developed  by  the 
Washington-based  computer  company.  Barr  refused  a  request  by 


the  committee  to  seek  appointment  of  an  independent  prosecutor 
in  the  case,  relying  instead  on  an  investigation  by  a  "special 
counsel"  who  reports  to  him.  The  Justice  Department  is  the 
subject  of  numerous  allegations  of  wrongdoing,  and  those 
concerned  about  shredding  of  documents  in  the  department  say 
they  are  afraid  proof  of  wrongdoing  will  be  destroyed.  The 
Justice  Department  itself  is  the  agency  in  charge  of  enforcing 
U.S.  laws  relating  to  government  document  destruction.  ("Warn- 
ing to  Justice:  Don't  Destroy  Inslaw  Data,"  Washington  Business 
Journal,  Week  of  November  30-December  6) 

DECEMBER  -  According  to  Steven  Garfinkel,  director  of  the 
Information  Security  Oversight  Office,  the  cold  war  gave  birth 
to  a  government  culture  of  secrecy  and  clandestine  activity  that 
had  never  existed  before  to  any  great  degree,  except  in  wartime. 
Government  officials  classify  almost  seven  million  documents  a 
year.  But  with  the  cold  war's  end,  some  are  asking  whether  all 
this  secrecy  is  still  needed.  Steven  Aftergood,  editor  of  the 
Secrecy  and  Government  Bulletin  published  by  the  Federal  of 
Amencan  Scientists,  said  that  government  secrecy  had  often 
prevented  Congress  and  the  public  from  "paying  attention  to 
abuses,  wasted  money,  failed  programs"  and  that  "a  whole 
realm  of  government  is  beyond  any  pretense  of  democratic 
decision-making. " 

But  even  with  the  cold  war  over,  Garfinkel  and  Aftergood 
say  the  government  has  offered  no  plans  to  reduce  the  number 
of  materials  stamped  secret  each  year.  "I  think  it's  fair  to  say 
that  no  one's  talking  yet  about  changing  anything,"  Garfinkel 
said.  "It  looks  like  this  cold  war  institution  is  going  to  be 
institutionalized  beyond  the  cold  war."  ("Giving  Up  Secrecy  Is 
Hard  to  Do,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  2) 

DECEMBER  -  In  a  victory  resulting  in  more  information  to  the 
public,  the  Bush  Administration  reached  agreement  on  the  final 
details  of  its  ambitious  overhaul  of  the  nation's  food  labeling 
rules,  breaking  a  bitter,  month-long  deadlock  between  the 
Department  of  Health  and  Human  Services  and  the  Agriculture 
Department  over  the  scope  and  direction  of  the  new  regulations. 
The  White  House  decision  represents  a  victory  for  HHS 
Secretary  Louis  Sullivan  and  Food  and  Drug  Administration 
Commissioner  David  Kessler  on  the  critical  issue  of  how 
nutritional  information  will  be  presented  on  the  back  panel  of 
packaged  foods.  Both  men  had  fought  attempts  by  the  USDA 
and  the  meat  industry  to  remove  a  section  of  the  proposed  label 
that  told  consumers  what  percentage  of  a  standard  daily  allow- 
ance of  fat  and  cholesterol  was  found  in  the  food  product  they 
were  buying.  ("Food  Label  Agreement  Reached,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  December  3) 

DECEMBER  -  A  32-page  article  by  Paul  Brodeur  in  The  New 
Yorker  documents  the  high  incidence  of  cancer  at  a  school  in 
Fresno,  California.  The  school  is  close  to  two  high-voltage 
transmission  lines  that  run  past  the  school.  Teachers,  parents, 
and  students  were  unaware  of  the  hazard  posed  by  working  and 


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going  to  school  close  to  transmission  lines  until  an  article 
appeared  in  the  Fresno  Bee  about  an  attempt  by  the  Bush 
Administration  in  December  1990  to  delay  the  release  of  a  report 
compiled  by  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency,  which  linked 
residential  and  occupational  exposure  to  the  alternating-current 
magnetic  fields  given  off  by  power  lines  with  the  development 
of  cancer  in  children  and  adults.  The  article  is  a  case  study  in 
the  difficulties  concerned  teachers  faced  in  trying  to  convince 
California  state  health  officials  and  utility  executives  that  there 
is  a  link  between  cancer  incidence  and  long-term  exposure  to  the 
strong  magnetic  fields  that  are  given  off  by  power-frequency 
magnetic  fields.  ("The  Cancer  at  Slater  School,"  The  New 
Yorker,  December  7) 

DECEMBER  -  The  first  independent  study  of  the  health  records 
of  35,000  workers  at  a  government  bomb  plant  in  Washington 
State  presents  a  new,  more  sinister  picture  of  the  risks  of  small 
doses  of  radiation.  This  finding,  by  86-year-old  Dr.  Alice 
Stewart,  a  pioneer  in  radiation  epidemiology,  follows  her  14- 
year  struggle  to  regain  access  to  the  health  data.  For  decades, 
the  federal  government  had  limited  access  to  scientists  of  its 
choosing,  who  generally  concluded  that  the  radiation  exposure 
had  done  little  harm.  Dr.  Stewart's  study  concludes  that  200  of 
the  workers  have  lost  or  will  lose  years  of  their  lives  because  of 
radiation-induced  cancer.  This  contradicts  earlier  govemment- 
sptonsored  studies  that  found  no  additional  cancer  deaths  among 
employees  at  the  Hanford  nuclear  reservation. 

In  1976,  Dr.  Stewart  and  other  researchers  completed  a  study 
of  Hanford  workers  for  the  Energy  Department  and  presented 
their  conclusions  that  low  doses  of  radiation  had  caused  an 
increase  in  the  number  of  cancers.  The  department  rejected  the 
findings,  stopped  paying  for  their  research  and  cut  their  access 
to  the  workers'  health  records.  TTieir  access  was  restored  as  part 
of  a  new  policy  of  openness  by  Energy  Secretary  James  Watkins 
in  1990.  By  then,  the  Hanford  plant  had  been  closed  because  of 
environmental  and  safety  problems. 

The  study,  covering  1944  to  1986,  has  been  accepted  for 
publication  in  March  1993  by  a  scientific  journal.  The  American 
Journal  of  Industrial  Medicine.  ("Pioneer  in  Radiation  Sees  Risk 
Even  in  Small  Doses,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  8) 


[Ed.  note:  President-elect  Bill  Clinton  said  after  he  took  office 
he  would  consult  with  his  Attorney  General  to  decide  whether  to 
ask  the  courts  to  name  an  independent  prosecutor  to  examine 
allegations  that  Bush  Administration  officials  covered  up  efforts 
to  help  Iraq  build  up  its  imlitary  in  the  years  before  the  invasion 
of  Kuwait.  ("Clinton  Says  He'll  Consider  Inquiry  Into  Bank 
Case  Involving  Iraq,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  11)] 

DECEMBER  -  Clair  George,  former  CIA  official,  was  found 
guilty  of  two  felony  counts  of  lying  to  Congress  about  his 
knowledge  of  the  Iran-contra  scandal.  In  essence,  the  jurors 
found  that  George  gave  crafty  and  misleading  answers  in  the 
final  months  of  1986  to  two  congressional  committees.  ("Ex-Spy 
Chief  Is  Convicted  of  Lying  to  Congress  in  Iran-Contra  Case," 
The  New  York  Times,  December  10) 

DECEMBER  -  Seymour  Hersh  wrote  an  18-page  article  for  The 
New  Yorker  based  on  secret  tape  recordings  in  the  National 
Archives  that  the  former  President  has  successfully  blocked  from 
public  release.  A  plot  was  revealed  that  had  never  been  made 
public.  Nixon  and  his  aide,  Charles  Colson,  in  1972  plotted  to 
link  the  man  who  tried  to  kill  Alabama  Gov.  George  Wallace 
with  Democratic  presidential  candidate  George  McGovem. 
According  to  the  article,  Nixon  and  Colson  decided  to  send 
former  CIA  operative  E.  Howard  Hunt  to  Milwaukee  to  plant 
McGovem  campaign  literature  in  the  apartment  of  Arthur 
Bremer,  the  man  who  shot  Wallace.  The  trip  was  canceled  when 
the  FBI,  to  Nixon's  dismay,  sealed  the  Bremer  apartment. 

Hersh  maintains  that  the  Watergate  la(>es  that  have  been 
released  amount  to  60  hours— less  than  two  percent  of  those 
processed  by  the  National  Archives— and  all  of  them  had  been 
subpoenaed.  "All  this  means  that  Richard  Nixon  is  wiiming  one 
of  the  most  significant  battles  of  his  life  after  Watergate:  he  is 
keeping  the  full  story  of  what  happened  in  his  White  House  from 
the  public  and,  in  doing  so,  is  defying  the  clear  intent  of 
Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court.  The  former  President  has 
invested  millions  to  hire  a  team  of  skilled  attorneys... [who]  have 
orchestrated  a  delaying  action  inside  the  National  Archives  since 
1977."  ("Nixon's  Last  Cover-Up:  The  Tapes  He  Wants  the 
Archives  to  Suppress,"  The  New  Yorker,  December  14) 


DECEMBER  -  Attorney  General  William  Barr  rejected  congres- 
sional demands  for  an  independent  prosecutor  to  investigate 
whether  the  government  had  comrmtted  a  crime  in  a  bank  fraud 
case  involving  loans  to  Iraq.  He  asserted  that  the  Justice 
Department  had  acted  properly  in  every  aspect  of  the  politically 
contentious  case.  Barr's  refusal  to  seek  a  judicially  appointed 
prosecutor  in  the  case  involving  the  Atlanta  branch  of  the  Banca 
Nazionale  del  Lavoro  followed  the  recommendation  of  Frederick 
Lacey,  his  own  counsel.  Congressional  Democrats  blasted  Barr's 
decision  and  Judge  Lacey's  seven-week  investigation,  saying  it 
white-washed  senous  issues  and  left  important  questions 
unanswered.  ("U.S.  Won't  Seek  New  Inquiry  Into  Iraq  Loans," 
The  New  York  Times,  December  10) 


[Ed.  note:  See  also:  "Tapes  Tie  Nixon  to  Anti-McGovem  Plot," 
The  Washington  Post,  December  7;  and  "Article  Descnbes  More 
Nixon  Tapes,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  7)] 

DECEMBER  -  The  General  Accounting  Office  asked  the  White 
House  to  turn  over  copies  of  computer  messages,  phone  logs, 
and  other  files  from  Chief  of  Staff  James  Baker,  and  aides, 
Margaret  Tutwiler  and  Janet  Mullins,  as  part  of  a  broadening 
congressional  investigation  into  the  State  Department's  pre- 
election search  through  President-elect  Clinton's  passport  files. 
Congressional  committees  recently  became  concerned  when  Bush 
Administration  lawyers  argued  in  a  lawsuit  that  the  White  House 
had  no  obligation  to  preserve  computer  tapes  containing  electron- 


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ic  mail  and  other  internal  messages  by  White  House  aides. 
("GAO  Seeks  Files  of  Baker,  Aides  in  Passport  Probe,"  The 
Washington  Post,  December  16) 

DECEMBER  -  A  preliminary  Justice  Department  investigation 
uncovered  evidence  that  White  House  aide  Janet  Mullins  may 
have  helped  "encourage  and  direct"  the  pre-election  search  of 
President-elect  Clinton's  passport  files  and  then  lied  about  her 
involvement  to  State  Department  investigators.  The  department's 
evidence  prompted  a  three-judge  panel  to  issue  an  order  giving 
indeF>endent  counsel  Joseph  diGenova  broad  authority  "to  fully 
investigate  and  prosecute"  the  passport  search  case  and  "all 
matters  and  individuals  whose  acts  may  be  related. "  Although 
Mullins,  special  assistant  to  the  President  for  political  affairs,  is 
the  only  person  named,  the  order  in  effect  gives  diGenova  the 
power  to  conduct  a  wide-ranging  inquiry  that  is  almost  certain 
to  reach  into  the  upper  levels  of  the  Bush  White  House.  At  least 
two  of  Mullins's  colleagues,  Chief  of  Staff  James  Baker  and 
assistant  to  the  President  for  communications  Margaret  Tutwiler, 
have  hired  cnminal  lawyers  to  represent  them  in  connection  with 
the  probe.  ("Bush  Aide,  Passport  Case  Linked,"  The  Washington 
Post,  December  22) 

DECEMBER  -  Special  prosecutors  accused  former  Defense 
Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  of  seven  more  lies  about  the  Iran- 
contra  scandal  that  they  said  they  want  to  prove  at  his  tnal  in 
January.  In  a  filing  with  U.S.  District  Judge  Thomas  Hogan,  the 
prosecutors  disclosed  new  notes  of  Weinberger's  that  not  only 
seem  to  contradict  his  previous  statements  but  also  give  addition- 
al information  about  the  evolution  of  the  scandal  itself.  The 
prosecutors  said  all  seven  false  statements  were  "closely  related" 
to  the  four-count  indictment  against  Weinberger  and  were 
important  to  show  that  he  had  a  motive  to  lie  to  congressional 
investigators  in  1986  and  1987  and  to  keep  lying  later  on  to 
investigators  for  independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh. 
("Weinberger  Charges  Expanded,"  The  Washington  Post, 
December  22) 

DECEMBER  -  President  Bush  pardoned  former  Defense 
Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  and  five  other  former  government 
officials  involved  in  the  Iran-contra  affair  t>ecause  "it  was  time 
for  the  country  to  move  on."  Pardoned  with  Weinberger  were 
former  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  Elliott  Abrams,  former 
Reagan  National  Security  Adviser  Robert  McFarlane,  and  former 
CIA  officials  Clair  George,  Alan  Fiers  and  Duane  Clamdge. 

Independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh  angnly  declared  that 
Bush's  action  meant  that  "the  Iran-contra  coverup,  which  has 
continued  for  more  than  six  years,  has  now  been  complete."  But 
Walsh  gave  notice  that  he  was  still  not  finished  with  his  investi- 
gation, indicating  that  he  is  now  focusing  on  Bush  himself. 
Walsh  disclosed  that  he  had  learned  for  the  first  time  on 
December  1 1  that  Bush  had  "his  own  highly  relevant  contempo- 
raneous notes"  about  the  Iran-contra  affair,  which  he  "had  failed 
to  produce  to  investigators... despite  repeated  requests  for  such 


documents."  He  said  Bush  was  still  handing  over  these  notes,  a 
process  that  "will  lead  to  appropnate  action."  In  an  interview  on 
"MacNeil/Lehrer  NewsHour,"  Walsh  went  further,  saying  Bush 
is  "the  subject  now  of  our  investigation."  Walsh  said  the 
President  may  have  "illegally  withheld  documents"  from  Iran- 
contra  investigations.  ("Bush  Pardons  Weinberger  m  Iran-Contra 
Affair,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  25) 

[Ed.  note:  Following  is  independent  counsel  Lawrence  E. 
Walsh's  wntten  statement  in  response  to  the  presidential  pardons 
in  the  Iran-contra  scandal: 

President  Bush's  pardon  of  Caspar  Weinberger  and  other 
Iran-contra  defendants  undermines  the  principle  that  no  man 
is  above  the  law.  It  demonstrates  that  powerful  people  can 
commit  serious  crimes  in  high  office — deliberately  abusing 
the  public  trust — without  consequence.  Weinberger,  who 
faced  four  felony  charges,  deserved  to  be  tried  by  a  jury  of 
citizens.  Although  it  is  the  president's  prerogative  to  grant 
pardons,  it  is  every  Amencan's  nght  that  the  cnminal  justice 
system  be  administered  fairly,  regardless  of  a  person's  rank 
and  coimections. 

The  Iran-contra  coverup,  which  has  continued  for  more 
than  six  years,  has  now  been  completed  with  the  pardon  of 
Caspar  Weinberger.  We  will  make  a  full  report  on  our 
findings  to  Congress  and  the  public  descnbing  the  details  and 
extent  of  this  coverup. 

Weinberger's  early  and  deliberate  decision  to  conceal  and 
withhold  extensive  contemporaneous  notes  of  the  Iran-contra 
matter  radically  altered  the  official  investigations  and 
possibly  forestalled  timely  impeachment  proceedings  against 
President  Reagan  and  other  officials.  Weinberger's  notes 
contain  evidence  of  a  conspiracy  among  the  highest-ranking 
Reagan  administration  officials  to  lie  to  Congress  and  the 
Amencan  public.  Because  the  notes  were  withheld  from 
investigators  for  years,  many  of  the  leads  were  impossible  to 
follow,  key  witnesses  had  purportedly  forgotten  what  was 
said  and  done,  and  statutes  of  limitation  had  expired. 

Weinberger's  concealment  of  notes  is  part  of  a  disturbing 
pattern  of  deception  and  obstruction  that  permeated  the 
highest  levels  of  the  Reagan  and  Bush  admimstrations.  This 
office  was  informed  only  within  the  past  two  weeks,  on 
December  11,  1992,  that  President  Bush  had  failed  to 
produce  to  investigators  his  own  highly  relevant  contempora- 
neous notes,  despite  repeated  requests  for  such  documents. 
The  production  of  these  notes  is  still  ongoing  and  will  lead 
to  appropriate  action.  In  light  of  President  Bush's  own 
misconduct,  we  are  gravely  concerned  about  his  decision  to 
pardon  others  who  lied  to  Congress  and  obstructed  official 
investigations. 
("Walsh:  'The  Iran-Contra  Coverup. ..Has  Now  Been  Complet- 
ed,'" Vie  Washington  Post,  December  25)] 

DECEMBER  -  The  White  House  promised  to  make  public 
"everything"  in  President  Bush's  files  to  coimter  charges  by  5 


ALA  Washington  Office 


12 


December  1992 


Less  Access.. 


June  -  December  1992 


independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh  that  the  President  was 
continuing  a  coverup  of  the  Iran-contra  affair  when  he  pardoned 
former  Defense  Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  and  five  others. 
Bush  said  repeatedly  during  the  recent  election  campaign  that  he 
had  disclosed  everything  he  knew  about  the  Iran-contra  affair  to 
Walsh's  investigators.  ("President  to  Disclose  "Everything,'" 
The  Washington  Post,  December  26) 

DECEMBER  -  President  Bush  hired  former  Attorney  General 
Griffin  Bell  to  represent  him  in  the  continuing  investigation  of 
his  withholding  his  notes  on  the  Iran-contra  affair  from  1987  to 
1992.  ("Bush  Hires  Lawyer  in  Iran-Contra,"  Vie  Washington 
Post,  December  31) 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  been 
compiled  In  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods 
April  1981  -December  1 987  and  January  1 988-December 
1991.  Less  Access...  updates  are  available  for  $  1 .00;  the 
1981-1987  volume  is  $7.00;  the  1988-1991  volume  is 
$10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Associa- 
tion Washington  Office,  110  Maryland  Ave.,  NE, 
Washington,  DC  20002-5675;  202-547-4440,  fax  202- 
547-7363.  All  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  Include 
a  self-addressed  mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  OrTice 


December  1992 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1  10  Maryland  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel:  202-547-4440     Fax:  202-547-7363     Email:  alawash@alawash.org 

June  1993 


LESS  ACCESS  TO  LESS  INFORMATION  BY 
THE  U.S.  GOVERNMENT:  XX 

A  1993  Chronology:  January  -  June 


INTRODUCTION 


For  the  past  12  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has  docu- 
mented Administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize  govern- 
ment information.  Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  govern- 
ment's 16,000  publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since  1985,  the 
Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its  govern- 
ment information  control  powers,  particularly  through  Circular 
A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources.  OMB 
issued  its  projjosed  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  April  29,  1992, 
Federal  Register.  Particularly  troubling  is  OMB's  theory  that  the 
U.S.  Code's  definition  of  a  "'government  publication"  excludes 
electronic  publications.  Agencies  would  be  unlikely  to  provide 
electronic  products  voluntarily  to  depository  libraries — resulting 
in  the  technological  sunset  of  the  Depository  Library  Program, 
a  primary  channel  for  public  access  to  government  information. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  utilize 
computer  and  telecommunications  technologies  for  data  collec- 
tion, storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend  has 
resulted  in  the  increased  emergence  of  contractual  arrangements 
with  commercial  firms  to  disseminate  information  collected  at 
taxpayer  expense,  higher  user  charges  for  govertmient  informa- 
tion, and  the  proliferation  of  government  information  available 
in  electronic   format  only.     While  automation   clearly   offers 


promises  of  savings,  will  public  access  to  government  informa- 
tion be  further  restricted  for  people  who  cannot  afford  computers 
or  pay  for  computer  time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and 
services  have  begun  to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository 
libraries,  public  access  to  government  information  should  be 
increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
govenmient  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolution 
passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and  ready 
access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in 
any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States."  In  1986, 
ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Information.  The 
Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts 
that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and  to  develop 
support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government  information. 

With  access  to  information  a  major  ALA  priority,  members 
should  be  concerned  about  this  series  of  actions  which  creates  a 
climate  in  which  government  information  activities  are  suspect. 
Previous  chronologies  were  compiled  in  two  ALA  Washington 
Office  indexed  publications,  Less  Access  to  Less  Information  By 
and  About  the  U.S.  Government:  A  1981-1987  Chronology,  and 
Less  Access...:  A  1988-1991  Chronology.  The  following 
chronology  continues  the  tradition  of  a  semi-annual  update. 


CHRONOLOGY 


JANUARY  -  Griffin  Bell,  the  attorney  representing  former 
President  George  Bush  in  dealings  with  Iran-contra  independent 
prosecutor  Lawrence  Walsh,  said  in  an  interview  that  he  hoped 
to  send  the  prosecutor  a  second  batch  of  notes  that  Bush  took 
during  White  House  meetings  on  the  arms  sale  to  Iran.  The 
President  sent  the  first  set  of  such  notes  in  December,  five  years 
after  Walsh  had  asked  him  to  turn  over  any  of  his  documents 


relevant  to  the  Iran-contra  affair. 

The  long  delay  between  that  request  and  Bush's  response  to 
it  led  Walsh  to  say  in  December  that  in  failing  to  disclose  earlier 
to  the  prosecutor's  office  that  he  had  kept  any  such  notes,  the 
President  had  engaged  in  "misconduct."  Speaking  after  Bush's 
pardon  of  former  Defense  Secretary  Caspar  Weinberger  and  five 
other  Iran-contra  defendants,  Walsh  also  said  the  President  was 


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January  •  June  1993 


now  a  "subject"  of  the  Iran-contra  inquiry.  ("Bush's  Deposition 
Was  Videotaped,  Lawyer  Says,"  The  New  York  Times,  January 
3) 

JANUARY  -  The  Senate  Select  Conunittee  on  POW/MIA 
Affairs  toned  down  its  criticism  of  former  President  Richard 
Nixon  and  his  Secretary  of  State,  Henry  Kissinger,  after  protests 
from  both  men.  The  committee,  investigating  the  handling  of 
missing  American  servicemen  in  Southeast  Asia,  permitted 
Kissinger  and  his  attorney,  Lloyd  Cutler,  to  read  portions  of  a 
draft  rejxjrt  on  December  28  and  then  changed  some  of  the 
document's  conclusions. 

Reportedly,  the  draft  report  criticized  Nixon  and  his  top  aides 
for  failing  to  get  a  full  accounting  of  American  military  person- 
nel at  the  end  of  the  Vietnam  War.  Some  MIA  advocates  were 
enraged  that  Kissinger  was  allowed  access  to  the  report  before 
its  public  release  and  that  some  of  its  findings  were  changed  as 
a  result  of  his  comments.  Many  of  these  people  have  for  years 
accused  Kissinger  and  other  government  officials  of  participating 
in  a  cover-up  to  keep  the  public  from  learning  the  truth  about  the 
2,264  Americans  who  have  never  been  accounted  for. 

Cutler  and  former  aides  to  Nixon  say  it  is  true  that  Nixon 
and  Kissinger  did  not  get  a  full  accounting  from  the  Vietnamese 
of  American  servicemen  who  were  missing  in  Vietnam,  Cambo- 
dia or  Laos.  But  these  aides  say  Congress  must  shoulder  some 
of  the  blame  by  pulling  the  rug  from  underneath  the  Nixon 
Administration.  ("Kissinger  Protest  Changes  Report,"  The  New 
York  Times,  January  11) 

JANUARY  -  The  American  intelligence  community  knew  that 
a  British  company  was  buying  military-related  equipment  for 
Iraq  as  early  as  1987,  nearly  three  years  before  the  firm  and  its 
U.S. -based  subsidiary  were  ordered  shut  by  export  authorities  in 
both  countries,  according  to  U.S.  government  sources.  The 
disclosure  confirms  suspicions  by  some  lawmakers  in  Washing- 
ton and  London  last  year  about  the  secret  U.S. -British  exchange 
of  data  on  Iraq's  arms  procurement  network  before  the  1991 
Persian  Gulf  War.  It  also  again  raised  questions  about  why 
officials  in  both  countries  stood  by  idly  as  Matrix  Churchill 
supplied  Baghdad  with  machine  tools  of  value  to  Iraq's  nuclear 
weapons  program. 

The  CIA  disseminated  information  about  Matrix  Churchill  to 
policymakers  in  the  Reagan  and  Bush  Administrations  beginning 
in  December  1987,  just  two  months  after  the  firm  was  purchased 
by  an  Iraqi-controlled  company,  according  to  government 
sources.  The  secret  data  exchange  was  hinted  at  in  a  February 
5  report  by  the  Senate  Select  Committee  on  Intelligence  about 
the  Bush  Administration's  mishandling  of  intelligence  informa- 
tion about  Iraq.  The  report  said  multiple  raw  intelligence  reports 
received  by  the  CIA  "described  the  activities  of  Matrix  Churchill 
as  part  of  the  Iraqi  world-wide  procurement  network." 

Rep.  Henry  Gonzalez  (D-Tex.),  the  Banking  Committee 
chairman  who  for  several  years  has  investigated  U.S.  ties  to 
Iraq,  cited  the  Senate  report's  disclosures  in  alleging  that  the 


CIA  misled  Congress  about  the  extent  of  the  intelligence 
agency's  knowledge  about  Matrix  Churchill.  The  agency  told 
Gonzalez  in  a  November  1991  letter  that  it  had  located  only  two 
classified  reports  on  the  firm.  ("CIA  Knew  of  British  Iraq 
Deal,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  15) 

JANUARY  -  U.S.  District  Judge  Charles  Richey  rejected  a  last- 
minute  Bush  Administration  attempt  to  begin  destroying  most 
computerized  White  House  records,  and  warned  in  a  sharply 
worded  order  against  any  effort  to  evade  his  mandate.  The 
National  Security  Council  had  been  plaiming  to  start  erasing  the 
records  on  its  computers  to  provide  a  "clean  slate  for  the 
incoming  Administration,"  according  to  court  papers.  Justice 
Department  lawyers,  representing  the  White  House,  contended 
that  the  court  was  impeding  "the  present  Administration's  ability 
to  leave  office  with  its  records  dispatched  to  appropriate  federal 
document  depositories  consistent  with  the  law." 

Calling  that  argument  "incomprehensible,"  Richey  said  there 
was  an  important  difference  between  paper  copies  of  White 
House  computer  messages,  memos,  and  electronic  mail  and  the 
electronic  records,  "because  the  pajjer  copies  do  not  necessarily 
disclose  who  said  what  to  whom  and  when."  Administration 
lawyers  indicated  they  intend  to  appeal  the  ruling  to  the  U.S. 
Court  of  Appeals. 

The  dispute  is  an  outgrowth  of  a  Freedom  of  Information  suit 
brought  four  years  ago  by  Scott  Armstrong,  the  National 
Security  Archive,  and  others  (including  the  American  Library 
Association).  Computer  records  of  the  Reagan  WTiite  House 
already  are  covered  by  existing  orders,  and  the  Bush  White 
House  is  seeking  to  destroy  only  those  it  generated.  ("Judge 
Warns  White  House  About  Erasing  Computers,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  January  15) 

JANUARY  -  A  three-judge  panel  of  the  U.S.  Court  of  Appeals 
for  the  District  of  Columbia  Circuit  ordered  departing  White 
House  and  National  Security  Council  officials  to  make  portable 
back-up  copies  of  records  stored  in  their  {personal  computers 
before  deleting  the  materials  from  the  machines.  Only  after  the 
millions  of  electronic  messages — e-mail — and  other  electronic 
records  are  preserved  in  full  on  back-up  disks  or  tapes  can 
officials  erase  them  from  the  internal  hard  drives  of  machines 
that  will  be  inherited  by  their  replacements  in  the  Clinton 
Administration,  the  court  ruled. 

The  case  is  the  first  to  apply  the  50-year-old  Federal  Records 
Act  to  electronic  communications.  TTie  White  House  had  argued 
that  as  long  as  paper  copies  were  made  of  e-mail  materials,  the 
electronic  versions  in  the  computers  could  be  erased.  Richey, 
however,  noted  that  printed  copies  seldom  contain  all  the 
information  that  was  in  the  computer,  such  as  who  besides  the 
named  recipient  received  a  copy  of  a  memo  and  when  it  was 
received. 

"The  question  of  what  government  officials  know  and  when 
they  knew  it  has  been  a  key  question  in  not  only  the  Iran-contra 
investigations,  but  also  in  the  Watergate"  probe,  said  the  judge, 


ALA  Washington  OfTice 


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Less  Access... 


January  -  June  1993 


who  was  appointed  to  the  bench  by  President  Richard  Nixon. 
("Bush  Officials  Ordered  to  Preserve  Copies  of  Computer 
Records,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  16) 

JANUARY  -  On  January  15,  the  White  House  released  excerpts 
of  a  long-secret  diary  President  Bush  started  the  day  after  covert 
arms  sales  to  Iran  were  first  disclosed  in  November  1986  and  in 
which  he  said,  "I'm  one  of  the  few  people  that  know  fully  the 
details."  That  private  statement  of  Bush's  knowledge  while  Vice 
President  was  made  on  November  5,  1986,  months  before  a 
newspaper  interview  in  which  Bush  said  he  had  been  "out  of  the 
loop"  on  the  covert  dealings  with  Tehran  to  gain  the  release  of 
American  hostages  then  being  held  in  Lebanon  by  pro-Iranian 
terrorists.  The  excerpts  show  Bush  professing  less  and  less 
knowledge  as  the  furor  over  the  Iran-contra  affair  intensified. 

The  45  pages  of  diary  excerpts  relating  to  the  Iran-contra 
scandal  were  selected  by  Bush's  lawyer.  Griffin  Bell,  as  relevant 
to  the  long-running  investigation  of  the  affair  by  independent 
counsel  Lawrence  Welsh.  Bell  said  Bush  "apparently  was  not 
aware  of  the  [Walsh]  request  for  diaries,"  but  even  if  he  had 
been,  "his  present  view  is  that"  he  would  not  have  had  to  turn 
them  over.  According  to  Bell,  Bush  believes  that  because  the 
diary  entries  "post-dated  the  relevant  events  of  Iran-contra... and 
were  his  personal,  political  thoughts."  Walsh  plans  to  question 
Bush,  White  House  counsel  Boyden  Gray,  and  others  about  the 
failure  to  tell  about  the  diary's  existence  until  December  1992. 
The  Iran-contra  prosecutor  also  wants  to  interview  Bush  about 
the  cover-up  of  the  scandal  that  Walsh  says  began  in  November 
1986.  ("Diary  Says  Bush  Knew  'Details'  of  Iran  Arms  Deal," 
The  Washington  Post,  January  16) 

JANUARY  -  An  internal  investigation  by  the  Central  Intelli- 
gence Agency  has  concluded  that  its  officials  were  responsible 
for  not  providing  information  from  the  Justice  Department  to  the 
prosecution  in  a  politically  charged  case  involving  bank  loans  to 
Iran,  government  officials  said.  A  report  of  the  investigation, 
which  is  classified  and  has  not  yet  been  released,  lays  much  of 
the  blame  on  the  CIA,  largely  absolving  the  Justice  Department 
for  its  behavior.  The  two  agencies  engaged  in  a  public  dispute, 
in  the  fall  of  1992,  over  which  was  responsible  for  failing  to 
provide  information  crucial  to  the  prosecution  of  an  official  of 
an  Atlanta  branch  of  Banca  Nazionale  del  Lavoro. 

CIA  Director  Robert  Gates  said,  "The  report  found  no 
evidence  of  misconduct  or  willful  withholding  of  documents." 
But  he  said  the  report  detailed  mistakes  by  senior  agency 
officials  and  instances  of  poor  judgment.  It  also  concludes  that 
part  of  the  problem  is  the  agency's  complex  system  of  maintain- 
ing its  files.  Gates  said  he  had  ordered  a  large-scale  overhaul  of 
the  agency's  information  retrieval  systems.  ("Report  Blames 
C.I. A.  Officials  For  Lapses  in  Iraqi-Loan  Case,"  The  New  York 
Times,  January  20) 

JANUARY  -  Jack  Anderson  and  Michael  Binstein  report  that, 
"While  the  State  Department  broke  speed  records  in  an  election- 


eve  search  for  dirt  on  Bill  Clinton,  it  was  running  17  years 
behind  schedule  in  living  up  to  a  congressional  mandate  to 
declassify  documents  30  years  old  or  older."  During  a  meeting 
in  November  1992,  a  group  of  historians  was  first  informed  that 
the  State  Department  would  take  until  2010  to  comply  with  a 
1991  law  requiring  the  release  of  classified  documents  by  next 
October.  When  Congress  first  imposed  the  two-year  deadline,  it 
was  hailed  as  a  victory  for  the  public's  right  to  know,  and  a 
blow  to  the  culture  of  classification  that  grew  with  the  Cold 
War.  According  to  sources  with  access  to  the  archives,  the  vast 
majority  are  not  harmful  to  national  security  but  invaluable  to 
historians.  ("State  Dept.  Lags  on  Declassifying  Papers,"  The 
Washington  Post,  January  28) 

JANUARY  -  Former  President  George  Bush  misrepresented  his 
role  and  knowledge  of  the  arms-for-hostage  dealings  with  Iran 
in  1985  and  1986,  according  to  memoirs  by  former  Secretary  of 
State  George  Shultz.  In  an  excerpt  from  the  memoirs  appearing 
in  Time  the  week  of  January  3 1 ,  Shultz  describes  an  encounter 
with  Bush  on  November  9,  1986,  six  days  after  a  Beirut 
magazine  first  disclosed  the  secret  arms-for-hostage  deals: 

I  put  my  views  to  him  [Bush]:  I  didn't  know  much  about 
what  had  actually  transpired,  but  I  knew  that  an  exchange  of 
arms  for  hostages  had  been  tried  on  at  least  one  occasion. 
Bush  admonished  me,  asking  emphatically  whether  I  realized 
there  were  major  strategic  objectives  being  pursued  with 
Iran.  He  said  he  was  very  careful  about  what  he  said. 

"You  can't  be  technically  right:  you  have  to  be  right,"  I 
responded.  I  reminded  him  that  he  had  been  present  at  a 
meeting  where  arms  for  Iran  and  hostage  releases  had  been 
proposed  and  that  he  had  made  no  objection,  despite  the 
opposition  of  both  Cap  [then-Defense  Secretary  Caspar  W. 
Weinberger]  and  me.  "That's  where  you  are,"  I  said.  There 
was  considerable  tension  between  us  when  we  parted. 
Shultz  adds  in  the  memoirs  that  he  was  "astonished"  to  read 
an  interview  Bush  gave  to  The  Washington  Post  nine  months 
later  in  which  Bush  said  he  had  never  heard  Shultz  or  Wein- 
berger express  their  strong  opposition  to  the  arms  sales— that  he 
was  "not  in  the  loop."  According  to  Shultz,  "Cap  called  me.  He 
was   astonished   too.    'That's   terrible   [Weinberger   said].    He 
[Bush]  was  on  the  other  side.  It's  on  the  record.  Why  did  he  say 
that?'" 

Shultz's  new  disclosure  confirms  and  amplifies  a  contempora- 
neous Weinberger  note  released  four  days  before  last  Novem- 
ber's presidential  election.  The  note  said  that  at  a  meeting  on 
January  7,  1986,  in  the  White  House,  the  deal  was  described  as 
arms-for-hostages.  Bush  approved  of  it,  and  Shultz  and 
Weinberger  were  opposed. 

In  his  memoirs,  Shultz  provides  a  picture  of  a  stubborn 
President  Reagan  who  doggedly  convinced  himself  he  was  not 
trading  arms  for  hostages.  "To  him  reality  was  different,"  Shultz 
writes.  On  the  Iranian  arms  sale  and  "other  issues... [Reagan] 
would  go  over  the  'script'  of  an  event,  past  or  present,  in  his 
mind,  and  once  that  script  was  mastered,  that  was  the  truth— no 


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fact,  no  argument,  no  plea  for  reconsideration  could  change  his 
mind."  ("Shultz  Memoirs  Say  Bush  Misstated  Arms-for- 
Hostages  Role,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  31) 

FEBRUARY  -  Responding  to  calls  for  greater  disclosure, 
officials  of  the  John  F.  Kennedy  Presidential  Library  are 
attempting  to  speed  declassification  of  White  House  tapes 
recorded  secretly  more  than  30  years  ago.  The  library,  part  of 
the  National  Archives,  has  been  stymied  because  the  National 
Security  Council  requires  transcripts  before  it  can  perform 
declassification  procedures,  but  the  library  is  under  orders  from 
the  National  Archives  not  to  transcribe  the  tapes. 

The  library  holds  248  hours  of  tapes  recorded  secretly  in  the 
Oval  Office,  along  with  12  hours  of  recorded  telephone  calls. 
The  materials  originally  were  considered  the  President's  personal 
property,  and  the  property  of  his  heirs.  Now,  federal  law  makes 
the  tapes  government  property.  Library  spokesman,  Frank  Rigg, 
said  the  library  did  not  withhold  materials  from  the  public  or 
from  scholars  on  its  own  initiative,  and  he  denied  persistent 
complaints  that  the  library  acts  as  an  agent  for  the  Kennedy 
family.  William  Johnson,  the  library's  chief  archivist,  said  the 
library  honors  restrictions  imposed  by  donors.  ("Library  Moving 
to  Release  JFK  Tapes,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  3) 

FEBRUARY  -  The  Senate  Select  Committee  on  Intelligence 
released  a  report  that  said  the  CIA  and  the  Justice  Department 
mishandled  a  probe  of  illicit  loans  to  Iraq  during  the  past  three 
years  by  failing  to  pursue  intelligence  leads  or  exchange  and 
disseminate  classified  information  bearing  on  the  case.  Serious 
errors  in  judgment  by  CIA  and  Justice  Department  officials  and 
poor  administrative  practices  kept  prosecutors  from  learning  of 
information  that  bore  on  the  central  question  of  who  was 
responsible  for  $4  billion  in  fraudulent  loans  made  to  Iraq  from 
1985  to  1989  by  the  Atlanta  branch  of  an  Italian  govenmient- 
owned  bank,  Banca  Nazionale  del  Lavoro,  according  to  the 
Senate  report. 

The  Senate  report  said  that  some  CIA  officials,  who  claimed 
to  be  acting  on  the  advice  of  officials  at  the  FBI,  decided  to 
block  distribution  to  the  Justice  Department  of  some  classified 
documents  about  the  case.  The  documents  were  considered 
politically  embarrassing  to  the  government  or  potentially 
damaging  to  the  government's  prosecution  of  the  director  of 
BNL's  Atlanta  branch,  Christopher  Drogoul. 

One  of  these  documents  was  a  December  1990  intelligence 
report,  partially  disclosed  in  the  Senate  report  for  the  first  time. 
The  intelligence  report,  from  an  unidentified  agency,  contained 
an  unverified  allegation  that  "U.S.,  Italian,  and  Iraqi  officials 
had  engaged  in  unlawful  conduct  in  connection  with  the  BNL- 
Atlanta  loan  case."  The  Senate  inquiry  did  not  substantiate  this 
claim,  but  criticized  the  executive  branch's  failure  to  provide  this 
report  to  federal  prosecutors  investigating  the  case  in  Atlanta. 

Attributing  these  foul-ups  to  errors  in  judgment  by  CIA  and 
Justice  Department  officials,  the  Senate  report  said  a  four-month 
study  of  classified  govemment  information  had  not  turned  up  any 


evidence  of  criminal  wrongdoing  by  career  officials  or  political 
appointees  in  the  Bush  Administration,  which  supervised  the 
federal  probe.  ("Report  Faults  CIA,  Justice  Dept.  in  BNL 
Probe,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  6) 

FEBRUARY  -  Independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh  laid  out 
"new  and  disturbing  facts"  that  he  said  showed  top  govemment 
officials  lied  about  then-President  Ronald  Reagan's  knowledge 
of  a  possibly  illegal  arms-for-hostages  shipment  to  Iran  in 
November  1985.  In  a  reprart  to  Congress,  Walsh  made  public 
much  of  the  documentary  evidence  that  he  said  he  would  have 
used  at  the  trial  of  former  Defense  Secretary  Caspar  Weinber- 
ger, whom  then-President  George  Bush  pardoned  December  24. 
Citing  notes  written  by  Weinberger  and  a  top  aide  to  then- 
Secretary  George  Shultz,  Walsh  said  Weinberger  "opposed 
disclosing  the  arms  sales  to  the  public  and  acquiesced  as  other 
Administration  officials  provided  information  to  members  of 
Congress  and  to  the  public  that  Weinberger  knew  to  be  false." 

Walsh  made  his  presentation  in  a  voluminous  "Fourth  Interim 
Report  to  Congress,"  including  49  pages  of  Weinberger's  long- 
secret  notes  about  the  Iran-contra  affair  and  a  two-inch  stack  of 
exhibits  that  Walsh  said  he  would  have  used  at  trial.  The 
independent  counsel  promised  more  details  will  be  provided  in 
his  final  report. 

Weinberger's  lawyer,  Robert  Bennett,  issued  a  blistering 
statement  accusing  Walsh  of  releasing  "a  work  of  fiction... that 
is  all  old  stuff  which  is  not  supported  by  the  evidence. "  Bennett 
attacked  Walsh  as  "a  bitter  man  trying  to  rehabilitate  a  damaged 
reputation. " 

In  his  report,  Walsh  expanded  on  the  sharp  criticism  he 
initially  directed  at  Bush  when  the  pardon  was  announced,  and 
pointed  out  there  is  no  precedent  over  the  past  30  years  for  a 
President's  pardoning  someone  who  has  been  indicted  but  has 
not  yet  come  to  trial.  Walsh  said  he  was  submitting  the  report  to 
correct  the  "misconceptions"  that  Bush  used  as  justifications  for 
the  Weinberger  pardon.  ("Walsh  Report  Details  Evidence 
Against  Weinberger,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  9) 

FEBRUARY  -  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton's  new  policymaking  role 
on  the  presidential  health-care  task  force  is  being  questioned  by 
Rep.  William  dinger  Jr.  (R-Penna.),  who  believes  she  may  be 
violating  federal  rules  governing  advisory  committees,  dinger 
has  asked  the  General  Accounting  Office  to  review  whether 
Hillary  Clinton,  who  was  appointed  by  her  husband  to  head  the 
President's  Task  Force  on  Health  Care  Reform,  is  allowed  to 
conduct  any  of  the  group's  meetings  in  private. 

White  House  general  counsel  Bernard  Nussbaum  has  told 
dinger  he  believes  Hillary  Clinton's  participation  does  not 
violate  the  Federal  Advisory  Committee  Act,  which  says  that 
task  force  meetings  must  be  conducted  in  public  if  any  members 
of  the  task  force  are  not  employees  of  the  federal  govemment. 
Hillary  Clinton  is  not  a  govemment  employee,  but  the  White 
House  contends  that  she  also  is  not  the  type  of  "outside  influ- 
ence" the  statute  was  enacted  to  guard  against. 


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The  federal  statute  requires  that  advisory  committee  meetings 
be  held  in  public  unless  the  committee  "is  composed  wholly  of 
fulltime  officers  or  employees  of  the  federal  government." 
("GOP  Congressman  Questions  Hillary  Clinton's  Closed-Door 
Meetings,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  10) 

FEBRUARY  -  The  CIA's  mishandling  of  information  about  a 
bank  scandal  involving  loans  to  Iraq  has  led  to  internal  changes 
that  will  give  the  agency  an  enhanced  and  possibly  controversial 
role  in  future  U.S.  law  enforcement  activities,  according  to  CIA 
officials  and  independent  experts.  The  internal  revisions  are 
aimed  at  breaching— without  destroying— the  political  and 
bureaucratic  barriers  that  traditionally  have  prevented  the 
intelligence  agency  from  assisting  domestic  law  enforcement 
investigations.  The  barriers  were  erected  to  prevent  the  CIA 
from  becoming  involved  in  spying  on  U.S.  citizens  at  home. 

Under  the  reforms,  officials  said,  the  CIA  could  be  requested 
by  federal  prosecutors  to  collect  evidence  needed  to  bring 
indictments  against  foreign  corporations  or  individuals  for 
violations  of  U.S.  laws.  It  also  could  be  ordered  to  share  more 
fully  any  information  in  its  files  relating  to  such  investigations. 

The  changes  grew  out  of  recommendations  by  CIA  Inspector 
General  Frederick  Hitz,  who  concluded  in  January  that  "system- 
ic, procedural,  and  personal  shortcomings"  at  the  agency  had 
ruined  its  collaboration  with  law  enforcement  officials  probing 
$4  billion  in  illicit  loans  to  Iraq  by  the  Atlanta  branch  of  the 
Italian-owned  Banca  Nazionale  del  Lavoro. 

The  National  Security  Act  of  1947,  which  established  the 
CIA,  states  that  "the  agency  shall  have  no  police,  subpoena,  law 
enforcement  powers,  or  internal  security  functions."  A  spokes- 
man for  Sen.  Dennis  DeConcini  (D-Ariz.),  who  chairs  the 
Senate  Select  Committee  on  Intelligence,  said  that  "evaluating 
and  possibly  expanding  opportunities  for  cooperation"  between 
the  CIA  and  domestic  law  enforcement  agencies  is  one  of  the 
Senator's  top  priorities.  ("Changes  at  CIA  Will  Give  Agency 
Wider  Role  in  Law  Enforcement,"  The  Washington  Post, 
February  10) 

FEBRUARY  -  The  Justice  Department  said  that  it  is  considering 
a  criminal  investigation  of  the  Archivist  of  the  United  States, 
Don  Wilson,  for  potential  conflicts  of  interest  and  thus  may  not 
be  able  to  "adequately  represent"  him  in  a  civil  suit  over  the 
same  controversy.  The  dispute  involves  Wilson's  approval  Jan. 
19  of  an  agreement  giving  George  Bush  "exclusive  legal 
control"  of  computerized  records  of  his  presidency.  Wilson 
subsequently  announced  his  leaving  the  government  to  become 
executive  director  of  the  George  Bush  Center  at  Texas  A&M 
University,  raising  questions  about  whether  he  had  a  conflict  of 
interest  in  signing  the  records  agreement.  ("Justice  Dept.  Weighs 
Criminal  Investigation  of  U.S.  Archivist,"  The  Washington  Post, 
February  24) 

FEBRUARY  -  The  U.  S.  intelligence  community  is  worried  that 
China  may  have  revived  and  possibly  expanded  its  offensive 


germ  weapons  program,  according  to  current  and  former 
government  officials.  The  officials  said  that  if  true,  the  Chinese 
effort  would  violate  Beijing's  nine-year-old  pledge  of  adherence 
to  an  international  treaty  barring  development,  production,  and 
stockpiling  of  toxin  and  biological  agents  and  the  weaponry  to 
deliver  them.  Officials  said  U.S.  concerns  about  China  are  partly 
based  on  evidence  that  China  is  pursuing  biological  research  at 
two  ostensibly  civilian-run  research  centers  that  U.S.  officials 
say  are  actually  controlled  by  the  Chinese  military. 

Under  President  George  Bush  senior  White  House  officials 
repeatedly  removed  a  strong  expression  of  concern  about  a 
suspected  Chinese  germ  weapons  program  from  unclassified 
versions  of  an  annual  report  on  arms  proliferation  that  the 
intelligence  community  prepared  for  Congress.  Only  in  January, 
did  the  intelligence  report,  which  is  required  by  law,  state  for 
the  first  time  in  an  unclassified  passage  that  "it  is  highly 
probable  that  China  has  not  eliminated  its  BW  [biological 
warfare]  program"  since  agreeing  to  do  so  in  1984.  Bush 
approved  the  little-noticed  report  on  January  19,  his  final  full 
day  in  office,  before  sending  it  to  the  House  and  Senate  commit- 
tees on  foreign  affairs. 

The  White  House  deleted  this  conclusion  about  China's 
activities — a  conclusion  representing  a  consensus  of  all  relevant 
U.S.  agencies — from  both  classified  and  unclassified  versions  of 
the  report  in  1991  and  1992,  officials  said,  causing  some 
intelligence  analysts  to  accuse  the  White  House  privately  of 
jxjlitical  censorship.  TTie  White  House  "was  concerned  about  the 
foreign  policy  sensitivity  of  revealing  this  information"  during 
congressional  debates  about  maintaining  U.S.  -China  relations  and 
renewing  most-favored-nation  trade  status  to  China,  said  one 
senior  intelligence  officer  who  participated  in  discussions  of  the 
matter.  The  official  said  that  intelligence  suspicions  were 
publicized  this  year  "only  because  those  who  were  concerned 
about  China  policy  took  their  fingers  off"  the  report. 

Two  former  White  House  officials  who  were  involved  in 
deleting  the  passage  said,  however,  that  they  were  motivated  not 
by  politics  but  by  uncertainty  that  the  charge  was  true.  They  said 
the  Chinese  government  vigorously  denied  the  allegation  when 
questioned  by  a  senior  Bush  Administration  official  last  year. 
("China  May  Have  Revived  Germ  Weapons  Program,  U.S. 
Officials  Say,"  The  Washington  Post,  February  24) 

MARCH  -  Federal  officials  have  discovered  that  the  government 
no  longer  collects  the  data  needed  to  set  a  health  budget  for  each 
state.  President  Clinton  promised  to  set  such  a  budget  during  the 
1992  campaign.  The  discovery  forecloses  one  method  of 
controlling  health  costs  and  forces  the  Clinton  Administration  to 
seek  other  ways  of  achieving  the  same  goal,  perhaps  through 
direct  federal  regulation  of  prices  in  the  health-care  industry. 

Members  of  the  President's  Task  Force  on  National  Health 
Care  Reform  discovered  in  late  February  that  the  government 
stopped  collecting  state-by-state  data  on  health  sf>ending  ten  years 
ago.  The  federal  government  tabulated  health  spending  by  state 
from  1966  through  1982,  but  has  not  compiled  state  data  since 


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then,  apparently  because  federal  officials  did  not  need  such 
information  to  run  the  Medicare  and  Medicaid  programs  for  the 
elderly  and  the  poor.  ("Health  Data  Sought  By  Clinton  Is  No 
Longer  Collected,"  The  New  York  Times,  March  1) 

MARCH  -  The  Clinton  Administration  said  a  federal  law  that 
prohibits  advisory  committees  from  meeting  in  secret  is  imconsti- 
tutional,  and  it  asked  a  federal  judge  to  throw  out  a  request  that 
Hillary  Rodham  Clinton's  task  force  on  health-care  reform  hold 
open  meetings.  In  a  memo  filed  in  U.S.  District  Court  in 
Washington,  the  Justice  Department  said  that  the  law,  enacted  to 
prevent  special,  private  interest  groups  from  exerting  a  secret 
influence  on  government  decision,  impairs  the  President's 
authority.  In  addition,  the  Justice  Department  said  the  law  should 
not  even  apply  to  the  task  force  because  of  what  it  called  "the 
First  Lady's  imique  status  inside  our  government." 

In  late  February,  the  Association  of  American  Physicians  and 
Surgeons,  American  Council  for  Health  Care  Reform,  and  the 
National  Legal  &  Policy  Center  asked  U.  S.  District  Court  Judge 
Royce  Lamberth  to  issue  a  temporary  restraining  order  against 
Hillary  Clinton,  several  Cabinet  officials,  and  her  task  force. 
The  organizations  alleged  that  the  law  requiring  open  meetings 
applied  to  the  task  force  because  Hillary  Clinton  is  neither  a 
public  official  nor  a  public  employee.  That  status  is  important, 
the  groups  said,  because  the  law,  enacted  during  the  1970s,  says 
that  any  advisory  committee  that  is  not  wholly  composed  of 
federal  employees  must  open  its  meetings  to  the  public.  ("Justice 
Dept.  Says  Open-Meeting  Law  Is  Unconstitutional,  Impairs 
President,"  The  Washington  Post,  March  4) 

MARCH  -  U.S.  District  Judge  Royce  Lamberth  on  March  10 
said  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton  should  be  considered  like  any  other 
"outsider"  working  for  the  White  House,  and  therefore  certain 
meetings  of  the  health-care  task  force  she  heads  must  be  open  to 
the  public.  The  ruling  represented  a  political  setback  for  the 
Administration  as  it  lost  an  early  court  test.  "While  the  court 
takes  no  pleasure  in  determining  that  one  of  the  first  actions 
taken  by  a  President  is  in  direct  violation  of  [the  law],  the 
court's  duty  is  to  apply  the  laws  to  all  individuals,"  Lamberth 
wrote. 

However,  as  a  practical  matter,  the  ruling  is  not  expected  to 
change  the  way  the  health-care  proposal  is  developed.  Lamberth, 
who  was  appointed  by  President  Reagan  in  1987,  said  the  staff- 
level  "working  groups"  developing  the  plan  need  not  hold  open 
meetings,  and  the  task  force  may  meet  behind  closed  doors  to 
formulate  policy  to  present  to  the  President.  Fact-gathering 
sessions  of  the  task  force  must  be  open.  "What  he's  done  is 
really  gutted  the  act"  by  defining  the  meetings  that  must  be  open 
in  a  way  that  "enables  us  to  do  the  important  things  in  private," 
said  a  senior  White  House  official.  ("First  Lady  Is  a  Govern- 
ment 'Outsider,'  Judge  Rules,"  The  Washington  Post,  March  1 1) 

MARCH  -  Rep.  Robert  Torricelli  (D-N.J.),  chair  of  the  Foreign 
Affairs  Subcommittee  on  Western  Hemisphere,  charged  that  the 


Reagan  Administration  lied  to  Congress  for  years  about  the 
Salvadoran  armed  forces'  complicity  in  murder,  and  he  said  that 
"every  word  uttered  by  every  Reagan  Administration  official" 
about  the  observance  of  human  rights  in  El  Salvador  should  be 
reviewed  for  perjury.  Torricelli  s  comments  marked  the  latest 
turn  in  a  renewed  controversy  about  whether  the  Reagan 
Administration  covered  up  abuses  by  the  Salvadoran  military  to 
gain  congressional  approval  of  $6  billion  in  aid  during  the 
1980s.  The  issue  arose  again  following  the  release  of  a  rejxjrt  by 
a  United  Nations-sponsored  commission  that  investigated  rights 
abuses  in  El  Salvador's  12-year  civil  war.  ("Reagan  Administra- 
tion Accused  of  Lies  on  El  Salvador,"  The  Washington  Post, 
March  17) 

MARCH  -  The  Clinton  Administration  appealed  a  U.S.  District 
Court  ruling  that  certain  meetings  of  the  President's  health-care 
task  force  must  be  open  to  the  public  because  its  chair,  Hillary 
Rodham  Clinton,  is  not  a  government  employee.  In  a  brief  filed 
on  March  22,  the  Justice  Department  argued  that  the  First  Lady 
"functions  in  both  a  legal  and  practical  sense  as  part  of  the 
government."  The  action  is  extraordinary  because  it  subjects  the 
job  of  the  First  Lady,  already  groimdbreaking  in  this  Administra- 
tion, to  scrutiny  by  a  court. 

In  its  brief,  the  Justice  Department  said,  "The  First  Lady's 
role  on  the  Task  Force  is  that  of  a  public  servant,  the  functional 
equivalent  of  an  officer  or  employee  for  purposes  of  the"  1972 
Federal  Advisory  Committee  Act.  The  brief  cited  the  "long- 
standing tradition  of  public  service  by  the  Presidents'  spouses," 
including  Sarah  Polk,  Edith  Wilson,  Eleanor  Roosevelt,  Rosa- 
lynn  Carter,  and  Nancy  Reagan.  "The  Justice  Department  feels 
that  the  court  made  substantial  errors  both  in  interpreting  and  in 
applying  the  principles  of  constitutional  law,"  said  a  statement 
issued  by  the  department.  "The  department  believes  this  case  has 
implications  beyond  the  health-care  task  force  for  the  President's 
ability  to  seek  advice. "  The  health-care  task  force  and  the  500- 
plus  members  of  its  technical  working  groups  have  operated 
largely  in  secret  since  beginning  work  in  January.  The  official 
task  force,  which  includes  six  Cabinet  secretaries  and  several 
senior  White  House  officials,  is  scheduled  to  hold  its  first 
meeting— which  will  be  open  to  the  public— at  the  end  of  March. 
("Health  Task  Force  Ruling  Appealed,"  The  Washington  Post, 
March  23) 

MARCH  -  In  a  17-page  article,  Seymour  Hersh  documents  how 
the  world  was  "on  the  edge  of  a  nuclear  exchange  between 
Pakistan  and  India,  as  both  nations  continued  their  tug-of-war 
over  control  of  the  state  of  Kashmir,"  whose  status  has  been  in 
dispute  since  1947  when  the  British  Empire  collapsed  in  India. 
According  to  Hersh,  in  the  spring  of  1990,  Pakistan  and  India 
faced  off  in  the  most  dangerous  nuclear  confrontation  of  the 
post-war  era.  And  while  the  Bush  Administration  successftilly 
averted  disaster,  it  kept  the  crisis  secret,  even  from  Congress,  as 
it  also  kept  secret  the  extent  of  Pakistan's  covert  nuclear 
purchases  inside  the  United  States. 


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Seymour  observed: 

An  obvious  explanation  for  the  high-level  quiet  revolves 
around  the  fact,  haunting  to  some  in  the  intelligence  commu- 
nity, that  the  Reagan  Administration  had  dramatically  aided 
Pakistan  in  its  pursuit  of  the  bomb.  President  Reagan  and  his 
national-security  aides  saw  the  generals  who  ran  Pakistan  as 
loyal  allies  in  the  American  proxy  war  against  the  Soviet 
Union  in  Afghanistan:  driving  the  Russians  out  of  Afghani- 
stan was  considered  far  more  important  than  nagging 
Pakistan  about  its  building  of  bombs.  The  Reagan  Adminis- 
tration did  more  than  forgo  nagging,  however;  it  looked  the 
other  way  throughout  the  mid-nineteen-eighties  as  Pakistan 
assembled  its  nuclear  arsenal  with  the  aid  of  many  millions 
of  dollars'  worth  of  restricted,  high-tech  materials  bought 
inside  the  United  States.  Such  purchases  have  always  been 
illegal,  but  Congress  made  breaking  the  law  more  costly  in 
1985,  when  it  passed  the  Solarz  Amendment  to  the  Foreign 
Assistance  Act...,  providing  for  the  cutoff  of  all  military  and 
economic  aid  to  purportedly  non-nuclear  nations  that  illegally 
export  or  attempt  to  export  nuclear-related  materials  from  the 
United  States. 
("On  the  Nuclear  Edge,"  The  New  Yorker,  March  29) 

APRIL  -  The  Commerce  Department's  inspector  general  said 
the  Bush  Administration  misled  Congress  in  the  summer  of  1992 
by  sending  lawmakers  a  department  analysis  of  then-pending 
cable  TV  legislation  that  was  based  largely  on  data  supplied  by 
a  trade  group  lobbying  against  the  bill.  Inspector  General  Francis 
DeGeorge  said  the  department's  cable  report  "showed  bias"  and 
could  "endanger  the  fundamental  trust"  that  Congress  places  in 
statistical  analyses  produced  by  Commerce  officials. 

Controversy  over  the  analysis  began  just  as  the  House  was  to 
vote  on  legislation  re-regulating  cable  TV  prices.  Commerce 
officials  sent  Congress  documents  showing  that  passage  of  the 
bill  would  likely  saddle  the  cable  industry  with  added  administra- 
tion costs  of  between  $1.27  billion  and  $2.81  billion.  Commerce 
officials  told  Congress  that  the  cost  data  was  "prepared  by"  the 
National  Telecommunications  and  Information  Administration. 
The  report  rested  primarily  on  information  provided  by  the 
National  Cable  Television  Association,  an  industry  trade  group, 
and  by  a  consulting  firm  hired  by  them.  Both  the  Bush  Adminis- 
tration and  the  NCTA  were  lobbying  against  the  bill,  which 
became  law  in  October  after  Congress  overrode  President  Bush's 
veto. 

The  department's  use  of  the  industry  data  came  to  light  after 
the  NCTA  mailed  cable  subscribers  circulars  falsely  alleging  that 
Commerce  had  concluded  that  the  legislation  would  add  as  much 
as  $51  to  every  household's  cable  bill.  The  inspector's  report 
said  the  NCTA  "exploited"  Commerce's  credibility.  "What 
disturbed  us  was  that  the  cable  industry  was  able  to  virtually  rent 
the  prestige  of  the  U.S.  government,"  said  Rep.  Edward  Markey 
(D-Mass.),  the  author  of  the  House  cable  bill.  ("Bush  Adminis- 
tration Accused  of  Misleading  Hill  on  Cable  Bill,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  April  1) 


APRIL  -  At  the  National  Archives,  researchers  and  archivists 
are  quarreling  about  matters  of  literally  historic  proportions.  To 
the  researchers,  the  National  Archives  and  Records  Administra- 
tion is  more  than  the  repository  of  the  nation's  most  important 
historical  documents.  It  is  the  place  where  decisions  are  made 
today  about  what  documents  to  save  out  of  the  torrent  of 
information  pouring  out  of  federal  offices,  a  task  that  has  grown 
ever  more  complicated  with  the  explosion  of  computer-generated 
information. 

Growing  numbers  of  historians  complain  that  the  archives  are 
not  keeping  up  with  the  times.  They  and  other  critics  of  the 
archives,  including  Congress  and  several  federal  watchdog 
groups,  say  that  over  the  last  decade  the  agency  has  been  too 
passive  in  seeking  to  preserve  important  federal  records  and  has 
failed  to  develop  a  policy  concerning  preservation  of  electronic 
data.  They  also  say  that  the  archives  have  sometimes  foundered 
under  f>olitical  pressure.  The  critics  say  that  such  a  weakness 
could  simply  mean  the  loss  of  material  for  future  historians,  or, 
at  its  most  venal,  it  could  allow  officials  to  cover  up  crimes, 
distorting  history.  "Historians  care  very  much  about  the  preser- 
vation of  our  historical  legacy,"  said  Page  Miller,  director  of  the 
National  Coordinating  Committee  for  the  Promotion  of  History, 
"and  this  is  something  that  they  can  get  fighting  mad  about." 
("Battle  to  Save  U.S.  Files  From  the  Delete  Buttons,"  The  New 
York  Times,  April  11) 

APRIL  -  The  Clinton  Administration  appealed  the  ruling  of  U.S. 
District  Judge  Charles  Richey  that  White  House  computer  files 
must  be  preserved,  arguing:  "The  act  does  not  require  that  every 
scrap  of  information  be  saved."  The  appeal  continued:  "To 
require  preservation  of  information  for  potential  criminal 
investigations  or  historical  research,  places  undue  emphasis  on 
what  this  court  identified  as  only  one  purpose  of  the  act." 
("Administration  Appeals  Judge's  Ruling  on  Files,"  The 
Washington  Post,  April  18) 

MAY  -  Independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh  may  have  to  close 
down  his  6'/i-year  inquiry  into  the  Iran-contra  affair  without 
questioning  former  President  George  Bush  about  withholding 
from  investigators  his  secret  diary  about  the  scandal.  Walsh's 
office  was  engaged  in  backstage  negotiations  over  the  conditions 
sought  by  Bush's  attorneys  for  any  questioning,  but  these  have 
apparently  ended  in  an  impasse.  Unless  a  voluntary  agreement 
is  reached,  Walsh's  only  alternative  would  be  to  obtain  a  secret 
grand  jury  subpoena,  but  that  could  be  challenged  in  the  courts 
and  lead  to  still  more  delays  in  winding  up  the  investigation. 
Bush's  lawyers  were  unwilling  to  permit  as  wide-ranging  an 
interview  as  Walsh  and  his  prosecutors  wanted. 

One  of  Bush's  lawyers,  Wick  Sollers,  said  that  Bush  has 
been  cooperating  with  prosecutors  in  providing  documents 
"regarding  the  diary  issue,"  without  invoking  any  claims  of 
privilege.  He  said  the  last  batch  of  records,  from  former  White 
House  counsel  Boyden  Gray's  office,  was  retrieved  from  Bush 
library  holdings  in  College  Station,  Texas,  and  turned  over  to 


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Walsh's  office  within  the  last  week.  ("Bush,  Iran-Contra  Probers 
at  Odds  Over  Final  Interview, "  The  Washington  Post,  May  4) 

MAY  -  The  Pentagon  is  worried  that  a  federal  judge  in  Wash- 
ington will  spill  the  secrets  of  the  Air  Force's  F-117A  jet,  one 
of  the  Pentagon's  most  secret  weapons.  The  Defense  Department 
would  prosecute  any  foreign  spy  who  revealed  the  F-117A's 
stealth  technology,  which  bears  the  highest  security  classifica- 
tion. Judge  Robert  Hodges  Jr.  of  the  Court  of  Federal  Claims  is 
trying  to  force  the  Pentagon  to  reveal  secrets  about  this  technolo- 
gy in  a  massive  lawsuit  against  the  government  by  defense 
contractors  McDonnell  Douglas  Corp.  and  General  Dynamics 
Corp. 

No  one  can  recall  a  case  such  as  this  one,  in  which  a 
defendant  in  a  lawsuit  has  threatened  the  plaintiffs  with  felony 
charges  if  they  speak  to  their  own  attorneys  about  something.  In 
this  case  the  U.S.  government,  the  defendant,  has  threatened  to 
file  felony  charges— unauthorized  release  of  classified  data— 
against  company  employees  who  have  high-security  clearances 
and  who  give  information  about  sujjer-secret  stealth  technology 
to  their  employers'  attorneys.  The  Air  Force  is  appealing  the 
judge's  direct  order  that  it  answer  questions  about  the  F-117A, 
the  stealthy  B-2  bomber  and  a  stealthy  cruise  missile  called  the 
Tri-Service  Standoff  Attack  Missile.  This  is  prompting  a  legal 
showdown  that  could  determine  whether  a  judge  can  force  the 
government  to  reveal  secrets,  lawyers  said. 

The  companies  say  the  government  is  stalling  their 
multibillion-dollar  lawsuit.  And  Judge  Hodges  has  accused  the 
government  for  months  of  delaying  release  of  information. 

At  issue  is  the  cancellation  of  contracts  worth  billions  of 
dollars.  The  government  said  the  firms  were  at  fault  and  owed 
it  $1.4  billion  in  payments  advanced  to  them.  The  firms  said  it 
was  the  govenmient's  fault,  and  sued  to  collect  $1.6  billion  they 
had  lost.  With  $3  billion  at  stake,  there  is  no  mystery  why  the 
firms  have  spent  $30  million  on  the  case.  The  government  has 
released  1  million  pages  of  documents,  and  another  million  are 
coming.  The  companies'  lawsuit  is  based  on  the  long-held 
doctrine  that  someone  who  contracts  with  another  is  obligated  to 
explain  facts  needed  to  do  the  job.  But  the  government  contends 
it  was  not  obliged  to  tell  the  firms  how  to  do  the  job — "that's 
what  the  government  was  buying,"  a  federal  attorney  said.  ("In 
Stealth  Court  Fight,  Only  the  Ire  Is  Open,"  The  Washington 
Post,  May  9) 

MAY  -  In  federal  court,  the  Clinton  Justice  Department  defend- 
ed as  proper  a  controversial  agreement  giving  former  President 
George  Bush  exclusive  legal  control  of  the  computerized  records 
of  his  presidency.  White  House  communications  director  George 
Stephanopoulos  said  the  decision  to  support  the  agreement  was 
based  on  a  determination  that,  like  Bush's  White  House,  the 
Clinton  White  House  does  not  want  a  succeeding,  potentially 
unfriendly  administration  pawing  over  its  computer  memos.  The 
agreement,  signed  by  then- Archivist  Don  Wilson  on  January  19, 
hours  before  Bush  left  office,  enabled  the  outgoing  Administra- 


tion to  move  thousands  of  tapes  from  the  National  Security 
Council  and  other  White  House  offices  to  the  National  Archives 
just  before  Clinton  was  sworn  in. 

U.S.  District  Judge  Charles  Richey  listened  skeptically  to  the 
government's  claims  that  the  transfer  was  intended  to  preserve 
the  materials  in  line  with  court  orders  it  issued  in  early  January. 
Justice  Department  lawyer  David  Anderson  said  that  the  hurried 
transfer  of  tapes  was  "not  perfect,"  but  he  maintained  that  the 
flaws  in  the  operation— such  as  the  "accidental"  overwriting  of 
several  back-up  tapes— fell  far  short  of  contempt.  The  plaintiffs, 
led  by  Scott  Armstrong,  founder  of  the  nonprofit  National 
Security  Archive,  argued  that  the  last-minute  transfer  of  Bush 
records,  which  included  records  from  the  Reagan  era,  was 
carried  out  for  political,  not  preservationist,  reasons  and  that  the 
operation  has  endangered  the  taf>es.  ("Justice  Officials  Back 
Transfer  of  Bush  Records,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  18) 

MAY  -  Twenty-one  years  after  the  Watergate  break-in,  the 
conspiratorial  voice  of  Richard  Nixon  was  heard  again  on  tape, 
plotting  to  deflect  blame.  The  government  made  three  hours  of 
the  4,000  hours  recorded  by  Nixon's  secret  White  House  taping 
system  available  for  the  first  time  to  public  listening  at  the 
National  Archives.  The  25  conversations  cover  the  weeks 
immediately  before  and  after  June  17,  1972,  when  five  White 
House-sp)onsored  burglars  wearing  surgical  gloves  made  a  post- 
midnight  foray  into  the  offices  of  the  Democrats. 

The  National  Archives,  which  holds  Nixon's  42  million 
papers  and  tapes  in  a  warehouse  in  Alexandria,  Virginia, 
allowed  ref>orters  to  listen  to  the  tapes  in  a  windowless  room. 
The  public  now  has  the  same  access.  No  transcripts  exist  and  no 
copies  of  the  tapes  are  allowed  to  be  made.  Nixon  has  fought  for 
years— and  spent  $3  million— to  keep  the  content  of  the  tapes 
secret  and  to  regain  custody  of  them.  ("Three  Hours  of  Secret 
Nixon  Tapes  Are  Made  Public, "  The  Washington  Post,  May  1 8) 

MAY  -  Judge  Charles  Richey  cited  the  White  House  and  the 
Archivist  of  the  United  States  for  contempt  of  court  for  failing 
to  carry  out  his  order  to  preserve  the  computer  records  of  the 
Bush  and  Clinton  Administrations.  Judge  Richey  said  Bush 
Administration  officials  had  damaged  some  of  the  back-up 
computer  tapes  of  the  National  Security  Council  that  he  had 
ordered  preserved.  He  also  ruled  that  the  Clinton  Administration 
had  failed  to  write  proper  guidelines  to  preserve  new  White 
House  computer  records  adequately. 

Judge  Richey  said  if  the  Administration  failed  to  take  steps 
by  June  21  to  preserve  the  new  and  older  computer  files,  he 
would  begin  imposing  heavy  fines  on  the  defendants  named  in  a 
suit  seeking  to  protect  official  records.  Under  the  civil  contempt 
order  he  entered  today.  Judge  Richey  said  that  the  fines  on  the 
defendants  would  start  at  $50,000  a  day  for  the  first  week.  That 
would  double  the  next  weeks  to  $100,000  a  day  and  double 
again  the  week  after  that,  to  $200,000. 

A  spokeswoman  for  the  White  House  said  that  it  was 
disappointed  by  the  contempt  citation  and  that  the  Administration 


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was  writing  stronger  guidelines  to  protect  its  records.  The 
precise  contents  of  the  computer  records  have  never  been  made 
pubhc.  But  in  past  instances  White  House  computer  tapes  have 
been  known  to  hold  vast  amounts  of  significant  and  trivial 
information. 

In  his  opinion,  Judge  Richey  said  he  did  not  have  the 
authority  to  rule  on  an  agreement  by  the  former  Archivist,  Don 
Wilson,  that  gives  former  President  George  Bush  the  exclusive 
legal  control  of  the  computerized  records  of  his  Presidency.  ("A 
Judge  Issues  Contempt  Order  in  Archives  Case,"  The  New  York 
Times,  May  22) 

MAY  -  A  unanimous  Supreme  Court  rejected  the  Justice 
Department's  sweeping  assertion  that  all  sources  supplying 
information  to  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  in  a  criminal 
investigation  should  be  treated  as  "confidential"  and  thus  exempt 
from  disclosure  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  Congress 
never  gave  the  FBI  a  blanket  exemption  of  that  type,  either  in 
the  original  Freedom  of  Information  Act  in  1966,  or  in  later 
amendments.  Justice  Sandra  Day  O'Cormor  wrote  for  the  court. 
She  said  that  while  the  govermnent  did  not  have  to  demonstrate 
that  a  direct  promise  of  confidentiality  had  been  given,  it  had  at 
least  to  be  able  to  demonstrate  that  it  was  reasonable  to  infer 
under  the  circumstances  that  the  information  had  been  provided 
with  an  expectation  of  confidentiality.  The  case  before  the  court, 
U.S.  V.  Landano,  grew  out  of  a  long-running  effort  by  a  New 
Jersey  man,  Vincent  Landano,  to  prove  his  innocence  of  the 
murder  of  a  Newark  police  officer,  for  which  he  was  convicted 
in  1976.  ("Justices  Limit  Shielding  Sources  Who  Aid  F.B.I.," 
The  New  York  Times,  May  25) 

MAY  -  In  late  1992,  the  Justice  Department  spent  $29,233 
copying  thousands  of  pages  of  documents  for  the  personal 
archives  of  former  Attorney  General  Dick  Thomburgh,  govern- 
ment auditors  have  found.  Asked  if  he  thought  it  was  proper  to 
ask  the  Justice  Department  to  pay  nearly  $30,000  to  copy  his 
personal  papers,  Thomburgh  said,  "Beats  me.  I  don't  know  what 
it  costs.... That's  the  department's  call." 

In  the  final  months  of  the  Bush  Administration,  Justice 
Department  and  FBI  employees  were  told  to  photocopy  89  boxes 
of  documents  and  149  reels  of  microfilm  so  they  could  be 
shipped  to  a  Pittsburgh  warehouse  where  Thomburgh  keeps  his 
personal  papers.  Included  were  copies  of  documents  from  highly 
sensitive  law  enforcement  investigations. 

Recently  granted  limited  access  to  the  Thomburgh  archives. 
General  Accounting  Office  auditors  found  folders  on  some  of  the 
most  controversial  matters  during  his  1988-1991  tenure— among 
them  the  Iran-contra  affair  and  Inslaw,  the  Washington  computer 
firm  that  has  alleged  it  was  the  victim  of  a  massive  department- 
wide  conspiracy  to  steal  its  software.  Additionally,  the  auditors 
said  they  found  three  file  folders  with  non-sensitive  "original" 
documents  that  "should  have  been  retained"  by  the  Justice 
Department.  ("Justice  Dept.  Spent  $29,233  Copying  Papers  for 
Thomburgh,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  31) 


MAY  -  President  Clinton  is  more  than  four  months  late  in 
complying  with  the  law  calling  for  disclosure  of  most  secret 
records  about  the  assassination  of  President  John  Kennedy,  but 
aides  say  he  will  get  around  to  it  "shortly."  The  law  requires 
Clinton  to  make  nominations  to  a  special  five-member  review 
board  that  will  be  in  charge  of  the  process,  especially  the  ticklish 
questions  of  what  constitutes  an  "assassination  record"  under  the 
statute  Congress  enacted  last  year  and  whether  it  can  still  be  kept 
secret. 

Recommendations  for  the  board  first  went  to  the  White 
House  when  George  Bush  was  President.  But  as  Clinton  moved 
in,  aides  say,  the  paperwork  moved  out.  Recommendations 
required  by  the  law  from  the  American  Historical  Association, 
the  Organization  of  American  Historians,  the  Society  of  Ameri- 
can Archivists,  and  the  American  Bar  Association  were  boxed  up 
to  be  sent  to  College  Station,  Texas,  along  with  millions  of  other 
documents  destined  for  the  future  George  Bush  presidential 
library.  "The  paperwork  got  shipped  off  campus,  and  we  had  to 
get  it  resubmitted,"  said  deputy  White  House  press  secretary 
Lorraine  Voles.  ("JFK  Assassination  Records  Caught  Up  in 
Transition,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  31) 

JUNE  -  President  Clinton's  announcement  on  May  31  that  he 
had  ordered  the  declassification  of  all  but  a  tiny  fraction  of 
military  documents  on  Americans  who  did  not  return  from 
the  Vietnam  War  represents  only  a  small  change  from  Bush 
Administration  policy.  In  July,  President  Bush  ordered  the 
declassification  of  200,000  pages  of  State  Department  papers 
and  2,600  pages  of  Central  Intelligence  Agency  materials 
related  to  the  2,260  American  servicemen  listed  as  unac- 
counted for  in  the  Vietnam  War,  Administration  officials  said 
today.  The  officials  added  that  in  1991  Congress  ordered  that 
the  military  declassify  1.5  million  pages  of  Defense  Depart- 
ment documents. 

One  major  difference  is  that  Mr.  Clinton's  order  set  a 
date — Veterans  Day,  Nov.  1 1 — for  the  documents  to  be  made 
public.  In  contrast,  Mr.  Bush's  order  asked  that  the  docu- 
ments be  released  as  soon  as  possible.  So  far,  about  100,000 
pages  of  military  documents,  100,000  pages  of  State  Depart- 
ment papers  and  "several  hundred"  pages  of  C.I.  A.  reports 
have  been  made  public,  a  White  House  official  said  today. 
The  official  added  that  they  had  received  few  complaints 
about  the  pace  of  declassification. 

("Clinton's  Order  on  M.I.  A.  Data  a  Small  Shift,"  The  New  York 

Times,  June  2) 

JUNE  -  In  an  "Outlook"  article,  Tom  Blanton,  of  the  National 
Security  Archive,  wrote  of  the  need  to  overhaul  the  U.S. 
government's  enormous  secrecy  system.  The  good  news  is  that 
in  April  President  Clinton  ordered  the  first  post-Cold  War 
review  of  the  secrecy  system — a  move  that  could  result  in  the 
release  of  millions  of  currently  secret  documents  and  a  wholesale 
rewriting  of  20th-century  American  history.  The  bad  news  is  that 
the  bureaucrats  doing  the  reviewing  are   the  mostly  career 


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officials  who  built  the  system,  the  U.S.  equivalent  of  the  former 
Soviet  Union's  nomenklatura,  and  the  least  likely  source  of 
necessary  major  change.  Blanton  observed,  "The  secrecy 
system,  in  short,  is  well  fortified  against  President  Clinton's 
good  intentions. " 

Blanton  believes  change  in  the  secrecy  system  is  long 
overdue.  "The  U.S.  government  remains  the  envy  of  the  world 
for  its  openness,  but  on  the  most  sensitive  govenmient  informa- 
tion America  is  rapidly  losing  its  competitive  advantage.  And  to 
the  Russians,  no  less."  He  says  that  the  dirty  little  secret  of  the 
post-Cold  War  era  is  that  the  wall  has  not  fallen  here  at  home. 
Historians  actually  have  more  access  to  KGB  and  Politburo 
documents  on  the  Soviet  invasion  of  Afghanistan  in  1979  than  to 
CIA  documents  on  the  U.S.  overthrow  of  Mossadegh  in  Iran  in 
1953. 

Blanton  concludes  that  without  "radical  surgery  on  the 
secrecy  bureaucracy,  the  Clinton  Administration,  like  its 
predecessors,  will  continue  to  generate  useless  secrets,  at 
enormous  cost  to  the  taxpayers  and  to  our  democratic  system  of 
government.  And  if  that  argument  won't  work,  let's  try  a  more 
familiar  one.  In  acceding  to  the  request  of  Russian  scholars, 
President  Yeltsin  announced  that  the  Kremlin's  Presidential 
Archive  will  be  handed  over  for  declassification  beginning  this 
summer.  When  it  comes  to  dismantling  the  culture  of  secrecy, 
how  about  we  at  least  stay  ahead  of  the  Russians?"  ("Canceling 
the  Classifieds,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  6) 

JUNE  -  U.S.   District  Judge  Charles  Richey  refused  to  grant  a 


stay  of  his  civil  contempt  citation  against  the  Clinton  White 
House  and  the  acting  Archivist  of  the  United  States  for  failing  to 
preserve  and  protect  computer  tapes  during  the  Reagan  and  Bush 
Administrations.  Richey  said  the  defendants  have  "dilly-dallied, 
done  little,  and  delayed  for  the  past  five  months  rather  than 
make  serious  efforts  to  comply"  with  his  orders  to  preserve  the 
electronic  federal  records  at  issue.  "The  crux  of  this  lawsuit  is 
the  preservation  of  the  history  of  this  country  begiiming  with  the 
Administrations  of  President  Reagan  and  Bush  and,  more 
specifically,  the  preservation  of  electronic  records,"  Richey  said. 
Those  records  include  e-mail  and  logs  containing  information 
that  Richey  said  "historians  and  others  need  to  know  about  what 
essential  people  in  the  govenmient  knew  and  when  they  knew 
it." 

The  Administration  contended  that  meeting  Richey's  June  21 
deadline  to  preserve  and  repair  the  tap)es  "would  result  in 
significant  and  irreparable  disruption  of  White  House  opera- 
tions." It  secured  a  June  15  hearing  date  before  the  U.S.  Circuit 
Court  of  Appeals  here  and  asked  Richey  to  stay  his  contempt 
order  while  the  case  is  on  appeal.  Richey  refused,  saying  the 
government  has  admitted  that  preserving  the  approximately  300 
tapes  in  immediate  need  of  copying  is  "possible  if  no  unforeseen 
problems  arise."  He  said  a  stay  would  be  "particularly  inappro- 
priate in  this  case"  because  the  defendants  caused  their  own 
difficulties  by  transferring  almost  6,000  tapes  on  January  19-20 
from  the  White  House,  which  was  equipp>ed  to  make  copies,  to 
the  Archives,  which  is  not.  ("Administration  Loses  Ruling  on 
Computer  Tapes,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  9) 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  bean  compiled  in  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods  April  1981 -Decem- 
ber 1987  and  Januafy  1 988-December  1991.  L»ss  Access...  updates  are  available  for  ^1.00;  the  1981-1987  volume  is 
$7.00;  the  1988-1991  volume  is  $10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Association  Washington  Office,  1 10  Mary- 
land Ave.,  NE,  Washington,  DC  20002-5675;  202-547-4440,  fax  202-547-7363.  AU  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  include 
a  self -addressed  mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  Office 


10 


June  1993 


KF5^7  5:? 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Offics 

110  Maryland  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel:  202-547-4440     Fax:  202-547-7363     Email:  alawash@alawash.org 

Dac«mbar  1993 


LESS  ACCESS  TO  LESS  INFORMATION  B'T  ^ 
THE  U.S.  GOVERNMENT:  XXI  '^ 

A  1993  Chronology:  June  -  December 


■x^"^- 


ABOUT 


INTRODUCTION 

For  the  past  13  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  Administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the 
government's  16,000  publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since 
1985,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its 
government  information  control  powers,  particularly  through 
Circular  A- 130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources. 
OMB  issued  a  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  July  2,  1993, 
Federal  Register,  changing  its  restrictive  interpretation  of  the 
definition  of  "government  publication"  to  which  ALA  had 
objected  in  OMB's  draft  circulars. 

In  their  first  year  in  office,  the  Clinton  Administration  has 
improved  public  access  to  govenunent  information.  The  Presi- 
dent signed  P.L.  103-40,  the  Government  Printing  Office 
Electronic  Information  Access  Enhancement  Act,  which  will 
provide  electronic  government  information  to  the  public  through 
the  Depository  Library  Program.  Government  information  is 
more  accessible  through  computer  networks  and  the  Freedom  of 
Information  Act.  The  Administration's  national  information 
infrastructure  initiatives  include  government  stimulus  for 
connectivity  and  applications  in  health  care,  education,  libraries, 
and  provision  of  government  information. 

However,  there  are  still  barriers  to  access.  For  example,  a 
legal  challenge  was  raised  over  what  records  the  President's 
Task  Force  on  National  Health  Care  Reform  was  required  to 
maintain.  Controversy  resulted  when  the  White  House  decided 
the  hundreds  of  members  of  the  task  force  were  allowed  to  meet 
in  secret  because  they  were  not  covered  under  public  meeting 
laws.  National  Performance  Review  recommendations  to 
"reinvent  government"  to  have  every  federal  agency  responsible 
for  disseminating  information  to  the  nation's  1,400  depository 
libraries  could  result  in  a  literal  "tower  of  babel"  as  the  Ameri- 


can public  would  be  forced  to  search  through  hundreds  of  federal 
agencies  for  publications  they  need. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  use 
computer  and  telecommunication  technologies  for  data  collection, 
storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend  has  resulted  in 
the  increased  emergence  of  contractual  arrangements  with  com- 
mercial firms  to  disseminate  information  collected  at  taxpayer 
expense,  higher  user  charges  for  government  information,  and 
the  proliferation  of  government  information  available  in  elec- 
tronic format  only.  While  automation  clearly  offers  promises  of 
savings,  will  public  access  to  government  information  be  further 
restricted  for  jjeople  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for 
computer  time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have 
begun  to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public 
access  to  government  information  should  be  increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolution 
passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and  ready 
access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in 
any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States."  In  1986, 
ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Information.  The 
Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts 
that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and  to  develop 
support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government  information. 

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


Less  Access.. 


June  -  December  1993 


CHRONOLOGY 

JUNE  -  An  editorial  in  The  New  York  Times  cautioned  President 
and  Mrs.  Clinton  to  "ask  themselves  whether  Clinton  voters  sent 
them  to  Washington  to  damage  open  government,  by  both 
example  and  litigation."  The  editorial  concerned  the  decision  in 
federal  court  that  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton  is  "the  functional 
equivalent  of  an  assistant  to  the  President"  and  not,  under  certain 
laws,  a  private  citizen.  Thus,  her  advisors  in  the  development  of 
a  health  plan  may  legally  continue  to  hide  their  work  from  public 
inspection.  The  newspaper  observed:  "It  doesn't  mean  that  they 
should  do  so.  They're  still  free  to  open  their  deliberations,  thus 
honoring  campaign  pledges  of  open  government." 

Mrs.  Clinton  is  the  only  person  not  on  the  public  payroll  of 
the  Cabinet-level  task  force  on  health  reform  that  she  headed. 
But  the  U.S.  Court  of  Appeals,  relying  heavily  on  Congress's 
appropriations  for  the  staff  of  the  First  Lady,  found  her  a  public 
servant  for  the  purposes  of  the  Federal  Advisory  Committee  Act, 
passed  in  1972  to  let  the  public  in  on  meetings  of  private  groups 
that  use  meetings  with  federal  officials  to  press  private  agendas. 
("A  Very  Private  Public  Servant,"  The  New  York  Times,  June 
29) 

JULY  -  The  investigation  of  independent  counsel  Joseph 
diGenova  into  possible  criminal  activity  by  Bush  White  House 
and  State  Department  officials  has  been  split  into  two  separate 
investigative  tracks  as  diGenova' s  staff  looks  into  the  pre- 
election search  of  President  Clinton's  passport  files.  Attorneys 
for  Steven  Berry,  former  acting  assistant  secretary  of  state  for 
congressional  affairs  and  currently  a  minority  employee  of  the 
Senate  Foreign  Relations  Committee,  have  refused  to  respond  to 
a  subpoena  for  records.  In  sealed  motions  and  hearings  before 
Chief  U.S.  District  Judge  John  Garrett  Penn,  they  have  argued 
that  the  independent  counsel  inquiry  was  based  on  notes  of  Berry 
telephone  conversations  in  September  and  October  1992  that 
were  illegally  overheard  by  State  Department  employees.  Neither 
diGenova  nor  Berry  attorney,  Theodore  Olson,  would  discuss  the 
matter. 

The  independent  counsel  investigation  was  ordered  last 
December  following  allegations  that  one  or  more  senior  officials 
in  the  Bush  White  House  lied  to  State  Department  inspector 
general  personnel  about  the  uinusual  search  of  passport  and 
consular  files.  The  diGenova  inquiry  also  was  supposed  to 
determine  whether  Bush  officials  illegally  disseminated  informa- 
tion from  Clinton's  files.  ("Clinton  Passport  File  Inquiry  Hits 
Snags,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  8) 

JULY  -  The  Clinton  Administration's  welfare-reform  planners 
issued  a  press  release  to  pledge  their  "open  and  collaborative 
process"  and  promised  to  consult  many  "real  people"  and 
provide  "a  series  of  working  papers"  to  anyone  interested.  The 
article  continued,  however:  "As  a  practical  matter,  the  welfare 
plaimers,  whose  task  is  to  draft  legislation  fulfilling  President 
Clinton's  campaign  promise  to  'end  welfare  as  we  know  it,'  are 


likely  to  conduct  their  most  important  business  in  private. "  The 
openness  of  the  welfare  planners  was  contrasted  with  the  secrecy 
of  the  Task  Force  on  National  Health  Care  Reform.  ("Clinton's 
Welfare  Planners  Vow  an  Open  Process,"  The  New  York  Times, 
July  9) 

JULY  -  John  Lane,  chief  information  officer  of  the  Securities 
and  Exchange  Commission,  said  it  would  cost  too  much  for  the 
government  to  offer  information  from  the  Electronic  Data 
Gathering,  Analysis  and  Retrieval  (EDGAR)  system  directly 
over  Internet  as  requested  by  the  Taxpayer  Assets  Project,  the 
public-interest  group  that  has  been  battling  the  SEC  for  general 
public  access  to  EDGAR  data.  Responding  to  a  request  from 
Rep.  Edward  Markey  (D-Mass.),  chairman  of  the  House  Energy 
and  Commerce  Committee  Subcommittee  on  Telecommunica- 
tions and  Finance,  SEC  officials  calculated  that  it  would  cost 
$775,000  the  first  year  they  began  making  the  system's  data 
accessible  on  Internet.  Each  subsequent  year  would  cost  about 
$400,000.  Lane  said  the  cost  to  taxpayers  would  be  less  if  the 
agency  sells  EDGAR  data  to  third-party  vendors  that  would,  in 
turn,  sell  it  to  Internet  users.  "If  we  wait  and  do  nothing,  the 
market  will  begin  to  take  over,"  Lane  said.  "It  would  not  be 
necessary  for  us  to  put  EDGAR  data  on  the  Internet  today." 

James  Love,  director  of  the  Taxpayer  Assets  Project,  accused 
Lane  of  bowing  to  the  interest  of  Mead  Data  Central,  which  is 
the  EDGAR  subcontractor  that  will  sell  the  data  to  third-party 
vendors  for  a  profit.  "John  Lane  has  no  commitment  to  data 
users,"  Love  said.  "He  should  wake  up  and  smell  the  coffee  and 
figure  out  that  he  works  for  the  government  and  not  Mead  Data 
Central."  Love  said  the  SEC's  calculations  indicate  that  Internet 
access  to  EDGAR  data  would  cost  less  than  20  cents  per 
document.  He  said  a  typical  vendor  would  charge  much 
more— between  $10  and  $50  for  online  access  to  a  financial 
report.  He  added  that  the  projected  costs  for  allowing  access  to 
data  via  Internet  are  minor  when  compared  with  the  $100  million 
price  of  installing  EDGAR.  "The  whole  purpose  of  the  system 
is  to  provide  disclosure,"  Love  said. 

EDGAR,  which  went  online  in  1993,  will  receive  fmancial 
data  from  15,000  U.S.  businesses  when  it  becomes  fully 
operational  in  1996.  ("SEC  Exec  Calls  Internet  Access  to 
EDGAR  Too  Expensive,"  Federal  Computer  Week,  July  12) 

[Ed.  Note:  An  October  22  New  York  Times  article,  "Plan  Opens 
More  Data  to  Public,"  reported  that  the  National  Science 
Foundation  is  financing  a  test  that  will  make  the  EDGAR  online 
database  of  financial  data  available  free  via  the  Internet  computer 
network.  The  project,  financed  with  a  $660,000  two-year  grant, 
is  being  undertaken  by  the  Stem  School  of  Business  at  New 
York  University  and  a  small  Washington  company,  the  Internet 
Multicasting  Service.] 

JULY  -  In  April  1993,  the  Defense  Department  commissioned 


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June  -  December  1993 


two  studies  on  how  to  carry  out  President  Clinton's  intention  to 
lift  the  military's  ban  on  homosexuals.  One,  conducted  by  a 
panel  of  generals  and  admirals,  led  to  new  policy.  But  the 
Pentagon  is  reftising  to  make  public  the  other  one,  a  $1.3  million 
report  by  the  Rand  Corporation,  a  research  group  with  long- 
standing ties  to  the  military.  Executive  summaries  of  the  Rand 
report,  "Homosexuals  and  U.S.  Military  Persoimel  Policy: 
Policy  Options  and  Assessment,"  as  well  as  briefing  slides 
presented  to  Secretary  of  Defense  Les  Aspin,  were  provided  to 
The  New  York  Times  by  individuals  who  felt  the  study  should  be 
made  public. 

The  Rand  report  concluded  that  gay  men  and  lesbians  could 
serve  openly  in  the  armed  forces  if  its  proposed  policy  were 
given  strong  support  from  the  military's  senior  leaders,  and  it 
offered  a  detailed  plan  for  carrying  out  the  President's  order. 
But  it  was  the  study  by  the  panel  of  generals  and  admirals,  who 
maintained  that  open  homosexuality  would  undermine  discipline 
and  combat  readiness,  that  prevailed.  Aspin  said  that  he  tried  to 
draft  a  plan  closer  to  President  Clinton's  original  promise  to  lift 
the  ban  entirely,  but  that  the  compromise  that  eventually 
emerged  was  the  best  he  could  negotiate  with  the  Joint  Chiefs, 
whose  support  was  essential  to  win  approval  in  Congress. 
("Pentagon  Keeps  Silent  on  Rejected  Gay  Troop  Plan,"  The  New 
York  Times,  July  23) 

AUGUST  -  On  June  30,  U.S.  Court  of  Appeals  Judge  Norma 
HoUoway  Johnson  ordered  the  Department  of  Education  to 
release  documents  from  its  1986  review  of  Maryland's  special- 
education  programs.  The  decision,  resulting  from  a  case  brought 
by  the  Maryland  Coalition  for  Inclusive  Education,  could 
increase  the  public's  access  to  information  about  how  states 
comply  with  federal  laws.  The  parent-advocacy  group  took  the 
Department  to  court  in  1989  after  its  requests  to  see  a  draft 
report  and  other  documents  from  the  federal  agency's  1986 
monitoring  review  of  Maryland  were  refused. 

Federal  officials  claimed  the  documents  were  exempt  from 
scrutiny  under  the  "deliberative  process"  privilege  of  the 
Freedom  of  Information  Act.  That  privilege  allows  public 
agencies  to  withhold  documents  that  are  prepared  before  a  legal 
or  policy  determination  is  made.  But  the  judge  said  the  privilege 
did  not  apply  in  this  case  because  no  policy  was  being  consid- 
ered, rather  the  materials  at  issue  "assess  how  well  existing 
policies  are  being  implemented  by  the  state  of  Maryland."  Mark 
Mlawer,  the  executive  director  of  the  advocacy  group,  praised 
the  judge's  decision.  "What  this  does  is  insure  that  the  Depart- 
ment of  Education  can  no  longer  shut  parents  and  advocates  out 
of  the  compliance  process,"  he  said.  ("E.D.  Ordered  to  Release 
Papers  in  Special-Ed.  Case,"  Education  Week,  August  4) 

AUGUST  -  The  General  Accounting  Office  reported  that  it  had 
found  "questionable"  the  accuracy  and  reliability  in  three 
federally  funded  annually  drug  use  surveys,  widely  regarded  as 
the  government's  best  barometers  for  measuring  progress  in  the 
war  on  narcotics.  The  three  surveys  the  GAO  criticized  are  the 


National  Household  Survey  on  Drug  Abuse;  the  High  School 
Senior  Survey,  which  tracks  drug  use  patterns  and  trends  in 
public  and  private  high  schools;  and  the  Drug  Use  Forecasting 
project,  which  studies  drug  use  among  those  charged  with  crimes 
and  is  used  by  local  law  enforcement  agencies  in  plaiming  anti- 
drug abuse  and  treatment  programs. 

The  GAO  said  it  found  "methodological  problems"  that 
skewed  the  validity  of  the  surveys,  resulting  sometimes  in  overly 
conservative  estimates  of  drug  use  and  sometimes  in  exaggerated 
estimates.  GAO  recommended  that  self-reporting  data  should  be 
validated  by  objective  techniques,  such  as  testing  of  hair 
samples,  and  that  surveys  should  be  redesigned  so  that  nonwhites 
are  adequately  sampled. 

Rep.  John  Conyers  Jr.  (D-Mich.),  chairman  of  the  House 
Committee  on  Government  Operations,  said  that  the  GAO  results 
confirmed  his  long-held  suspicion  that  such  surveys  have 
misdiagnosed  the  extent  of  the  nation's  drug  problem.  "Our 
national  drug  control  strategies  are  based  on  unsubstantiated  and 
insufficient  information,"  said  Conyers,  who  released  the  report. 
The  surveys  cost  more  than  $17  million  aimually.  ("Validity  of 
Drug  Use  Surveys  Questioned,"  The  Washington  Post,  August 
4) 

AUGUST  -  The  Internal  Revenue  Service  pledged  to  strengthen 
safeguards  set  up  to  ensure  taxpayer  records  are  kept  confidential 
after  being  assailed  by  members  of  the  Senate  Governmental 
Affairs  Committee  over  a  breakdown  in  computer  security  that 
allowed  IRS  workers  to  browse  through  tax  records.  The 
testimony  of  IRS  Commissioner  Margaret  Milner  Richardson 
followed  the  release  of  a  report  that  showed  almost  370  of  the 
agency's  employees  in  the  Southeast  Region  have  been  investi- 
gated or  disciplined  for  creating  fraudulent  tax  refunds  or 
browsing  through  tax  returns  of  friends,  relatives,  neighbors, 
and  celebrities. 

Addressing  Richardson,  committee  Chairman  John  Glenn 
(D-Ohio),  said,  "I  feel  very  strongly  about  protecting  the 
integrity  of  the  tax  system,  and  I  told  you  we  will  not  tolerate 
anything  that  will  impinge  on  that  integrity  or  the  credibility  of 
the  American  people. "  But  Richardson  rebuffed  a  suggestion  by 
Sen.  David  Pryor  (D-Ark.)  that  the  IRS  notify  the  taxpayers 
whose  files  were  improperly  reviewed.  "I'm  not  sure  there 
would  be  a  serious  value  to  that  in  terms  of  tax  administration  or 
in  connection  with  what  I  see  as  protecting  the  taxpayers' 
rights,"  she  said.  Pryor  told  her  he  would  continue  to  press  for 
taxpayer  notification:  "I'm  going  to  really  come  down  hard.... I 
think  anyone  that  we  can  identify  whose  files  have  been  browsed 
for  no  official  reason,  I  think  that  taxpayer  needs  to  know." 

Few  details  emerged  at  the  hearing  on  how  IRS  regional 
employees  created  bogus  refunds.  An  IRS  investigative  report 
released  by  the  committee  said  that  four  employees  are  facing 
criminal  prosecution.  "In  one  case,"  the  IRS  report  said,  "an 
employee  prepared  over  200  fraudulent  tax  returns  and  moni- 
tored the  refunds"  on  IRS  computers.  The  report  suggested  that 
the  fake  refunds  cost  the  government  more  than  $300,000.  In 


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answering  questions,  Richardson  pointed  out  that  IRS's  internal 
audit  staff  had  uncovered  the  employee  violations  and  shared  the 
information  with  the  General  Accounting  Office.  The  IRS  audit 
examined  the  Integrated  Data  Retrieval  System,  a  database  of 
taxpayer  accounts  used  by  56,000  IRS  workers  nationwide. 
Richardson  said  the  IRS  is  developing  a  "comprehensive  review" 
of  computer  security  issues  that  will  improve  the  agency's  ability 
to  detect  "inappropriate  use."  ("Accused  of  Failing  to  Protect 
Data,  IRS  Says  It  will  Buttress  Safeguards,"  The  Washington 
Post,  August  5) 

AUGUST  -  Former  President  Richard  Nixon  won  a  court  order 
that  blocks  the  National  Archives  from  releasing  four  hours  of 
White  House  conversations  taped  during  July  and  August  1972 
following  the  Watergate  break-in.  The  injunction  granted  by 
U.S.  District  Judge  Royce  Lamberth  could  mean  it  will  be 
several  years  before  the  Archives  releases  new  tapes  of  conver- 
sations secretly  recorded  during  the  Nixon  presidency.  The 
Archives  had  announced  it  would  release  the  tapes,  which 
contain  portions  of  39  separate  conversations,  in  two  stages  on 
August  13  and  August  26. 

Judge  Lamberth  said  the  Archives  could  not  release  the  four 
hours  of  taped  conversations  until  it  complied  with  a  1979 
agreement  with  Nixon  in  which  the  agency  promised  to  return  to 
Nixon  all  private  or  personal  taped  material  and  to  release  the 
tapes  as  an  "integral  file  segment."  That  agreement,  Lamberth 
said,  means  the  Archives  must  release  all  of  its  Nixon 
tapes — about  4,000  hours  in  length — at  one  time.  Nixon's 
lawyer,  R.  Stan  Mortenson,  told  Lamberth  yesterday  the 
Archives  has  not  returned  any  private  material  since  the  Ar- 
chives took  custody  of  the  tapes  in  1977. 

Lamberth's  ruling  is  the  second  major  court  victory  Nixon 
has  won  in  the  past  year  in  his  long  struggle  to  prevent  the  tapes 
from  being  disclosed.  In  November  1992,  the  U.S.  Court  of 
Appeals  ruled  that  because  Nixon  had  a  property  interest  in  the 
tapes  and  his  official  papers,  the  government  must  pay  him  for 
keeping  the  material  under  government  control.  That  case  is 
pending.  The  new  ruling  came  in  a  separate  case  brought  by  a 
history  professor  and  the  Public  Citizen  group  to  force  the 
Archives  to  speed  its  release  of  the  tapes.  Nixon's  lawyers 
intervened,  alleging  that  releasing  the  new  segments  would 
violate  Nixon's  right  to  privacy  and  his  rights  under  his  agree- 
ment with  the  Archives.  ("Nixon  Wins  Court  Order  Blocking 
Release  of  Tapes  by  Archives,"  The  Washington  Post,  August 
10). 

AUGUST  -  A  federal  appeals  court  rejected  Clinton  Administra- 
tion appeals  and  held  that  the  government  must  preserve 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  White  House  computer  messages  and 
memos  from  the  Reagan  and  Bush  presidencies.  The  three-judge 
panel  unanimously  rejected  the  government's  contention  that 
electronic  materials  do  not  have  to  be  saved  and  that  only  paper 
printouts  need  to  be  kept  under  federal  law.  Electronic  materials 
and  their  paper  versions  cannot  accurately  be  termed  copies" 


when  frequently  they  are  "only  cousins — perhaps  distant  ones  at 
that,"  the  court  said.  Too  much  important  information,  such  as 
who  sent  a  document,  who  received  it  and  when  it  was  received 
can  be  gleaned  only  from  the  computer  record,  the  judges  said. 

The  decision  was  reached  in  a  case  originally  filed  in  1989, 
Armstrong  v.  Executive  Office  of  the  President,  in  which  the 
American  Library  Association  is  one  of  the  plaintiffs.  "This 
ruling  is  a  breakthrough  for  government  accountability  in  the 
electronic  age,"  said  Tom  Blanton,  the  National  Security 
Archive's  executive  director.  The  group's  founder,  Scott 
Armstrong,  said  it  also  "sends  a  clear  message"  to  the  Clinton 
White  House,  which  is  still  operating  under  Reagan-and  Bush- 
era  guidelines. 

The  ruling  affirms  a  January  1993  decision  by  U.S.  District 
Judge  Charles  Richey,  who  ordered  preservation  of  nearly  6,000 
magnetic  tapes  and  hard  disks  made  at  the  White  House  in  the 
Reagan  and  Bush  Administrations  and  held  that  WTiite  House 
plans  to  destroy  most  of  them  were  unlawful.  The  chief  lawyer 
for  the  plaintiffs,  Michael  Tankersley,  called  the  ruling  "a 
landmark  victory"  that  will  affect  every  government  agency.  Up 
to  now,  he  said,  very  few  have  regarded  their  computer  records 
as  subject  to  the  Federal  Records  Act  or  Freedom  of  Information 
Act.  ("Court  Orders  Computer  Memos  Saved,"  The  Washington 
Post,  August  14) 

AUGUST  -  In  an  op-ed  piece,  Arthur  Oleinick  and  Jeremy 
Gluck  of  the  School  of  Public  Health  at  the  University  of 
Michigan  maintained  that  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  grossly 
underestimates  the  seriousness  of  workplace  injuries— as 
measured  by  missed  workdays — by  a  factor  between  four  and 
nine.  For  example,  their  data  suggested  that,  as  a  result  of 
injuries  that  occurred  in  1986,  American  workers  will  miss  up 
to  420  million  workdays.  But  the  federal  statistics  on  injured 
workers  maintained  that  these  workers  will  lose  only  about  47 
million  workdays  from  those  accidents.  The  authors  say  that  for 
policy  makers  who  must  curb  the  many  dangers  of  employment, 
the  federal  survey  results  are  critical.  It  is  just  as  important  as 
the  data  about  car  accidents  and  design  problems  that  inspired 
the  nation's  automotive  safety  laws. 

The  authors"  contend  that  this  gross  inaccuracy  about 
important  health  and  safety  data  carries  ominous  implications  for 
public  policy,  particularly  when  the  nation  is  on  the  brink  of 
health  reform.  Those  who  shape  economic  or  health  policies  will 
believe  the  job  injury  problem  is  only  a  fraction  of  what  it  really 
is — and  treat  it  accordingly.  The  reasons  for  the  woeful  underes- 
timations  are  the  source  and  timing  of  the  federal  data.  In  the 
first  half  of  each  year,  the  BLS  asks  a  sampling  of  employers  to 
report  the  number  of  job-related  injuries,  and  the  missed  work 
time,  that  their  workers  experienced  in  the  year  before.  The 
situations  of  two  groups  present  great  difficulties  and  are  the 
likely  cause  of  the  badly  flawed  estimates:  workers  who  are  still 
on  the  mend  at  survey  time,  and  workers  who  have  returned  to 
work  by  then  but  later  suffer  relapses. 

The  authors  survey  focused  on  Michigan  in  1986  and  used 


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worker  compensation  records  to  calculate  workday  absences. 
These  after-the-fact  records  avoid  the  "dangerous"  predictions 
of  the  federal  data.  By  their  measures,  for  injuries  incurred  in 
1986,  Michigan  workers  missed  between  7.5  million  and  16.1 
million  workdays.  The  corresponding  federal  number  for  these 
injuries  is  1.9  million  days.  ("Faulty  Data  Play  Down  Job 
Injuries,"  The  New  York  Times,  August  15) 

AUGUST  -  Officials  in  the  "Star  Wars"  project  rigged  a  crucial 
1984  test  and  faked  other  data  in  a  program  of  deception  that 
misled  Congress  as  well  as  the  Soviet  Union,  four  former 
Reagan  Administration  officials  said.  The  deception  was 
designed  to  feed  the  Kremlin  half-truths  and  lies  about  the 
project,  the  officials  said.  It  helped  persuade  the  Soviets  to  spend 
tens  of  billions  of  dollars  to  counter  the  American  effort  to 
develop  a  space-based  shield  against  nuclear  attack.  But  the 
deceptive  information  originally  intended  for  consumption  in  the 
Kremlin  also  seeped  into  closed  briefings  that  helped  persuade 
Congress  to  spend  more  money  on  strategic  defense,  according 
to  the  former  Reagan  Administration  officials.  The  test  also 
deceived  news  organizations,  which  reported  it  widely.  A 
military  officer  said  the  use  of  deception  should  be  seen  in  the 
context  of  the  cold  war,  when  disinformation  was  a  weapon  used 
by  both  sides. 

The  former  officials  said  the  deception  program  was 
approved  by  Caspar  Weinberger,  the  Secretary  of  Defense  from 
1981  to  1987.  Weinberger  would  not  confirm  or  deny  that  he 
had  approved  the  deception.  But  he  said  that  Congress  was  not 
deceived  and  that  deceiving  one's  enemies  is  natural  and 
necessary  to  any  major  military  initiative.  In  June  1993,  the 
General  Accounting  Office  completed  eight  classified  reports  that 
concluded  the  Pentagon  had  deliberately  misled  Congress  in  the 
1980s  about  the  cost,  the  performance,  and  the  necessity  of  the 
most  expensive  weapons  systems  built  for  nuclear  war  against 
the  Soviet  Union.  The  reports  did  not  cover  the  missile  defense 
project.  ("Lies  and  Rigged  'Star  Wars'  Test  Fooled  the  Kremlin, 
and  Congress,"  The  New  York  Times,  August  18) 

AUGUST  -  U.S.  District  Judge  John  Garrett  Penn  has  ruled  that 
the  1992  monitoring  of  phone  conversations  by  the  Operations 
Office  of  the  State  Department  was  unlawful,  according  to 
informed  sources.  Penn's  sealed  opinion  came  in  response  to  one 
of  several  motions  filed  in  connection  with  the  inquiry  by 
independent  counsel  Joseph  diGenova  into  possible  criminal 
activity  by  Bush  White  House  and  State  Department  officials  in 
the  pre-election  search  of  President  Clinton's  passport  files.  The 
ruling  did  not  block  the  continuing  inquiry  but  could  slow  it 
down  with  further  closed-door  legal  maneuvering.  The  monitor- 
ing was  done  without  the  knowledge  of  those  overheard,  which 
is  what  made  it  imlawful.  The  State  Department  continues  to 
monitor  certain  phone  conversations  with  the  knowledge  of 
officials.  ("Ruling  on  Phone  Monitoring  May  Slow  Passport  File 
Probe,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  19) 


AUGUST  -  The  Defense  Department  said  it  would  investigate 
new  allegations  that  the  Reagan  Administration  deliberately 
falsified  the  results  of  an  early  test  of  technology  for  a  ballistic 
missile  defense  system.  A  former  Army  official  involved  in  the 
test  has  denied  the  allegations,  but  Secretary  of  Defense  Les 
Aspin  said  in  a  statement  that  "any  allegation  that  the  Congress 
has  been  misled  raises  serious  questions."  Aspin  said  Deputy 
Secretary  of  Defense  William  Perry  will  conduct  an  inquiry  into 
how  the  1984  test  was  conducted  and  "how  it  was  reported  to 
Congress."  The  program,  which  so  far  cost  $30  billion,  never 
produced  a  viable  weapon  for  defending  against  a  missile  attack 
against  the  United  States.  ("Pentagon  to  Probe  Missile  Test 
Allegations,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  19) 

AUGUST  -  The  Central  Intelligence  Agency  will  make  public 
to  the  National  Archives  90, (XX)  pages  of  documents  relating  to 
the  1963  assassination  of  President  John  Kennedy,  far  more  than 
previously  reported,  a  CIA  spokesman  said.  The  90,000  pages 
of  CIA  documents  to  be  made  public  include  records  from  the 
Warren  Commission  and  the  House  Committee  on  Assassina- 
tions. Papers  from  the  Kermedy,  Johnson,  and  Ford  presidential 
libraries,  including  records  from  the  Rockefeller  Commission 
that  reported  in  1975  on  improper  CIA  activities  in  the  United 
States,  will  also  be  made  public.  In  all,  37,000  pages  of 
Kennedy  assassination  documents  in  the  CIA's  possession  remain 
secret:  20,000  pages  from  the  House  committee;  7,000  that 
include  information  being  withheld  by  other  agencies,  like  the 
Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation;  and  10,000  pages  that  the  CIA 
itself  refuses  to  disclose. 

In  1992,  Congress  ordered  that  nearly  all  documents  on  the 
Kennedy  assassination  be  sent  to  the  National  Archives  for 
public  disclosure.  The  law  requires  a  description  of  documents 
withheld  and  reasons  for  withholding  them.  It  also  requires  a 
review  by  a  presidential  panel  that  could  compel  disclosure. 
President  Clinton  has  not  ap[>ointed  that  panel,  which  Congress 
required  to  be  set  up  last  January.  Some  150,000  microfilmed 
pages  of  assassination-related  material,  mostly  indices  and 
appendices,  are  being  withheld  subject  to  discussions  with  the 
yet-to-be-appointed  panel,  the  CIA  said.  ("C.I. A.  to  Release 
90,000  Pages  On  Kennedy's  Assassination,"  The  New  York 
Times,  August  20) 

AUGUST  -  In  an  August  20  press  release,  the  Commodity 
Futures  Trading  Commission  aimounced  that,  beginning  October 
1 ,  it  will  no  longer  publish  the  Commitments  of  Traders  Report 
(COT).  The  publication  contains  data  on  open  interest  for 
commodity  futures  markets  in  which  five  or  more  traders  hold 
positions  equal  to  or  above  the  reporting  levels  established  by  the 
CFTC.  The  CFTC  will  continue  to  gather  and  compile  the  data 
biweekly,  but  will  no  longer  be  distributing  it  directly  to  the 
public.  Rather,  COT  data  will  be  made  available  routinely  by  the 
CFTC  to  intermediaries  including  the  Computer  Information 
Delivery  system,  Reuters  and  Knight-Ridder  news  wire  services. 
Pinnacle  Data  Corporation,  and  The  Futures  Industry  Institute. 


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Historical  COT  data  will  still  be  available  from  the  CFTC, 
libraries,  U.S.  futures  exchanges,  as  well  as  private  vendors. 
For  further  information  about  historical  COT  data,  contact 
Cynthia  Neuwalder  of  the  CFTC's  Public  Affairs  Office  at  202- 
254-8630.  (Advisory,  Office  of  Communication  and  Education 
Services,  Commodity  Futures  Trading  Commission,  August  20) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  following  excerpted  testimony  was 
presented  by  the  General  Accounting  Office  before  the  House 
Subcommittee  on  the  Civil  Service.  Nancy  Kingsbury,  director 
of  Federal  Human  Resource  Management,  Issues  General 
Government  Division,  GAO,  presented  the  testimony: 

Since  July  1992,  we  have  issued  reports  dealing  with 
federal  employees'  awareness  of  whistleblower  protection, 
the  effectiveness  of  the  Whistleblower  Protection  Act  of 
1989,  and  agencies'  implementation  of  the  whistleblower 
statutes.  Overall,  our  work  has  shown  that  despite  the  intent 
of  the  1989  act  to  strengthen  and  improve  whistleblower 
protection,  employees  are  still  having  difficulty  proving  their 
cases.  Employees  are  not  aware  of  their  right  to  protection, 
and  agencies  are  not  informing  them  of  this  right. 

...in  March  1993  we  reported  that  there  were  wide 
disparities  in  how  the  19  agencies  we  reviewed  had  imple- 
mented the  whistleblower  statutes.  Some  agencies  had 
informed  employees  about  their  whistleblower  protection 
rights,  but  most  agencies  had  neither  informed  their  employ- 
ees nor  develoi)ed  policies  and  procedures  for  implementing 
the  1989  act. 

Under  5  U.S.C.  2302(c),  the  head  of  each  department 
and  agency  is  responsible  for  preventing  prohibited  personnel 
practices,  including  whistleblower  reprisal.  However,  no 
explicit  requirement  exists  in  the  whistleblower  statutes  for 
OSC  [Office  of  Special  Counsel]  or  the  agencies  to  inform 
employees  about  their  right  to  protection  from  reprisal  or 
where  to  report  misconduct.  OSC,  to  its  credit,  has  attempted 
to  spread  the  word  about  employees'  rights  to  be  protected 
from  reprisal.  However,  as  OSC  officials  acknowledge,  they 
had  limited  success  in  eliciting  the  support  of  the  agencies  to 
inform  employees  of  what  their  rights  are  under  the  law  and 
how  to  go  about  exercising  them. . . . 

To  address  these  problems,  we  recommended  in  our 
recently  issued  reports  that  Congress  consider  amending  the 
whistleblower  statutes  and  to  inform  employees  periodically 
of  their  right  to  protection  from  reprisal  and  where  to  report 
misconduct. 
("Examining  the  Impact  of  the  Whistleblower  Protection,"  PA 
TIMES,  September  1) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  Justice  Department's  inspector  general 
concluded  that  federal  prison  officials  unfairly  disciplined  an 
inmate  during  the  1988  presidential  campaign  for  spreading 
allegations  that  he  once  sold  marijuana  to  Dan  Quayle.  The 
report  by  Inspector  General  Richard  Hankinson  said  inmate  Brett 
Kimberlin  "was  treated  differently  and  held  to  a  stricter  standard 


of  conduct... as  a  result  of  his  contacts  with  the  press  to  promote 
his  allegations."  But  Hankinson  said  there  was  "conspiracy  to 
silence"  Kimberlin  when  Quayle  was  ruiming  for  Vice  President. 

Hankinson  concluded  that  officials  at  the  Federal  Correctional 
Institution  in  El  Reno,  Okla.,  who  put  Kimberlin  in  a  special 
lock-down  cell  just  before  the  1988  election  were  reacting  to  the 
extraordinary  intervention  of  then-Bureau  of  Prisons'  Director  J. 
Michael  Quinlan.  Quinlan  had  canceled  a  November  4,  1988, 
prison  news  conference  at  which  Kimberlin  planned  to  make 
public  his  allegation  about  Quayle.  Quinlan  also  ordered 
Kimberlin  to  be  placed  in  a  special  detention  cell  that  night. 

The  Associated  Press  obtained  the  report  under  the  Freedom 
of  Information  Act.  The  investigation  was  sought  by  Sen.  Carl 
Levin  (D-Mich.),  who  said  in  a  report  that  Bureau  of  Prisons 
actions  were  politically  motivated.  But  Hankinson's  report  said: 
"There  is  no  evidence  to  support  the  allegations  that  political 
forces  or  persons  outside  the  Bureau  of  Prisons  influenced  the 
decision  to  either  grant  or  subsequently  deny  Mr.  Kimberlin 
access  to  the  press."  Kimberlin,  who  is  serving  a  51 -year 
sentence  on  charges  including  drug  conspiracy  and  eight  Indiana 
bombings,  has  been  in  jail  since  1980.  ("Quayle  Accuser's 
Treatment  Faulted,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  11) 

SEPTEMBER  -  An  editorial  in  The  New  York  Times  discussed 
a  battle  in  the  House  of  Representatives  over  an  "obscure  device 
known  as  the  discharge  petition."  Ordinarily,  a  bill  must  go 
through  committees  before  reaching  the  floor.  The  discharge 
petition  allows  a  member  to  move  a  bill  directly  to  the  floor  by 
getting  a  majority  of  members  to  sign  a  petition.  The  names  of 
the  signers  are  kept  strictly  secret  from  the  public  until  the  magic 
number  of  218  members  is  reached — making  it  easier  for  the 
House  leadership  to  twist  arms  to  get  members  to  add  or 
withdraw  their  names.  Rep.  James  Inhofe  (R-Okla.)  has  ques- 
tioned the  secrecy  of  the  petition  process,  which  allows  members 
to  block  legislation  in  Washington  while  telling  constituents  they 
support  it. 

In  early  September,  Inhofe  obtained  the  required  218 
signatures  on  a  discharge  petition  to  kill  such  petitions'  secrecy 
provisions.  Supporters  of  the  current  rule,  like  House  Rules 
Committee  Chairman  Joe  Moakley  (D-Mass.),  contend  that 
ending  the  secrecy  will  make  members  even  more  susceptible  to 
pressures  from  special-interest  lobbyists  and  invite  ill-considered 
"flavor-of-the-month  legislation"  that  appeals  to  public  whims. 
But  the  editorial  said  "the  public  has  a  right  to  know  where  their 
representatives  stand  on  issues."  ("Secrecy  Sideshow  in  the 
House,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  15) 

SEPTEMBER  -  Documents  security  within  the  Justice  Depart- 
ment and  FBI  is  so  lax  that  congressional  investigators  were 
unable  to  track  classified  papers  moving  between  the  two 
agencies,  according  to  a  report  by  the  General  Accounting 
Office.  The  study  also  found  that  the  FBI  failed  to  take  disciplin- 
ary action  for  many  of  the  4,400  violations  that  its  own  security 
patrols  uncovered  at  FBI  headquarters  over  a  three-year  period. 


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The  GAO  report,  prepared  for  the  House  Government 
Operations  Subcommittee  on  Information,  Justice,  Transporta- 
tion, and  Agriculture,  noted  that  safeguarding  classified  and 
sensitive  information  is  an  absolute  necessity  in  the  law 
enforcement  area. 

Rep.  Gary  Condit  (D-Calif.),  the  subcommittee  chairman, 
wrote  to  Attorney  General  Janet  Reno  and  FBI  Director  Louis 
Freeh  that  while  procedures  have  been  established  to  control  and 
track  classified  documents,  "compliance  with  the  procedures  is 
in  some  cases  so  inadequate  that  the  GAO  was  unable  to  track 
documents  to  insure  that  they  had  reached  their  intended 
recipients.... A  classified  document  could  be  lost,  stolen  or 
simply  vanish  into  thin  air  leaving  the  department  unable  to 
identify  and  hold  accountable  those  responsible  for  the  lapse." 
("Agency  Papers  Ill-Protected,  GAO  Says,"  The  Washington 
Post,  September  17) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  Central  Intelligence  Agency  has  decided  to 
release  edited  versions  of  secret  documents  about  major  covert 
operations  from  1950  to  1963.  Thus,  according  to  an  editorial  in 
The  New  York  Times,  much  more  may  be  learned  about  the  1953 
coup  that  re-enthroned  the  Shah  of  Iran,  the  1954  overthrow  of 
an  elected  leftist  president  in  Guatemala,  and  the  Bay  of  Pigs 
debacle  in  1961. 

The  editorial  opined  "...the  main  reason  for  secrecy  is  less 
to  protect  U.S.  security  than  to  preserve  the  tattered  myth  of 
omnicompetent  clandestine  services."  And  it  will  be  past  time  if 
the  CIA  truly  delivers.  Also  promised  are  secret  estimates  of 
Soviet  strength  from  1950  to  1983,  and  open  publication  of 
"Studies  in  Intelligence,"  the  agency's  in-house  journal.  But  the 
proof  will  be  in  the  performance;  skeptics  remember  that  in 
1991  the  agency  with  much  ado  formed  an  "Openness  Task 
Force" — whose  report  was  promptly  classified. 

Secrecy  is  not  just  a  way  of  life  at  spy  agencies;  it  is  a  state 
religion.  The  National  Archives  is  steward  to  325  million 
classified  documents,  including  still-secret  files  dating  to  World 
War  I.  When  documents  are  declassified,  key  passages  are  often 
blacked  out,  on  the  pretext  of  protecting  sources  and  methods. 
But  keepers  of  these  secrets  are  equally  protective  of  evidence  of 
gross  misjudgments  and  abuse  of  power.  Under  existing  rules, 
it  will  take  19  years  for  the  National  Archives  just  to  review 
State  Department  records  for  the  1960s.  The  editorial  said:  "It's 
up  to  Bill  Clinton,  that  reinventor  of  government,  to  assure  the 
removal  of  this  incredible,  outdated  wall  of  paper  between 
citizens  and  their  supposed  servants."  ("The  Secret  War  Over 
Secrecy,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  19) 

[Ed.  Note:  An  article,  "CIA  Declassifies  Pre-1960  Soviet 
Studies,"  in  the  October  1  Washington  Post,  said  the  CIA 
aimounced  that  it  has  declassified  virtually  all  of  its  major  studies 
of  the  Soviet  Union  prior  to  1960  and  sent  them  to  the  National 
Archives,  where  the  documents  will  be  available  to  the  public 
begirming  the  second  week  in  October.] 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  Pentagon's  secret  reconnaissance  office 


ignored  specific  congressional  instructions  in  May  and  signed  a 
new  multi-billion-dollar  contract  for  a  classified  espionage 
program  for  a  spy  satellite,  the  House  Appropriations  Committee 
has  reported.  The  Pentagon  had  not  obtained  the  permission  of 
congressional  committees  for  the  contract.  In  an  unusually  blunt, 
if  guarded,  discussion  in  a  report  accompanying  the  military 
budget  bill  for  fiscal  year  1994,  the  Appropriations  Committee 
said  it  was  "dismayed"  that  the  Defense  Department  had  ignored 
its  instructions  to  keep  Congress  informed  about  the  program. 
The  report  called  for  a  comprehensive  review  of  how  spy 
satellites  and  other  costly  intelligence  programs  are  being 
managed. 

"The  need  to  limit  access  to  intelligence  programs  due  to 
their  sensitive  nature  does  not  provide  program  managers  relief 
from  complying  with  specific  congressional  direction,"  the 
report  said.  "Nor  should  it  limit  the  public's  right  to  know  when 
specific  congressional  direction  is  ignored,  without  revealing  any 
program  specifics."  ("Pentagon  Is  Found  to  Have  Ignored 
Congress  on  Spy  Satellite,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  24) 

SEPTEMBER  -  Tlie  Supreme  Court  has  retaliated  against  a 
California  professor  who  copied  and  is  selling  audio  tapes  of 
courtroom  arguments  by  telling  the  National  Archives  not  to  let 
the  man  copy  any  more  argument  tapes  without  the  permission 
of  the  marshall  of  the  Court.  Peter  Irons,  a  political  science 
professor  at  the  University  of  California  at  San  Diego,  will  be 
presumed  to  be  a  commercial  user  "in  light  of  his  actions  and 
his  willingness  to  violate  the  agreements  he  signed"  when  he 
received  the  copies  of  the  tapes  that  make  up  his  six-cassette 
package  titled,  "May  It  Please  the  Court." 

Irons  has  contended  that  he  was  right  to  break  his  promise  to 
make  only  private  use  of  the  tapes  because  the  current  limits  on 
commercial  use  violate  the  First  Amendment.  Susan  Cooper,  a 
spokeswoman  for  the  Archives,  said  today  that  the  Archives  had 
filled  about  1,000  requests  for  copies  over  the  years  and  had 
supplied  copies  to  most  major  law  libraries.  ("Justices  Quash 
Entrepreneur's  Move  on  the  Court,"  The  New  York  Times, 
September  26) 

[Ed.  Note:  An  article,  "Supreme  Court  Eases  Restrictions  on 
Use  of  Tapes  of  Its  Arguments,"  in  the  November  3  Nev,'  York 
Times  said  that  public  access  to  audio  tapes  of  the  Court's 
arguments  would  be  available  from  the  National  Archives 
without  restriction.  Beginning  immediately,  members  of  the 
public  could  obtain  copies  of  the  tapes  for  any  purpose,  includ- 
ing broadcast  and  commercial  reproduction.  For  people  who 
bring  their  own  recording  equipment  to  the  Archives,  there  will 
be  no  charge  for  copying  the  tapes.  Otherwise,  the  Archives  will 
make  copies  on  request  for  $12.75  for  each  one-hour  tape.  The 
action  means  that  no  one  entrepreneur  is  likely  to  make  a  large 
profit,  since  the  material  will  be  freely  available.  At  the  same 
time,  public  access  to  the  workings  of  the  Court  will  almost 
certainly  be  enhanced.  One  publisher  is  said  to  be  planning  to 
offer  the  Supreme  Court  arguments  on  a  CD-ROM,  or  compact 
computer  disk,  format.] 


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SEPTEMBER  -  Trying  to  establish  a  post-cold-war  policy  for 
classifying  government  documents,  the  Clinton  Administration 
is  considering  a  proposal  intended  to  give  the  public  easier 
access  to  sensitive  information  but  still  allow  officials  consider- 
able discretion  to  withhold  some  secrets.  The  proposal  was 
drafted  by  a  committee  of  government  officials  ordered  by 
President  Clinton  in  April  to  design  a  new  system  for  the  United 
States  to  keep  its  secrets.  A  major  part  of  the  proposal  is  to 
declassify  virtually  all  government  documents  after  40  years. 

Steven  Garfinkel,  director  of  the  Information  Security 
Oversight  Office  and  the  head  of  the  committee  that  drafted  the 
proposal,  said  that  if  the  provision  were  included  in  the  final 
policy,  it  would  mean  the  immediate  release  of  "hundreds  of 
millions  of  documents"  that  have  never  been  declassified.  He 
said  the  National  Archives  estimated  that  it  had  300  million  to 
400  million  classified  documents  dating  from  the  World  War  I 
era  to  1956.  Other  government  agencies  also  have  large  numbers 
of  documents,  he  said. 

The  Clinton  draft  proposal  has  attracted  critics.  In  an  op-ed 
article,  "Secrets  and  More  Secrets,"  on  September  30  in  The 
New  York  Times,  Tom  Blanton  of  the  National  Security  Archive, 
and  Steven  Aftergood  of  the  Federation  of  American  Scientists, 
wrote  that  the  40-year  period  for  declassifying  virtually  all 
documents  was  far  too  long.  They  said  President  Nixon  had  set 
a  30-year  period  and  President  Carter  20  years.  Garfinkel 
disputed  that  view.  He  said  that  while  Nixon  let  the  classified 
status  of  documents  last  30  years,  his  order  dealt  only  with 
documents  from  the  date  of  the  order  in  1972.  Any  documents 
from  1942  or  earlier  were  not  automatically  released  but  had  to 
be  reviewed  for  possible  declassification.  Carter's  order  allowed 
agency  heads  to  make  such  wide  exceptions,  Garfinkel  said,  that 
more  than  90  percent  of  the  documents  were  not  affected  by  the 
disclosure  plan.  ("New  Proposal  Would  Automatically  Limit 
Secrecy,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  30) 

OCTOBER  -  President  Clinton  gave  federal  agencies  greater 
authority  to  write  regulations  on  pollution,  safety,  business 
practices,  and  the  like  without  White  House  intervention,  saying 
his  executive  order  would  "eliminate  improper  influence,  secrecy 
and  delay."  The  move  is  meant  to  reverse  the  pattern  under 
Presidents  George  Bush,  Ronald  Reagan  and  Jimmy  Carter,  who 
ordered  their  staffs  to  scrutinize  and  frequently  to  overrule  the 
agencies,  often  with  an  eye  to  making  regulations  more  palatable 
to  business. 

Under  the  Administration's  plans,  the  Office  of  Management 
and  Budget  will  continue  to  review  the  most  significant  regula- 
tions to  see  that  they  do  not  put  undue  burdens  on  those  they 
affect,  but  in  most  cases  the  crucial  decisions  will  be  entrusted 
to  the  agencies  that  are  responsible  by  law  for  drafting  the 
regulations.  ("President  Moves  to  Loosen  Grip  of  White  House 
on  Regulations,"  The  New  York  Times,  October  1) 

OCTOBER  -  In  a  report  on  the  February  28  raid  of  the  Branch 
Davidian    compound    in    Texas,    the    Department    of   Justice 


concluded  that  law  enforcement  officials  botched  virtually  every 
aspect  of  their  plan  to  capture  David  Koresh,  then  misled 
investigators  and  Congress  about  their  mistakes.  In  a  detailed 
rejKirt  of  mistakes  and  mendacity  in  the  top  ranks  of  the  Bureau 
of  Alcohol,  Tobacco  and  Firearms,  the  department  offered  new 
information  about  the  law  enforcement  operation.  The  ref>ort 
said  that  senior  agency  officials  went  to  even  greater  lengths  than 
previously  believed  to  deceive  investigators  and  Congress.  It  said 
officials  had  changed  a  written  record  of  the  plan  after  the  raid 
in  a  self-serving  way,  and  then  lied  about  the  alterations.  ("In 
Davidians'  Trial,  Defense  Could  Hinge  on  U.S.  Officials' 
Admitted  Lies,"  International  Herald  Tribune,  October  2-3) 

OCTOBER  -  A  former  head  of  the  Forest  Service's  whistle- 
blower  unit  said  the  agency  regularly  denied  the  existence  of 
documents  to  thwart  attempts  by  the  public  to  get  them  under  the 
Freedom  of  Information  Act.  In  one  case,  John  McCormick  said 
his  superiors  rewrote  an  incriminating  report  before  giving  it  to 
someone  who  sought  it  under  the  federal  law  guaranteeing  broad 
public  access  to  government  documents. 

McCormick,  who  retired  under  pressure  in  1992,  said  he  is 
prepared  to  testify  in  a  court  case  in  Portland,  Ore.,  about 
widespread  irregularities  in  the  agency's  handling  of  FOIA 
requests  from  1989  to  1991.  He  said  he  knew  of  at  least  25 
cases  in  which  agency  officials  denied  the  existence  of  docu- 
ments they  knew  they  had.  He  said  many  of  the  cases  involved 
documents  relating  to  government  logging  operations  that 
violated  environmental  laws  or  reprisals  against  workers  who 
resisted  orders  to  break  the  laws.  "I  put  those  records  in  the 
files.  I  can  lead  the  Justice  Department  and  the  General  Account- 
ing Office  right  down  to  the  basement  there  and  open  up  their 
eyes,"  he  said.  "We  take  all  of  these  allegations  very  seriously," 
Agriculture  Department  spokesman  Tom  Amontree  said. 
Amontree  said  the  department  had  no  evidence  FOIA  requests 
have  been  falsified  but  "anybody  caught  doing  anything  like  that 
will  be  dealt  with  severely." 

In  a  related  development,  a  GAO  report  released  in  early 
October  said  that  government  investigators  found  "over  180 
alleged  incidents  of  interference  and  retaliation"  against  Forest 
Service  law  officers  who  investigate  alleged  wrongdoing  within 
the  agency  and  the  timber  industry.  ("Ex-Official  Says  Agency 
Hid  Data  From  Public,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  6) 

OCTOBER  -  General  Accounting  Office  officials  testified  that 
they  had  to  assign  several  staff  members  over  several  days  to 
laboriously  hand  copy  White  House  i>ersonnel  information 
because  of  Clinton  Administration  resistance  to  their  requests 
during  a  probe  into  White  House  personnel  practices.  Republi- 
cans accused  the  White  House  of  engaging  in  a  pattern  of  sloppy 
or  inadequate  record-keeping  that  makes  it  impossible  for  the 
public  or  Congress  to  apply  any  standards  of  fiscal  or  ethical 
accountability. 

G  AO's  Nancy  Kingsbury  told  Congress  that  the  White  House 
refused  several  times  to  allow  the  GAO  to  transfer  personnel 


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information  on  computer  discs.  Instead,  the  White  House 
allowed  GAO  staff  members  access  only  to  hand  copy  the 
information  on  paper.  It  then  had  to  be  put  on  GAO  discs,  which 
engaged  "several  staff  members  over  a  couple  of  weeks."  White 
House  director  of  the  Office  of  Administration  Patsy  Thomasson 
said  that  the  Administration  was  concerned  about  maintaining 
privacy,  and  Lorraine  Voles,  a  White  House  spokeswoman,  said 
the  intent  was  not  to  throw  roadblocks  in  front  of  the  investiga- 
tion but  to  protect  the  records.  She  noted  that  the  GAO  conclud- 
ed that  it  had  gotten  the  information  it  needed. 

The  GAO  report  found  that  the  White  House  engaged  in 
sloppy  bookkeeping  in  the  early  weeks  of  the  Administration, 
back-dating  personnel  appointments,  giving  retroactive  salary 
adjustments,  and  allowing  double-dipping — the  collecting  of 
payments  from  both  the  White  House  and  presidential  transition 
team.  The  White  House  has  said  all  the  practices  were  inadver- 
tent, tied  to  the  heavy  load  of  work  in  the  first  weeks,  and  have 
been  corrected  or  are  being  corrected.  ("GAO  Faults  Sloppy 
Personnel  Record-Keeping  by  White  House,"  The  Washington 
Post,  October  23) 

NOVEMBER  -  In  a  five-page  article  in  the  magazine.  National 
Parks,  authors  Bill  Sharp  and  Elaine  Appleton  concluded  the 
National  Park  Service  is  hampered  by  a  lack  of  knowledge  about 
the  ecological  makeup  of  the  parks.  They  wrote  that  most  people 
think  that  national  parks  have  been  thoroughly  studied  for  years, 
and  that  they  are  immutable  preserves  with  species  well  under- 
stood. This  notion  is  not  only  wrong  but  dangerously  misleading. 
Quite  simply,  the  National  Park  Service  suffers  from  an 
embarrassing  lack  of  knowledge  about  the  species  in  its  parks. 
And  as  the  1992  Science  in  the  National  Parks  study  states, 
"Informed  resource  management  is  impossible  without  science 
in  its  broadest  sense— that  is,  the  acquisition,  analysis,  and 
dissemination  of  knowledge  about  natural  processes  and  about 
the  human  influences  on  them. " 

The  Clinton  Administration  has  ambitious  plans  to  change 
this  through  a  program  of  shared  science  called  the  National 
Biological  Survey.  Interior  Secretary  Bruce  Babbitt  plans  a  more 
aggressive  approach  to  preserving  ecosystems  and  wildlife, 
involving  a  campaign  to  reverse  years  of  underfunding  and 
neglect  in  research  programs.  The  authors  said,  "But  it  remains 
to  be  seen  how  this  program,  which  got  under  way  in  October, 
will  affect  the  Park  Service.  The  effort  will  be  nothing  if  not  an 
uphill  climb."  ("The  Information  Gap,"  National  Parks, 
November/December) 

NOVEMBER  -  Christopher  Drogoul,  former  manager  of  the 
Atlanta  branch  of  the  Italian  government-owned  Banca  Nazionale 
del  Lavoro  (BNL),  testified  before  the  House  Banking  Commit- 
tee that  illicit  loans  of  several  billion  dollars  were  made  to  Iraq 
in  the  1980s  with  the  U.S.  government's  knowledge  and 
approval,  but  offered  no  concrete  evidence  to  support  his  claim. 
He  is  awaiting  sentencing  in  a  penitentiary  in  Atlanta  on  two 
counts  of  making  false  statements  to  the  Federal  Reserve  Board 


and  one  count  of  wire  fraud  in  the  loans  to  Iraq  between  1985 
and  1989. 

In  sworn  testimony,  Drogoul  said  the  BNL  branch  was 
merely  a  tool  of  covert  U.S.  and  Italian  efforts  to  funnel  funds 
to  Iraq.  U.S.  policy-makers  have  acknowledged  trying  before  the 
Persian  Gulf  War  to  help  Iraq,  which  was  then  regarded  as  a 
counterweight  to  Iran,  but  have  denied  approving  the  BNL  loans. 
("U.S.  Approval  of  Iraq  Loans  Alleged,"  The  Washington  Post, 
November  10) 

NOVEMBER  -  Federal  District  Court  Judge  Royce  Lamberth 
said  that  the  White  House  was  improperly  withholding  records 
of  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton's  Task  Force  on  National  Health 
Care  Reform  from  doctors  and  consumer  groups  that  wanted  to 
scrutinize  the  panel's  work.  He  ordered  the  government  to 
provide  documents  needed  to  assess  whether  the  more  than  500 
people  who  worked  for  the  task  force  had  complied  with  federal 
ethics  laws.  By  his  action.  Judge  Lamberth  took  a  preliminary 
step  to  pierce  the  secrecy  of  the  panel,  which  developed 
Administration  proposals  to  control  health  costs  and  to  guarantee 
health  insurance  coverage  for  all  Americans. 

Sounding  exasperated,  the  judge  said  the  Administration  was 
"improperly  withholding  the  germane  information"  sought  by  the 
plaintiffs  to  prove  their  contentions  about  the  staff  task  force.  He 
said  the  White  House  has  provided  incomplete  answers,  "drib- 
bles and  drabs  of  information,"  and  "a  preposterous  resj>onse" 
to  the  plaintiffs  request  for  the  names  of  people  who  participated 
in  each  of  the  panel's  working  groups.  "Even  more  egregious," 
he  said,  is  the  Administration's  contention  that  it  cannot  supply 
accurate  lists  of  people  who  attended  task  force  meetings  because 
of  "the  fluidity  and  informality"  of  their  work  for  Mrs.  Clinton 
earlier  this  year.  ("Judge  Says  Health  Panel  Erred  by  Withhold- 
ing Data,"  The  New  York  Times,  November  10) 

[Ed.  Note:  The  Washington  Post,  in  a  December  1  article, 
"White  House  Files  Documents  in  Suit  on  Health  Task  Force," 
reported  that  a  Justice  Department  courier  delivered  a  boxload 
of  documents  from  the  task  force  to  the  U.S.  Courthouse  in 
Washington.] 

NOVEMBER  -  As  part  of  an  overhaul  of  cold- war-era  rules, 
the  Department  of  Energy  has  decided  to  declassify  reams  of 
previously  secret  information  about  the  nation's  nuclear  weap- 
ons, including  data  about  undisclosed  nuclear  tests,  Administra- 
tion officials  said.  Although  scholars  have  known  for  some  time 
that  the  United  States  did  not  acknowledge  all  the  nuclear  tests 
it  conducted,  the  new  information  is  expected  to  include  useful 
data  about  the  extent  and  purpose  of  past  testing.  The  informa- 
tion, to  be  released  in  the  near  future,  will  also  include  data  that 
have  long  been  sought  by  specialists  in  arms  control  and  nuclear 
safety  and  on  the  health  and  environmental  effects  of  the  nuclear 
weapons  program.  Energy  officials  said. 

Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  has  ordered  the  agency, 
which  is  in  charge  of  most  of  the  atomic  weapons-building 


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program,  to  complete  a  review  of  the  kinds  of  information  that 
can  be  declassified  and  to  set  up  means  for  the  public  to  have 
access  to  it.  ("U.S.  to  Release  Data  on  Secret  Nuclear  Tests," 
The  New  York  Times,  November  1 1 ) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  Central  Intelligence  Agency  is  considering 
giving  its  consent  to  commercial  sales  of  spy  satellite  equipment 
and  images,  agency  officials  said.  While  no  final  decisions  have 
been  made,  CIA  Director  R.  James  Woolsey  is  considering 
seriously  "advancing  the  CIA's  position  from  'no,  never'  to 
considering  support  for  international  sales  of  hardware  and 
perhaps  imagery,"  said  an  agency  spokesman,  David  French. 
The  spy-satellite  equipment  under  consideration  has  been 
produced  since  1960  by  the  National  Recormaissance  Office,  a 
secret  branch  of  the  Air  Force  whose  existence  was  acknowl- 
edged by  the  government  only  last  year. 

Top  secret,  technologically  exquisite,  and  hugely  expensive, 
the  satellite  systems  can  produce  images  of  people  and  automo- 
biles from  500  miles  in  space,  gathering  data  for  military  and 
intelligence  analysts.  Though  their  costs  are  officially  classified, 
each  can  cost  more  than  $1  billion.  Any  systems  offered  for  sale 
to  foreign  nationals  would  almost  certainly  be  less  capable  than 
the  ones  operated  by  United  States  intelligence  agencies. 
("C.I.  A.  Considers  Allowing  Sale  of  Spy  Technology,"  The  Nen' 
York  Times,  November  13) 

[Ed.  Note:  On  November  17  The  Washington  Post  reported  in 
an  article,  "U.S.  Agencies  at  Odds:  For  Whom  Can  the  Eye 
Spy?"  that  some  CIA  officials,  and  others  in  the  State  and 
Defense  departments,  have  their  own  objections  that  could  scuttle 
deals  to  have  U.S.  companies  take  spy-quality  photos  from  space 
and  sell  them  commercially.  A  November  18  Washington  Post 
article,  "Government  May  Sell  Spy  Photos,"  said  the  Pentagon 
and  the  CIA  are  considering  selling  photo  images  of  Earth  to 
companies  and  foreign  countries,  but  both  government  and 
industry  sources  said  the  move  is  partly  designed  to  discourage 
private  firms  from  entering  the  same  business.] 

NOVEMBER  -  The  discovery  that  five  additional  patients  may 
have  died  in  tests  of  a  new  drug  for  hepatitis  B  has  prompted  the 
Food  and  Drug  Administration  to  propose  a  major  change  in  the 
rules  for  reporting  side  effects  from  drug  trials.  The  first  of  two 
reports  were  released  by  the  FDA  on  the  latest  test  of  the  drug, 
which  was  conducted  at  the  National  Institutes  of  Health  in 
Bethesda,  Md.  This  test  was  among  the  worst  catastrophes  in  the 
recent  history  of  drug  testing;  deaths  occurred  in  5  out  of  15 
patients  who  took  the  drug  for  four  weeks  or  more.  The  FDA 
has  discovered  from  a  review  of  earlier  tests  of  the  drug  that  five 
other  patients  in  the  earlier  experiments  may  have  died  as  a 
result  of  taking  the  drug  or  its  experimental  predecessor. 

The  FDA,  which  approved  the  latest  test  and  reviewed  data 
as  it  proceeded,  said  scientists  could  have  found  out  that  the  drug 
would  be  toxic  but  had  not  collected  the  available  information. 
"Some  of  the  problem  was  optimism,"  said  Dr.  David  Kessler, 


the  commissioner  of  Food  and  Drugs.  "The  data  were  not  pulled 
together  in  one  place  or  analyzed  in  a  way  that  would  lead  the 
scientists  to  see  the  drug's  danger.  In  retrospect,  the  data  were 
there.  Tliere  were  five  deaths  here  that  demanded  greater 
scrutiny."  ("After  Deaths,  F.D.A.  Is  Proposing  Stiffer  Rules  on 
Drug  Experiments,"  The  New  York  Times,  November  16) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  National  Drug  Intelligence  Center,  the 
government's  newest  agency  for  combating  drug  traffickers, 
opened  in  Johnstown,  Penna.,  on  August  9.  At  the  dedication  of 
the  $50  million  center.  Attorney  General  Janet  Reno  said  it 
would  coordinate  intelligence  from  rival  federal  law  enforcement 
agencies.  But  in  the  view  of  many  drug  experts  and  former  anti- 
drug officials,  the  FBI-administered  agency  duplicates  the  work 
of  19  other  drug  intelligence  centers  around  the  country  and 
cannot  function  effectively  in  western  Pennsylvania,  182  miles 
from  Washington.  For  these  critics,  the  center  is  a  wasteful 
display  of  political  patronage  that  primarily  benefits  the  constitu- 
ents of  one  Democratic  Congressman,  Rep.  John  Murtha 
(D-Penna.) 

John  Walters,  who  was  President  Bush's  acting  drug  czar  in 
1990  and  1991  and  who  helped  plan  the  center,  said  in  an 
interview  that  the  Johnstown  office  was  a  complete  distortion  of 
the  original  plan.  That  plan  called  for  the  center  to  be  located 
within  the  Department  of  Justice  in  Washington,  Walters  said, 
so  that  it  would  be  near  the  headquarters  of  the  FBI,  Drug 
Enforcement  Agency,  CIA,  the  Customs  Bureau,  and  other 
federal  agencies  that  track  drug  trafficking.  "It  was  to  bring 
together  anti-drug  agencies'  senior  leadership  and  encourage 
them  to  share  their  agencies'  most  jealously  guarded  intelligence 
information  about  the  highest  level  of  drug  traffickers,"  Walters 
said.  Agencies  rarely  share  such  information,  he  said,  because 
they  do  not  want  to  share  the  credit  with  other  agencies  in 
making  splashy  arrests,  which  generate  publicity,  build  reputa- 
tions, and  justify  budget  increases.  ("Center  for  Drug  Intelli- 
gence Opens,  But  Some  Ask  if  It  Is  Really  Needed,"  The  New 
York  Times,  November  17) 

NOVEMBER  -  Alan  Greenspan,  chairman  of  the  Federal 
Reserve,  offered  a  compromise  to  Rep.  Henry  Gonzalez 
(D-Texas),  chairman  of  the  House  Banking  Committee,  saying 
the  central  bank  would  grant  public  access  to  detailed  transcripts 
of  meetings  it  held  between  1976  and  1988.  In  a  letter  to 
Gonzalez,  who  is  trying  to  make  the  Fed's  deliberations  less 
secret,  Greenspan  said  that  the  Fed  would  make  public  tran- 
scripts of  meetings  of  its  main  policy-making  committee,  the 
Federal  Open  Market  Committee,  with  a  five-year  lag. 

Gonzalez  had  called  for  the  release  of  complete  transcripts  of 
all  meetings  held  more  than  three  years  ago  and  for  releasing 
edited  tran.scripts  of  meetings  more  than  60  days  old  but  less 
than  three  years  old.  Transcripts  of  meetings  up  to  1976  are 
already  public;  they  were  released  after  a  five-year  lag.  Since 
1976,  however,  the  central  bank  has  kept  unedited  tran.scripts  of 
its  policy-making  meetings  on  file  without  making  them  public. 


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Instead,  it  releases  a  short  summary  of  its  policy-making 
meetings  six  weeks  after  they  are  held. 

Opening  the  records  provides  material  for  economists  and 
historians  about  past  economic  and  political  controversies.  For 
example,  the  transcripts  are  expected  to  show  the  debate  that  led 
to  the  Fed's  decision  to  substantially  raise  interest  rates  in  the 
early  1980s.  Greenspan  argued  against  the  suggestion  that  the 
central  bank  release  transcripts  with  less  than  a  five-year  lag.  He 
said  that  members  of  the  committee  believed  "that  early  release 
of  these  documents  would  sharply  curtail"  the  open  market 
committee;s  "ability  to  discuss  freely  and  frankly  evolving 
economic  and  financial  market  trends  and  alternative  policy 
responses,  which  is  essential  to  sound  monetary  policy."  Early 
release,  Greenspan  said,  could  stifle  "originality,  new  ideas,  and 
the  give-and-take  debate  that  so  often  open  up  new  insights"  at 
the  committee's  meetings.  ("Fed  Proposes  a  Compromise  on 
Access  to  Its  Transcripts,"  The  New  York  Times,  November  18) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  underlying  principles  of  the  law  requiring 
release  of  government  records  about  the  assassination  of 
President  John  Keimedy,  according  to  the  Senate  report  on  the 
law,  are  "independence,  public  confidence,  efficiency  and  cost 
effectiveness,  speed  of  records  disclosure  and  enforceability," 
Washington  lawyer  James  Lesar  told  the  House  Government 
Operations  Committee  at  a  hearing.  Lesar,  head  of  the  nonprofit 
Assassinations  Archives  and  Research  Center,  added  that  with 
the  law  now  more  than  a  year  old,  "it  can  only  be  said  that  these 
principles  have  been  repeatedly  violated.  At  best,  only  10  to  20 
percent  of  the  total  universe  of  Kennedy  assassination  records 
has  been  released." 

Steve  Tilley,  who  is  JFK  liaison  officer  at  the  National 
Archives,  where  all  the  records  are  to  be  kept,  confirmed  that 
the  FBI,  the  Immigration  and  Naturalization  Service,  the  Naval 
Investigative  Service,  and  both  House  and  Senate  intelligence 
committees  have  yet  to  produce  a  single  page  under  the  law. 
("Deadlines  Missed  on  Release  of  JFK  Data,"  The  Washington 
Post,  November  18) 

[Ed.  Note:  In  mid-December,  the  FBI  announced  that  it  was 
about  to  release  the  first  of  what  will  eventually  be  more  than 
one  million  pages  of  documents  related  to  President  Kennedy's 
assassination.  ("FBI  Set  to  Release  JFK  Assassination  Papers," 
The  Washington  Post,  December  13)] 

NOVEMBER  -  The  federal  government's  information  on 
nutrients  in  food,  used  around  the  world  to  determine  public 
nutrition  policy,  plan  feeding  programs,  do  medical  research, 
and  answer  questions  like  how  much  vitamin  A  is  in  a  sweet 
potato  or  how  much  fat  is  in  a  sirloin  steak,  is  flawed  and 
unreliable,  according  to  a  federal  report  issued  on  November  22. 
The  General  Accounting  Office  said  the  nutrition  information  in 
the  publication.  Handbook  8,  is  inaccurate  because  of  sloppy, 
inconsistent,  or  questionable  methods  of  collecting  data. 

In  the  report,   requested  by  Rep.   George   Brown  Jr.   (D- 


Calif.),  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Science,  Space,  and 
Technology,  the  accounting  office  criticizes  the  Human  Nutrition 
Information  Service  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  for  using 
lax  methods  in  compiling  the  nutritional  data.  The  report  says 
the  agency  often  does  not  have  enough  samples  and  accepts  data 
with  "little  or  no  supporting  information  on  the  testing  and 
quality  assurance  procedures  used  to  develop  the  data."  For 
example,  it  says  the  nutrient  data  on  bacon-cheeseburgers  comes 
primarily  from  brochures  provided  by  fast-food  chains,  which  do 
not  explain  how  the  data  were  determined.  Indeed,  much  of  the 
information  in  Handbook  8  comes  from  the  food  industry,  the 
report  said.  ("Report  Finds  Federal  Nutrition  Data  to  Be 
Unreliable,  The  NeM'  York  Times,  November  23) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  White  House  should  disclose  the  multi- 
billion-dollar  budget  for  secret  intelligence  spending,  senior 
members  of  Congress  have  urged  President  Clinton.  The  secrecy 
shielding  the  spending,  or  "black  budget,"  is  a  relic  of  the  cold 
war  and  should  be  abolished,  said  a  letter  sent  to  the  WTiite 
House  by  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  Thomas  Foley  (D-Wash.); 
the  Senate  majority  leader,  George  Mitchell  (D-Maine);  House 
majority  leader  Richard  Gephardt  (D-Mo.),  and  nine  present  and 
former  leaders  of  congressional  committees  overseeing  the 
nation's  intelligence  agencies.  ("Disclosure  Urged  for  Secret 
Budget,  The  New  York  Times,  November  25) 

NOVEMBER  -  A  motion  to  release  the  final  report  of  the 
Independent  Counsel  for  the  Iran-contra  investigation  was  filed 
with  a  special  panel  of  three  federal  appellate  judges  who  have 
kept  the  report  under  seal  since  August.  The  motion  expressed 
concern  that  lawyers  for  those  involved  in  the  1986  scandal 
would  seek  to  have  the  document  suppressed  or  heavily  cen- 
sored. "If  this  report,  or  any  part  of  it,  is  suppressed,  public 
understanding  of  the  lessons  of  the  Iran-contra  affair... will  be 
forever  impoverished,"  the  motion  argued.  It  was  filed  on  behalf 
of  the  National  Security  Archive,  the  Society  of  Professional 
Journalists,  and  the  Reporters  Committee  for  Freedom  of  the 
Press.  Independent  Counsel  Lawrence  Walsh  gave  the  court  his 
final  report  in  August,  closing  his  investigation. 

Walsh  concluded  that  senior  advisers  to  President  Reagan  had 
tried  to  cover  up  events  in  the  Iran-contra  affair,  according  to 
portions  of  the  sealed  report  described  to  The  Associated  Press. 
Lawyers  for  former  President  Ronald  Reagan,  former  Attorney 
General  Edwin  Meese,  and  Oliver  North  have  sought  to  keep 
some  details  of  the  report  from  being  released.  "The  public's 
right  to  know  the  real  story  of  the  scandal  is  now  in  jeopardy," 
said  Peter  Kombluh,  senior  analyst  at  the  National  Security 
Archive.  "The  threat  of  suppression  hanging  over  the  Walsh 
report  portends  the  ultimate  Iran-contra  coverup."  ("Court  Is 
Asked  to  Release  Iran-Contra  Report,"  The  New  York  Times, 
November  25) 

[Ed.  Note:  In  early  December,  a  federal  appeals  court  ruled: 
"The  court  not  only  considers  it  appropriate  but  in  the  public 


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interest  that  as  full  a  disclosure  as  possible  be  made  of  the  final 
report  of  the  independent  counsel."  Without  specifying  a  date, 
the  court  said  it  will  release  the  massive  report  in  "some  short 
period  of  time."  ("Iran-Contra  Report  to  Be  Released  Mostly 
Intact,"  The  Boston  Globe,  December  4) 

DECEMBER  -  Central  Intelligence  Agency  Director  R.  James 
Woolsey  appeared  on  Larry  King's  CNN  talkshow  to  answer 
questions  from  callers  in  an  effort  to  make  the  agency  less 
mysterious  and  more  visible.  "We're  working  really  very  hard 
on  helping  people  understand  what  the  agency  is  all  about  and 
the  intelligence  community  as  a  whole,"  Woolsey  told  King.  He 
said  the  agency  is  "trying  to  disclose  a  lot  more  historical 
material,"  such  as  intelligence  reports  on  the  Soviet  Union  up  to 
1983,  which  are  being  declassified  "warts  and  all." 

Information  about  current  operations  and  intelligence- 
gathering  methods  is  to  remain  secret,  however.  Woolsey 
refused  to  extend  the  openness  campaign  to  the  intelligence 
budget,  despite  a  request  from  Democratic  leaders  in  Congress 
to  declassify  it.  The  annual  intelligence  budget  has  been  widely 
reported  to  be  about  $28  billion,  but  the  CIA  opposes  making  the 
figure  public  because  it  does  not  want  to  answer  questions  about 
what  the  money  is  used  for.  ("Absent  Cold  War  Mystique, 
Loquacious  Silent  Service,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  2) 

DECEMBER  -  The  United  States  conducted  204  previously 
unannounced  nuclear  weapons  tests  during  the  cold  war,  the 
Clinton  Administration  disclosed.  The  number  of  secret  tests  was 
about  twice  as  high  as  had  been  suspected  and  accounted  for 
almost  20  percent  of  the  1,051  nuclear  tests  conducted  by  the 
United  States.  The  underground  tests,  which  took  place  from 
1963  to  1990  in  Nevada,  were  only  small  enough  to  escape 
detection.  Some  resulted  in  accidental  releases  of  radioactive 
gases  into  the  atmosphere,  usually  in  amounts  too  low  to  be 
considered  harmful.  The  Energy  Department,  as  part  of  a  newly 
ordered  declassification  of  millions  of  documents  relating  to  the 
vast  nuclear  buildup  of  the  past  50  years,  also  disclosed  for  the 
first  time  the  full  extent  of  its  plutonium  production,  and  details 
of  its  huge  stockpiles  of  the  material. 

The  secret  tests  did  not  violate  any  laws  or  international 
weapon-testing  agreements  because  they  were  conducted 
underground.  But  they  illustrate  what  officials  at  the  Department 
of  Energy  now  call  a  damaging  atmosphere  of  secrecy  that 
compromised  safety  and  environmental  considerations,  a 
situation  that  the  Administration  is  trying  to  correct.  "We  were 
shrouded  and  clouded  in  an  atmosphere  of  secrecy,"  Energy 
Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  said  at  a  news  conference.  "And  1 
would  take  it  a  step  fiirther:  I  would  call  it  repression." 

Department  officials  said  that  among  the  millions  of  docu- 
ments yet  to  be  reviewed,  there  might  be  more  information  about 
previously  disclosed  exfteriments  in  which  hundreds  of  human 
subjects  were  exposed  to  plutonium  without  granting  informed 
consent.  In  general,  O'Leary's  attitude  toward  secrecy  at  the 
department  and  the  lack  of  public  trust  it  engendered  differ 


greatly  from  those  expressed  publicly  by  any  of  her  predeces- 
sors. Still,  some  researchers  who  have  been  pressing  the 
government  to  offer  more  data  about  the  nuclear  weapon 
program  said  they  were  disapf>ointed  at  how  little  new  informa- 
tion was  disclosed.  But  the  Energy  Department  said  the  disclo- 
sures were  just  the  first  step  in  an  effort  to  review  32  million 
documents  for  possible  declassification.  The  Pentagon,  and  some 
officials  with  the  Energy  Department,  have  resisted  some  efforts 
to  declassify  certain  information,  officials  conceded.  ("204 
Secret  Nuclear  Tests  by  U.S.  Are  Made  Public,  The  New  York 
Times,  December  8) 

DECEMBER  -  Central  Intelligence  Agency  allegations  to 
Congress  that  exiled  Haitian  President  Jean-Bertrand  Aristide 
underwent  psychiatric  treatment  in  a  Canadian  hospital  are  false, 
the  Miami  Herald  has  learned.  The  allegations  slowed  the 
momentum  of  the  U.S.  campaign  to  return  Aristide  to  power, 
fortified  the  Haitian  leader's  critics,  and  embarrassed  President 
Clinton,  who  supports  Aristide's  return  to  power.  The  Herald, 
obtained  a  letter  from  Aristide  authorizing  it  to  retrieve  any 
records  for  psychiatric  treatment  for  him  at  the  Louis-H. 
Lafontaine  Hospital  in  Montreal,  mentioned  by  CIA  officials  to 
Congress.  The  hospital  categorically  denied  it  had  ever  treated 
Aristide. 

When  CIA  Director  R.  James  Woolsey  and  the  CIA's  chief 
Latin  American  analyst,  Brian  Latell,  went  before  Congress  in 
October  to  brief  lawmakers  on  the  crisis  brewing  over  Aristide's 
scheduled  return  to  Haiti,  they  repeated  information  from  a 
classified  CIA  assessment  of  Aristide  that  was  compiled  by  an 
agency  psychiatrist  during  the  Bush  Administration,  after 
Aristide's  ouster  by  the  military  in  September  1991.  The  CIA 
has  declined  comment  about  the  Herald  report.  ("CIA  Report  on 
Aristide  False,  Newspaper  Says,"  The  Washington  Post, 
December  2) 

DECEMBER  -  Joseph  Duncan,  chief  statistician  of  Dun  & 
Bradstreet  Corp.,  and  Cleveland  State  University  professor 
Andrew  Gross  have  concluded  that  the  resources  and  methods 
for  collecting  government  data  are  at  least  two  decades  behind. 
That  would  be  just  another  complaint  except  that  the  success  of 
the  Clinton  Administration  effort  to  improve  health  care  and 
foreign  trade  depends  on  numbers  that  either  do  not  exist  or  are 
seriously  flawed.  The  government's  Healthy  People  2000 
initiative,  an  effort  to  extend  the  reach  of  preventive  medicine 
that  is  crucial  to  the  Clinton  health  plan,  will  require  more  than 
400  separate  sets  of  statistics,  the  authors  said.  "Yet,  for  one- 
fourth  of  the  health  objectives  contained  in  the... project,  no 
baseline  data  exist."  Government  officials  acknowledged  that 
they  would  like  to  have  better  numbers,  although  a  spokeswoman 
for  the  National  Center  of  Health  Statistics  said  ordy  10  percent 
of  the  Healthy  People  2000  objectives  now  lack  base-line  data 
and  that  portion  is  shrinking. 

At  a  briefing  on  their  report,  "Statistics  for  the  21st  Centu- 
ry," Duncan  said,  "We  have  systems  that  were  designed  in  the 


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'50s  and  have  been  upgraded  to  reflect  changing  technology  and 
changing  social  structure."  He  further  said,  "We  don't  even 
know  how  many  small  businesses  there  are,"  contrasting  the 
Small  Business  Administration's  20.5  million  figure  with  Dun  & 
Bradstreet's  10  million  and  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics'  6.5 
million.  ("Raw  or  Cooked,  Are  the  Data  Rotten?"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  December  9) 

DECEMBER  -  Recently,  it  was  revealed  by  Federal  Reserve 
Chairman  Alan  Greenspan  that  for  17  years,  the  Fed  had  been 
keeping  tape  transcripts  of  the  suf)er-secret  discussions  of  top 
officials  of  the  Federal  Reserve  System.  The  disclosures  left 
many  of  the  officials  feeling  that  the  very  foundation  of  the 
Fed's  policy-making  process — the  confidentiality  of  its  regular, 
private  deliberations — had  been  shaken.  While  no  one  would  say 
so  publicly,  there  is  some  apparent  unhappiness  with  Greenspan, 
who  learned  of  the  transcripts  when  he  became  chairman  in  1987 
but  never  informed  the  other  members  of  the  Federal  Open 
Market  Committee. 

A  tape  recording  is  made  of  each  session  of  the  committee. 
And  now  the  members  fear  that  they  may  be  forced  to  turn  the 
tape,  or  a  transcript  of  it  over  to  Rep.  Henry  Gonzalez 
(D-Texas),  chairman  of  the  House  Banking  Committee.  Gonza- 
lez maintains  that  Fed  officials  must  be  "accountable"  for  their 
actions.  Without  full  disclosure  of  what  is  said  at  their  meet- 
ings— he  has  proposed  videotaping  the  sessions — they  ares  not 
accountable.  Gonzalez  has  compared  the  Fed's  behavior  to  that 
of  President  Nixon  during  Watergate,  who  "stonewalled  and 
lied.  I  believe  we  have  seen  some  stonewalling  at  the  Federal 
Reserve  for  17  years,"  he  said. 

The  "stonewalling"  involves  the  fact,  unknown  even  to  most 
Fed  officials,  that  rough  transcripts  made  from  recordings  of 
meetings  of  the  Open  Market  Committee  have  been  kept  in  four 
locked  file  cabinets  at  Fed  headquarters.  There  are  now  more 
than  20,000  neatly  typed  pages  stretching  back  to  1976.  In  a 
hearing  before  the  House  Banking  Conmiittee,  Greenspan  said 
that  transcripts  were  made  and  did  not  imply  any  had  been 
destroyed.  The  transcripts  are  a  sore  point  at  the  Fed.  A  number 
of  officials  said  they  were  "embarrassed"  by  not  knowing  about 
them.  "Everybody  felt  they  hadn't  been  properly  informed  about 
what  was  going  on,"  said  Fed  board  member  John  La  Ware. 
("The  Fed  Feels  the  Heat,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  12) 

DECEMBER  -  For  three  decades  after  World  War  II,  top 
medical  scientists  in  the  nation's  nuclear  weapons  industry 
undertook  an  extensive  program  of  experiments  in  which 
civilians  were  exposed  to  radiation  in  concentrations  far  above 
what  is  considered  safe  today.  The  experiments,  at  government 
laboratories  and  prominent  medical  research  centers,  involved 
injecting  patients  with  dangerous  radioactive  substances  like 
plutonium  or  exposing  them  to  powerful  beams  of  radiation. 


Now  the  Energy  Department  is  doing  an  about-face,  acknowl- 
edging that  for  the  last  six  years  it  ignored  evidence  of  abuses 
and  a  congressional  request  to  uncover  the  extent  of  the  experi- 
ments and  compensate  subjects.  Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary 
has  promised  a  full  investigation,  much  of  it  focusing  on  whether 
civilians  were  fully  informed  of  the  risks  and  consented  to  their 
participation.  ("Secret  Nuclear  Research  on  People  Comes  to 
Light,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  17) 

DECEMBER  -  Researchers  at  Vanderbilt  University  gave 
radioactive  pills  to  pregnant  women  during  the  1940s,  university 
officials  have  confirmed.  A  follow-up  study  during  the  1960s 
concluded  that  three  children  bom  to  women  who  took  the  pills 
likely  died  because  of  the  tests.  On  December  8,  the  Department 
of  Energy  revealed  that  researchers  gave  radioactive  pills  to  751 
pregnant  women  seeking  free  care  at  a  prenatal  clinic  run  by 
Vanderbilt  University.  The  pills  exposed  the  women  and  their 
fetuses  to  radiation  30  times  higher  than  natural  levels,  about  the 
same  as  an  X-ray.  The  doses  were  not  considered  unsafe  at  the 
time. 

Vanderbilt  officials  said  researchers  kept  documents  of  the 
study  until  they  were  destroyed  in  the  1970s.  "The  researchers 
who  were  working  on  that  maintained  their  own  files,"  said 
Vanderbilt  spokesman  Wayne  Wood.  "They  were  not  Vanderbilt 
property.  They  belonged  to  the  researchers  themselves." 
Vanderbilt  officials  said  they  do  not  know  if  the  women  were 
told  of  the  possible  effects  of  radiation  or  even  if  they  knew  they 
were  being  given  radioactive  pills.  ("Radiation  Tests  on  Women 
Confirmed,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  21) 

DECEMBER  -  The  American  government  official  who  directed 
radiation  experiments  on  human  subjects  was  warned  soon  after 
the  program  began  that  the  research  would  invite  public  criticism 
and  comparison  to  Nazi  experiments  on  concentration  inmates, 
a  private  memorandum  declassified  by  the  government  shows.  In 
a  1950  memorandum  to  Dr.  Shields  Warren,  a  senior  official  of 
the  Atomic  Energy  Commission,  Dr.  Joseph  Hamilton,  a  top 
radiation  biologist  who  worked  for  the  agency,  warned  that  the 
medical  experiments  might  have  "a  little  of  the  Buchenwald 
touch."  At  the  Buchenwald  camp  a  number  of  human  experi- 
ments were  done,  including  one  that  killed  about  600  people 
exposed  to  typhus  bacteria. 

The  memorandum,  declassified  in  the  early  1970s,  has  been 
known  to  a  handful  of  independent  investigators  interested  in  the 
early  history  of  the  Atomic  Energy  Commission.  It  has  been 
publicly  circulated  in  recent  days  as  government  investigators 
and  re]K)rters  have  examined  an  extensive  experimental  program 
that  involved  at  least  1,000  people  in  a  variety  of  radiation 
experiments  in  the  early  years  of  the  atomic  era.  One  official 
said  that  number  could  go  much  higher.  ("'50  Memo  Shows 
Radiation  Test  Doubts,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  28) 


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A  1994  Chronology:  January  -  June 


INTRODUCTION 

For  the  past  13  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  Administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the 
government's  16,000  publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since 
1985,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its 
government  information  control  powers,  particularly  through 
Circular  A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources. 
0MB  issued  a  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  July  2,  1993, 
Federal  Register,  changing  its  restrictive  interpretation  of  the 
definition  of  "government  publication"  to  which  ALA  had 
objected  in  OMB's  draft  circulars. 

In  their  first  year  in  office,  the  Clinton  Administration  has 
improved  public  access  to  government  information.  The  Presi- 
dent signed  P.L.  103-40,  the  Government  Printing  Office 
Electronic  Information  Access  Enhancement  Act.  The  implemen- 
tation of  the  law  in  June  1994  provides  electronic  government 
information  to  the  public  through  the  Depository  Library 
Program.  Government  information  is  more  accessible  through 
computer  networks  and  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  Energy 
Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  started  a  campaign  to  open  government 
files  on  Cold  War  radiation  testing  of  humans.  The  Administra- 
tion's national  information  infrastructure  initiatives  include 
government  stimulus  for  cormectivity  and  applications  in  health 
care,  education,  libraries,  and  provision  of  government 
information. 

However,  there  are  still  barriers  to  access.  For  example,  the 
Clinton  Administration,  like  the  two  administrations  before  it, 
has  maintained  that  the  government  has  no  obligation  to  preserve 
its  electronic  records  and  the  information  they  contain.  National 
Performance  Review  recommendations  to  "reinvent  government" 
to  have  every  federal  agency  responsible  for  disseminating 
information  to  the  nation's  1 ,400  depository  libraries  could  result 
in  a  literal  "tower  of  babel"   as  the  American   public  would  be 


forced  to  search  through  hundreds  of  federal  agencies  for 
publications  they  need. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  use 
computer  and  telecommunication  technologies  for  data  collection, 
storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend  has  resulted  in 
the  increased  emergence  of  contractual  arrangements  with  com- 
mercial firms  to  disseminate  information  collected  at  taxpayer 
expense,  higher  user  charges  for  government  information,  and 
the  proliferation  of  government  information  available  in  elec- 
tronic format  only.  While  automation  clearly  offers  promises  of 
savings,  will  public  access  to  government  information  be  further 
restricted  for  people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for 
computer  time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have 
begun  to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public 
access  to  government  information  should  be  increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolution 
passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and  ready 
access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in 
any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States."  In  1986, 
ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Information.  The 
Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts 
that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and  to  develop 
support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government  information. 

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


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1994 


CHRONOLOGY 

JANUARY  -  From  recently  declassified  documents  about  the 
Vietnam  War,  new  evidence  is  emerging  that  some  American 
pilots  held  prisoner  in  Laos  were  not  released  at  the  end  of  the 
war,  and  that  American  intelligence  officials  might  have  known 
where  some  of  them  were.  Officially,  only  two  American  fliers 
are  known  to  have  been  alive  in  the  custody  of  Pathet  Lao 
rebels.  Both  died  in  captivity  in  the  1960s,  Pentagon  officials 
believe.  No  other  reports,  whether  from  human  sources  or  aerial 
photographs,  of  Americans  held  prisoner  by  the  Pathet  Lao  have 
ever  been  verified,  according  to  the  Defense  Department. 

But  declassified  documents  from  the  State  Department,  the 
Central  Intelligence  Agency  and  the  Defense  Intelligence  Agency 
provide  some  support  for  those  who  argue  that  the  number  of 
prisoners  was  considerably  higher,  perhaps  as  high  as  41 
Americans.  The  truth  about  Laos  has  eluded  military  specialists 
and  diplomats  for  two  decades,  and  Laos  remains  the  black  hole 
of  the  long,  bitter  story  of  the  more  than  2,200  American  service 
personnel  still  unaccounted  for.  The  United  States  never 
acknowledged  officially  participating  in  a  war  in  Laos. 

In  a  1973  speech,  former  President  Richard  Nixon  said,  "All 
of  our  American  POWs  are  on  their  way  home."  He  said 
provisions  of  the  Paris  agreement  regarding  Laos  "have  not  been 
complied  with,"  but  he  did  not  indicate  there  might  still  be  U.S. 
prisoners  there.  Several  times  in  the  next  few  months  of  1973, 
he  repeated  that  all  prisoners  had  come  home.  But  the  declassi- 
fied documents  show  there  was  intelligence  information  that  the 
Pathet  Lao  held  some  U.S.  fliers  in  caves  near  Pathet  Lao 
headquarters  in  Sam  Neua,  in  northeastern  Laos,  near  the  border 
with  Vietnam. 

If  any  of  the  intelligence  information  was  correct,  the 
apparent  conclusion  is  that  some  men  were  abandoned  to  their 
fates  when  the  last  U.S.  troops  left  Indochina,  unless  the  Pathet 
Lao  killed  them,  as  some  U.S.  officials  believe.  ("POW  Pilots 
Left  in  Laos,  Files  Suggest,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  2) 

JANUARY  -  President  Clinton  expressed  support  for  opening 
government  files  on  Cold  War  radiation  testing  of  humans,  but 
said  he  needs  to  assess  how  to  proceed.  He  praised  Secretary  of 
Energy  Hazel  O'Leary  for  starting  the  campaign  to  search 
government  files  for  information  on  hundreds  of  experiments 
conducted  on  people  in  the  1940s  and  1950s.  Federal  agencies 
involved  in  the  effort  to  uncover  information  on  the  tests  include 
the  Departments  of  Energy,  Defense  and  Veterans  Affairs  and 
the  National  Aeronautics  and  Space  Administration.  The  VA  has 
announced  that  it  will  investigate  whether  patients  at  VA 
hospitals  in  the  1940s  and  1950s  were  subjected  to  nuclear 
medicine  research  without  their  knowledge.  ("Clinton  Supports 
Release  of  Information  About  Human  Radiation  Experiments," 
The  Washington  Post,  January  2) 

JANUARY  -  The  family  of  Elmer  Allen  learned  after  his  death 
that  he  had  been  unwittingly  injected  with  plutonium  in  1947  as 


part  of  a  secret  government  research  project.  Allen's  family 
learned  of  his  involvement  in  the  experiments  from  the  Albu- 
querque Tribune,  which  in  December  1993  first  reported  that  the 
U.S.  government  had  injected  him  and  17  other  people  with 
plutonium.  Elmerine  Whitfield  began  searching  her  father's 
medical  records  after  the  Albuquerque  paper  first  contacted  the 
family  last  year.  She  appealed  to  Energy  Secretary  Hazel 
O'Leary  during  a  joint  appearance  on  CNN  for  the  release  of  all 
the  documents  in  the  experiments.  Whitfield  is  angry  that  the 
government  her  parents  honored  deceived  them  for  more  than  40 
years.  ("Family  of  Radiation  Test  Victim  Angered  by  Govern- 
ment's Deceit,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  2) 

JANUARY  -  President  Clinton's  attorney,  David  Kendall, 
attempted  to  negotiate  unusual  limits  on  how  the  Justice  Depart- 
ment could  use  files  about  Whitewater  Development  Corporation 
that  the  WTiite  House  had  agreed  to  turn  over.  Kendall  was 
rebuffed  when  he  asked  Justice  officials  to  agree  they  would  not 
share  the  material  with  the  Office  of  Professional  Responsibility, 
the  unit  of  the  department  that  is  investigating  the  handling  of  the 
suicide  in  July  1993  of  White  House  deputy  counsel  Vincent 
Foster.  Such  an  agreement  would  have  been  extraordinary, 
according  to  a  former  federal  prosecutor,  because  the  Justice 
Department  is  generally  free  to  share  subpoenaed  grand  jury 
material  with  any  of  its  attorneys  who  have  a  legitimate  need  for 
it  as  part  of  an  investigation  into  potential  criminal  conduct. 

A  senior  Administration  official  said  that  Kendall  "did  say  to 
the  Justice  Department  that  he  did  not  want  these  documents  to 
go  to  OPR.  He  wanted  them  protected  from  that  kind  of 
dissemination."  The  official  said  that  Kendall's  position  to 
Justice  was  "they  should  not  be  turned  over  to  OPR"  unless 
OPR  went  to  court  to  seek  its  own  access  to  the  records.  There 
was  no  indication  why  Kendall  sought  to  deny  OPR  access  to  the 
documents.  ("President's  Lawyer  Tried  to  Limit  Justice  Dept. 
Use  of  Whitewater  Files,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  3) 

JANUARY  -  British  aviation  officials  notified  the  Federal 
Aviation  Administration  in  1991  that  Boeing  757s  had  problems 
with  wake  turbulence  of  the  kind  suspected  in  a  fatal  crash  in 
December  1993,  the  Los  Angeles  reported.  The  FAA  was  also 
warned  twice  by  a  safety  agency  in  1993  that  pilots  had  reported 
concerns  about  whirling  currents  from  the  plane's  wing  tips,  the 
paper  said. 

In  late  December,  FAA  Administrator  David  Hinson  directed 
air  traffic  controllers  to  issue  wake  turbulence  warnings  to  pilots 
landing  behind  757s.  He  took  the  action  a  week  after  five  people 
were  killed  in  the  crash  of  a  twin-engine  jet  on  December  15  in 
Santa  Ana.  The  plane  had  been  trailing  a  757  by  about  two 
miles, and  investigators  suspect  the  fierce  wake  played  a  role  in 
the  crash.  Turbulence  from  a  757  is  also  suspected  in  the 
December  1992  crash  of  a  twin-engine  jet  in  Billings,  Mont., 
that  killed  eight  persons.  FAA  officials  have  said  no  warning 


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was  issued  sooner  because  the  issue  was  still  under  study. 
("F.A.A.  Reportedly  Knew  of  Jet-Wake  Peril,"  The  New  York 
Times,  January  5) 

[Ed.  note:  In  early  June,  The  Los  Angeles  Times  reported  that 
the  Federal  Aviation  Administration  was  warned  before  two  fatal 
air  accidents  that  wake  turbulence  from  Boeing  757  jetliners 
would  cause  a  "major  crash"  if  the  agency  did  not  intervene. 
The  paper  said  it  obtained  226  pages  of  FAA  letters  and 
memoranda  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act  after  agency 
officials  fought  their  release.  Citing  the  FAA  internal  documents, 
the  Times  said  the  agency's  now-retired  top  scientist  expressed 
serious  concerns  about  the  potential  danger  to  planes  flying 
behind  757s  before  crashes  in  Billings,  Mont.,  and  Santa  Ana, 
Calif.,  that  took  13  lives.  ("FAA  Was  Warned  on  757  Turbu- 
lence, Paper  Says,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  6) 

JANUARY  -  A  special  three-judge  panel  was  asked  to  make 
public  sealed  motions  filed  in  early  December  1993  that  seek 
deletions  in  independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh's  final  report 
on  his  seven-year  investigation  into  the  Iran-contra  affair. 
Several  individuals  mentioned  critically  in  the  report  have  filed 
sealed  motions  that  comment  on  the  report  and  request  that 
certain  portions  be  deleted,  according  to  sources  familiar  with 
the  legal  maneuvering.  It  is  said  that  among  the  attorneys  who 
have  filed  such  motions  are  those  representing  former  president 
Ronald  Reagan  and  former  Reagan  aide  Oliver  North. 

In  the  emergency  motion,  the  Society  of  Professional 
Journalists,  the  Reporters  Committee  for  Freedom  of  the  Press 
and  the  National  Security  Archive  asked  the  panel  to  unseal 
motions  "requesting  suppression,  redaction  or  deletion  of  any 
portion"  of  Walsh'?  final  report.  The  organizations  said  the 
secret  filing  "undermine  public  confidence  in  the  judicial 
process,  deepen  public  skepticism  about  the  handling  of  the  Iran- 
contra  affair,  and  deny  the  public  its  cherished  right  to  know 
what  occurs  in  its  courts."  ("3  Groups  Ask  Access  to  Cuts 
Sought  in  Iran-Contra  Report,"  The  Washington  Post,  January 
7) 

[Ed.  note:  A  three-judge  panel  ruled  against  deleting  material 
from  the  final  report  of  the  Iran-contra  investigation  but  delayed 
release  of  the  controversial  volume  10  days  to  permit  appeal  to 
the  Supreme  Court.  ("Judges  Preserve  Iran-Contra  Material  but 
Delay  Walsh  Report,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  8)] 

JANUARY  -  The  National  Academy  of  Sciences  has  concluded 
that  so  little  is  known  about  the  ecological  condition  of  American 
range  lands  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  determine  how  they 
should  be  managed,  according  to  a  report  that  could  complicate 
Administration  plans  on  federal  lands.  "This  lack  of  information 
goes  to  the  very  heart  of  the  current  debate  over  grazing  fees 
and  environmental  standards,"  said  F.  E.  "Fee"  Busby,  a  range 
scientist  who  chaired  the  academy  panel  that  conducted  the  four- 
year  study  released  this  week.  "Because  fundamental  questions 


about  the  condition  of  U.S.  range  lands  cannot  be  answered," 
Busby  said,  our  ability  to  make  decisions  about  their  proper  use 
and  management  is  severely,  seriously  impaired." 

TTie  NAS  report  concludes  that  current  scientific  information 
on  the  roughly  770  million  acres  of  federal,  state  and  private 
range  lands  is  so  inconsistent  and  fragmentary  that  it  does  "not 
allow  investigators  to  reach  definitive  conclusions  about  the  state 
of  range  lands."  ("Information  Scarce  on  Range  Lands,"  The 
Washington  Post,  January  8) 

JANUARY  -  The  chairman  of  an  independent  panel  that 
investigated  the  loss  of  NASA's  Mars  Observer  spacecraft  said 
that  the  group's  findings— released  in  early  January — should  have 
included  mention  of  a  key  management  decision  that  may  have 
led  to  the  disaster.  "It  was  an  oversight,"  said  Timothy  Coffee, 
direct  of  the  Naval  Research  Laboratory.  "It  really  was  my 
fault."  Controllers  lost  contact  with  the  Observer  on  August  21, 
1993,  after  what  Coffey's  panel  concluded  was  most  likely  a 
failure  in  part  of  the  propulsion  system.  The  spacecraft's  builder, 
Martin  Marietta  Corp.,  renounced  its  claim  to  a  $21.3  million 
orbital  performance  bonus  "in  light  of  the  unsuccessful  mission." 
The  lost  spacecraft  and  the  scientific  instruments  it  carried 
accounted  for  about  half  of  the  mission's  $1  billion  cost. 

The  Washington  Post  reported  that,  about  seven  months 
before  the  Observer  was  launched,  NASA  had  decided  to 
postpone  pressurizing  the  fuel  tanks  until  the  spacecraft  had 
completed  its  11-month  cruise  to  Mars,  instead  of  doing  its  five 
days  after  launch  as  planned  when  the  craft  was  designed  and 
built.  Investigators  concluded  that  the  most  likely  cause  of  the 
spacecraft's  disappearance  was  "a  massive  rupture  in  the 
pressurization  side  of  the  propulsion  system"  that  caused  the 
Observer  to  spin  out  of  control.  The  change  in  flight  procedure 
was  omitted  inadvertently  from  the  executive  summary  and 
overview  provided  to  the  news  media.  The  change  is  mentioned 
in  two  places  deep  inside  the  report's  eight-inch  thick,  four- 
volume  documentation,  which  was  not  distributed  but  was  made 
available  for  inspection  at  NASA  headquarters.  ("NASA  Admits 
Oversight  on  Report,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  11) 

JANUARY  -  The  Clinton  Administration,  in  the  process  of 
preparing  a  post-Cold  War  policy  on  the  release  of  government 
secrets,  is  debating  how  long  information  should  remain 
classified.  A  draft  of  a  new  policy  would  require  that  all 
government  secrets,  with  few  exceptions,  be  automatically 
released  after  40  years.  Several  organizations,  including  the 
National  Security  Archive  and  the  American  Civil  Liberties 
Union,  said  the  need  for  a  shorter  period  was  demonstrated  by 
recent  disclosures  about  secret  government-sponsored  radiation 
experiments  on  unwitting  Americans  in  the  1950s  through  the 
early  1970s.  "Forty  years  is  much  too  long,"  said  Sheryl 
Walter,  general  counsel  of  the  National  Security  Archive.  "The 
whole  reason  to  disclose  secrets  is  to  keep  Government  officials 
accountable  by  letting  them  know  that  their  decisions  will  be 
held  to  the  light  of  public  scrutiny." 


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A  senior  White  House  official  who  is  involved  in  seeking  to 
fulfill  President  Clinton's  promise  for  a  more  open  information 
policy  said  officials  were  seriously  considering  reducing  the  40- 
year  time  frame.  The  process  of  establishing  a  new  policy  on 
government  secrets  has  involved  a  tug-of-war  between  groups 
pressing  for  greater  openness  and  the  established  order,  as 
represented  by  officials  of  government  agencies  that  have 
historically  maintained  national  security  secrets,  like  the  Defense 
Department  and  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency.  The  White 
House  is  in  the  middle  trying  "to  come  up  with  a  plan  that 
would  fulfill  the  President's  pledge  for  more  operuiess  while 
protecting  really  sensitive  information,  and  doing  it  at  a  reason- 
able cost."  Trudy  Peterson,  the  Acting  Archivist  of  the  United 
States,  said  that  even  a  period  of  30  years  would  be  unnecessary. 
In  a  letter  to  Vice  President  Al  Gore  in  December  1993, 
Peterson  said:  "In  our  experience,  there  is  virtually  no  informa- 
tion over  30  years  old  that  requires  continued  classification. 
Most  documents  of  this  age  are  so  irrelevant  to  current  security 
concerns  that  continued  withholding  seems  inappropriate  if  not 
laughable."  The  National  Archives  has  estimated  it  has  300 
million  to  400  million  classified  documents  dating  from  the 
World  War  I  era  to  the  mid-1950s.  Countless  other  documents 
are  housed  at  other  government  agencies.  ("New  Policy  on 
Declassifying  Secrets  Is  Debated,"  The  New  York  Times,  January 
14) 

JANUARY  -  Documents  filed  electronically  with  the  Securities 
and  Exchange  Commission  by  public  companies  will  be  available 
through  the  Internet  in  a  two-year  experiment.  Documents 
obtainable  include  annual  reports,  10-K  filings,  proxy  statements 
and  other  information  valued  by  traders  and  investors.  These  are 
already  available  electronically  through  commercial  data 
suppliers,  but  the  new  service  is  the  first  to  make  them  available 
without  additional  charges.  It  is  the  most  ambitious  experiment 
so  far  by  the  Clinton  Administration  to  make  much  government 
information  available  to  the  public  at  minimum  cost.  "We  have 
a  policy  that  Government  information  ought  to  be  made  available 
at  only  the  marginal  cost  to  provide  the  information,"  said  Tom 
Kalil,  who  coordinates  science  and  technology  policy  at  the 
White  House  Economic  Council.  "We  view  this  type  of  informa- 
tion dissemination  as  one  of  the  ways  we  can  address  the  info 
'haves  and  have  nots'  issue.  Since  the  taxpayers  have  already 
paid  for  it,  the  idea  of  making  it  available  was  appealing." 

Carl  Malamud,  of  Internet  Multicasting,  said  the  SEC  is 
charging  $78,000  a  year  to  supply  his  company  with  data  tapes 
of  each  day's  filings.  The  fee,  he  said  covers  the  cost  of  the 
tapes  and  messenger  fees.  Malamud  said  the  SEC  has  projected 
that  as  many  of  50  gigabytes  of  data— 50  billion  characters  of 
information — will  be  supplied  each  year.  Computer  users  with 
access  to  Internet  can  get  more  information  by  sending  an 
electronic-mail  message  to  "mail[at)town. hall. org"  requesting 
help.  Those  without  Internet  access  can  telephone  202-628-2044. 
("Internet  Users  Get  Access  to  S.E.C.  Filings  Fee-Free,"  Vie 
New  York  Times,  January  17) 


[Ed.  note:  The  public's  access  represents  a  victory  for  public 
interest  group  leaders  like  Jamie  Love  of  the  Taxpayers  Assets 
Project,  who  encouraged  Congress  and  the  SEC  to  make 
electronic  information  available  over  the  Internet.] 

JANUARY  -  A  seven-year  investigation  of  the  Iran-contra 
scandal  produced  "no  credible  evidence  that  President  Reagan 
violated  any  criminal  statute,"  but  concluded  that  Reagan  "set 
the  stage  of  the  illegal  activities  of  others"  by  encouraging  them 
to  win  freedom  for  American  hostages  in  Lebanon  and  arm  the 
contra  rebels  in  Nicaragua,  independent  counsel  Lawrence  Walsh 
said  yesterday.  Once  the  public  learned  in  late  1986  of  the  secret 
arms-for-hostages  dealings  with  Iran  and  the  clandestine  funding 
for  the  contras,  "Reagan  administration  officials  deliberately 
deceived  the  Congress  and  the  public  about  the  level  and  extent 
of  official  knowledge  of  and  support  for  these  operations," 
Walsh  said  in  his  final  report  on  the  affair  released  in  mid- 
January. 

A  congressional  investigation  of  Iran-contra,  Walsh  said, 
went  down  the  wrong  paths,  in  part  because  of  the  Reagan 
administration  coverup.  Walsh  said  his  investigation  discovered 
"large  caches  of  previously  withheld  contemporaneous  notes  and 
documents,  which  provided  new  insight  into  the  highly  secret 
events  of  Iran-contra.  Had  these  materials  been  produced  to 
congressional  and  criminal  investigators  when  they  were 
requested  in  1987,  independent  counsel's  work  would  have 
proceeded  more  quickly  and  probably  with  additional  indict- 
ments." 

In  his  566-page  report  and  a  news  conference,  Walsh  was 
particularly  critical  of  former  president  George  Bush,  who 
served  as  Reagan's  vice  president.  At  the  press  session,  Walsh 
called  Bush's  decision  to  pardon  former  defense  secretary  Caspar 
Weinberger  and  five  other  Iran-contra  figures  on  Christmas  Eve 
1992  "an  act  of  friendship  or  an  act  of  self-protection."  The 
pardon  prevented  a  trial  of  Weinberger  at  which  Bush  would 
have  been  called  as  a  witness.  Bush's  lawyer,  former  attorney 
general  Griffin  Bell,  said  in  reply  that  Bush  "fully  cooperated" 
with  Walsh's  office.  In  a  126-page  response,  Reagan  called  the 
report  "an  excessive,  hyperbolic,  emotional  screed  that  relies  on 
speculation,  conjecture,  innuendo  and  opinion  instead  of  proof." 
("Iran-Contra  Report  Castigates  Reagan,"  The  Washington  Post, 
January  19) 

JANUARY  -  Senate  candidate  Oliver  North  is  portrayed  as 
someone  who  repeatedly  lied,  broke  the  law  and  misused  money 
in  the  final  report  on  the  Iran-contra  affair.  Special  prosecutor 
Lawrence  Walsh's  report  focuses  attention  on  North's  role  in  the 
scandal  and  questions  his  integrity.  The  report  contrasts  sharply 
with  North's  repeated  descriptions  of  himself  as  a  White  House 
subordinate  who  loyally  followed  orders.  "For  six  days,"  Walsh 
wrote,  "North  admitted  to  having  assisted  the  contras  during  the 
[legal]  prohibition  on  U.S.  aid,  to  having  shredded  and  removed 
from  the  White  House  official  documents,  to  having  converted 
traveler's  checks  for  his  personal  use,  to  having  participated  in 


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the  creation  of  false  chronologies  of  the  U.S.  arms  sales,  to 
having  lied  to  Congress  and  to  having  accepted  a  home  security 
system... then  fabricating  letters  regarding  payment  for  the 
system.  But,  North  testified,  'I  don't  believe  I  ever  did  anything 
that  was  criminal.'" 

North  and  his  aides  dismissed  the  report  as  politically 
meaningless,  saying  it  recycled  old  allegations  that  courts  already 
have  rejected.  North  was  found  guilty  of  several  charges, 
including  obstructing  Congress  and  accepting  an  illegal  gratuity, 
but  the  conviction  was  overturned  on  the  grounds  that  North's 
testimony  before  Congress  might  have  been  used  against  him. 
("North's  Role  in  Scandal  Is  Denounced,"  The  Washington  Post, 
January  19) 

JANUARY  -  In  a  move  designed  to  provide  more  access  to 
government  information,  the  government  will  provide  unlimited 
free  access  to  its  AIDS-related  electronic  databases.  Any 
individual  or  organization  will  be  given  a  password  on  request 
allowing  free  use  of  the  AIDS  databases.  The  databases  are 
compiled  by  the  National  Library  of  Medicine,  the  largest  health 
sciences  library  in  the  world.  The  principal  reason  for  dropping 
the  fees  for  searching  the  databases  is  that  members  of  commu- 
nity organization  told  the  library  that  they  could  not  afford  the 
existing  fees.  Fees  for  using  the  AIDS  databases  averaged  $18 
an  hour,  or  $1.25  for  each  search.  The  library  operates  with  a 
fee-for-service  philosophy  under  congressionally  mandated 
guidelines,  according  to  NLM  Director,  Dr.  Donald  Lindberg. 
He  said  recent  increases  in  the  library's  AIDS  funds  would  allow 
it  to  offer  the  service  free.  The  library  has  no  immediate  plans 
to  make  any  of  its  other  databases  available  free,  he  said.  ("U.S. 
Data  on  AIDS  To  Be  Free,"  The  New  York  Times,  January  25) 

JANUARY  -  Matthew  Freedman  and  Jim  Riccio  have  written  a 
five-page  article  describing  how  secret  internal  industry  docu- 
ments obtained  by  Public  Citizen  reveal  that  America's  nuclear 
reactors  have  serious  safety,  training,  and  equipment  problems 
that  government  regulators  have  not  disclosed  to  the  public. 
These  documents  show  that  long-standing  deficiencies  in  these 
plants  put  the  health  and  safety  of  the  public  at  risk.  These 
findings  conflict  with  public  assessments  made  by  the  Nuclear 
Regulatory  Commission,  the  federal  agency  in  charge  of 
regulating  commercial  nuclear  power  operations.  The  internal 
documents  are  significant  because  they  show  that  aging  nuclear 
reactors  are  plagued  by  a  variety  of  management  and  technical 
problems,  many  of  which  have  not  been  revealed  in  NRC's 
public  assessments.  The  range  and  frequency  of  NRC's  omission 
raise  serious  concerns  about  the  credibility  of  regulators  and 
their  willingness  to  acknowledge  potential  safety  hazards  at 
nuclear  reactors.  "These  documents  show  that  citizens  need 
greater  access  to  accurate  information  about  nuclear  power 
plants,"  said  Bill  Magavem,  director  of  Public  Citizen's  Critical 
Mass  Energy  Project.  "The  time  has  come  to  lift  the  veil  of 
secrecy  that  shrouds  this  industry.  TTiere's  just  no  good  excuse 
to  keep  the  public  in  the  dark  when  our  health  and  safety  may  be 


at  risk. "  ("What  the  Nuclear  Regulatory  Commission  Won't  Tell 
You:  Aging  Reactors.  Poorly  Trained  Workers,"  Public  Citizen, 
January/February) 

FEBRUARY  -  An  article  by  Jim  Warren  describes  how  not  to 
computerize  a  federal  agency's  records.  The  U.S.  Department 
of  Justice  developed  JURIS,  an  in-house  computer-assisted  legal 
research  system,  in  the  late  1970s.  In  1983,  Justice  contracted 
with  West  Publishing  to  provide  computerized  research  services 
for  its  attorneys.  These  included  providing  computerized  copies 
of  federal  case  law.  But  in  late  1993,  West  notified  Justice  that 
they  were  not  planning  to  bid  for  the  contract  again,  and  that  the 
computerized  copies  of  the  last  10  years  of  federal  case  law  were 
West's  private  property.  Additionally,  West  had  copyrighted  the 
page  numbers  from  West's  published  copies  of  federal  cases — the 
ones  that  are  required  by  most  federal  courts  for  all  federal 
briefs. 

Warren  maintains  that  the  JURIS  situation  provides  lessons 
for  every  federal  agency.  He  states  that  any  contract  with  an 
outside  provider  must  clearly  state  that:  (1)  the  agency  has  the 
permanent  right  to  receive,  own  and  use  copies  of  all  computer- 
ized versions  of  its  records,  without  restrictions,  and  (2)  the 
agency  has  the  right  to  distribute  copies  to  any  party  at  any  time 
and  permit  any  use  of  those  distributed  copies,  unrestricted  by 
the  provider.  An  agency  can't  risk  having  a  service  provider 
lock  up  their  data.  Regarding  public  access,  Warren  says  that 
contracts  with  outside  providers  must  assure  that:  (1)  the  public 
can  receive  computerized  copies  of  computerized  public  records 
at  no  greater  cost  than  the  agency  pays  for  such  copies,  and  (2) 
if  public  information  is  commingled  with  confidential,  propri- 
etary or  personal  information  in  a  comprehensive,  structured 
information  system,  then  the  system  must  include  the  capability 
to  easily  and  automatically  remove  all  nonpublic  information 
from  computerized  and  printed  copies.  Otherwise,  the  agency  is 
circumventing  timely  response  to  public-records  requests. 
("Access:  How  NOT  to  Computerize  Government  Records," 
Government  Technology,  February) 

FEBRUARY  -  Under  pressure  to  allow  the  release  of  high- 
resolution  satellite  imagery,  Central  Intelligence  Agency  Director 
R.  James  Woolsey  told  a  Senate  committee  in  November  1993 
that  the  agency  and  the  Pentagon  may  begin  selling  the  images 
themselves.  The  government  sales  could  compete  with  the 
private  sector,  which  has  sought  to  end  the  ban  on  selling  one- 
meter  resolution  satellite  data.  The  CIA  and  Defense  Department 
are  resisting  a  complete  lifting  of  the  ban,  claiming  that  hostile 
nations  or  groups  could  use  the  data  to  pinpoint  targets  in  the 
United  States.  One-meter  resolution  is  clear  enough  to  identify 
types  of  cars  on  a  road  or  aircraft  at  an  airfield.  The  ban  on  the 
highest  resolution  spy  data,  which  reportedly  can  identify  license 
plates  from  space,  is  unlikely  to  be  lifted  and  isn't  under 
discussion. 

Industry  representatives  at  the  Senate  hearing  urged  that  any 
government  sales  be  restricted  to  archive  photos  and  allow  the 


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private  sector  to  sell  up-to-date  material,  which  is  more  valuable 
on  the  market.  TTiey  also  told  the  committee  they  would  prefer 
for  the  government  to  sell  only  photos  taken  from  low-tech 
cameras,  leaving  the  high-resolution  shots  to  the  private  sector. 
With  the  Cold  War  over,  some  satellite  firms  have  been  looking 
for  customers  to  replace  the  U.S.  government,  which  is  paring 
back  on  intelligence  expenditures.  TTiese  firms  believe  that  there 
is  a  huge  remote  sensing  market  and  are  looking  for  permission 
to  sell  to  foreign  intelligence  agencies,  crop  scientists,  urban 
planners,  utilities  and  state  and  local  governments.  ("Sale  on  Spy 
Satellite  Data,"  Government  Technology,  February) 

MARCH  -  In  early  February,  Public  Citizen's  Health  Research 
Group  wrote  to  President  Clinton  urging  him  to  immediately 
reverse  Reagan-Bush  policies  and  order  acceleration  of  a 
program  to  individually  notify  nearly  170,000  workers  of  serious 
health  risks  they  incurred  through  exposure  to  cancer-causing 
chemicals  and  other  workplace  hazards.  Ten  years  have  elapsed 
since  Public  Citizen  wrote  to  President  Reagan  requesting  that 
the  federal  government  individually  notify  240,450  workers 
exposed  to  hazardous  materials  at  258  worksites  surveyed  in  69 
epidemiological  studies  funded  and  conducted  by  the  National 
Institute  for  Occupational  Safety  and  Health.  A  decade  later, 
fewer  than  30  percent  of  these  workers  covered  by  only  a 
handful  of  studies  have  been  notified.  ("Unfinished  Business," 
Health  Letter,  March) 

MARCH  -  The  CIA  and  Defense  Department  should  streamline 
procedures  for  classifying  information  and  devote  far  more 
attention  to  deciding  who  should  have  access  to  national  secrets, 
a  government-appointed  commission  of  former  intelligence  and 
defense  officials  told  the  Clinton  Administration.  In  a  bow  to 
public  interest  groups  who  contend  the  government  has  classified 
far  too  much  information,  the  commission  urged  the  Administra- 
tion to  authorize  the  automatic  declassification  of  most  secrets 
within  25  years.  Under  the  commission's  plan,  narrow  excep- 
tions to  the  25-year  declassification  rule  would  be  allowed  for 
information  that  might  jeopardize  a  human  mtelligence  source  or 
certain  military  capabilities.  No  such  rule  now  exists,  and  last 
year  some  CIA  and  Defense  Department  officials  protested  a  less 
demanding  draft  proposal  for  automatic  document  declassifica- 
tion after  40  years. 

In  another  potentially  controversial  recommendation,  the 
commission  proposed  to  abolish  the  existing  system  of  classify- 
ing national  security  documents  as  "confidential,"  "secret,"  "top 
secret,"  and  "top  secret-[codeword]."  In  its  place  would  be  a 
simpler  system  with  just  two  categories:  "secret"  and  "secret- 
controlled  access."  This  new  approach  would  eliminate  some  of 
the  myriad  rules  and  regulations  associated  with  protecting  an 
estimated  300  separate  categories  of  the  most  sensitive  govern- 
ment information,  the  commission  said.  It  cited  the  complaint  of 
a  senior  military  officer  that  current  safeguards  require  protect- 
ing what  is,  in  effect,  "every  blade  of  grass  on  a  baseball 
field.... [using  100  players],  when  only  four  persons  to  protect 


home  plate  would  suffice."  ("Panel  Urges  Simpler  Procedures 
on  Government  Secrets,  Access,"  The  Washington  Post,  March 
2) 

MARCH  -  On  March  23,  the  Information  Security  Oversight 
Office  released  the  1993  "Report  to  the  President,"  the  eleventh 
annual  report  to  examine  the  information  security  program  under 
Executive  Order  12356.  In  1993,  the  total  of  all  classification 
actions  reported  for  FY  1993  increased  1  percent  to  6,408,688. 
The  Department  of  Defense  accounted  for  58  percent  of  all 
classification  decisions;  CIA  25  percent;  Justice  13  percent;  State 
3  percent;  and  all  other  agencies,  1  percent.  Under  the  systemat- 
ic review  program,  agencies  reviewed  9,038,144  pages  of 
historically  valuable  records,  16  percent  fewer  than  in  FY  1992; 
and  declassified  6,588,456  pages,  30  percent  fewer  than  in  FY 
1992. 

MARCH  -  The  Clinton  Administration  has  decided  to  claim  in 
federal  court  that  all  documents  created  by  the  staff  of  the 
National  Security  Council  are  presidential  records  and  therefore 
not  subject  to  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  If  implemented, 
the  policy  change  would  end  many  years  of  established  practice 
m  which  past  administrations  acknowledged  that  the  NSC  created 
both  presidential  records  and  agency  records  and  that  agency 
records  were  subject  to  disclosure  under  the  Freedom  of 
Information  Act. 

The  FOIA  applies  to  the  records  of  federal  agencies;  it  does 
not  apply  to  presidential  records,  which  by  law  are  deposited  in 
federal  archives  after  presidents  leave  office.  The  Administra- 
tion's legal  strategy  responds  to  adverse  court  rulings  in 
Armstrong  v.  the  Executive  Office  of  the  President,  a  case  in 
which  ALA  is  a  plaintiff.  The  Administration's  strategy  hinges 
on  the  assertion  that  the  NSC  is  not  an  "agency"  for  purposes  of 
FOIA,  but  functions  solely  as  an  adviser  to  the  president  on 
matters  of  national  security.  The  argument  portends  controversy 
for  an  administration  that  has  boasted  of  a  commitment  to 
greater  openness  in  government.  "Every  prior  administration  has 
admitted  the  National  Security  Council  has  a  dual  function,"  said 
Tom  Blanton,  executive  director  of  the  National  Security 
Archive.  "One  function  is  presidential,  the  other  function  is 
agency... and  the  White  House  knows  it." 

Acknowledging  that  if  the  legal  argument  prevails  it  would 
render  moot  the  FOIA  process.  President  Clinton  directed  March 
24  that  a  new  disclosure  review  process  be  created  within  the 
NSC  that  will  mirror  FOIA  by  creating  "procedures  for  access 
by  the  public  to  appropriate  NSC  records."  Administration 
officials  acknowledged  that  such  a  process  would  not  provide  the 
same  legal  remedies  to  seek  enforcement  in  federal  court. 
Blanton  derided  to  proposal  as  a  "trust-me  FOIA."  ("Clinton 
Tries  to  Limit  Access  to  NSC  Data,"  Ttie  Washington  Post, 
March  26) 

APRIL  -  A  House  Judiciary  Subcommittee  hearing  on  April  1 1 
in  Cincinnati  was  to  receive  testimony  about  questions  surround- 


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ing  radiation  tests  on  humans  at  the  University  of  Cincinnati 
from  1960  to  1971.  Dr.  Eugene  Saenger,  and  his  colleagues 
conducted  experiments  on  88  cancer  patients,  ages  9  to  84, 
exposing  them  to  intense  doses  of  radiation  and  recording  their 
physical  and  mental  responses.  All  but  one  of  the  patients  were 
terminally  ill,  most  were  poor,  and  60  percent  were  black.  The 
Cincinnati  study  exposed  patients  to  the  highest  levels  of  whole- 
body  radiation  and,  some  experts  say,  probably  caused  the  most 
deaths  of  all  the  know  government-sponsored  radiation  experi- 
ments since  World  War  II.  There  is  disagreement  about  how 
many  died  of  radiation  poisoning  rather  than  cancer.  But  whole- 
body  radiation  has  been  discounted  by  doctors  as  an  accepted 
cancer  treatment  in  all  but  a  handful  of  cancers,  among  them 
leukemia. 

One  issue  to  be  discussed  is  the  propriety  of  concealing 
information  about  the  effects  of  high-dose  radiation  from 
patients.  In  summaries  to  the  Pentagon,  Dr.  Saenger  said 
patients  were  not  to  be  informed.  "The  patient  is  told  that  is  to 
receive  treatment  to  help  his  sickness,"  he  wrote  in  1961. 
"There  is  no  discussion  of  subjective  reactions  resulting  from  the 
treatment.  Other  physicians,  nurses  and  ward  personnel  are 
instructed  not  to  discuss  these  aspects  with  the  patient."  By 
subjective  symptoms,  he  meant  vomiting,  abdominal  pain, 
diarrhea,  weakness  and  mental  confusion.  Dr.  Saenger's  lawyer 
said,  "There  was  a  genuine  belief  that  the  patients  would  benefit 
from  the  study  and,  by  the  way,  there  would  be  information 
developed  for  the  Department  of  Defense." 

But  Dr.  David  Egilman,  a  former  instructor  in  family 
medicine  at  the  University  of  Cincinnati  and  now  clinical 
assistant  professor  of  community  health  at  Brown  University, 
said  that  even  in  the  1960s,  whole-body  radiation  had  been 
largely  discounted  for  treating  colon,  stomach,  lung  and  breast 
tumors.  "The  study  was  designed  to  test  the  effect  of  radiation 
on  soldiers,"  said  Dr.  Egilman,  who  has  studied  Dr.  Saenger's 
experiment  and  is  scheduled  to  testify  at  the  congressional 
hearing.  "It  was  known  when  the  study  began  that  whole  body 
radiation  wouldn't  treat  the  types  of  cancer  these  patients  had. 
What  happened  here  is  one  of  the  worst  things  this  Government 
has  ever  done  to  its  citizens  in  secret."  ("Cold  War  Radiation 
Test  on  Humans  to  Undergo  a  Congressional  Review,"  The  New 
York  Times,  April  11) 

APRIL  -  Forest  Service  employees  who  speak  out  are  discredit- 
ed, and  scientific  reports  are  routinely  changed  to  support  the 
interests  of  the  timber  industry,  according  to  a  report  by  The 
Center  for  Public  Integrity,  a  nonprofit  interest  group.  "Scientif- 
ic fraud  and  crass  intimidation"  occur  at  virtually  every  national 
forest,  said  the  report,  titled  "Sleeping  With  the  Industry— The 
U.S.  Forest  Service  and  Timber  Interests."  "For  years,  the 
service  has  been  one  of  the  most  mismanaged,  poorly  led, 
politically  manipulated  and  corrupt  agencies  in  the  federal 
government."  The  Center  completed  the  report  after  interviewing 
dozens  of  industry  officials,  congressional  staffs  and  environ- 
mentalists.  It  also  examined  thousands  of  government  docu- 


ments, campaign  spending  records  and  congressional  testimony. 
The  report  primarily  targets  the  "cozy  relationship"  between 
timber  industry  officials  and  Forest  Service  managers  who 
oversee  logging  programs. 

Critics  of  the  Forest  Service  were  encouraged  because 
biologist  Jack  Ward  Thomas  is  the  new  chief  of  the  agency,  has 
shown  interest  in  reforming  the  agency  and  its  treatment  of 
employees.  In  his  first  memo  to  employees,  Thomas  told  them 
to  "obey  the  law."  However,  the  report  says,  "A  year  into  the 
Clinton-Gore  tenure,  reform  of  the  agency  and  its  policies  has 
come  slowly  or  in  many  areas,  has  failed  to  materialize  at  ail- 
often  because  of  the  administration's  unwillingness  to  stand  up 
to  powerful  timber-state  politicians."  The  Forest  Service's 
reputation  for  "muzzling"  its  employees  is  well-documented,  the 
report  said.  An  Agriculture  Department  spokesman  said  many  of 
the  incidents  of  retaliation  happened  during  the  Bush  Administra- 
tion. ("Forest  Service  Cited  for  'Muzzling'  Critics,"  Federal 
Times,  April  25) 

APRIL  -  His  heirs  plan  to  continue  former  president  Richard 
Nixon's  20-year  fight  to  control  more  than  3,000  hours  of  White 
House  tapes  and  150,000  pages  of  Presidential  papers,  his 
lawyer  said.  But  legal  experts  said  Nixon's  death  may  speed  the 
release  of  the  records,  which  are  locked  away  at  the  National 
Archives  and  have  never  been  made  available  to  scholars  or 
journalists.  The  tapes  and  papers  were  crucial  to  Nixon's 
struggle  to  re-establish  his  reputation.  Starting  two  months  after 
he  resigned  as  President  in  1974,  he  filed  lawsuits  to  stop  the 
release  of  the  records.  TTie  last  suit  was  filed  in  mid- April. 
Unless  his  family  fights  as  hard  and  as  well  as  he  did,  historians 
may  be  mining  rich  new  veins  of  Nixon's  hidden  history. 

Only  63  hours  of  the  tapes,  provided  to  the  federal  grand 
jury  in  the  Watergate  affair,  have  been  made  public.  Their 
famous  passages  include  Nixon's  advice  that  his  aides  "stone- 
wall" federal  investigators  and  his  response  to  demands  for  hush 
money  from  the  men  arrested  in  the  June  1972  break-in  at 
Democratic  Party  headquarters  in  the  Watergate  office  building: 
"You  could  get  a  million  dollars.  And  you  could  get  it  in  cash. 
I  know  where  it  could  be  gotten."  Patti  Goldman,  a  lawyer 
representing  Stanley  Kutler,  a  University  of  Wisconsin  historian, 
said  "the  struggle  is  over  who  will  control  the  tapes,  who  will 
control  what  the  public  will  see  and  hear."  She  added:  "Nixon 
really  didn't  want  the  tapes  out.  1  don't  know  if  his  goal  was  to 
delay  their  release  until  he  died  or  longer.  It  may  be  that  he 
accomplished  what  he  wanted." 

But  Nixon's  lawyer,  R.  Stan  Mortenson,  said  the  battle  will 
not  end  with  Nixon's  death.  "The  suits  will  continue,"  he  said. 
Mortenson  said  Nixon  had  a  right  to  privacy  even  after  death, 
although  he  could  not  cite  a  legal  basis  for  that  concept.  Other 
legal  experts  said  the  claim  of  privacy  would  diminish  after 
Nixon's  death.  ("Nixon  Heirs  Keep  Up  Fight  to  Control  Papers 
and  Tapes,"  77;<'  New  York  Times,  April  26) 

[Ed.  Note:   Richard  Nixon  left  the  bulk  of  this  estate  to  the 


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Nixon  Library.  Although  the  will  does  not  indicate  the  value  of 
the  estate,  it  shows  Nixon  made  a  $1.45  million  contribution  to 
the  Nixon  Library  in  1992,  and  pledged  $1.2  million  in  1993. 
The  will  was  filed  May  11  in  the  Bergen  County  Surrogate's 
Court  in  New  Jersey.  Control  of  his  personal  diaries,  tapes  and 
transcripts  was  given  to  his  two  daughters.  ("Nixon's  Will 
Leaves  Tapes  to  Family,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  18)] 

MAY  -  The  Food  and  Drug  Administration  officially  launched 
a  long-awaited  nutritional  label  design  for  packaged,  processed 
foods  to  help  Americans  make  healthier  choices  of  the  food  they 
buy.  The  clearer  labels,  mandated  by  the  Nutrition  Labeling  and 
Education  Act  of  1990,  feature  large  type  and  offer  simple 
guides  to  fat,  saturated  fat,  cholesterol,  dietary  fiber  and  other 
nutritional  components.  Each  nutrient  is  described  in  terms  of 
the  percentage  of  recommended  "daily  values"  and  the  labels  use 
common-sense  serving  sizes,  such  as  20  potato  chips  instead  of 
1  ounce.  "We're  witnessing  a  public  health  milestone  and  a 
victory  for  consumers,"  said  Michael  Jacobson,  director  of  the 
Center  for  Science  in  the  Public  Interest  and  a  long-time 
advocate  of  clear  nutritional  information  on  foods.  "For  the  first 
time,  consumers  will  be  able  to  see  what  they're  getting— and 
trust  what  they're  seeing."  ("Read  It  and  (Maybe)  Eat,"  The 
Washington  Post,  May  3) 

[Ed.  note:  Earlier  issues  of  "Less  Access"  documented  the 
controversy  about  the  labels  between  the  FDA  and  food  proces- 
sors over  what  information  would  be  included  in  the  labels  and 
how  it  would  be  presented.) 

MAY  -  Over  the  decades  of  their  existence,  mistrust  and 
outright  distaste  have  developed  between  the  nation's  premier 
law  enforcement  agency,  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation, 
and  premier  intelligence  organization,  the  Central  Intelligence 
Agency.  The  case  of  superspy  Aldrich  Ames,  which  has 
spawned  allegations  that  the  CIA  withheld  vital  information  from 
FBI  investigators  about  Ames  and  other  potential  spy  cases,  has 
led  to  renewed  calls  for  overhauling  the  way  the  U.S. 
government  conducts  counterintelligence. 

The  FBI-CIA  tensions  stem  partly  from  bureaucratic  rivalry 
and  confusion  caused  by  overlapping  responsibilities  for  counter- 
intelligence activity.  Both  have  officers  stationed  overseas,  but 
the  CIA  is  more  interested  in  traditional  spying,  which  involves 
protecting  sources  and  avoiding  public  disclosures,  while  the  FBI 
often  wants  to  pursue  law  enforcement  cases  by  bringing 
wrongdoers  to  court.  The  most  publicized  fights  have  occurred 
over  the  sharing  of  information.  The  FBI  has  charged  in  private 
congressional  testimony — and  more  recently  in  material  supplied 
to  the  White  House— that  the  CIA  failed  to  inform  the  bureau  of 
information  it  had  relating  to  as  many  as  a  dozen  counterintelli- 
gence cases.  The  most  recent  example  cited  in  the  CIA's 
withholding  from  the  FBI  information  about  Ames'  difficulties 
with  a  1991  jxjlygraph  test. 

The  CIA  has  said  that  the  FBI  failed  to  ask  for  the  polygraph 


information  and  has  rebutted  each  of  the  bureau's  other  allega- 
tions. CIA  officials  also  have  noted  that  the  FBI  conducted  a 
number  of  operations  abroad  without  notifying  the  agency,  in 
violation  of  standard  procedure.  President  Clinton  is  expected  to 
sign  a  presidential  order  outlining  new  counterintelligence 
practices,  trying  to  head  off  congressional  proposals  to  resolve 
the  long-standing  FBI-CIA  dispute  with  legislation  that  would 
spell  out  respective  responsibilities.  Many  insiders  are  skeptical 
that  the  new  presidential  directive  will  work.  "You  can't 
legislate  behavior,"  said  one  FBI  official.  "If  the  CIA  thinks 
something  is  wrong  and  won't  tell  anyone,  then  you  won't  know 
to  ask  for  the  files."  ("Interagency  FBI-CIA  Tensions  Defy 
Decades  of  Efforts  to  Resolve  Them,"  The  Washington  Post, 
May  3) 

MAY  -  U.S.  government  researchers  conducted  radiation  tests 
on  still-bom  babies  in  Chicago  during  the  1950s,  the  Department 
of  Energy  reported,  in  the  latest  revelation  about  the  wide-scale 
use  of  humans  in  Cold  War  experiments.  In  the  Chicago  tests, 
scientists  cremated  44  newly  deceased  infants  and  measured  the 
amount  of  strontium  90,  a  radioactive  substance,  in  the  remains. 
Parents  were  probably  not  notified  or  asked  permission  for  the 
use  of  their  children  in  the  experiments,  according  to  DOE 
officials.  The  tests  were  part  of  Project  Sunshine,  a  massive 
study  conducted  by  the  Atomic  Energy  Commission,  a  forerun- 
ner of  DOE,  to  determine  the  long-term  effects  of  nuclear 
radiation  fallout  on  humans.  Strontium  90  is  among  the  radioac- 
tive particles  that  typically  linger  in  the  body  following  nuclear 
weapons  tests. 

The  release  of  long-classified  information  about  the  Chicago 
Baby  Project — following  recent  reports  about  the  use  of  mentally 
retarded  teenagers,  ethnic  minorities  and  other  disadvantaged 
groups  in  radiation  tests — raises  new  questions  about  what  ethical 
standards  the  federal  government  used  in  its  conduct  of  Cold 
War  research.  DOE  officials  released  documents  about  the  baby 
tests  as  part  of  its  mission  to  inform  the  American  public  about 
the  extent  that  federal  researchers  involved  humans  in  radiation 
experiments  between  the  early  1940s  and  the  1970s. 

After  Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  expressed  outrage 
about  the  radiation  experiments  earlier  this  year.  President 
Clinton  appointed  an  interagency  committee  to  investigate  the 
tests  and  determine  whether  the  victims  should  be  compensated. 
Don  Peterson,  a  retired  Los  Alamos  researcher  familiar  with  the 
tests,  defended  them  in  an  interview.  "There  was  probably  no 
other  way  for  science  to  obtain  this  kind  of  information  at  the 
time,"  he  said.  "The  use  of  rats  or  other  animals  would  not 
obtain  the  same  results.  This  was  a  case  of  children  who  were 
no  longer  beneficial  to  the  population  being  able  to  provide 
information  that  was  enormously  important  for  the  rest  of  the 
world's  children,"  he  said.  ("Stillborn  Babies  Used  in  '50s 
Radiation  Tests,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  3) 

MAY  -  Representative  Jim  Leach  (R-lowa),  the  ranking 
Republican  on  the  House  Banking,  Finance  and  Urban  Affairs 


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Committees,  sued  federal  regulators  for  release  of  documents 
relating  to  the  Whitewater  investigation,  saying  they  cannot 
choose  to  withhold  the  material  just  because  it  might  be  embar- 
rassing to  the  president.  For  six  months.  Leach  has  been  seeking 
documents  relating  to  Whitewater  and  a  failed  Arkansas  savings 
and  loan,  Madison  Guaranty.  Most  of  his  requests  have  been 
denied  on  privacy  or  other  grounds  by  the  Office  of  Thrift 
Supervision,  the  agency  that  regulates  S&Ls,  and  the  Resolution 
Trust  Corp.,  the  agency  created  to  dispose  of  hundreds  of  failed 
thrifts. 

Leach  said  that  in  the  past  regulators  routinely  provided 
inaterials  to  the  Banking  Committee  minority  on  many  other 
S&Ls,  including  some  that  were  the  subjects  of  sensitive 
criminal  investigations.  Among  them  were  Lincoln  Savings  and 
Loan,  run  by  Charles  Keating,  Jr.,  and  Silverado  Savings  and 
Loan,  where  President  George  Bush's  son  Neil  was  a  director. 
The  lawsuit,  filed  in  U.S.  District  Court  in  Washington,  D.C., 
maintains  that  regulators  are  preventing  Leach  from  fulfilling  his 
oversight  duties  as  the  banking  panel's  ranking  minority 
member. 

OTS  and  RTC  have  said  they  would  provide  Madison  records 
if  they  are  requested  by  the  Banking  Committee  chairman, 
Representative  Henry  Gonzalez  (D-Texas).  Gonzalez  has  tned  to 
block  congressional  investigation  of  Madison,  going  so  far  as 
writing  to  RTC  and  OTS  officials  to  urge  them  not  to  provide 
materials  to  Leach.  Lawyers  for  Leach  are  seeking  to  have  the 
lawsuit  placed  on  a  judicial  fast  track.  ("Leach  Sues  to  Force 
Release  of  Whitewater  Files,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  12) 

MAY  -  The  task  of  keeping  millions  and  millions  of  government 
documents  away  from  prying  eyes  still  keeps  more  than  32,400 
workers  employed  full  time,  according  to  the  first-ever  tally  by 
government  agencies.  And  the  government  may  be  spending 
more  than  $16  billion  a  year  to  safeguard  a  growing  stockpile  of 
national  security  secrets  created  or  managed  by  these  workers, 
industry  estimates  and  the  new  accounting  for  the  Office  of 
Management  and  Budget  show.  Eighty-one  percent  of  this  cost, 
or  an  estimate  $13.8  billion,  reflects  what  defense  contractors 
told  the  federal  government  they  were  billing  Washington  for 
classification  expenses  in  1989.  No  contractor  estimates  have 
been  made  since  then,  but  experts  believe  the  costs  may  still  be 
in  that  range  despite  a  decline  in  defense  spending.  An  additional 
$2.28  billion  reflects  what  federal  agencies  told  OMB  this  spring 
they  will  spend  this  year  to  protect  classified  information.  And 
$200  million  more  reflects  what  the  intelligence  community 
recently  estimated  it  is  spending  on  security,  a  classified  figure 
that  many  government  officials  and  independent  experts  describe 
as  an  understatement. 

About  31,000  of  the  full-time  employees  safeguarding 
classified  documents  are  attached  the  Defense  Department.  But 
even  the  Department  of  Interior  has  the  equivalent  of  30  full- 
time  workers  assigned  to  protect  secrets  related  to  national 
security.  The  Department  of  Education  allocates  $7,378  to  write 
a  classification  guide  and   installing  $7,264  worth  of  secure 


telephones  this  year.  An  Education  Department  spokesman  said 
they  were  needed  for  discussions  of  travel  plans  by  "foreign 
education  officials"  and  reports  to  other  agencies  about  student 
loan  defaults.  ("32,400  Workers  Stockpiling  U.S.  Secrets,"  The 
Washington  Post,  May  15) 

MAY  -  The  Pentagon  in  1953  secretly  adopted  the  Nuremberg 
Code  for  protecting  humans  involved  in  Cold  War  scientific 
experiments,  according  to  official  documents  released  in 
mid-May.  But  Defense  Department  officials  may  have  withheld 
the  guidelines  from  researchers  who  were  using  military 
personnel  in  radiation  experiments  at  the  time.  The  1953 
document  issued  by  the  Secretary  of  Defense  set  the  terms  for 
using  humans  in  scientific  research.  The  two-page  statement 
included  provisions  saying  "the  voluntary  consent  of  the  human 
subject  is  absolutely  essential"  and  that  facilities  should  be 
provided  to  protect  the  subjects'  "even  remote  possibility  of 
injury,  disability  or  death." 

The  document  was  classified,  however,  indicating  access  was 
limited  to  senior  defense  officials.  The  Pentagon  has  acknowl- 
edged Army  personnel  were  widely  used  by  department 
researchers,  including  many  unlikely  to  have  seen  the  classified 
code,  for  radiation  experiments  during  the  1940s,  1950s  and 
beyond.  The  Pentagon  declassified  the  code  in  1975.  Researchers 
who  have  studied  the  radiation  experiments  believed  the  United 
States  had  no  written  policy  on  the  experiments  until  the  1960s. 
("Defense  Kept  Radiation  Test  Policy  Secret,"  The  Washington 
Post,  May  19) 

MAY  -  At  the  time  of  the  August  1991  attempted  coup  against 
then-Soviet  President  Mikhail  Gorbachev,  the  Bush  Administra- 
tion gave  intelligence  support  to  Boris  Yeltsin  that  helped  the 
Russian  president  emerge  as  a  hero  from  that  event,  according 
to  an  article  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly.  American  officials  in 
Moscow,  with  access  to  U.S.  intercepts  of  Soviet  defense 
communications,  were  ordered  by  the  Bush  White  House  to  tell 
Yeltsin  that  Soviet  military  units  were  not  responding  to  calls  by 
the  coup  leaders,  according  to  the  article  by  Washington 
journalist  Seymour  Hersh.  In  addition,  Hersh  writes,  an  Ameri- 
can communications  specialist  was  sent  to  Yeltsin's  headquarters 
in  the  Russian  parliament  office  building  "with  communications 
gear  and  assigned  to  help  Yeltsin  and  his  followers  make  their 
own  secure  telephone  calls  to  their  own  secure  telephone  calls  to 
the  various  military  commanders."  Yeltsin  urged  the 
commanders  not  join  in  the  coup,  Hersh  says. 

Although  previously  published  reports  have  documented  how 
then-President  George  Bush  in  June  1991  warned  Gorbachev  that 
a  coup  was  being  planned  against  him,  the  Hersh  article  is  the 
first  indication  that  intelligence  support  was  subsequently  given 
to  Yeltsin  during  the  actual  event.  Hersh  writes  that  Congress 
was  not  informed  of  the  intelligence  support  given  Yeltsin 
despite  newly  signed  legislation  that  required  the  president  to  do 
so.  ("Bush  Aided  Yeltsin  in  '91  Coup,  New  Report  Say,"  The 
Washington  Post,  May  15) 


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January  -  June  1994 


MAY  -  The  Northwest  Coalition  for  Alternatives  to  Pesticide 
and  the  National  Coalition  Against  the  Misuse  of  Pesticides  have 
sued  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency,  accusing  it  of 
breaking  the  law  by  refusing  to  release  the  names  of  all  ingredi- 
ents in  pesticides.  TTie  EPA  allows  pesticide  makers  to  keep 
some  inert  ingredients  off  pesticide  labels  by  calling  them  trade 
secrets,  according  to  the  two  groups.  Inert  ingredients  are  any  of 
more  than  2,300  substances,  including  chemicals  that  are  active 
and  possibly  toxic,  the  groups  said.  A  substance  qualifies  as  inert 
if  it  plays  no  role  in  the  killing  of  the  pest  that  the  product  is 
made  to  eliminate,  the  groups  said.  The  suit  asks  the  court  to 
declare  the  policy  illegal  and  to  order  the  agency  to  five  the 
groups  a  list  of  all  ingredients  in  six  pesticides.  "This  is  one  of 
few  laws  that  precludes  access  to  basic  information  about  toxic 
ingredients,"  said  Jay  Feldman,  of  the  National  Coalition 
Against  the  Misuse  of  Pesticides. 

In  April  1991,  the  groups  asked  the  EPA  for  the  ingredients 
in  six  pesticides — Aatrex  SOW,  Weedone  LV4,  Roundup, 
Velpar,  Garlon  3 A  and  Tordon  101.  EPA  initially  denied  the 
request,  saying  the  ingredients  were  "confidential  business 
information"  and  exempt  from  disclosure.  But  the  agency  said 
it  would  make  a  final  decision  after  consulting  manufacturers. 
EPA  gave  the  groups  a  list  of  the  ingredients  in  three  of  the 
pesticides  the  following  December,  but  all  the  inert  chemicals 
were  blacked  out.  Makers  of  the  remaining  three  pesticides 
claimed  blanket  confidentiality  for  all  ingredients,  the  agency 
said.  ("Groups  Sue  E.P.A.  for  Pesticide  Ingredients,"  77?^  New 
York  Times,  May  21) 


MAY/JUNE  -  In  a  two-page  article  attorney  Mike  Tankersley 
summarizes  the  history  and  current  status  of  Armstrong  v. 
Executive  Office  of  the  President.  Tankersley,  who  is  with  Public 
Citizen's  Litigation  Group,  has  been  the  lead  attorney  for  the 
plaintiffs,  which  include  the  American  Library  Association. 
Tankersley  points  out  that  by  the  year  2000,  according  to  a  1990 
estimate  by  the  Congressional  Research  Service,  75  percent  of 
all  federal  government  transactions  will  be  handled  electronical- 
ly. Yet  the  Clinton  Administration,  like  the  two  administrations 
before  it,  has  maintained  that  the  government  has  no  obligation 
to  preserve  its  electronic  records  and  information  they  contain. 
Only  through  litigation  pursued  by  Public  Citizen  over  the  last 
five  years  has  the  White  House  been  forced  by  court  order  to 
"reinvent"  the  way  electronic  records  are  handled  so  that 
officials  are  no  longer  permitted  to  erase  the  blemishes  of  their 
tenure  at  the  touch  of  a  button. 
Tankersley  concludes  his  article: 

Most  importantly,  the  rulings  secured  by  Public  Citizen  in 
this  case  apply  not  only  to  the  White  House,  but  to  the 
electronic  records  of  all  federal  agencies.  As  the  Clinton 
administration  promotes  the  use  of  advanced  technologies  by 
the  federal  agencies,  the  implementation  of  proper  electronic 
record  keeping  practices  in  these  agencies  will  become 
increasingly  important  to  prevent  the  wholesale  loss  of 
historical  records  and  protect  the  public's  right  to  scrutinize 
the  activities  of  the  federal  government. 
("The  Medium  Redux:  Courts  Order  Preservation  of  Govern- 
ment's Electronic  Records,"  Public  Citizen,  May /June) 


MAY  -  Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary's  campaign  to  open  the 
nation's  atomic  complex  to  public  scrutiny  has  stumbled  on  the 
seeming  inability  of  her  department  to  assemble  reliable  figures 
on  its  production  of  plutonium,  the  main  ingredient  of  nuclear 
warheads.  Experts  say  crude  tallies  and  shifting  numbers  raise 
new  doubts  about  the  government's  carefulness  in  guarding  one 
of  the  deadliest  substances  on  earth.  In  the  past,  private  experts 
have  charged  that  federal  plants  were  sloppy  and  prime  targets 
for  atomic  theft  and  diversion. 

The  current  trouble  arose  when  private  experts  at  the  Natural 
Resources  Defense  Council,  which  specializes  in  nuclear  issues, 
found  a  discrepancy  between  their  calculations  of  plutonium 
production  and  what  Mrs.  O'Leary  had  announced  last  Decem- 
ber. The  gap  was  1.5  metric  tons,  enough  to  make  300  nuclear 
weapons.  Federal  officials  play  down  the  discrepancy  and  say 
they  have  raised  their  production  estimate  to  erase  virtually  ail 
of  the  calculated  gap.  But  private  experts  accuse  the  government 
of  a  laxity  that  raises  questions  about  the  plutonium's  where- 
abouts. Inconsistent  numbers  might  also  have  diplomatic 
repercussions,  since  the  declassified  figures  on  plutonium 
production  that  Mrs.  O'Leary  delivered  to  her  counterpart  in 
Russia  have  turned  out  to  be  wrong.  ("Experts  Say  U.S.  Fails 
to  Account  for  Its  Plutonium,"  Vie  New  York  Times,  May  21) 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  been 
compiled  in  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods 
April  1981 -December  1987  and  January  1988-December 
^99^.  Less  Access...  updates  are  available  for  $1.00;  the 
1981-1987  volume  is  $7.00;  the  1988-1991  volume  is 
$10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Associa- 
tion Washington  Office,  110  Maryland  Avenue,  NE, 
Washington,  DC  20002-5675;  202-547-4440,  fax  202- 
547-7363.  All  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  include 
a  self-addressed  mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  OfTice 


June  1994 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

110  Maryland  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel:  202-547-4440     FAX:  202-547-7363     Email:  alawash@alawash.org 

December  1994 


LESS  ACCESS  TO  LESS  INFORMATION  B 

THE  U.S.  GOVERNMENT:  XXIII 

A  1994  Chronology:  June  -  December 


INTRODUCTION 

For  the  past  13  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  Administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the 
government's  16,000  publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since 
1985,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its 
govenmient  information  control  powers,  particularly  through 
Circular  A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources. 
0MB  issued  a  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  July  2,  1993, 
Federal  Register,  changing  its  restrictive  interpretation  of  the 
definition  of  "government  publication"  to  which  ALA  had 
objected  in  OMB's  draft  circulars. 

In  their  first  two  years  in  office,  the  Clinton  Administration 
has  improved  public  access  to  govenmient  information.  The 
President  signed  P.L.  103-40,  the  Government  Printing  Office 
Electronic  Information  Access  Enhancement  Act.  The  implemen- 
tation of  the  law  in  June  1994  provides  electronic  government 
information  to  the  public  through  the  Depository  Library 
Program.  Government  information  is  more  accessible  through 
computer  networks  and  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  A 
government  information  locator  service  (GILS)  was  established 
in  early  December.  Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  started  a 
campaign  to  open  govenmient  files  on  Cold  War  radiation  testing 
of  humans.  The  Administration's  national  information  infrastruc- 
ture initiatives  include  government  stimulus  for  connectivity  and 
applications  in  health  care,  education,  libraries,  and  provision  of 
government  information. 

However,  there  are  still  barriers  to  access.  For  example,  the 
Clinton  Administration,  like  the  two  administrations  before  it, 
has  maintained  that  the  government  has  no  obligation  to  preserve 
its  electronic  records  and  the  information  they  contain.  National 
Performance  Review  recommendations  to  "reinvent  government" 
to  have  every  federal  agency  responsible  for  disseminating 
information  to  the  nation's  1 ,400  depository  libraries  could  result 


in  a  literal  "tower  of  babel"  as  the  American  public  would  be 
forced  to  search  through  hundreds  of  federal  agencies  for 
publications  they  need. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  use 
computer  and  telecommunication  technologies  for  data  collection, 
storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend  has  resulted  in 
the  increased  emergence  of  contractual  arrangements  with  com- 
mercial firms  to  disseminate  information  collected  at  taxpayer 
expense,  higher  user  charges  for  govenmient  information,  and 
the  proliferation  of  government  information  available  in  elec- 
tronic format  only.  While  automation  clearly  offers  promises  of 
savings,  will  public  access  to  government  information  be  further 
restricted  for  people  who  cannot  afford  computers  or  pay  for 
computer  time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have 
begun  to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public 
access  to  government  information  should  be  increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolution 
passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and  ready 
access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in 
any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States."  In  1986, 
ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Information.  The 
Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts 
that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and  to  develop 
support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government  information. 

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


Less  Access. 


June  -  December  1994 


CHRONOLOGY 

JUNE  -  Although  the  White  House  earlier  had  decided  not  to 
require  financial  disclosure  reports  from  several  outside  political 
consultants,  those  consultants  with  White  House  passes  were 
required  to  file  financial  disclosure  forms  listing  their  clients  and 
detailing  their  assets,  liabilities,  and  sources  of  income.  Chief  of 
Staff  Thomas  F.  "Mack"  McLarty  issued  the  directive,  which 
will  apply  to  political  advisers  James  Carville  and  Paul  Begala, 
media  adviser  Mandy  Grunwald  and  pollster  Stan  Greenberg. 

McLarty's  order  follows  public  pressure  from  Republican 
members  of  Congress  and  newspaper  editorial  writers  who  said 
the  influential  consultants  were  effectively  working  for  the 
Administration  and  should  be  subject  to  disclosure  rules.  There 
was  no  public  announcement  of  the  directive. 

Begala  said  that  his  work  for  clients  already  is  publicly 
available  through  Federal  Election  Commission  financial 
disclosure  reports  but  that  he  was  happy  to  file  the  forms.  "My 
view  was  I've  already  disclosed  everything,"  said  Begala. 
("White  House  Orders  Consultants  to  Disclose  Finances,"  The 
Washington  Post,  June  10) 

JUNE  -  Senate  Democrats  and  Republicans  proposed  sharply 
conflicting  plans  for  hearings  on  the  Whitewater  controversy, 
triggering  a  rancorous  debate  in  which  they  accused  each  other 
of  trying  to  stack  the  hearings  to  serve  their  own  partisan 
interests.  The  latest  eruption  of  political  hostilities  about 
Whitewater  came  after  Republicans  declared  an  impasse  in  two 
months  of  negotiations  between  Majority  Leader  George  J. 
Mitchell  (D-ME)  and  Minority  Leader  Robert  J.  Dole  (R-KS) 
over  a  compromise  on  timing,  scope,  and  structure  of  the 
inquiry.  Republicans  then  brought  the  issue  to  the  Senate  floor, 
accusing  the  Democrats  of  insisting  on  rules  that  would  turn  the 
hearings  into  a  "mockery  and  a  sham,"  as  Sen.  Alfonse  M. 
D'Amato  (R-NY)  put  it.  Democrats  responded  by  accusing  the 
Republicans  of  attempting  to  stage  a  "political  circus"  to 
embarrass  President  Clinton  and  First  Lady  Hillary  Rodham 
Clinton.  ("Senate  Democrats,  GOP  Propose  Divergent  White- 
water Plans,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  10) 

JUNE  -  The  House  of  Representatives  agreed  to  make  public 
interview  transcripts  and  other  documents  from  an  internal 
investigation  of  the  House  Post  Office  just  hours  after  U.S. 
Attorney  Eric  H.  Holder  Jr.  said  he  no  longer  objected  to  their 
release.  Disclosure  of  the  documents  represented  an  effort  by  the 
House  to  get  past  mismanagement  of  the  House  Post  Office  that 
led  to  convictions  of  eight  former  employees  and  the  indictment 
in  early  June  of  Ways  and  Means  Chairman  Dan  Rostenkowski 
(D-IL)  on  17  charges,  most  unrelated  to  the  post  office's 
operations.  "We  need  to  put  this  sorry  episode  behind  us,  and 
the  release  of  these  documents  will  go  a  long  ways  towards  that 
goal,"  House  Minority  Leader  Robert  H.  Michel  (R-IL)  said. 

Two  House  members,  one  appointed  by  House  Majority 
Leader  Richard  Gephardt  (D-MO)  and  one  named  by  Michel, 


are  to  review  the  documents.  They  must  agree  on  withholding 
any  records  deemed  irrelevant  to  issues  raised  in  the  probe. 
House  Speaker  Thomas  Foley  (D-WA)  and  other  Democrats 
argued  that  some  transcripts  should  not  be  released  if  the  House 
employees  interviewed  had  been  promised  confidentiality. 

"We  accepted  hearsay.  We  accepted  gossip.  We  accepted 
innuendo,  and  I'm  afraid,  some  lies,"  warned  retiring  Rep.  Al 
Swift  (D-WA),  a  task  force  member.  "The  testimony  we  are 
about  to  release  is  unreliable  for  any  other  purpose."  But  Rep. 
Pat  Roberts  (R-KS),  another  task  force  member,  denied  that  the 
transcripts  showed  that  any  witnesses  were  promised  their  words 
would  be  kept  secret.  Rep.  Bill  Thomas  (R-CA),  who  was  on  the 
task  force,  said  it  was  committee  investigators  who  signed  a 
confidentiality  pledge  because  "we  were  concerned  about  the 
staff  leaking  information."  Several  Republicans,  including  Reps. 
Robert  S.  Walker  (R-PA)  and  John  A.  Boehner  (R-OH), 
described  the  release  of  the  documents  not  as  the  end  that  Michel 
saw  but  the  beginning  of  further  investigation,  perhaps  by  the 
House  Ethics  Committee.  ("House  Agrees  to  Release  Post  Office 
Probe  Records,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  10) 

JUNE  -  For  years.  Pentagon  officials  issued  checks  to  military 
contractors  without  keeping  rack  of  what  they  were  paying  for. 
It  was  a  fast  and  convenient  way  to  pay  Defense  Department 
bills.  It  was  also  wrong,  says  the  official  President  Clinton 
appointed  to  put  the  military's  books  in  order.  To  impose 
discipline  on  the  Pentagon's  notoriously  uintidy  accounting 
system.  Pentagon  Comptroller  John  J.  Hamre  has  temporarily 
frozen  payments  to  military  contractors  on  a  number  of  housing 
construction,  property  maintenance,  and  other  projects  on  which 
a  total  of  $300  million  was  spent  without  proper  accounting 
records.  Payment  on  additional  programs  could  also  be  stopped, 
said  Pentagon  officials  who  say  another  $10  billion  was  never 
adequately  matched  to  the  corresponding  contracts. 

"We  cannot  continue  these  ad  hoc  practices,"  Hamre  wrote 
in  a  directive  ordering  corrective  action,  dated  March  3 1  but  not 
publicized  at  the  time.  "As  a  department,  we  have  become 
complacent  to  accept  negative  balances  as  the  product  of  errors 
with  few  people  feeling  responsible  for  correcting  the  problem. " 

"We  built  an  accounting  system  that  is  highly  decentralized 
in  order  to  get  money  to  contractors  quickly,"  said  one  Pentagon 
budget  expert.  "But  it's  primitive  and  dependent  on  outdated 
technology.  Consequently,  money  got  paid  out  without  being 
lined  up  with  the  contracts  that  were  being  paid  off."  ("Comp- 
troller Takes  Aim  at  Lax  Pentagon  Bookkeeping,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  June  10) 

JUNE  -  Transportation  Secretary  Federico  Pena  ordered  a 
review  of  the  Federal  Aviation  Administration's  handling  of 
allegations  the  Boeing  757  produces  unusually  strong  turbulence 
in  its  wake  that  can  be  dangerous  to  following  small  aircraft. 
The  review  will  examine  the  speed  of  the  agency's  reaction  to 


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June  -  December  1994 


safety-related  information  as  well  as  its  procedures  for  providing 
full  information  to  the  public. 

Pena's  review  was  prompted  by  Los  Angeles  Times  articles 
on  757  wake  turbulence,  including  one  alleging  former  FAA 
chief  scientist  Robert  Machol's  warning  the  757  could  cause  a 
"major  crash"  was  ignored.  The  review  also  is  to  determine 
whether  the  agency  properly  followed  procedures  under  the 
Freedom  of  Information  Act  in  providing  documents  to  the 
Times  and  whether  some  documents  were  withheld  improperly. 
The  paper  said  the  FAA  fought  release  of  the  documents.  FAA 
Administrator  David  R.  Hinson  said  in  a  statement  FAA's 
actions  "appropriately  address  safety  issues  relating  to  the  wake 
vortex  matter.  I  nonetheless  believe  strongly  that  the  public  is 
entitled  to  be  assured  that  the  FAA  has  acted,  and  can  act  in  the 
future,  with  appropriate  speed  when  the  facts  warrant. "  Hinson 
also  directed  an  agencywide  review  of  responses  to  FOIA 
requests. 

The  Times  FOIA  request,  agency  officials  said,  was  handled 
at  a  low  level  and  Hinson's  office  was  never  informed.  The 
officials  indicated  they  believe  bungling,  rather  than  deliberate 
withholding  of  information,  may  be  involved.  "It  looked  like  we 
had  something  to  hide,  and  that  was  not  the  case,"  said  FAA 
spokeswoman  Sandra  Allen.  ("FAA  to  Review  Safety  Order," 
The  Washington  Post,  June  11) 

JULY  -  Despite  the  collapse  of  the  Berlin  Wall  and  the  Soviet 
Union,  the  United  States  still  spends  in  the  neighborhood  of  $16 
billion  a  year  to  classify  and  protect  national  security  documents, 
according  a  recent  report  by  the  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget.  In  addition  to  the  money  that  agencies  spend  on  secure 
telephones,  alarms  and  special  electronic  gadgets,  OMB  esti- 
mates that  the  government  pays  the  salaries  of  32,400  workers 
employed  full-time  in  security  work. 

It  appears  clear  that  classification  costs  are  not  going  down 
any  time  soon.  President  Clinton  has  said  he  wants  to  reduce  the 
number  of  classified  documents,  but  in  his  first  year  in  office 
54,000  more  documents  were  classified  than  in  President  Bush's 
last  year  in  office.  And  the  number  of  documents  declassified 
went  down  by  30  percent,  from  9.4  million  in  1992  to  6.6 
million  in  1993.  ("Still  Keeping  Secrets,"  Government  Executive, 
July) 

JULY  -  The  federal  government  spent  more  than  $25  billion 
buying,  operating,  and  maintaining  electronic  information 
systems  in  1993.  But  a  General  Accounting  Office  study  found 
little  evidence  that  the  massive  investment  in  new  technology  has 
made  agencies  more  efficient  in  managing  information.  Instead, 
GAO  officials  say,  tales  of  mismanaged  data  continue  to  mount: 

■  In  1991,  Medicare  mistakenly  paid  out  $1  billion  for  services 
already  covered  by  other  insurers,  due  in  part  of  inadequate 
data. 

■  In  1990,  the  Department  of  Education  gave  millions  of 
dollars  in  Stafford  Student  Loans  to  students  who  had  either 
defaulted  or  exceeded  their  legal  loan  limits. 


■  Also  in  1990,  federal  law-enforcement  agencies  released 
highly  sensitive  information  on  witnesses  and  informants,  due 
to  poor  computer  security. 

("Drowning  in  Data,"  Government  Executive,  July) 

JULY  -  In  late  July,  U.S.  District  Court  Judge  Royce  Lamberth 
ordered  White  House  health-care  adviser  Ira  Magaziner  and 
other  Administration  officials  to  stand  trial  in  a  lawsuit  over  the 
Administration's  secret  Health  Care  Task  Force.  Lamberth  said 
holding  a  trial  with  witnesses  under  oath  is  the  only  way  he  can 
leam  the  truth  about  the  membership  and  structure  of  a  working 
group  and  several  subcommittees  that  did  the  legwork  for 
President  Clinton's  now-disbanded  task  force.  The  lawsuit  was 
brought  by  three  groups  in  1993  to  open  the  task  force's  work 
to  the  public. 

The  Federal  Administrative  Procedures  Act  allows  only 
"groups  comprised  wholly  of  full-time  federal  officers  or 
employees  of  the  federal  government"  to  meet  in  secret.  Lawyer 
Kent  Masterson  Brown  said  his  investigation  showed  that  at  least 
357  people  who  worked  on  the  groups  were  not  on  the  govern- 
ment's payroll.  The  judge  put  off  ruling  on  a  request  to  hold 
Magaziner  in  contempt  of  court  for  saying  in  sworn  court 
documents  that  the  panels  were  highly  organized  and  com()osed 
of  govenunent  employees  and  then  later  painting  a  picture  of  a 
more  chaotic,  looser  process.  ("Health  Advisers  Ordered  to 
Stand  Trial,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  26) 

AUGUST  -  The  Senate  Select  Committee  on  Intelligence 
charged  that  the  National  Reconnaissance  Office,  the  agency  that 
manages  the  nation's  spy  satellites,  has  concealed  from  Congress 
the  mushrooming  cost  of  a  $310  million  compound  it  has  been 
secretly  building  near  Dulles  International  Airport.  President 
Clinton  declassified  the  existence  of  the  proposed  headquarters 
for  the  agency  after  several  Senators  protested  to  him  privately 
that  they  had  been  kept  in  the  dark  about  the  cost  and  scope  of 
the  one  million-square-foot  project.  The  NRO,  whose  existence 
was  an  officially  classified  secret  until  two  years  ago,  is  jointly 
overseen  by  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  and  the  Department 
of  Defense.  The  headquarters  project  had  been  publicly  de- 
scribed as  an  office  complex  for  Rockwell  International  Corp., 
the  Los  Angeles-based  defense  contractor. 

Committee  Chair  Dennis  DeConcini  (D-AZ)  criticized  the 
Pentagon  and  the  CIA  for  not  providing  Congress  adequate 
information.  The  intelligence  community  is  a  culture  that 
"believes  we  don't  have  to  account  like  everybody  else  in 
government,"  he  said.  ("Spy  Unit's  Spending  Stuns  Hill,"  The 
Washington  Post,  August  9) 

SEPTEMBER  -  In  a  ten-page  article,  Arthur  Morin  of  Fort 
Hays  State  University,  explores  the  question,  "What  is  the  role 
of  goverrmient  in  data  collection  and  dissemination?"  He  says 
that  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  is  involved  in 
regulating  the  flow  of  government  information  in  at  least  four 
ways:  its  participation  in  the  development  and  implementation  of 


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government  information  and  statistical  policy;  the  setting  of 
budgets  for  centralized  statistical  agencies;  the  forms  review 
process,  and  control  of  the  information  collection  budget. 

The  author  concludes  that  during  the  Reagan  Administration, 
OMB  tried  to  tighten  the  flow  of  government  data.  His  inclina- 
tion is  to  view  information  and  statistical  data  as  social  goods, 
not  as  economic  commodities.  He  argues  that: 

...contrary  to  economic  commodities,  the  value  of  data 
increases  as  its  use  increases.  Statistical  data  have  historical 
as  well  as  contemporary  value;  consequently,  their  full  worth 
cannot  be  adequately  measured  by  market  values.  Private 
firms  will  provide  statistical  data  only  as  long  as  it  is 
profitable  to  do  so,  and  profit  is  a  short-term  phenomenon. 
The  discount  rate  of  information,  and  long-term  benefits  of 
information,   are  virtually   impossible  for  the   market  to 

measure 

Reliability  and  continuity  of  data  may  be  more  problemat- 
ic if  data  collection  were  left  to  the  private  sector.  Indeed, 
EIA  [Energy  Information  Administration]  was  created  in  part 
because  of  the  distrust  of  industry  figures.... 

The  questions  of  legitimacy,  authority,  and  independence, 

of  who  defines  'quality  standards,'  whether  private  firms 

have  the  resources  or  incentive  to  match  the  scale  at  which 

data  are  collected  by  the  government,  and  whether  private 

firms  could  match  the  economy  of  scale  achieved  by  the 

government. . .  lead  us  to  believe  that  it  would  be  dangerous 

to  underestimate  the  importance  of  the  role  of  government  in 

data  acquisition.  Given  that  information  is  a  social  good,  I 

believe  it  is  better  to  err  in  collecting  too  much  rather  than 

too  little  data. 

("Regulating  the  Flow   of  Data:    OMB   and   the   Control   of 

Government    Information,"    Public    Administration    Review, 

September/October) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  Clinton  Administration  initially  proposed 
a  news  blackout  during  the  first  six  or  eight  hours  of  the  planned 
invasion  of  Haiti,  but  compromised  on  coverage  with  the  four 
television  networks.  In  a  meeting  with  network  executives. 
Administration  officials  agreed  to  accept  a  voluntary  embargo  on 
the  broadcasting  of  sensitive  pictures  for  one  hour  after  U.S. 
troops  arrived  in  Haiti.  The  television  executives  said  they  would 
withhold  footage  that  might  disclose  the  location  of  troop 
landings  because  of  the  background  or  other  landmarks. 

The  Bush  Administration  imposed  a  total  news  blackout 
during  the  first  12  hours  of  the  February  1991  ground  offensive 
against  Iraq  during  the  Persian  Gulf  War.  The  blackout  was 
quickly  lifted  when  the  operation  proved  a  success,  prompting 
complaints  from  some  journalists  that  the  Administration  was 
simply  trying  to  block  reporting  of  possible  casualties  for 
political  reasons.  ("White  House,  Networks  Agree  on  1-Hour 
Blackout,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  18) 

OCTOBER  -  Open-government  advocates  complain  the  Clinton 
Administration  is  not  living  up  to  its  promise  to  improve  access 


to  government  records  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act. 
The  Administration  adopted  an  official  policy  in  October  1993 
to  be  more  op>en  than  its  Republican  predecessors.  But  critics  say 
it  is  nearly  as  hard  as  ever  to  wrestle  government  documents  out 
of  a  reluctant  bureaucracy. 

The  government  has  been  holding  seminars  to  promote  easier 
access  to  government  documents.  One  problem:  no  additional 
money  to  help  process  the  flood  of  new  requests.  Critics  say  the 
Administration  still  uses  the  old  excuses,  broad  claims  of 
national  security  and  privacy  rights,  to  keep  information  under 
wraps.  In  late  September,  former  Lebanon  hostage  Terry 
Anderson  sued  the  government  for  denying  him  access  to 
government  records  about  his  nearly  seven  years  in  captivity. 
"National  security  is  a  legitimate  exception,"  says  Stuart 
Newberger,  Anderson's  attorney.  "I'm  sure  some  things  should 
be  kept  secret,  but  everything  in  the  file?"  Anderson  says  the 
government  is  using  "silly  reasons,  like  the  privacy  rights  of  a 
terrorist,"  to  keep  his  files  secret.  ("The  New  'Openess'  Is  Open 
for  Debate,"  USA  Today,  October  3) 

OCTOBER  -  As  the  103rd  Congress  left  Washington  in 
October,  it  passed  by  voice  vote  a  controversial  bill  that 
guarantees  the  govenmaent  will  be  able  to  tap  conversations 
carried  on  sophisticated  telephone  networks  that  are  being  built. 
The  bill  requires  that  telephone  companies  build  features  into  the 
new  systems  that  would  let  the  government  eavesdrop.  Authori- 
ties would  continue  to  need  court  approval  to  do  so.  The 
legislation  is  a  modified  version  of  earlier  Clinton  Administration 
proposals  that  ignited  intense  criticism  from  industry  and  civil 
liberties  activists. 

After  intensive  negotiations  conducted  over  several  months, 
legislators  crafted  a  compromise  that  seemed  to  satisfy  technolo- 
gy companies  as  well  as  one  privacy  group,  the  Electronic 
Frontier  Foundation.  "The  FBI  director's  made  this  a  drop-dead 
issue,"  said  Jerry  Berman,  EFF's  policy  director,  "So  when  we 
had  the  alternative  of  letting  legislation  move  that  was  totally 
unacceptable  or  crafting  a  responsible  bill,  we  thought  we  should 
work  with  it."  The  American  Civil  Liberties  Union  remains 
critical  of  the  legislation.  "There's  a  principle  here  that  seems  to 
be  insidious,"  said  Laura  Murphy  Lee,  who  directs  the  ACLU's 
Washington  Office.  Companies  are  being  asked  not  just  to 
acquiesce  to  legal  wiretaps  but  to  alter  technology  to  accommo- 
date them,  Lee  said.  "It  seems  that  these  wiretaps  are  so  useless 
in  a  number  of  cases  and  invade  the  privacy  of  so  many,"  she 
said. 

Proponents  argue  that  the  negotiated  bill  offers  citizens  more 
protection  from  surveillance  than  do  existing  laws.  For  example, 
it  requires  that  law  officers  have  a  search  warrant  before  they 
can  get  records  of  an  individual's  online  transactions,  something 
they  can  now  get  with  a  simple  subpoena.  The  legislation 
authorizes  the  government  to  give  phone  companies  $500  million 
over  the  next  four  years  to  tailor  existing  digital  networks  so  that 
they  can  be  tapped.  Phone  companies  will  be  asked  to  pay  for 
similar  features  in  new  networks.  But  if  a  company  thinks  those 


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costs  are  unreasonable,  it  can  appeal  to  the  Federal  Communica- 
tions Commission.  ("Network  Wiretap  Bill  Passes,"  The 
Washington  Post,  October  8) 

[Ed.  note:  A  September  23  article  in  The  Washington  Post, 
"Delay  Urged  on  Encryption  Technologies,"  said  the  Office  of 
Technology  Assessment  released  a  report  suggesting  that 
Congress  consider  stopping  the  Clinton  Administration  from 
using  some  of  the  data  encryption  technologies  that  have  aroused 
public  criticism  until  legislators  can  review  the  policies.  It 
suggested  that  legislators  take  an  active  role  in  issues  such  as 
"key-escrow"  encryption,  a  technique  that  would  let  the  govern- 
ment crack  scrambled  phone  and  computer  messages  by  putting 
the  means  for  unlocking  such  communications  into  the  hands  of 
a  designated  group,  such  as  a  government  agency.  "It's  essential 
to  have  an  open  debate  before  putting  key  escrow  into  place," 
said  Joan  Winston,  who  directed  the  OTA  report.  "Given  the 
government's  track  record  so  far,  the  only  place  that  debate  can 
take  place  ojjenly  is  in  Congress."] 

OCTOBER  -  In  a  continuing  effort  to  open  the  Department  of 
Energy  to  greater  public  scrutiny.  Energy  Secretary  Hazel 
O'Leary,  will  unveil  a  plan  that  would  strengthen  the  hand  of  its 
160,000  federal  and  contract  employees  against  retaliation  and 
harassment.  The  Energy  Department  runs  the  nation's  atomic 
complex  and  has  a  long  history  of  rocky  relations  with  internal 
critics  and  whistle-blowers.  The  new  policy  would  increase  the 
ability  of  department  employees  and  contractors  to  criticize 
policy  and  speak  out  on  workplace  issues  of  health,  safety,  the 
environment,  waste,  fraud,  and  abuse.  In  the  past,  such  expres- 
sions were  often  squelched,  at  times  vigorously.  "These  are 
experts  who  should  be  celebrated,  not  punished,"  O'Leary  said. 
"We  want  to  bring  them  back  into  the  fold.  We  want  an 
environment  where  employees  feel  safe  to  voice  their  concerns. 
We  have  zero  tolerance  for  reprisals.  It's  as  simple  as  that." 

News  of  the  initiative  was  applauded  by  critics  of  the 
department  and  public-interest  groups.  "It's  unprecedented,"  said 
Jeffrey  Ruch,  policy  director  of  the  Government  Accountability 
Project,  a  private  group  based  in  Washington  that  aids  whistle- 
blowers.  "It  apf>ears  to  be  a  real  attempt  to  change  the  agency's 
culture.  It's  not  just  a  breath  of  fresh  air,  it's  a  gale." 

Meanwhile,  Dr.  Alexander  De  Volpi,  a  physicist  at  the 
department's  Argonne  National  Laboratory  near  Chicago, 
recently  had  his  computer  and  files  sized  by  department  security 
officials  and  his  own  security  clearance  threatened  with  suspen- 
sion when  he  prepared  a  document  and  article  for  publication 
that  questioned  the  accuracy  of  some  of  the  department's 
statements  on  nuclear  weapons.  Energy  Department  officials  said 
his  works  contained  secret  information  and  should  have  been 
kept  from  the  public,  while  he  maintained  the  data  were 
innocuous  and  that  the  seizures  were  punishment  for  his  views. 
The  department  has  50  to  100  cases  like  that  of  De  Volpi  in  the 
administrative  or  judicial  system,  department  officials  said. 
There  are  many  other  informal  cases.  ("Energy  Dept.  Giving 


Critics  More  Voice,"  The  New  York  Times,  October  16) 

OCTOBER  -  The  government  has  drawn  a  new  line  in  the  sand 
to  control  military  exports:  technological  information  can  be  sent 
abroad  if  it  is  found  in  a  book,  but  not  if  it  is  on  a  computer 
disk.  In  an  action  that  illustrates  the  difficulty  of  preserving  the 
nation's  military  export  controls  in  the  information  age,  the  State 
Department  has  denied  the  request  of  a  California  engineer  to 
export  a  computer  disk  that  has  samples  of  some  powerful  and 
widely  used  software  encoding  formulas. 

The  request  of  the  State  Department's  International  Traffic 
in  Arms  Regulations  Office  was  made  during  the  summer  by 
Philip  R.  Kam  Jr.,  a  San  Diego  telecommunications  engineer 
who  filed  it  as  a  challenge  to  the  regulations.  Kam  argued  that 
the  restrictions  were  meaningless  because  the  same  information 
could  be  obtained  in  standard  cryptographic  textbooks,  which 
could  be  sent  overseas  without  export  controls  and  then  used  by 
simply  typing  or  scanning  the  data  into  a  computer.  The  same 
software  is  already  freely  available  on  computer  networks  around 
the  world.  The  dispute  between  Kam  and  the  government  is  the 
latest  in  a  string  of  battles  between  the  National  Security 
Agency,  the  nation's  electronic  spying  arms,  and  computer 
companies  and  privacy  advocates.  The  agency  has  tried  to 
restrict  the  export  of  most  advanced  commercial  cryptographic 
hardware  and  software  because  it  complicates  its  mission: 
eavesdropping  on  electronic  communications  around  the  world. 
("U.S.  Tries  to  Keep  Secrets  That  Aren't  Any  More,"  The  New 
York  Times,  October  17) 

OCTOBER  -  The  Advisory  Conmiittee  on  Human  Radiation 
Experiments,  an  independent  panel  appointed  by  the  Clinton 
Administration,  released  a  report  concluding  that  radiation 
experiments  sponsored  by  the  federal  government  were  conduct- 
ed on  more  than  23,000  Americans  in  about  1,400  different 
projects  in  the  30-year  period  after  World  War  II.  The  figures 
suggest  that  the  deliberate  exposure  of  humans  to  radiation 
during  the  Cold  War  was  far  more  widespread  than  previously 
believed.  The  panel  also  has  found  that  discussions  about  the 
ethical  implications  of  radiation  tests  took  place  as  early  as  1953, 
and  involved  senior  officials,  including  the  Secretary  of  Defense. 
The  panel  has  documented  fully  400  government-backed 
biomedical  experiments  involving  human  exposure  to  radiation 
conducted  between  1944  and  1975,  and  has  received  materials 
describing  1,000  other  tests  over  the  same  period,  the  report 
said. 

A  1986  congressional  probe  of  federal  radiation  tests, 
cotrmiissioned  by  Rep.  Edward  Markey  (D-MA),  until  now 
considered  the  most  authoritative  account  of  radiation  experi- 
ments, discussed  only  31  separate  experiments.  In  June,  Energy 
Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  released  information  about  48  addition- 
al experiments.  Cold  War  researchers  conducted  several  hundred 
so-called  intentional  releases,  in  which  radioactive  substances 
were  emitted  into  the  environment,  usually  to  test  human 
responses  and  often  without  the  knowledge  of  those  exposed,  the 


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panel's  report  said. 

In  a  final  report  due  in  April  1995,  the  panel  will  address 
key  questions  about  the  ex(>eriments,  such  as  the  extent  to  which 
researchers  gained  the  consent  of  participants,  how  participants 
were  chosen,  and  whether  participants  should  be  compensated 
for  damages  they  suffered.  The  panel  is  supposed  to  collect  data 
about  experiments  sponsored  across  the  federal  government,  but 
it  has  not  received  full  cooperation  from  all  agencies,  according 
to  the  report.  For  example,  the  departments  of  Defense  and 
Energy  have  refused  to  hand  over  documents  relating  to  the 
intentional  releases.  Officials  from  the  agencies  have  refused  to 
declassify  the  documents,  citing  national  security  concerns. 
Central  Intelligence  Agency  officials  have  said  the  agency  was 
not  involved  in  radiation  tests  and  have  refused  to  give  any  files 
to  the  panel.  But  the  panel  has  found  that  CIA  officials  were  at 
least  involved  in  discussions  about  the  tests  in  the  early  1950s. 
The  agencies'  refusal  to  cooperate  already  are  causing  "road- 
blocks" for  the  committee,  said  Ruth  Faden,  a  Johns  Hopkins 
University  ethicist  who  chairs  the  panel.  ("Radiation  Tests  Were 
Widespread,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  22) 

[Ed.  note:  A  related  article  in  December  revealed  that  military 
and  nuclear  energy  officials  were  motivated  by  fear  of  lawsuits 
and  unfavorable  publicity  in  their  decision  to  keep  secret  many 
experiments  using  radiation  on  humans.  ("Inquiry  Links  Test 
Secrecy  To  a  Cover-up,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  15)] 

OCTOBER  -  For  almost  ten  years,  questions  have  been  raised 
about  what  Oliver  North  did  to  make  sure  U.S.  government 
flights  to  help  the  Nicaraguan  contras  were  free  of  drug  traffick- 
ers. In  personal  diaries  North  kept  in  1985,  he  wrote  down  a  tip 
that  drugs  were  being  brought  into  the  United  States  on  a  contra 
supply  plane.  He  recorded  the  type  of  aircraft  and  a  stop  on  its 
route.  In  1987  testimony  to  Congress,  North  said  he  gave  that 
information  to  the  Drug  Enforcement  Administration.  But  the 
DEA,  when  asked  to  verify  North's  testimony,  issued  a  state- 
ment saying,  "There's  no  evidence  he  talked  to  anyone.  We 
can't  fmd  the  person  he  talked  to,  if  he  did  talk  to  them.  There's 
no  record  of  the  person  he  talked  to. "  Along  with  the  new  DEA 
comment,  government  records,  depositions,  hearing  testimony, 
and  interviews  with  former  officials,  the  diary  entries  again  raise 
questions  about  what  North  did  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the 
contra  supply  efforts  that  he  oversaw  as  a  National  Security 
Council  aide. 

North  did  not  respond  to  written  questions  asking  him  to 
explain  the  diary  entries  and  identify  whom  in  the  DEA  he  told. 
He  issued  a  statement  in  which  he  said:  "I  did  all  in  my  power 
to  ensure  that  whenever  the  slightest  rumor  or  concern  was 
raised  about  drugs,  the  matter  was  immediately  referred  to  the 
cognizant  authorities  in  our  government."  But  top  law  enforce- 
ment officials— including  the  former  heads  of  the  DEA  and  U.S. 
Customs  Service— who  met  with  North  at  the  time  on  a  variety 
of  issues  said  in  recent  interviews  that  he  did  not  pass  the 
information  on  to  them.  ("North  Didn't  Relay  Drug  Tips,"  The 


Washington  Post,  October  22) 

OCTOBER  -  Government  officials  abruptly  cut  off  a  1992 
investigation  of  the  Upjohn  Corporation  and  a  its  {Mpular 
sleeping  pill,  Halcion,  under  circumstances  that  "strongly 
suggest  a  high-level  FDA  coverup,"  according  to  Sidney  Wolfe, 
executive  director  of  the  Public  Citizen  Health  Research  Group. 
The  allegations  were  in  a  memorandum  to  the  Food  and  Drug 
Administration  from  Wolfe,  who  has  opposed  the  continued  sale 
of  Halcion,  which  has  been  associated  with  side  effects  that 
include  memory  loss,  depression,  anxiety,  and  violent  behavior. 
Tlie  drug  has  been  removed  from  the  market  in  England. 

Upjohn  spokeswoman  Kaye  Bennett  said  in  an  interview, 
"Wolfe's  charges  of  a  coverup  are  ridiculous.  There  isn't,  and 
there  never  has  been,  anything  to  cover  up  about  Halcion,  either 
on  the  part  of  Upjohn  or  the  FDA. "  One  of  the  new  documents 
obtained  by  Wolfe's  group  is  a  March  26,1993,  memorandum 
from  FDA  field  investigator,  David  Erspamer  to  a  supervisor, 
Kenneth  Ewing,  regarding  the  1991-92  inspection  of  Upjohn.  In 
the  memo,  Erspamer  said  that  on  March  17,  1992,  "in  a 
conference  phone  call  with  [FDA]  headquarters  {personnel,  I  was 
told  to  discontinue  the  investigation  of  the  firm. "  According  to 
the  memo,  an  official  in  the  FDA  Office  of  Regulatory  Affairs 
"was  adamant  that  we  should  not  go  back  into  Upjohn  even  to 
pick  up  records  that  we  had  previously  requested."  Erspamer 
wrote,  "I  still  have  strong  feelings  that  Upjohn  has  manipulated 
and  misrepresented  the  Halcion  data  to  FDA,  and  that  the  firm 
misled  the  agency  from  start  to  finish. " 

In  June,  FDA  Commissioner  David  Kessler  wrote  a  letter  to 
Wolfe  explaining  that  the  agency  had  formed  a  task  force  to  give 
the  allegations  against  Upjohn  a  full  review.  The  investigation 
will  examine,  among  other  issues,  "whether  consideration  should 
be  given  to  referring  certain  matters  to  the  Department  of  Justice 
for  investigation  or  prosecution,"  and  "the  FDA  processes  which 
led  to  the  delay"  in  issuing  the  report  on  the  Upjohn  investiga- 
tion. Kessler  concluded,  "I  can  assure  you  that  a  thorough 
reexamination  of  the  issues  raised  in  the  report  will  be  made." 
("Abrupt  Cutoff  of  FDA  Halcion  Probe  Suggests  a  Coverup, 
Group  Says,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  28) 

NOVEMBER  -  Seven  genetically  engineered  foods— five  for 
people  and  two  for  animals— have  passed  a  voluntary  Food  and 
Drug  Administration  safety  inspection.  But  some  scientists 
questioned  whether  the  FDA  is  scrutinizing  emerging  genetically 
engineered  foods  closely  enough.  "I  am  a  little  troubled," 
Marion  Nestle,  an  FDA  adviser  from  New  York  University,  told 
the  agency.  "It's  as  if  FDA  scientists  have  accepted  these  very 
complicated  assessments  [of  safety]  on  face  value."  But  FDA 
spokesperson  Jim  O'Hara  said,  "Biotech  foods  are  being  held  to 
the  same  safety  standards  as  every  food." 

Several  of  the  new  products  also  require  separate  approvals 
from  other  regulatory  agencies,  including  the  Environmental 
Protection  Agency  in  some  cases  and  the  Agriculture  Department 
in  others.  The  FDA  reviewed  scientific  data  voluntarily  compiled 


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by  the  manufacturers  and  concluded  that  these  plants  appear  to 
be  as  safe  as  their  nonaltered  counterparts.  The  agency  is 
preparing  to  mandate  that  biotech  companies  notify  it  before 
marketing  any  genetically  engineered  food.  That  will  give  the 
FDA  an  opportunity  to  decide  what  kind  of  safety  review  each 
food  needs.  FDA  food  safety  chief  Jim  Maryanski  said,  "We 
simply  don't  have  the  resources  to  give  every  plant  that  intensive 
review,  and  we  don't  see  the  public  health  need."  ("7  Engi- 
neered Foods  Declared  Safe  by  FDA,"  The  Washington  Post, 
November  3) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  following  continues  earlier  "Less  Access" 
items  concerning  weather  data:  A  November  1994  article 
reported  that  the  nation's  newest  weather  satellite  has  completed 
its  shakedown  and  is  providing  more  and  better  information  to 
forecasters.  Launched  on  April  13,  the  $220  million  satellite 
GOES-8,  which  hovers  in  a  stationary  orbit  over  Earth,  has 
completed  engineering  testing,  NOAA  reported.  Because  of  the 
failure  of  an  earlier  satellite  and  delays  in  launching  new  ones, 
GOES-7  had  been  the  nation's  only  stationary  satellite,  although 
Europe  lent  the  United  States  its  Meadowsweet  to  observe  the 
Atlantic  and  East  Coast  areas.  ("GOES-8  Satellite  Providing 
Better  Weather  Data,"  The  Washington  Post,  November  8) 

NOVEMBER  -  President  Clinton  signed  an  executive  order 
declassifying  nearly  44  million  pages  of  long-secret  documents, 
some  dating  to  World  War  I,  in  an  action  delayed  for  nearly  a 
year  by  the  objections  of  military  and  intelligence  officials.  The 
papers  represent  roughly  an  eighth  of  the  secret  documents  held 
by  the  National  Archives.  All  have  been  classified  on  national 
security  grounds.  Some  date  to  the  spring  of  1917,  when  the 
United  States  was  entering  World  War  I,  while  others  discuss 
once-sensitive  techniques  like  making  and  using  invisible  ink, 
said  archivists  who  have  reviewed  the  documents. 

The  release  covers  the  largest  single  batch  of  secret  pajjers 
to  be  declassified  by  the  National  Archives  and  is  a  sign, 
historians  and  archivists  said,  that  the  President  may  fulfill  a 
promise  he  made  more  than  1 8  months  ago  to  change  Cold  War 
secrecy  practices  on  military  and  intelligence  records.  Twenty- 
two  years  ago.  President  Richard  Nixon  promised  "immediate 
and  systematic  declassification"  of  Vietnam  War  documents. 
Nearly  five  million  pages  are  still  being  withheld  at  the  demand 
of  military  and  intelligence  officials,  including  nearly  three 
million  pages  about  Vietnam,  public  records  show. 

Gregg  Herken,  chair  of  the  department  of  space  history  at  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  Air  and  Space  Museum,  said,  "I  would 
reserve  judgment  until  I  see  what's  there  about  atomic  weapons, 
intelligence  and  dealings  with  foreign  governments."  In  fact, 
such  files  have  been  identified  and  removed  from  the  records 
that  were  declassified,  said  Michael  Kurtz,  the  acting  assistant 
archivist  at  the  Nafional  Archives.  "We've  carefully  excluded 
records  with  ongoing  security  concerns,"  he  said.  The  post- 
World  War  II  records  declassified  were  mostly  civil  records  and 
military  headquarters  files,  although  they  include  nearly  six 


million  pages  of  papers  from  the  Vietnam  War,  he  said.  ("U.S. 
Makes  Public  Millions  of  Long-Secret  Papers,"  The  Washington 
Post,  November  11) 

NOVEMBER  -  "Who  says  all  of  Washington's  secrets  deal  with 
national  security  issues?  Not  the  U.S.  Postal  Service.  The 
agency  has  declined  to  reveal  the  results  of  a  1991  report  by  its 
inspection  service  about  whether  a  certain  new  way  of  routing 
letters  would  be  economically  sound.  According  to  a  senior 
postal  official,  the  report  was  highly  critical  of  the  $987.4 
million  project,  which  allows  workers  at  a  remote  site  to  place 
bar  codes  on  letters  through  a  computer  linkup. 

The  idea  was  supf)osed  to  save  money  because  lower-paid 
contract  workers  were  to  be  used.  But  the  inspectors'  internal 
report  questioned  whether  the  project  would  save  as  much  as 
postal  officials  had  publicly  predicted.  Since  the  report  was 
prepared.  Postmaster  General  Marvin  T.  Runyonhas  given  most 
of  the  remote  bar-coding  jobs  to  full-time  jjostal  workers,  whose 
higher  pay  has  pushed  the  project's  cost  way  beyond  initial 
projections. 

When  asked  by  The  Washington  Post  for  a  copy  of  the 
report,  agency  officials  released  only  five  pages  of  the  1991 
document.  Officials  deleted  virtually  all  the  information  on  those 
five  pages.  They  said  the  information  was  being  withheld 
because  it  "contains  analyses,  opinions,  conclusions,  projections 
and  beliefs  of  the  auditor. "  They  also  said  they  could  withhold 
the  rejwrt  because  it  is  "information  of  a  commercial  nature 
which  under  good  business  practice  would  not  be  publicly 
disclosed."  ("Washington  at  Work,"  The  Washington  Post, 
November  22) 

NOVEMBER  -  Sloppy  management  at  NASA  has  resulted  in 
billions  of  dollars  in  computers,  lawn  mowers,  and  other 
equipment  being  given  to  contractors,  according  to  a  congressio- 
nal report.  The  House  Government  Operations  Committee  also 
concluded  that  lax  management  practices  have  allowed  contrac- 
tors to  reap  excessive  profits  and  receive  award  fees  on  contracts 
with  serious  cost  overruns.  "NASA's  financial  management 
picture  is  a  mess,"  committee  Chair  John  Conyers  Jr.  (D-MI) 
said.  "NASA's  record-keeping  is  so  inadequate  that  its  books 
cannot  be  audited,  and  its  planning  is  so  unrealistic  that  budgets 
are  hopelessly  optimistic. " 

The  report,  compiling  several  previous  studies,  said  contrac- 
tors hold  more  than  $14  billion  in  government-owned  property, 
including  $2  billion  in  general  purpose  equipment.  It  said 
NASA's  monitoring  of  this  equipment  is  inadequate  and  "many 
contractor  reports  on  NASA  property  are  riddled  with  errors  and 
inconsistencies  totaling  millions  of  dollars. "  The  report  said  that 
while  NASA  spends  about  90  percent  of  its  $14.4  billion  aimual 
budget  on  contracting,  "poor  financial  management  practices 
undermine  NASA's  effectiveness  and  efficiency."  Conyers  said, 
"We  have  learned  that  some  NASA  subcontracts  were  yielding 
as  much  as  288  percent  in  profits  and  that  one  contractor  on 
NASA's  gamma  ray  observatory  received  a  $S  million  bonus  for 


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cost-effectiveness,  even  though  this  contract  had  a  $40  million 
cost  overrun."  NASA  spokesperson  Brian  Welch  said  the  space 
agency  has  carried  out  a  number  of  procurement  and  manage- 
ment reforms.  He  said  NASA  Administrator  Daniel  Goldin  had 
put  in  place  internal  reviews  "that  automatically  trigger  any  time 
we  get  into  a  cost  overrun  situation."  ("NASA  Accused  of 
Management  Lapses,"  The  Washington  Post,  November  27) 

DECEMBER  -  The  House  Intelligence  Committee  plans  in  199S 
to  investigate  whether  top  CIA  officials  intentionally  misled 
several  senior  Republican  members  who  between  1988  and  1992 
repeatedly  asked  about  loss  of  U.S. -paid  Soviet  agents.  It  was 
not  until  confessed  spy  Aldrich  Ames  was  arrested  in  February 
that  Republican  committee  members  learned  that  at  the  time  they 
had  asked  their  questions,  agency  officials  already  knew  that 
more  than  a  dozen  of  the  CIA's  Soviet  agents  had  been  killed  or 
arrested  and  that  many  more  intelligence  of)erations  had  been 
exposed.  There  was  "a  pattern  of  lack  of  candor  by  senior  CIA 
officials  in  answering  questions  of  committee  members  about 
losses  of  Soviet  assets,"  the  intelligence  panel  said  in  its  final 
report.  "The  possibility  cannot  be  dismissed,"  the  report  added, 
that  had  the  committee  known  the  facts,  its  "expressions  of 
interest  and  concern"  may  have  led  to  a  more  robust  investiga- 
tion and  earlier  discovery  of  Ames  as  a  spy.  As  previously 
repxjrted,  the  committee  criticized  the  FBI  as  well  as  the  CIA  for 
failures  that  allowed  Ames  to  go  undetected  for  as  long  as  he 
did.  ("Incoming  Panel  Plans  CIA  Inquiry,"  The  Washington 
Post,  December  1) 

DECEMBER  -  The  shift  to  a  Republican-controlled  Congress  in 
1995  is  likely  to  make  it  more  difficult  for  the  Securities  and 
Exchange  Commission  to  expand  its  regulatory  activities  and  for 
investors  to  pursue  claims  of  fraud  against  the  securities 
industry.  In  interviews,  more  than  a  dozen  legislators,  staff 
aides,  industry  executives,  and  regulators  agreed  that  an 
expanded  SEC  budget  to  provide  for  more  examiners  to  oversee 
mutual  funds  and  investment  advisers  and  to  upgrade  consumer 
education  would  collide  with  Republican  concerns  that  the 
agency  is  already  too  intrusive  and  creates  unnecessary  ex{>enses 
for  the  industry. 

Advocates  for  change,  led  by  Sen.  Phil  Gramm  (R-TX),  in 
line  to  lead  the  Banking  Committee's  securities  subcommittee, 
and  his  key  staff  adviser,  the  economist  Wayne  Abemathy,  said 
the  current  securities  litigation  process  "has  been  distorted  by 
greedy  lawyers  into  a  form  of  piracy."  Gramm's  disputes  with 
the  agency  have  had  a  personal  edge  since  the  late  1980s,  when 
Richard  Breeden,  then  SEC  chairman,  tried  to  take  over  the 
duties  of  the  Commodity  Futures  Trading  Commission,  headed 
at  the  time  by  Wendy  Gramm,  the  Senator's  wife. 

Explosive  growth  in  the  investment  advisory  business  and  in 
the  mutual  fund  industry  in  the  last  decade  have  substantially 


outstripped  the  SEC's  inspection  programs.  The  agency  is  able 
to  examine  on  a  regular  basis  only  the  largest  and  most  active 
managers  of  the  public's  money.  Smaller  fund  operations  or 
advisory  firms  are  likely  to  be  inspected  only  when  a  scandal  has 
occurred— and  such  scandals,  including  unreported  risks  in 
money  market  mutual  funds  and  fraudulent  activities  by  invest- 
ment advisers,  have  occurred  frequently  enough  in  the  last  year 
to  suggest  that  additional  regulatory  oversight  might  be  need. 
Without  additional  resources,  such  inspection  could  be  provided 
only  by  reducing  resources  now  devoted  to  policing  the  public 
markets  and  reviewing  the  documents  supplied  to  investors  by 
companies  trying  to  raise  capital.  In  addition  to  planning  a 
substantial  increase  in  the  inspection  staff,  SEC  Chair  Arthur 
Levitt  has  initiated  a  small  but  ambitious  program  of  consumer 
information,  aimed  at  giving  small  investors  a  better  understand- 
ing of  how  to  protect  themselves  from  market  fraud.  ("Republi- 
cans May  Curb  S.E.C.  and  Fraud  Suits  by  Investors,"  The  New 
York  Times,  December  12) 

DECEMBER  -  U.S.  District  Judge  Royce  Lamberth  asked  the 
U.S.  attorney  to  investigate  whether  Ira  Magaziner,  President 
Clinton's  health-care  adviser,  lied  in  an  attempt  to  defeat  a 
lawsuit  filed  by  groups  seeking  access  to  the  now-defunct  Health 
Care  Task  Force's  deliberations.  Lamberth  said  he  cannot 
determine  from  the  record  in  the  lawsuit  whether  Magaziner 
committed  a  crime — criminal  contempt  of  court,  perjury,  or 
making  a  false  statement.  He  said  an  investigation  by  law 
enforcement  authorities  is  necessary  to  determine  "what  Mr. 
Magaziner  knew  and  when  he  knew  it."  Lorrie  McHugh,  a 
spokeswoman  for  the  White  House,  said,  "The  White  House 
believes  that  a  full  and  fair  review  of  the  facts  will  completely 
vindicate  Mr.  Magaziner." 

Lamberth  referred  the  issue  to  U.S.  Attorney  Eric  H.  Holder 
Jr.  because  he  ruled  the  lawsuit  was  now  moot  but  was  con- 
cerned enough  about  Magaziner' s  statement  to  seek  an  investiga- 
tion. At  issue  is  a  March  3,  1993,  sworn  statement  that  "only 
federal  government  employees  serve  as  members"  of  the  task 
force's  interdepartmental  working  group,  which  he  headed. 
Magaziner' s  statement  was  made  in  response  to  the  lawsuit  filed 
more  than  a  year  ago  by  the  Association  of  American  Physicians 
and  Surgeons  Inc.  and  two  other  groups  against  him.  First  Lady 
Hillary  Rodham  Clinton  and  other  Administration  officials, 
seeking  access  to  the  task  force.  ("Judge  Asks  U.S.  Attorney  to 
Probe  Magaziner  Statement,"  The  Washington  Post,  December 
22) 

[Ed.  note:  In  early  December,  Justice  Department  lawyers 
agreed  to  make  public  thousands  more  documents  generated  by 
a  working  group  of  the  Health  Care  Task  Force  because  the 
Administration  has  "nothing  to  hide. "  ("Justice  Dept.  to  Release 
Health  Panel  Documents,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  3)] 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  been  connpiled  in  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods  April  1981 -December  1987 
and  January  1988-December  1991.  Less  Access...  updates  are  available  for  $1.00;  the  1981-1987  volume  is  $7.00;  the  1988-1991 
volume  is  $10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Association  Washington  Office,  1 10  Maryland  Avenue,  NE,  Washirtgton,  DC 
20002-6676;  202-547-4440,  fax  202-547-7363.  All  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  include  a  self-addressed  mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  OfTice 


December  1994 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1  10  Maryland  Avenue,  NE 

Washington,  DC  20002-5675 

Tel:  202-547-4440     FAX:  202-547-7363     Email:  alawash@alawash.org 

June  1995 


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

A  1995  Chronology:  January  -  June 


INTRODUCTION 

For  the  past  14  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  Administration  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize 
government  information.  Since  1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the 
government's  16,000  publications  has  been  eliminated.  Since 
1985,  the  Office  of  Management  and  Budget  has  consolidated  its 
government  information  control  powers,  particularly  through 
Circular  A-130,  Management  of  Federal  Information  Resources. 
OMB  issued  a  revision  of  the  circular  in  the  July  2,  1993, 
Federal  Register,  changing  its  restrictive  interpretation  of  the 
defmition  of  "government  publication"  to  which  ALA  had 
objected  in  OMB's  draft  circulars. 

In  their  first  two  years  in  office,  the  Clinton  Administration 
has  improved  public  access  to  government  information.  The 
President  signed  P.L.  103-40,  the  Government  Printing  Office 
Electronic  Information  Access  Enhancement  Act.  The  implemen- 
tation of  the  law  in  June  1994  provides  electronic  government 
information  to  the  public  through  the  Depository  Library 
Program,  and  15  depository  gateways  around  the  country. 
Government  information  is  more  accessible  through  computer 
networks  and  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  President  Clinton 
signed  a  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  in 
May,  saying  it  would  further  reduce  government-required 
reports.  The  list  of  restrictive  factors,  or  "checklist,"  that  was 
controversial  in  the  library  history  during  the  long  history  of 
PRA  attempts,  is  not  in  the  new  statute. 

However,  barriers  to  access  still  exist.  For  example,  the 
Clinton  Administration,  like  the  prior  two  Administrations,  has 
maintained  that  the  government  has  no  obligation  to  preserve  its 
electronic  records  and  the  information  they  contain.  National 
Performance  Review  recommendations  to  "reinvent  government" 
to  have  every  federal  agency  responsible  for  disseminating 
information  to  the  nation's  1 ,400  depository  libraries  could  result 
in  a  literal  "tower  of  babel"  as  the  American  public  would  be 


forced  to  search  through  hundreds  of  federal  agencies  for 
publications  they  need. 

Another  development,  with  major  implications  for  public 
access,  is  the  growing  tendency  of  federal  agencies  to  use 
computer  and  telecommunication  technologies  for  data  collection, 
storage,  retrieval,  and  dissemination.  This  trend  has  resulted  in 
the  increased  emergence  of  contractual  arrangements  with  com- 
mercial firms  to  disseminate  information  collected  at  taxpayer 
expense,  higher  user  charges  for  government  information,  and 
the  proliferation  of  government  information  available  in  elec- 
tronic format  only.  While  automation  clearly  offers  promises  of 
savings,  will  public  access  to  government  information  be  further 
restricted  for  people  who  carmot  afford  computers  or  pay  for 
computer  time?  Now  that  electronic  products  and  services  have 
begun  to  be  distributed  to  federal  depository  libraries,  public 
access  to  government  information  should  be  increased. 

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open 
government  is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolution 
passed  by  Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and  ready 
access  to  data  collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in 
any  format  by  the  government  of  the  United  States."  In  1986, 
ALA  initiated  a  Coalition  on  Government  Information.  The 
Coalition's  objectives  are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts 
that  limit  access  to  government  information,  and  to  develop 
support  for  improvements  in  access  to  government  information. 

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

D 


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1995 


CHRONOLOGY 

JANUARY  -  According  to  two  Syracuse  University  researchers, 
federal  agencies'  electronic  bulletin  board  systems  are  failing  to 
disseminate  federal  information  except  perhaps  to  the  most  savvy 
BBS  users.  That  is  the  claim  of  Charles  McClure,  an  Internet 
consultant  and  professor  at  Syracuse  University's  School  of 
Information  Studies.  In  1994,  McClure  and  doctoral  student  John 
Carlo  Bertot  monitored  volunteers  who  navigated  many  of  the 
government's  200  bulletin  boards.  The  volunteers  had  trouble 
connecting  to  BBSes  as  well  as  finding  and  downloading  files. 

Many  BBS  system  managers  seemed  to  post  whatever  files 
they  thought  might  be  useful,  without  targeting  specific  audienc- 
es. Further,  files  often  were  out  of  date.  Testers  complained 
about  continuous  busy  signals,  restrictive  time  limits,  menu  trees 
that  buried  important  choices,  and  lengthy  sign-on  question- 
naires. Search  engines  were  "primitive  and  weak,"  often  giving 
inaccurate  results  or  trapping  callers. 

If  agencies  want  to  improve  their  information  dissemination, 
they  should  concentrate  on  reaching  citizens  through  the  Internet, 
McClure  recommended.  He  also  suggested  providing  toll-free 
numbers.  McClure  criticized  the  Commerce  Department's 
FedWorld  BBS,  regarded  as  the  best  federal  BBS  in  use  today, 
because  it  does  not  help  users  when  they  connect  through  its 
gateways  to  hundreds  of  other  federal  BBSes.  FedWorld 
managers  are  considering  changes  to  make  navigation  easier. 
("Agency  BBSes  Miss  the  Target,  Survey  Shows,"  Shawn 
McCarthy,  Computer  News,  January  9) 

JANUARY  -  In  a  January  14  editorial,  "Virtually  Open  Govern- 
ment," The  Washington  Post  commented  favorably  on  libraries 
providing  access  to  government  information  through  Government 
Printing  Office  gateways.  The  editorial  also  cited  numbers  to 
show  that  even  if  computer  networks  are  the  wave  of  the  future, 
they  "remain  for  now  a  tiny  province  of  society  rather  than  a 
full-fledged  universe.  Numbers  aren't  totally  reliable  on  this,  but 
the  trade  publication  Matrix  News  estimated  in  December  [1994] 
that  27.5  million  people  in  the  world  are  on  e-mail;  13.5  million 
people  use  what  the  researchers  call  the  'consumer  internet,' 
with  basic  on-line  services;  and  only  7.8  million  have  access  to 
computers  sophisticated  enough  to  participate  in  the  'core 
internet.'  This  last  requires  users  to  have  access  to  fancy 
services  such  as  the  World  Wide  Web,  which  is  needed  to  reach 
most  of  the  new  governmental  information  services  and  commer- 
cial products.  The  'virtual  revolution'  may  make  a  good 
buzzword,  but  the  real  world  shouldn't  be  allowed  to  slip  off  the 
screen. " 

JANUARY  -  Although  a  federal  judge  dismissed  a  .suit  filed  in 
1993  by  groups  who  sued  to  gain  access  to  the  Clinton  Admin- 
istration's health-care  deliberations,  Ira  Magaziner,  the  Presi- 
dent's health-care  adviser,  is  under  investigation,  accused  of 
lying  in  a  sworn  statement  about  the  makeup  of  the  task  force. 
U.S.  District  Judge  Royce  Lamberth  dismissed  the  access  suit  as 


moot  because  the  Administration  has  turned  over  the  documents 
on  the  task  force's  work,  but  he  has  not  yet  ruled  on  sanctions 
he  said  he  would  impose  against  the  government  for  its  conduct 
and  his  decision  could  be  delayed  because  of  the  ongoing 
investigation  of  Magaziner.  ("Health  Adviser  Declines  Judge's 
Offer,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  18) 

JANUARY  -  When  it  came  to  power  in  January,  the  new 
majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives  enacted  a  rule  limiting 
revisions  in  the  Congressional  Record  to  corrections  of  gram- 
mar, typographical  errors,  and  other  nitpicks.  In  the  past, 
lawmakers  were  able  to  review  their  exchanges  and  revise  them 
before  the  daily  record  of  Congress'  debate  went  to  press.  To 
gauge  adherence  to  the  new  rule.  The  New  York  Times  tape- 
recorded  an  actual,  acrid  debate  on  January  18  about  the 
propriety  of  criticizing  Speaker  of  the  House  Newt  Gingrich's 
(R-GA)  book  contract.  The  newspaper  printed  the  text  of  the 
debate  as  recorded  and  the  debate  as  printed.  Reporter  Michael 
Wines  urged  readers  to  be  the  judge  of  the  effectiveness  of  the 
new  rule.  ("How  the  Record  Tells  the  Truth  Now,"  The  New 
York  Times,  January  22) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  a  closed  hearing  on  February  7,  the  House 
Intelligence  Committee  threatened  to  subpoena  a  former  top 
Central  Intelligence  Agency  official  after  being  told  he  refused 
to  discuss  why  key  panel  members  were  kept  in  the  dark  about 
the  loss  of  CIA-recruited  Soviet  agents  in  the  1980s.  Committee 
members  heard  Acting  Director  Adm.  William  Studeman  and 
other  CIA  officials  try  to  explain  why  three  senior  Republican 
members — including  the  current  chairman.  Rep.  Larry  Combest 
(R-TX) — were  not  given  frank  answers  to  questions  raised  in  the 
late  1980s  with  senior  agency  officials  about  counterintelligence 
activities  and  rumors  there  were  severe  operational  losses  of 
Soviet  agents  working  for  the  CIA. 

According  to  the  House  panel's  report  in  November  1994  on 
the  case  of  confessed  spy  Aldrich  Ames,  these  members  were 
not  told  in  the  late  1980s  about  the  CIA's  loss  of  dozens  of 
agents  and  the  closing  of  more  than  45  intelligence  operations, 
along  with  the  agency's  own  internal  search  for  a  mole.  The 
report  said  there  was  a  "pattern  of  a  lack  of  candor  by  senior 
CIA  officials  in  answering  questions  of  committee  members 
about  the  losses  of  Soviet  assets." 

At  one  point,  a  congressional  source  said,  "Studeman 
admitted  it  was  not  just  Congress  that  was  misled;  other  CIA 
directors  were  kept  from  what  was  happening."  The  Senate 
Intelligence  Committee,  in  its  report  on  the  Ames  case,  said  the 
losses  were  not  mentioned  to  its  members  or  staff  during 
counter-intelligence  briefings  between  1985  and  1994,  when 
Ames  was  arrested  and  the  issue  was  made  public.  ("Panel  Seeks 
Answers  on  CIA  Secrets,"  Tlie  Washington  Post,  February  8) 

FEBRUARY   -  New  documents  show  the  U.S.   government 


ALA  Washington  Office 


June  1995 


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1995 


undertook  a  worldwide  campaign  of  deception  in  the  early  1950s 
to  hide  its  gathering  of  human  remains  and  other  data  to  measure 
fallout  from  atomic  weapons  tests.  TTie  government  documents 
also  suggest  that  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  had  a  wider 
involvement  in  human  radiation  tests  than  it  has  acknowledged. 
At  one  point,  the  CIA  considered  injecting  its  own  agents  with 
radioactive  tracers  to  provide  "positive  identification."  These 
findings  are  among  papers  being  reviewed  by  the  President's 
Advisory  Committee  on  Human  Radiation  Experiments,  which 
was  created  in  1994  to  examine  the  ethics  surrounding  human 
radiation  testing  during  the  Cold  War. 

One  of  the  series  of  papers  involves  an  early  1950s  program 
known  as  Operation  Sunshine.  Under  the  program,  the  Atomic 
Energy  Commission  used  other  government  agencies,  physicians, 
and  private  groups  to  gather  soil,  water,  crops,  and  even  bones 
from  dead  infants  to  try  to  learn  the  extent  of  worldwide 
radioactive  fallout  from  U.S.  weapons  tests.  The  searches,  which 
followed  as  many  as  50  bomb  tests  in  the  late  1940s  and  early 
1950s,  were  made  in  the  United  States  and  more  than  20 
countries.  To  determine  the  extent  of  the  fallout,  AEC  research- 
ers wanted  to  test  levels  of  highly  radioactive  strontium  90  in 
samples,  including  human  skeletons,  from  around  the  world.  The 
samples  were  collected  under  a  cloak  of  secrecy  and  through  the 
use  of  elaborate  cover  stories. 

For  example,  researchers  devised  a  story  that  the  collections 
of  dead  infants,  who  were  often  stillborn,  were  being  made  to 
survey  natural  radium  concentrations  in  humans.  Animals  and 
crop  samples  were  obtained  under  the  guise  of  conducting 
nutritional  studies.  To  help  keep  the  AEC  involvement  secret, 
the  AEC  made  the  collections  through  other  parties — including 
officials  at  the  Agriculture  Department,  contacts  among  foreign 
physicians,  connections  through  private  groups,  and  personal 
contacts  in  the  medical  community.  TTie  collection  of  infant 
skeletons  involved  Japan,  South  Africa,  India,  Brazil,  Columbia, 
Peru,  Chile,  and  Bolivia  as  well  as  the  United  States.  The 
documents  show  that  at  least  55  skeletons  of  stillborn  infants — 
including  several  from  Utah— were  tested  at  the  University  of 
Chicago. 

Separate  documents  concerning  the  involvement  of  the  CIA 
in  radiation  testing  appeared  to  contradict  CIA  statements  last 
year  that  the  agency  had  no  evidence  of  having  participated  in 
such  tests.  Another  document  reveals  that  the  CIA  funded  a 
laboratory  in  a  California  prison  during  the  1960s  in  which 
radioisotope  studies  were  conducted  on  inmates.  ("Files  Show 
U.S.  Deception  in  1950s  Radiation  Tests,"  The  Washington 
Post,  February  15) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  an  apparently  unprecedented  move.  House 
Ethics  Committee  members  and  staff  have  been  required  to  sign 
a  secrecy  oath.  TTie  new  oath  for  the  committee's  ten  members — 
five  Democrats  and  five  Republicans — comes  as  they  take  up  a 
controversial  complaint  against  Speaker  of  the  House  Newt 
Gingrich  (R-GA).  Former  Rep.  Ben  Jones  (D-GA),  who  lost  to 
Gingrich  in  last  November's  election,  has  charged  Gingrich  with 


a  host  of  violations  relating  to  Gingrich's  book  deal  with  Harper 
Collins,  his  political  committee  GOPAC,  and  the  Progress  & 
Freedom  Foundation,  a  major  funder  of  his  college  course. 

The  secrecy  oath  is  consistent  with  a  new  House  rule 
requiring  anyone  with  "access  to  classified  information"  to  sign 
such  an  oath.  It  was  unclear  whether  this  rule  was  deemed  to 
apply  to  ethics — which  technically  deals  with  little  "classified" 
government  information  but  nevertheless  considers  sensitive  and 
potentially  damaging  information  about  members  of  Congress. 
Committee  members  have  largely  maintained  a  policy  of  public 
silence  about  cases  they  are  considering,  but  there  have  been 
occasional  leaks.  Committee  rules  have  long  banned  unautho- 
rized disclosure  but  did  so  without  an  oath.  ("Ethics  Members 
Must  Sign  Secrecy  Oath,"  Roll  Call,  February  20) 

MARCH  -  A  Washington  Post  article  recounted  several  inci- 
dents in  which  Speaker  of  the  House  Newt  Gingrich  (R-GA) 
used  what  appeared  to  be  striking  examples  of  how  the  federal 
government  wastes  taxpayer  funds  on  inefficient  social  pro- 
grams. The  newspaper  reported  that  on  closer  examination,  very 
little  in  the  examples  turned  out  to  be  true. 

Gingrich  told  a  Washington  trade  group  about  a  "federal 
shelter"  in  Denver  with  120  beds  that  costs  $8.8  million  a  year 
to  operate,  while  a  nearby  privately  funded  shelter  of  roughly  the 
same  size  saves  more  lives  at  a  cost  of  only  $320, (XX)  a  year. 
However,  no  such  federal  shelter  exists  in  Denver.  What 
Gingrich  was  actually  referring  to,  according  to  the  group  that 
advises  him  on  social  issues,  is  Colorado's  largest  drug  and 
alcohol  treatment  program,  which  operates  14  treatment  centers 
in  the  Denver  area.  The  organization's  budget  for  all  its  clinics, 
plus  16  school-based  counseling  programs,  is  $11  million,  of 
which  about  $4.3  million  is  federal  money,  according  to  its 
executive  director. 

In  December  1994,  Gingrich  assailed  the  Food  and  Drug 
Administration  for  not  approving  a  heart  pump  that  he  said  can 
be  used  to  resuscitate  heart  attack  victims.  But  the  company  that 
markets  the  device  did  not  have  an  application  at  the  FDA,  and 
tests  have  suggested  the  product  might  not  work  any  better  than 
conventional  cardiopulmonary  resuscitation. 

Also  in  December  1994,  Gingrich  mentioned  a  10-year-old 
in  St.  Louis  who  was  put  in  detention  for  saying  grace  in  a 
public  school  cafeteria  as  evidence  that  public  schools  repress  the 
rights  of  students  who  wish  to  pray.  However,  the  superinten- 
dent of  St.  Louis  schools  said  that  at  the  time  the  student  was 
disciplined  for  matters  entirely  unrelated  to  praying  in  school. 
The  case  was  being  contested  in  federal  court  and  the  facts  were 
far  from  clear. 

Gingrich  spokesman  Tony  Blankley  said  that  the  Speaker 
based  his  remarks  on  information  from  a  task  force  established 
at  his  request  to  advise  him  on  welfare  reform  and  other  poverty 
issues.  The  task  force  was  set  up  by  the  nonprofit  National 
Center  for  Neighborhood  Enterprise.  "We  did  not  have  a  chance 
to  vet  [sic]  the  information  at  a  staff  level,"  Blankley  said.  "I 
think  that  people  who  speak  publicly  have  to  rely  on  information 


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that  seems  credible  when  presented.  Nobody  has  the  luxury, 
whether  they  are  a  newspaper  or  a  public  speaker,  to  conclusive- 
ly establish  in  their  own  research  whether  every  fact  is  accurate. 
That's  why  newspapers  have  correction  boxes."  ("Speaker  Cited 
'Federal  Shelter'  as  Tax  Waste,"  The  Washington  Post,  March 
3) 

MARCH  -  A  New  York  Times  editorial  criticized  the  Supreme 
Court  for  finding  a  new  exception  to  the  so-called  exclusionary 
rule,  which  bars  the  use  of  illegally  obtained  evidence.  Arizona 
courts  had  thrown  out  marijuana  possession  charges  against  a 
man  who  was  arrested  in  Phoenix  and  searched  on  the  basis  of 
an  erroneous  computer  record.  But  the  Supreme  Court,  saying 
the  police  relied  on  the  faulty  information  in  good  faith,  reinstat- 
ed the  charges. 

More  than  80  years  ago,  the  Court  said  the  Constitution 
required  the  exclusion  of  tainted  evidence.  A  few  miscreants 
went  free,  but  for  the  most  part  the  rule  encouraged  the  police 
to  respect  the  privacy  rights  of  all  citizens  by  making  more 
careful,  court-approved  arrests.  In  recent  years,  the  Court  has 
weakened  the  Fourth  Amendment  by  finding  exceptions  to  the 
exclusionary  rule,  but  in  this  recent  case  the  Court  went  further, 
approving  an  arrest  that  was  based  on  a  nonexistent  warrant. 
That  warrant,  issued  when  the  defendant  failed  to  appear  in  court 
for  a  traffic  violation,  was  quashed  when  he  finally  showed  up. 
The  obsolete  information  remained  in  the  computer,  probably 
because  a  court  clerk  failed  to  report  the  quashing. 

Writing  for  a  7-to-2  majority.  Chief  Justice  William  Rehn- 
quist  held  that  the  police  fairly  relied  on  their  own  faulty 
records.  Justice  John  Paul  Stevens,  in  dissent,  saw  the  issue  as 
the  erroneous  use  of  the  state's  sovereign  power  to  arrest. 
("Another  Search-and-Seizure  Loophole,"  The  New  York  Times, 
March  5) 

MARCH  -  The  U.S.  Judicial  Conference,  which  sets  policy  for 
the  nation's  federal  courts,  rejected  a  controversial  rule  change 
that  would  have  made  it  far  easier  to  seal  court  records  from 
public  view.  The  rule  change,  proposed  by  a  committee  of 
federal  judges,  provoked  protest  from  Sen.  Herb  Kohl  (D-Wl) 
and  Trial  Lawyers  for  Public  Justice,  a  public-interest  law 
group.  Both  charged  that  the  proposal  to  make  the  sealing  of 
court  records  nearly  automatic  in  civil  cases,  as  long  as  the  two 
sides  agreed,  would  have  eased  the  way  for  corporations  to 
conceal  information  about  defective  products  and  other  threats  to 
the  public  health  and  safety,  even  when  that  information  had 
been  provided  in  the  usually  public  forum  of  a  lawsuit. 

Critics  of  the  proposal  argued  that  it  would  have  meant 
essentially  abandoning  the  current  requirement  that  judges  find 
"good  cause"  for  barring  public  access  to  records  filed  in  courts. 
The  issue  of  sealing  court  records  from  public  view — by  the 
means  of  "protective  orders" — has  long  been  a  battleground 
pitting  plaintiffs'  lawyers  and  consumer  advocacy  groups  against 
industry  and  corporate  lawyers.  The  latter  group  argues  that 
protective  orders  are  needed  to  protect  trade  secrets  and  avoid 


lengthy  and  expensive  battle  over  documents  after  lawsuits  are 
filed.  ("Judges  Reject  Record-Secrecy  Rule,"  The  Washington 
Post,  March  15) 

MARCH  -  As  Congress  wages  war  on  federal  regulations, 
anecdotal  evidence  of  nonsensical  rules  and  irmocent  victims  has 
been  a  powerful  weapon  in  the  push  to  enact  measures  that  will 
temporarily  halt  rule-making,  protect  property  owners,  and 
ensure  new  regulations  are  worth  the  cost.  According  to  an 
article  in  The  Washington  Post,  many  of  the  purported  examples 
have  the  ring  of  truth,  but  not  the  substance.  For  example.  Rep. 
Michael  Bilirakis  (R-FL)  said,  during  House  floor  debate,  "The 
Drinking  Water  Act  currently  limits  arsenic  levels  in  drinking 
water  to  no  more  than  two  to  three  parts  per  billion."  He 
continued,  "However,  a  regular  portion  of  shrimp  typically 
served  in  a  restaurant  contains  around  30  parts  per  billion." 

Arsenic,  a  known  human  carcinogen,  has  been  subject  to 
regulation  by  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency  since  1976. 
The  drinking  water  standard  is  now  not  two  or  three  parts  per 
billion,  but  50  parts  per  billion.  And  according  to  EPA  officials, 
the  arsenic  found  in  water  and  the  arsenic  found  in  shrimp  and 
other  seafood  are  chemically  quite  different.  The  type  of  arsenic 
found  in  seafood  is  organic;  in  water,  arsenic  is  predominantly 
inorganic,  and  far  more  toxic. 

Rep.  Edward  Markey  (D-MA)  lamented  the  making  of 
"policy  on  the  basis  of  false  or  misleading  anecdotal  informa- 
tion." Proponents  of  anti-regulatory  legislation,  said  Markey, 
"claim  that  the  Consumer  Product  Safety  Commission  had  a 
regulation  requiring  all  buckets  have  a  hole  in  the  bottom  of 
them  so   water   can    flow  through   and   avoid   the  danger  of 

someone  falling  face  down  into  the  bucket  and  drowning Now, 

that  would  be  ridiculous  regulation,  if  it  existed.  But  the  truth  is 
that  there  has  never  been  such  a  rule."  ("Truth  is  Victim  in 
Rules  Debate,"  The  Washington  Post,  March  19) 

MARCH  -  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
on  January  4  was  to  strip  28  House  caucuses  of  their  budgets, 
staffs,  and  offices.  Rep.  Louise  Slaughter  (D-NY),  an  arts 
caucus  co-chair,  said  that  with  the  loss  of  staff  the  group  is 
"really  hamstrung"  because  "we  lost  our  own  sources  of 
information."  Several  Democrats  complained  that  the  new  rules 
have,  in  particular,  threatened  to  shut  the  flow  of  information 
from  the  Democratic  Study  Group,  which  lawmakers  and 
reporters  relied  on  for  analysis  of  floor  legislation.  But  not  only 
Democrats  have  worried  about  a  possible  information  gap.  "We 
can't  do  research,"  said  Rep.  Jim  Kolbe  (R-AZ),  chair  of  the 
House  Wednesday  Group  of  moderate  Republicans. 

Republicans  who  proposed  the  caucus  restrictions  maintain 
that  lawmakers  from  both  parties  have  plenty  of  other  informa- 
tion sources.  "We  have  subcorrunittee  information,  committee 
information,  leadership  information,"  Rep.  Pat  Roberts  (R-KS) 
said.  "We  believe  it  is  the  responsibility  of  leadership  to  provide 
such  information  to  their  members,"  Rep.  John  Boehner  (R-OH) 
said   on    behalf  of  GOP   members   of  the   House   Oversight 


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Committee.  "They're  not  hellbent  to  put  us  out  of  business," 
Rep.  David  Skaggs  (D-CO),  chairman  of  the  Democratic  Study 
Group,  said  of  GOP  leaders.  "One  could  theorize  that  part  of  the 
centralization  of  control  that  the  Speaker  has  done  such  a  good 
job  of  accomplishing  included  a  centralization  of  informa- 
tion.... You  can  have  a  strong  executive  without  censorship." 
("Cut  Back,  Caucuses  Struggle  to  Go  Forward,"  The  Washing- 
ton Post,  March  23) 

MARCH  -  The  U.S.  government  had  information  in  October 
1991  linking  a  paid  CIA  informer  in  the  Guatemalan  military  to 
the  killing  of  an  American  citizen  there,  but  did  not  seek  his 
prosecution  inside  Guatemala  for  the  crime,  U.S.  intelligence 
sources  said.  The  CIA  also  failed  to  inform  its  congressional 
overseers  until  this  year  of  its  informer's  alleged  involvement  in 
the  slaying,  a  circumstance  that  provoked  criticism  from  the 
Republican  chairman  and  senior  Democrat  of  the  Senate  Select 
Committee  on  Intelligence.  The  CIA  informer's  link  to  the 
killing  became  public  after  Rep.  Robert  Torricelli  (D-NJ) 
accused  the  Administration  in  a  letter  of  deliberately  misleading 
the  public.  ("U.S.  Had  Information  in  1991  Tying  CIA  Informer 
to  Killing,"  The  Washington  Post,  March  24) 

MARCH  -  Measuring  violence  against  women  has  long  been  a 
statistical  minefield,  statisticians  say.  Historically,  rape  and 
domestic  violence  have  been  exceptionally  difficult  to  reduce  to 
solid  numbers — in  part  because  women  often  are  reluctant  to 
discuss  such  offenses.  Relatively  few  studies  deal  directly  with 
these  topics,  and  even  fewer  are  sufficiently  rigorous  in  their 
methodology  or  sample  size  to  be  considered  authoritative.  ("In 
Debate  Over  Crimes  Against  Women,  Statistics  Get  Roughed 
Up,"  The  Washington  Post,  March  27) 

SPRING  -  The  Government  Accountability  Project,  a  member 
of  the  Coalition  on  Government  Information,  filed  a  lawsuit  in 
February  1995  against  the  Navy  in  connection  with  the  explosion 
of  the  Navy's  battleship  U.S.S.  Iowa.  The  explosion  occurred  in 
April  1989,  resulting  in  the  death  of  47  sailors.  The  G.A.P 
lawsuit  seeks  to  obtain  a  videotape  of  rehearsal  sessions  where 
it  is  believed  high-ranking  officers  were  coached  about  what  to 
say  to  reporters  concerning  the  U.S.S.  Iowa  explosion.  G.A.P. 
believes  that  the  tapes  will  provide  factual  evidence  of  what 
really  happened  aboard  the  ship  and  the  Navy's  knowledge  of 
these  events. 

The  videotape  is  one  of  90  records  the  government  has 
refused  to  provide.  For  the  past  two  years,  journalist  Charles 
Thompson  has  been  trying  to  obtain  the  videotapes  of  the  Navy's 
media  interview  preparation  sessions.  Don  Aplin,  G.A.P. 's  lead 
attorney  on  the  suit,  commented:  "The  Navy  cannot  withhold 
material  from  the  public  merely  because  it  is  embarrassing.  This 
videotape  is  part  of  a  tax-supported  disinformation  campaign 
[that]  must  see  the  light  of  day."  ("G.A.P.  Sues  to  Prove  Cover- 
up  of  U.S.S.  IOWA  Explosion,"  Bridging  the  Gap,  Spring 
1995) 


APRIL  -  Designed  and  funded  in  secrecy,  the  Tri-Service 
Standoff  Attack  Missile  was  to  be  invisible  to  radar,  guided  by 
on-board  computers,  and  capable  of  being  launched  by  any  of 
three  military  services.  But  after  nine  years  of  delays,  contract 
disputes,  failed  tests,  and  $3.9  billion  in  taxpayer  funds,  the 
Clinton  Administration  recently  terminated  the  program.  No  one 
was  held  accountable  for  the  end  of  the  TSSAM.  Defense 
Secretary  William  Perry  attributed  the  cancellation  simply  to 
"significant  development  problems"  and  production  costs  that 
were  "unacceptably  high." 

But  the  story  of  TSSAM  provides  a  cautionary  tale  about 
Pentagon  procurement  gone  awry.  It  reveals  a  mismanaged 
program,  overly  ambitious,  that  ran  into  trouble  early  and  was 
allowed  to  go  on  faltering  for  nearly  a  decade.  Northrop  Corp. 
committed  to  doing  the  job  at  a  preset  price,  then  realized  it  had 
underestimated  the  challenge  and  was  handicapped  by  the 
program's  secrecy  in  recruiting  experienced  staff.  ("Missile 
Project  Became  a  $3.9  Billion  Misfire,"  The  Washington  Post, 
Apnl  3) 

APRIL  -  Three  Senators  who  help  oversee  the  CIA  accused  the 
spy  agency  of  providing  misleading  information  to  Congress 
about  links  between  a  paid  CIA  informant  in  the  Guatemalan 
military  and  the  1990  murder  of  a  U.S.  innkeeper  in  Guatemala. 
("CIA  Accused  of  Misleading  Lawmakers,"  The  Washington 
Post,  April  6) 

APRIL  -  In  a  nine-page  excerpt  from  his  book.  In  Retrospect, 
former  Defense  Secretary  Robert  McNamara  discusses  the 
credibility  gap  that  developed  in  the  mid-60s  during  President 
Lyndon  Johnson's  Administration.  "During  this  fateful  period, 
Johnson  initiatedbombingof  North  Vietnam  and  committed  U.S. 
ground  forces,  raising  the  total  U.S.  troop  strength  from  23, (XX) 
to  175,000— with  the  likelihood  of  another  100,000  in  1966  and 
perhaps  even  more  later.  All  of  this  occurred  without  adequate 
public  disclosure  or  debate,  planting  the  seeds  of  an  eventually 
debilitating  credibility  gap.  Although  the  President  withheld  this 
change  in  policy  from  the  public,  he  sought  the  advice  of  many 
experienced  people  outside  government,  especially  ex-President 
Eisenhower."  ("We  Were  Wrong,  Terribly  Wrong,"  Newsweek, 
April  17) 

APRIL  -  Writing  in  the  "Outlook"  section  of  The  Washington 
Post,  Jefferson  Morley  maintains  that  government  secrecy  helps 
to  alienate  Americans,  causing  distrust  in  government.  He  says 
there  is  no  official  department  of  secrecy,  but  there  is  a  function- 
al equivalent,  bigger  than  many  Cabinet  agencies.  It  consists  of 
the  offices  and  archives  in  the  Pentagon,  the  intelligence 
agencies,  the  FBI,  the  Bureau  of  Alcohol  Tobacco  and  Firearms, 
and  other  federal  agencies  that  classify  and  guard  all  sorts  of 
information  considered  too  sensitive  to  be  shared  with  the 
American  public.  According  to  a  1994  Washington  Post  report, 
the  secrecy  system  keep  an  estimated  32,400  people  employed 
ftill-time— more  than  the  Department  of  Education  and   the 


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Environmental  Protection  Agency  combined.  According  to  the 
Office  of  Management  and  Budget,  the  bureaucracy  of  secrets 
may  cost  as  much  as  $16  billion  a  year  to  run. 

Morley  says  that  elected  officials  can  do  something  about  the 
popular  mistrust  of  the  secrecy  system.  On  April  17,  President 
Clinton  signed  Executive  Order  12958,  establishing  the  least 
restrictive  jwlicy  on  government  records  since  the  beginning  of 
the  Cold  War.  Clinton's  major  innovation  is  that  government 
records  more  than  25  years  old  will  be  declassified  automatically 
instead  of  remaining  secret  indefinitely.  But  reformers  within  the 
Administration  who  hoped  for  substantive  change  in  the  day-to- 
day workings  of  the  secrecy  system  were  thwarted.  National 
security  agencies  successfully  lobbied  for  language  in  the  order 
that  protects  most  of  their  current  prerogatives,  according  to 
Steven  Aftergood  of  the  American  Federation  of  Scientists. 

Energy  Secretary  O'Leary's  release  of  long-secret  documents 
of  radiation  experiments  shows  that  full  disclosure  of  embarrass- 
ing material  is  not  political  or  institutional  suicide.  According  to 
Morley,  "We  don't  know  what  other  abuses  of  governmental 
power,  if  any,  the  secrecy  system  is  hiding.  But  we  do  know 
that  a  citizenry  without  access  to  its  own  history  has  no  guaran- 
tee of  democratic  accountability.  And  as  long  as  democratic 
accountability  is  in  doubt,  the  citizenry,  not  just  government 
office  buildings,  will  remain  vulnerable."  ("Department  of 
Secrecy,"  The  Washington  Post,  April  30) 

[Ed.  note:  Executive  Order  12958,  Classified  National  Security 
Information,  was  published  in  the  April  20  Federal  Register,  pp. 
19825-43.] 

MAY  -  Project  Censored  (a  member  of  the  Coalition  on  Govern- 
ment Information)  awarded  Public  Citizen's  Health  Letter  for 
publishing  what  the  project  voted  to  be  the  #1  censored  story  of 
1994.  The  story,  "Unfinished  Business:  Occupational  Safety 
Agency  Keeps  170,000  Exposed  Workers  in  the  Dark  About 
Risks  Incurred  on  Job,"  describes  how  in  the  early  1980s,  the 
National  Institute  for  Occupational  Safety  and  Health  completed 
69  epidemiological  studies  that  revealed  that  240,450  American 
workers  were  exposed  to  hazardous  materials  at  258  worksites. 
Many  of  the  affected  workers  were  unaware  that  they  were  being 
exposed  to  hazardous  substances  (such  as  asbestos,  silica,  and 
uranium)  that  were  determined  in  those  studies  to  increase  the 
risk  of  cancer  and  other  serious  diseases. 

In  1983,  NIOSH  and  the  Centers  for  Disease  Control  and 
Prevention  concluded  that  NIOSH  had  a  duty  to  inform  workers 
of  exposure  "particularly  when  NIOSH  is  the  exclusive  holder 
of  information  and  when  there  is  clear  evidence  of  a  cause  and 
effect  relationship  between  exposure  and  health  risk."  Obviously, 
workers  who  learned  they  were  at  risk  could  undergo  screening 
that  could  lead  to  earlier  detection  of  cancer.  Nonetheless,  the 
Reagan  Administration  refused  to  fund  a  $4  million  pilot 
notification  program  and  opposed  legislation  that  would  have 
required  such  notification.  As  a  result,  by  1994,  fewer  than  30 
percent  of  the  workers  have  been  notified.   Public  Citizen's 


Health  Research  Group  learned  that  NIOSH  has  individually 
notified  a  maximum  of  only  7 1 , 1 80  (29.6  percent)  of  the  original 
240,450  workers,  leaving  169,270,  more  than  60  percent,  still 
in  the  dark  about  health  risks  from  on-the-job  exjwsure.  (''Health 
Letter  Gets  Two  Journalism  Awards,"  Health  Letter,  May) 

MAY  -  The  Department  of  Commerce  armounced  that  it  was 
seeking  a  private  organization  to  compile  and  update  its  index  of 
leading  indicators  and  two  companion  indexes  that  anticipate  or 
track  turning  points  in  the  economy.  Although  the  index — the 
government's  chief  forecasting  gauge— is  widely  followed,  it  has 
fallen  into  disrepute  among  many  professionals  for  emitting  false 
signals  of  recession  or  failing  to  warn  of  actual  ones.  Depart- 
ment officials  are  confident  that  somebody  would  be  found  to 
take  over  the  work  of  compiling  and  updating  the  three  business- 
cycle  indexes  on  which  the  government  spends  $300,000  to 
$400,000  a  year.  The  privatization  effort  is  inspired  by  a  need 
to  free  resources  for  a  sweeping  overhaul  of  the  department's 
national  and  international  statistics. 

Everett  Ehrlich,  the  Under  Secretary  of  Commerce  for 
economic  affairs  indicated  that  if  no  one  were  interested  in 
taking  over  the  index  of  leading  indicators,  the  agency  would 
drop  it.  Unlike  other  government  reports  on  the  economy,  the 
leading,  coincident,  and  lagging  indexes  do  not  involve  primary 
data  collection,  only  mathematical  compilation  of  data  supplied 
by  business,  academic  institutions,  and  other  government 
agencies.  "We  need  to  redirect  our  resources  away  from 
statistical  programs,  such  as  the  cyclical  indicators,  that  no 
longer  require  a  Government  role,  and  towards  these  most 
pressing  statistical  issues,"  Ehrlich  said.  ("The  Commerce 
Department  Seeks  to  Privatize  an  Index,"  The  New  York  Times, 
May  5) 

MAY  -  On  May  22,  President  Clinton  signed  P.L.  104-13,  the 
Paperwork  Reduction  Act  of  1995,  saying  it  would  further 
reduce  government-required  reports  and  help  Americans  conquer 
a  "mountain  of  paperwork"  wasting  their  time.  ("Clinton  Signs 
Law  to  Cut  Paperwork,"  The  Washington  Post,  May  23) 

[Ed.  note:  The  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  covers  a  wide  range 
of  complex  subjects,  including  the  government's  collection, 
management,  and  dissemination  of  information,  its  use  of 
information  technology  and  computer  security.  The  list  of 
restrictive  factors,  or  "checklist,"  that  was  controversial  in  the 
library  community  during  the  long  history  of  PRA  reauthoriza- 
tion attempts,  is  not  in  the  new  statute.] 

JUNE  -  "TTie  Electronic  Privacy  Information  Center  has  sued 
the  WTiite  House,  seeking  documents  related  to  a  secret  govern- 
ment group  responsible  for  developing  policies  on  information 
security.  President  Clinton  last  September  established  the 
Security  Policy  Board  by  a  secret  directive.  According  to  David 
Sobel,  EPIC  counsel,  very  little  information  about  the  board's 
activities  have  [sic]  been  made  public.  Among  the  things  the 


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lawsuit — under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act — seeks,  is  the 
presidential  directive  itself,  said  Sobel.  Clinton's  presidential 
directive,  which  established  the  board,  is  the  latest  in  a  line  of 
White  House  actions  on  information  security,  going  back  to  the 
Reagan  Administration."  ("Secret  Info  Highway  Suit,"  Govern- 
ment Technology,  June) 

JUNE  -  In  an  1 1 -page  article,  Peter  Carlson  attempted  to  select 
some  statistics  used  in  Washington's  policy  wars,  trace  them 
back  to  their  source,  call  in  some  experts,  and  see  if  the 
numbers  were  on  the  level.  He  says,  "It  was  an  awful  idea.  For 
weeks,  it  brought  me  nothing  but  headaches  and  confusion  and 
the  dizzy,  disorienting  feeling  that  nothing  is  really  real. 
Searching  for  reality  in  Washington  statistics  is  akin  to  exploring 
a  mangrove  swamp.  Just  when  you  think  you're  standing  on  the 
solid  ground  of  an  actual,  verifiable  fact,  you  begin  to  sink  into 
the  oozing  muck  of  maybe  and  sort  of  and  it  all  depends  on  how 


you  look  at  it." 

Carlson  checked  the  following  statistics:  those  that  both 
Republicans  and  Democrats  use  to  accuse  each  other  of  imple- 
menting "the  largest  tax  increase  in  history";  the  numbers  being 
used  in  a  battle  raging  over  President  Clinton's  use  of  some 
questionable  crime  statistics  promoting  his  "Violence  Against 
Women"  program;  the  conflicting  information  being  used  to 
attack  the  Administration's  drug  policy;  the  controversial 
statistics  used  to  identify  the  number  of  hungry  children  in 
America;  and  the  conflicting  statistics  about  the  Republican  tax- 
cut  plan. 

Carlson  summed  up  what  he  learned:  "In  Washington, 
statistics  can  simultaneously  be  accurate  but  misleading,  legiti- 
mate but  bogus,  real  but  fake.  In  Washington,  statistics  tell  the 
truth  but  not  the  whole  truth."  ("The  Truth... But  Not  the  Whole 
Truth,"  The  Washington  Post  Magazine,  June  4) 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  been  compiled  in  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods  April  1981 -December  1987 
and  January  1988-December  1991.  Less  Access...  updates  are  available  for  $1.00;  the  1981-1987  volume  is  $7.00;  the  1988-1991 
volume  is  $10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Association  Washington  Office,  1 10  Maryland  Avenue,  NE,  Washington,  DC 
20002-6675;  202-547-4440,  fax  202-547-7363.  All  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  include  a  self-addressed  mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  Office 


June  1995 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1301  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  NW,  Suite  403 

Washington,  DC  20004-1701 

Tel:  202-628-8410     Fax:  202-628-841 9     E-mail:  alawash@alawash.org 

December  1995 


LESS  ACCESS  TO  LESS  INFORMATION  BY  ANS 
THE  U.S.  GOVERNMENT:  XXV 

A  1995  Chronology:  June  -  December 


INTRODUCTION 

For  the  past  14  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has  documented 
efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize  government  information.  Since 
1982,  one  of  every  four  of  the  government's  16,000  publications 
has  been  eliminated.  Since  1985,  the  Office  of  Management  and 
Budget  has  consolidated  its  government  information  control 
powers,  particularly  through  Circular  A- 130,  Management  of 
Federal  Information  Resources.  0MB  issued  a  revision  of  the 
circular  in  the  July  2,  1993,  Federal  Register,  changing  its 
restrictive  interpretation  of  the  definition  of  "government 
publication,"  to  which  ALA  had  objected  in  OMB's  draft  circulars. 

In  their  first  three  years  in  office,  the  Clinton  Administration 
has  improved  public  access  to  government  information.  The  Presi- 
dent signed  P.L.  103-40,  the  Government  Printing  Office 
Electronic  Information  Access  Enhancement  Act.  The  implementa- 
tion of  the  law  in  June  1994  provides  electronic  government 
information  to  the  public  through  the  Depository  Library  Program 
and  more  than  20  depository  gateways  around  the  country. 
Government  information  is  more  accessible  through  computer 
networks  and  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act.  President  Clinton 
signed  a  reauthorization  of  the  Paperwork  Reduction  Act  in  May, 
saying  it  would  further  reduce  government-required  reports.  The 
list  of  restrictive  factors,  or  "checklist,"  that  was  controversial  in 
the  library  history  during  the  long  history  of  PRA  attempts,  is  not 
in  the  new  statute. 

However,  barriers  to  access  still  exist.  For  example.  National 
Performance  Review  recommendations  to  "reinvent  government" 
to  have  every  federal  agency  responsible  for  disseminating 
information  to  the  nation's  1,400  depository  libraries  could  result 
in  a  literal  "tower  of  babel"  as  the  American  public  would  be 
forced  to  search  through  hundreds  of  federal  agencies  for 
publications  they  need. 


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

ALA  reaffirmed  its  long-standing  conviction  that  open  govern- 
ment is  vital  to  a  democracy.  A  January  1984  resolution  passed  by 
Council  stated  that  "there  should  be  equal  and  ready  access  to  data 
collected,  compiled,  produced,  and  published  in  any  format  by  the 
government  of  the  United  States."  In  1986,  ALA  initiated  a 
Coalition  on  Government  Information.  The  Coalition's  objectives 
are  to  focus  national  attention  on  all  efforts  that  limit  access  to 
government  information,  and  to  develop  support  for  improvements 
in  access  to  government  information. 

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


D 


Less  Access... 


June  -  December  1995 


CHRONOLOGY 

JUNE  -  In  an  editorial,  The  Hill  deplored  the  decision  of  Andrew 
F.  Brimmer  to  exempt  from  public  scrutiny  the  District  of 
Columbia  financial  control  board  he  heads.  Brimmer  was 
appointed  by  President  Clinton  as  chairman  of  the  board,  created 
by  the  104th  Congress  to  rescue  the  District  of  Columbia 
government  from  financial  disaster.  Brimmer  was  quoted  in  The 
Washington  Post.  "I  see  no  advantage  in  trying  to  do  this  in  public. 
. . .  My  model  is  the  Federal  Reserve. . . .  There  will  be  few  public 
meetings  rather  than  many.  Privacy  is  required  to  assure  the  safety 
and  confidentiality  of  the  discussions."  Brimmer  promptly 
demonstrated  that  he  intends  to  operate  behind  closed  doors  by 
holding  the  first  meeting,  in  secret,  after  which  he  declared  that 
almost  all  contacts  between  the  board  and  Mayor  Marion  Barry 
and  their  respective  aides  will  be  "out  of  public  view." 

The  editorial  commented  that  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
Brimmer's  sincerity,  but  that  is  not  the  issue.  Officials  who 
conduct  public  business  behind  closed  doors,  no  matter  how  well 
intentioned,  cannot  expect  to  gain  public  confidence  in  and  support 
for  their  actions.  ("Secrecy:  the  bane  of  democracy,"  The  Hill,  June 
14) 

JUNE  -  Reminiscent  of  a  novel  by  Charles  Dickens,  details  of  the 
worldwide  search  in  the  1950s  for  cadavers  by  the  Atomic  Energy 
Commission  were  revealed  in  newly  declassified  documents 
obtained  by  the  presidential  Advisory  Committee  on  Human 
Radiation  Testing.  At  the  height  of  the  Cold  War,  the  government 
looked  for  people  who  could  "do  a  good  job  of  body  snatching"  to 
help  scientists  learn  more  about  the  effect  of  radioactive  fallout.  It 
was  unclear  how  many  human  remains  AEC  operatives  gathered, 
but  investigators  for  the  advisory  panel  said  the  total  may  have 
been  as  many  as  1,500  cadavers  in  the  United  States  and  a  half- 
dozen  other  countries  from  Europe  to  Australia.  Code-named 
"Project  Sunshine,"  the  body  collection  was  given  top  priority  at 
the  AEC  as  the  government  sought  to  learn  the  extent  of 
radioactive  fallout  from  bomb  tests  and  what  effect  the 
contamination  was  having  on  humans  in  the  United  States  and 
elsewhere.  The  searches  were  cloaked  in  secrecy,  focusing  mainly 
on  urban  areas  and  among  the  poor. 

At  a  secret  1955  AEC  meeting,  Willard  Libby  of  the  University 
of  Chicago  (who  in  the  1960s  won  a  Nobel  Prize  in  chemistry) 
described  the  difficulties  of  obtaining  human  samples,  especially 
from  young  people.  The  scientists  discussed  the  need  to  obtain 
samples  from  all  age  groups  from  infants  to  the  elderly.  According 
to  the  transcript,  AEC  operatives  had  established  a  network  of 
contacts  in  hospitals  and  among  physicians  in  the  United  States  as 
well  as  Canada,  Europe,  Australia,  Latin  America,  Africa  and  the 
Philippines  to  collect  body  parts.  Major  sources  of  cadavers  were 
urban  centers,  especially  New  York  City,  Houston  and  Vancouver. 
(The  transcript  did  not  say  whether  it  was  Vancouver,  Canada,  or 
Vancouver,  Washington.)  In  these  cities,  as  many  as  20  bodies  a 
month  were  expected,  according  to  the  transcript.  "Down  in 
Houston,  they  don't  have  all  these  rules.  .  .  .  They  have  a  lot  of 


poverty  cases  and  so  on,"  explained  J.  Laurence  Kulp  of  Columbia 
University,  adding  that  in  some  cities,  such  as  Houston,  "we  can 
get  virtually  everybody  that  dies."  ("Agency  Sought  Cadavers  for 
Its  Radiation  Studies,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  22) 

JUNE  -  Three  government  agencies  are  investigating  the  Air 
Force's  handling  of  inquiries  into  major  plane  crashes  after  a 
former  top  safety  official  alleged  that  commanders  falsified  files  to 
avoid  embarrassment  and  disciplinary  action  in  more  than  two 
dozen  cases.  In  one  case,  a  transport  plane  crashed  after  the  wife 
of  a  pilot  allegedly  was  allowed  to  take  the  controls.  In  another, 
two  Navy  fighter  pilots  and  a  navigator  on  a  plane  removed  their 
clothes,  helmets  and  oxygen  masks  and  attempted  to  moon  another 
plane's  crew.  They  passed  out  and  the  plane  crashed,  killing  them. 
In  these  incidents,  the  true  causes  of  the  crashes  were  covered  up, 
according  to  Alan  Diehl,  who  was  the  Air  Force's  chief  civilian 
safety  official  for  seven  years  until  he  was  involuntarily  transferred 
out  of  the  job.  Diehl  has  raised  questions  about  30  cases, 
supporting  his  claims  by  providing  investigators  with  internal 
documents  gathered  while  he  was  still  in  his  safety  job.  ("False 
Reporting  Is  Alleged  in  Air  Force  Plane  Crashes,"  The  Washington 
Post,  June  23) 

JUNE-  Several  Senators  attacked  a  pollution  disclosure  program, 
known  as  the  Toxics  Release  Inventory,  which  requires  that 
manufacturers  disclose  how  much  they  pollute.  Sen.  J.  Bennett 
Johnston  (D-LA)  and  Sen.  Trent  Lott  (R-MS)  are  trjing  to  narrow 
the  program  that  has  spurred  industrv'  to  reduce  emissions  of  toxic 
chemicals  voluntarily  by  billions  of  pounds  a  year.  At  the  urging 
of  chemical  companies,  a  provision  to  scale  the  program  back  was 
included  in  a  far-reaching  regulatory-relief  bill.  The  provision 
would  strike  hundreds  of  chemicals  from  the  list  of  toxic  emissions 
that  must  be  reported  each  year  to  the  Environmental  Protection 
Agency,  which  then  makes  the  data  public,  state  by  state  and 
factory  by  factory.  States  and  local  residents  have  found  the 
information  a  powerful  and  versatile  tool  for  pressing  companies 
to  reduce  pollution.  Local  officials  also  use  it  to  plan  how  to  handle 
industrial  accidents,  and  labor  unions  have  used  it  to  demand  in 
contract  negotiations  reductions  in  hazardous  emissions  in  work 
places. 

The  latest  reports  show  that  industrial  releases  of  toxic 
chemicals  in  the  United  States  dropped  by  12.6  percent  in  1993,  to 
about  2.8  billion  pounds.  That  is  a  reduction  of  nearly  43  percent 
since  1988.  when  the  program  started.  The  scope  of  the  disclosure 
law  has  steadily  increased  since  the  program  started.  The  data  now 
cover  about  23,000  factories.  Under  the  Senate  proposal,  EPA 
would  have  to  drop  hundreds  of  chemicals  that  were  added  to  the 
list  six  months  ago  unless  the  agency  could  prove  that  removing  a 
chemical  from  the  list  "presents  a  foreseeable  significant  risk  to 
human  health  or  the  environment."  Senate  aides  on  both  sides  of 
the  issue  said  the  amendment  was  drafted  with  the  help  of  lobbyists 
for  the  chemical  industry.  The  EPA  contends  that  it  should  bear  no 


ALA  Washington  Office 


December  1995 


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June  -  December  1995 


such  burden  of  proof  since  the  program  requires  nothing  beyond 
disclosure.  "The  whole  point  of  it  is,  people  have  a  right  to  know," 
said  Carol  M.  Browner,  the  EPA's  administrator. 

Critics  of  the  program  say  that  the  raw  numbers  disclose  little 
or  nothing  about  the  risks  posed  by  the  emissions  and  that  for  this 
reason  the  program  is  fundamentally  flawed.  When  Lott  first 
introduced  an  amendment  requiring  the  agency  to  justify  its 
listings,  he  said:  "The  EPA  has  let  the  TRI  misrepresent  the 
toxicity  of  chemicals,  and  permitted  unnecessary  anxiety  within 
local  communities.  This  is  terrible  policy."  But  even  the  chemical 
companies  that  lobbied  for  the  changes  concede  that  the  existing 
program  has  merit.  Paul  Orum,  who  heads  the  Working  Group  on 
Community  Right-To-Know,  an  environmental  advocacy  group, 
said  that  despite  its  public  stance,  the  chemical  industry  had  been 
"trying  to  gut  this  law  for  years."  ("Senate  Measure  Is  a  Threat  to 
Efficient  Pollution  Rule,"  The  New  York  Times,  June  28) 

JUNE  -  Charges  of  backroom  deals  and  broken  promises  clouded 
the  Clinton  Administration's  push  to  end  a  seven-year  delay  in 
implementing  rules  to  crack  down  on  shoddy  nursing  homes.  The 
rules  would  impose  stiff  fines  and  tough  sanctions  on  homes  that 
mistreat  patients.  But  both  the  nursing  home  industry  and 
consumer  groups  are  angry  at  the  White  House,  with  each  side 
criticizing  what  it  sees  as  double-dealing  in  negotiations  over  the 
rules'  content.  "All  the  delays  have  increased  the  pressure 
enormously,  and  it's  compounded  by  the  fact  that  all  of  this  is 
being  done  in  secret,"  said  Sarah  Burger  of  the  National  Citizens 
Coalition  for  Nursing  Home  Reform. 

Clinton  Administration  officials  angrily  denounced  the  nation's 
largest  nursing  home  lobby  group  for  circulating  a  memo  that  said 
the  Administration  had,  in  effect,  caved  to  industry  pressure  and 
would  delay  putting  the  new  rules  in  place.  But  Health  Care 
Financing  Administration  officials,  in  charge  of  drafting  the  rules, 
said  there  will  be  no  delay  and  no  such  deal  had  existed.  The 
HCFA  is  writing  new  rules  because  it  oversees  Medicare  and 
Medicaid;  about  85  percent  of  all  nursing  homes  receive  funds 
under  those  programs.  The  goal  of  the  rules  is  to  put  muscle  in 
nursing  home  reforms  passed  by  Congress  in  1987.  The  Bush 
Administration  never  put  the  reforms  in  place,  and  the  Clinton 
Administration's  already  difficult  task  in  doing  so  now  has  been 
complicated  by  the  antiregulatory  climate  in  Congress.  ("Nursing 
Home  Reforms  at  Risk,"  USA  Today,  June  28) 

JULY-  The  Pentagon  Inspector  General  said  the  Air  Force  lied  in 
dealing  with  a  story  about  a  general  who  took  a  $1 16,000  military 
flight  from  Italy  to  Colorado  with  his  enlisted  aide  and  pet  cat. 
"The  Air  Force  was  inept  in  its  response  to  media  inquiries  about 
the  flight,"  the  IG  found.  "The  presentation  of  a  series  of  incorrect 
facts,  careless  communications  and  lack  of  central  direction  .  .  . 
defined  the  Air  Force  performance.  .  .  .  The  Air  Force  did  not 
comply  with  its  policy  objectives  regarding  the  quick  and  candid 
release  of  unfavorable  information." 

The  Newsweek  editor  who  broke  the  story,  David  Hackworth, 
said;  "They  just  lied  through  their  teeth,  and  none  of  these 


spinmeisters  who  worked  so  hard  to  con  me  is  being  punished." 
("Air  Force  Flew  Loose  With  'Facts',"  The  Washington  Post,  July 
5) 

JULY  -  Congress  has  not  given  statistical  agencies  enough  money 
to  put  into  effect  dozens  of  changes  advocated  by  a  government 
panel  in  the  early  1990s  to  improve  the  nation's  statistics, 
according  to  report  by  the  General  Accounting  Office.  GAO  said 
that  from  fiscal  1990  through  1994  the  agencies  requested  more 
than  $95  million  and  received  about  $50  million  to  carry  out  the 
improvements.  "Agencies  generally  cited  budget  limitations  as 
reasons  for  not  completing  plans  to  implement  the 
recommendations,"  said  the  report,  which  was  requested  by  Rep. 
Henry  Gonzalez  (D-TX).  Economists  in  and  out  of  government 
have  complained  for  years  that  the  nation's  statistics  are 
inadequate,  with  some  experts  saying  the  data  are  outdated  or  just 
plain  wrong.  ("U.S.  Said  to  Be  Lax  in  Overhauling  Data,"  The  New 
York  Times,  July  10) 

JULY  -  The  Dictionary  of  Occupational  Titles,  first  published  in 
1939  and  last  revised  in  1991,  was  developed  "in  response  to 
demand  for  standardized  occupational  information  in  support  of 
job  placement."  The  dictionary's  first  edition  had  7,500  entries, 
while  the  latest  (two  volumes,  1404  pages,  $50  in  hardcover)  has 
13,000.  The  1991  edition,  however,  will  be  the  last  in  print,  said 
Arthur  Jones,  spokesman  for  the  Department  of  Labor 
Employment  and  Training  Administration,  because  the  dictionary 
is  going  electronic  next  year:  "The  increasing  need  for  up-to-date 
occupational  information  has  become  too  massive  and  too  dynamic 
to  continue  to  rely  on  the  DOT's  traditional  collection,  publications 
and  distribution  methods,"  according  to  a  news  release.  ("Slime 
Plier?  French  Frier?  It's  in  There!"  The  Washington  Post,  July  1 1) 

JULY  -  The  Justice  Department  investigated  whether  FBI  officials 
destroyed  records  and  misled  authorities  as  part  of  a  coverup  of  the 
bureau's  actions  in  the  1992  siege  in  Idaho  that  led  to  the  killing  of 
white  separatist  Randy  Weaver's  unarmed  wife,  Vicki.  One  high- 
ranking  FBI  official,  E.  Michael  Kahoe,  has  been  suspended  after 
authorities  alleged  that  he  destroyed  a  document  that  could  have 
altered  the  official  account  of  what  happened  in  the  standoff  on 
August  22,  1992.  Kahoe  was  then  a  section  chief  in  the  criminal 
investigative  division  at  FBI  headquarters  and  prepared  a  report 
reviewing  the  circumstances  of  Vicki  Weaver's  death.  The 
document,  shredded  within  weeks  of  the  incident,  could  have  shed 
light  on  decisions  made  by  top  officials  about  the  "rules  of 
engagement"  to  be  used  when  the  FBI's  hostage  rescue  team 
stormed  Weaver's  heavily  fortified  mountain  cabin.  The  FBI 
authorized  the  raid  in  response  to  the  slaying  of  a  U.S.  marshal 
who  was  shot  while  trying  to  arrest  Weaver.  ("Probe  of  FBI's 
Idaho  Siege  Reopened,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  13) 

JULY  -  Jack  Anderson  and  Michael  Binstein  reported  that  the 
same  members  of  Congress  who  are  accusing  President  Clinton  of 
a  coverup  of  the  federal  raid  at  the  Branch  Davidian  compound 


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June  -  December  1995 


near  Waco,  TX,  have  spent  several  weeks  engaging  in  their  own 
subterfiige  and  spin  control.  Aides  to  Rep.  Bill  Zeliff  (R-NH),  who 
is  cochairing  hearings  into  the  Waco  incident,  did  their  best  to  keep 
secret  the  fact  that  they  had  arranged  for  the  National  Rifle 
Association  to  help  bankroll  a  portion  of  the  congressional 
investigation.  "Unfortunately  for  Zeliff,  his  staffs  clandestine 
operation  was  as  badly  botched  as  the  original  federal  raid  .  .  . ," 
Anderson  wrote.  According  to  Anderson  and  Binstein,  Zeliff,  who 
wants  to  hold  the  President  accountable  for  the  mistakes  allegedly 
made  by  subordinates  at  Waco,  is  passing  the  buck  himself.  Zeliff 
claims  his  staff  didn't  tell  him  about  the  NRA  deal  until  early  July. 
Zeliff  said  he  would  not  fire  his  top  aides,  March  Bell  and  Robert 
Charles,  for  "making  a  legitimate  mistake."  ("Waco  Probe 
Entangled  with  NRA,"  The  Washington  Post,  July  14) 

AUGUST  -  The  Patent  and  Trademark  Office  has  a  database  that 
is  a  treasure  trove  for  scientists,  historians,  students — anyone  who 
needs  to  see  the  art  and  thinking  of  inventors.  But  to  use  it  costs 
$40  an  hour,  "a  prohibitive  price  for  any  but  the  most  specialized 
user.  Alternatively,  you  can  dial  into  a  private  data  service  like 
Lexis  or  Dialog  and  pay  even  more — fees  that  can  amount  to 
hundreds  of  dollars  an  hour  for  public  information." 

The  patent  office  abeady  has  a  high-band  Internet  connection. 
That  could  easily  enable  any  of  the  millions  of  home  and  business 
computers  with  access  to  the  Internet  to  plug  into  its  system  and 
see  what  a  user  sees  at  the  PTO  terminal,  just  as  any  computer  can 
now  plug  into  the  New  York  Public  Library's  online  catalog  or  the 
databases  of  thousands  of  other  libraries.  The  public  has  already 
paid  more  than  $400  million  to  create  a  patent  database  available 
only  to  walk-in  traffic.  So  why  not  go  online?  PTO  Commissioner 
Bruce  Lehman's  responses  echoed  the  reasoning  of  scores  of  other 
government  agencies,  federal  and  local,  facing  the  same  issue:  It's 
not  our  job;  we're  doing  it  anyway,  as  fast  as  we  can;  and,  we  must 
not  compete  with  the  private  sector.  The  last  argument  sounds 
attractive,  but  those  companies  are  lobbying  for  the  privilege  of 
paying  more — in  other  words,  they  want  to  forestall  competition. 
"They  belong  to  an  industry  that  has  used  heavy,  targeted  cam- 
paign contributions  to  protect  its  stake  in  an  economic  model  that 
is  rapidly  becoming  obsolete:  scarce  data  sold  to  specialists  at  high 
prices.  West  Publishing,  with  a  near  monopoly  on  the  govern- 
ment's court  databases,  is  a  costly  example,  as  lawyers  quickly 
discover.  The  Internet  has  created  a  different  model:  information 
of  all  kinds,  a  mass  audience,  low  prices.  Lehman  acknowledges 
that  private-information  services  lobby  him  hard  to  keep  prices  up; 
he  denies  being  influenced  by  their  pleas.  Nevertheless,  the  patent 
office,  like  many  other  federal  agencies,  sells  its  data  mostly  on 
old-style  mainframe  computer  tapes,  at  prices  low  enough  to 
guarantee  enormous  profits  for  commercial  services  but  just  high 
enough  to  prevent  widespread  distribution." 

The  article  concludes  with  a  quote  from  James  Love,  director 
of  the  Taxpayer  Assets  Project:  "People  are  concerned  about 
universal  access — the  wire  running  into  your  house  will  be  the  easy 
part.  Certainly  the  one  thing  people  shouldn't  have  to  worry  about 
is  government  information,  the  thing  they  own  as  taxpayers. 


There'll  be  lots  of  other  things  they  won't  be  able  to  afford.  At 
least  this  should  be  available."  ("Washington  Unplugged,"  The 
New  York  Times  Magazine,  August  6) 

AUGUST  -  In  the  opening  salvo  of  a  battle  that  would  rage  for  the 
remainder  of  1995,  members  of  Congress  and  the  President  clashed 
over  the  release  of  documents  in  the  ongoing  congressional 
investigation  of  the  Clintons'  Whitewater  investments  and  a  failed 
savings  and  loan  institution  in  Arkansas.  Rep.  Jim  Leach  (R-IA), 
chairman  of  the  House  Banking  Committee,  wrote  Attorney 
General  Janet  Reno  to  accuse  the  Justice  Department  of 
deliberately  withholding  a  document  sought  by  the  committee  as 
it  prepared  for  Whitewater  hearings.  A  Reno  spokesman  called  the 
letter  political  "theater."  ("Document  Dispute  Escalates  as  House 
Whitewater  Hearings  Near,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  6) 

AUGUST  -  Testifying  before  Congress  for  the  first  time,  L.  Jean 
Lewis  gave  a  detailed  description  of  how  an  investigation  of 
Madison  Guaranty  Savings  &  Loan  that  began  in  March  1 992  was 
thwarted  by  Resolution  Trust  Corporation  and  Justice  Department 
officials  after  President  Clinton  was  elected  president.  She  said 
there  was  "a  concerted  effort  to  obstruct,  hamper  and  manipulate" 
her  findings  at  high  levels  of  the  federal  government.  The  Clintons 
were  named  as  potential  witnesses  in  criminal  referrals  that  Lewis 
prepared,  meaning  that  she  suspected  they  may  have  had 
information  about  some  of  the  alleged  criminal  activity.  Those 
allegations  included  "rampant  bank  fraud,"  an  "elaborate  check- 
kiting  scheme"  and  other  potential  criminal  abuses  found  at 
Madison,  she  said.  Lewis  is  an  investigator  in  the  Kansas  City 
office  of  the  RTC,  the  federal  agency  charged  with  disposing  of 
failed  S&Ls.  ("Witness  Says  Probe  Was  Blocked,"  The 
Washington  Post,  August  9) 

AUGUST-  The  Department  of  Energy  has  concluded  that  during 
four  decades  of  the  Cold  War  the  agency  conducted  435  different 
radiation  experiments  on  16,000  men,  women  and  children.  In  a 
200-page  report.  Energy  Department  officials  described  each  of  the 
experiments  uncovered  in  its  files,  including  a  1944  study  in  which 
workers  were  exposed  to  high  levels  of  uranium  oxide  dust  and  a 
test  stated  in  the  early  1960s  in  which  mentally  retarded  children 
were  given  doses  of  Iodine  131  to  test  the  reactions  of  their  thyroid 
glands.  While  many  of  the  experiments  had  positive  benefits  for 
medicine,  others  raise  serious  ethical  questions,  senior  Energy 
Department  officials  said.  Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary 
released  the  final  tally  on  radiation  experiments  sponsored  or 
supported  financially  by  the  Atomic  Energy  Commission — an 
agency  that  preceded  the  Energy  Department — from  the  1930s  to 
the  late  1970s.  The  findings  followed  an  18-month  search  of  the 
agency's  records.  Unanswered  questions  remain  about  whether 
individuals  exposed  to  the  experiments  gave  their  information 
consent  prior  to  their  participation,  said  Tara  O'Toole,  the 
department's  assistant  secretary  for  environment  and  safety. 
("Final  Data  Released  on  Tests  Involving  Radiation  Exposure," 
The  Washington  Post,  August  1 8) 


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AUGUST  -  At  a  time  when  the  Census  Bureau  would  usually  start 
increasing  its  spending  to  prepare  for  the  next  decennial  census,  the 
tight  federal  budget  is  forcing  it  to  cut  its  operations  and  possibly 
even  limit  the  amount  of  information  it  gathers  for  the  count  in  the 
year  2000.  Rep.  Harold  Rogers  (R-KY),  who  heads  the  House 
subcommittee  that  oversees  the  Census  Bureau's  appropriation, 
says  it  asks  Americans  too  many  questions  anyway  and  its 
operation  should  be  simplified  to  save  money.  But  social  scientists, 
marketing  firms  and  others  who  use  census  data  say  that  the 
demand  for  demographic  information  is  soaring.  Reducing  the 
amount  of  data  gathered  by  the  census  would  not  save  that  much 
money,  they  say,  and  would  be  an  information-age  disaster. 

Both  sides  in  the  debate  agree  that  the  problem  for  the  Census 
Bureau  will  get  only  worse.  As  the  bureau's  costs  escalate 
approaching  the  2000  census,  the  Republicans  will  also  be  nearing 
2002,  when  they  have  said  they  will  have  balanced  the  federal 
budget.  As  a  result.  Congress  will  be  looking  even  harder  at 
trimming  federal  spending,  including  the  Census  Bureau's  share. 
Tight  budgets  have  already  caused  census  officials  to  cut  back  on 
the  publication  of  reports  on  data  from  previous  surveys  and  to 
reduce  the  number  of  locations  this  year  for  testing  new  methods 
of  counting  people  for  the  next  census.  Further  reductions  could 
cause  the  Census  Bureau  to  postpone  buying  new  imaging 
technology  that  would  allow  it  to  scan  data  from  census  forms  into 
its  computer  system.  The  cutbacks  could  also  reduce  the  amount  of 
testing  the  bureau  will  do  this  year  on  how  many  and  what  kind  of 
questions  it  will  ask  on  the  2000  census,  already  a  highly 
contentious  issue. 

Rogers  insists  that  if  people  really  want  specific  kinds  of  data, 
they  should  pay  for  its  collection.  If  government  agencies  need  it, 
he  said,  they  should  fmance  its  collection  out  of  their  own  budgets. 
"I  don't  care  if  it  is  authorized  or  mandated  by  law,"  he  said.  "This 
subcommittee  is  not  going  to  pay  for  it."  ("Cut  in  Budget  May 
Hamper  2000  Census,"  The  New  York  Times,  August  23) 

AUGUST  -  The  Food  and  Drug  Administration  announced  new 
rules  to  help  consumers  know  more  about  the  drugs  they  take.  The 
Patient  Education  program  calls  for  pharmacies  voluntarily  to 
provide  handouts  with  each  prescription  about  a  product's 
approved  uses,  possible  side  effects,  and  incompatibilities  with 
other  drugs.  "The  days  of  going  into  a  pharmacy  and  being  handed 
a  bottle  of  pills  with  only  very  brief  directions  for  use"  are  past, 
said  FDA  Commissioner  David  A.  Kessler,  who  compared  the 
initiative  with  the  FDA's  successful  program  to  make  food  labels 
more  readable  and  informative. 

The  new  push  to  require  the  medical  profession  to  provide 
standardized  drug  information  to  patients  goes  back  to  FDA 
proposals  from  the  late  1970s.  The  initiative  was  blunted  in  1982 
as  part  of  a  regulatory  rollback  during  the  Reagan  Administration, 
and  the  FDA  opted  for  a  voluntary  plan.  In  the  intervening  years, 
pharmacies  and  HMOs  have  made  increasing  efforts  to  provide 
drug  information  to  patients.  A  study  cited  by  the  FDA  showed 
that  by  1992  about  one  fourth  of  consumers  were  receiving  written 
information  that  went  beyond  the  label  and  stickers  on  the  pill 


bottle.  By  the  end  of  last  year,  about  55  percent  of  patients 
received  such  handouts.  ("Pharmacies  Told  to  Give  Patients  Full 
Drug  Data,"  The  Washington  Post,  August  24) 

AUGUST  -  Once  citizens  connect  to  "an  interactive  electronic 
government  that  answers  its  electronic  mail,  conducts  virtual  town 
meetings  and  makes  millions  of  pages  of  public  documents  easily 
accessible  to  anyone  with  a  personal  computer,"  the  reality  of  what 
is  useful  about  electronic  access  to  the  government  dissipates  into 
a  confusing  labyrinth  of  worthless  information  and  wasted, 
frustrating  hours.  Envisioned  by  Vice  President  Al  Gore  in  1994  as 
the  torch-bearer  for  the  electronic  information  revolution,  the 
federal  government  has  failed  to  live  up  to  its  potential.  Eric 
Miller,  who  has  helped  develop  an  online  presence  for  the 
Department  of  Justice,  says  that  cybergovemment  "is  in  its 
infancy. ...  I  was  frankly  astounded  at  how  difficult  and  how  hard 
it  was  to  find  information.  ...  It  was  a  shock  to  me  that  it  was  not 
better.  At  this  point,  it  seems  that  unless  you  know  where  you  are 
going,  you  can't  get  there." 

Miller  says  technological  know-how  and  bureaucratic  mix-ups 
are  barriers.  He  also  claims  that  some  governmental  workers  are 
afraid  of  putting  some  types  of  information  in  such  a  public  forum. 
"We  have  had  people  with  the  department  saying  they  don't  want 
stuff  public  on  the  'net.  TTiey  think  it  is  too  easy  for  people  to  find 
even  though  the  information  is  publicly  available,"  he  said.  Miller 
added  that  such  fears  are  probably  unfounded  given  the  difficulty 
he's  had  fmding  information.  "First,  they've  got  to  find  it,"  he  said. 

For  example,  with  fewer  than  one  third  of  the  congressional 
offices  capable  of  responding  to  e-mail,  most  constituents  are  still 
better  off  sending  a  letter  through  the  U.S.  Postal  Service.  Access 
is  no  better  elsewhere  in  the  government.  Once  computer  users 
succeed  in  connecting  into  government  sites,  what  they  find  may 
be  weeks  or  months  out  of  date  and  the  information  less  than 
helpful.  The  majority  of  the  government  homepages  now  online 
offer  press  releases  and  speeches  by  department  heads,  information 
about  the  department,  logos,  pictures  and  a  roster  of  contacts.  At 
the  Department  of  Justice,  the  State  Department  and  the 
Department  of  Veterans  Affairs  Internet  sites,  the  most  current 
releases  were  more  than  a  week  old.  Some  economic  and  census 
information  available  through  the  Census  Bureau  and  the  federal 
economic  bulletin  boards  were  more  than  two  years  old.  A  few 
pages,  like  the  White  House  Homepage  (http://www 
.whitehouse.gov)  and  the  Library  of  Congress'  THOMAS 
legislative  server  (http://thomas.loc.gov),  have  excelled  by  offering 
useful  and  entertaining  information.  Despite  their  efforts,  however, 
most  other  government  agencies  are  years  away  from  providing 
fully  interactive  services  to  the  public.  ("The  Information  Beltway: 
The  Feds  Aren't  Really  Online  Yet,"  Ann  Arbor  (MI)  News, 
August  3 1 ) 

SEPTEMBER  -  In  an  op-ed  piece,  Robert  Samuelson  complained 
that  scores  of  Census  Bureau  reports  are  being  eliminated.  In  1992, 
Census  issued  1,035  reports;  in  1994  the  number  was  635,  and  the 
retreat  from  print  has  only  begun.  Gone  are,  among  others: 


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"Earnings  by  Occupation  and  Education,"  "Poverty  Areas  in  the 
United  States"  and  "Language  Use  in  the  United  States."  He  said: 
"This  is  absurd.  We  go  to  great  trouble  to  collect  this  information, 
and  now  Census  is  suppressing  it.  The  losers  are  not  just  statistics 
addicts.  Our  public  conversations  depend  heavily  on  these  dry 
numbers.  They  shape  the  concept  of  who  we  are,  of  how  society  is 
performing  and  of  what  government  should  or  shouldn't  do. 
Political  speeches  routinely  spit  out  statistics  that  can  be  made  to 
tell  stories:  some  true,  some  not  so  true.  Keeping  the  conversations 
honest  requires  that  the  basic  data  be  easily  accessible  to  anyone 
who  wants  them." 

Samuelson  continued:  "When  I  say  Census  is  'suppressing,'  1 
don't  mean  that  it's  deliberately  hiding  its  surveys.  As  a  reporter, 
I've  asked  Census  for  information  hundreds  of  times;  I  can't  recall 
an  instance  when  answers,  when  available,  weren't  provided 
quickly.  The  culture  of  the  place  is  to  release  information.  By  its 
lights.  Census  isn't  abandoning  print  so  much  as  it's  shifting  its 
data  to  the  Information  Superhighway.  Statistics  are  being 
distributed  by  CD-ROMs  and  the  Internet.  Already,  Census  brags 
that  its  World  Wide  Web  site  is  receiving  50,000  hits  a  day. 
Sounds  amazing.  It  isn't.  Those  50,000  daily  hits  are  a  lot  less 
breathtaking  than  they  seem,  even  if  the  figure  is  accurate  (and  I 
have  my  doubts.)  In  May,  Interactive  Age.  a  trade  publication, 
surveyed  Internet  sites.  It  reported  that  Pathfinder  (the  site  for 
Time  Warner  publications,  such  as  Time  and  People)  had  about 
686,000  daily  hits.  Playboy  had  about  675,000  and  HotWired  had 
about  429,000.  I  mention  these  popular  sites  because  they  belong 
to  magazines.  As  yet,  none  is  forsaking  the  printed  page  for  the 
glories  of  the  Internet." 

He  went  on  to  say:  "Census's  shift  from  print  clearly 
discriminates  against  people  (including  me)  who  don't  surf  the 
Internet  or  use  CD-ROMs.  We  remain  the  vast  majority.  American 
Demographics  magazine  recently  reported  a  number  of  surveys 
that  tried  to  measure  U.S.  Internet  use  in  1994.  The  surveys  put 
usage  of  the  World  Wide  Web  between  2  million  and  13.5  million 
people,  which  is  at  most  about  5  percent.  The  average  income  of 
Internet  households  was  $67,000,  which  is  the  richest  fifth  of 
Americans."  Carl  Haub,  a  demographer  at  the  Population 
Reference  Bureau,  observes,  "It's  going  to  be  a  disaster  for  the 
average  analyst."  Downloading  and  printing  data  from  the  Internet 
can  take  hours.  Getting  a  number  from  a  CD-ROM  is  often  a  lot 
harder  than  getting  it  from  a  book.  To  Haub,  Census  is  transferring 
a  lot  of  the  cost — in  time  and  money — of  making  statistical 
information  useful  to  people  like  him. 

Samuelson  points  out  that  print's  other  great  virtue  is  that  it 
guarantees  a  historic  record.  He  says  Census  should  be  issuing  its 
data  in  computer-friendly  ways,  but  not  as  a  substitute  for  printed 
reports.  ("Out  of  Print,"  The  Washington  Post,  September  6) 

[Ed.  Note:  Martha  Famsworth  Riche,  director  of  the  Bureau  of  the 
Census,  responded  to  Samuelson's  article  in  a  letter  to  the  editor  in 
The  Washington  Post  on  September  18.  She  said  that  printed 
reports  will  still  be  available,  but  to  help  defray  costs,  the  Census 
Bureau   is   forming   partnerships   with   private   and   nonprofit 


organizations  to  print  and  distribute  some  reports.  As  an  example, 
she  mentioned  a  recent  report  on  Hispanic  population  trends  that 
was  printed  and  distributed  by  the  National  Association  of 
Hispanic  Publications.] 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  White  House  withheld  a  handwrinen  note- 
book kept  by  Vincent  W.  Foster  Jr.  about  the  controversial  firing 
of  White  House  travel  office  employees  from  federal  investigators 
for  a  year  after  Foster's  death.  The  file  was  not  disclosed  to  Robert 
B.  Fiske  Jr.,  the  first  Whitewater  independent  counsel,  until  July 
1994,  the  month  after  Fiske  completed  a  report  that  concluded 
Foster  committed  suicide  and  that  the  travel  office  affair  weighed 
heavily  on  his  mind.  The  file  was  also  withheld  from  the  Justice 
Department,  which  was  investigating  the  FBI's  role  in  the  travel 
office  firings.  The  notebook,  made  public  by  the  White  House  in 
July  1995,  discusses  the  actions  of  the  FBI,  First  Lady  Hillary 
Rodham  Clinton  and  the  White  House  counsel's  office  in  the  travel 
office,  which  erupted  into  a  public  controversy  two  months  before 
Foster's  death.  ("White  House  Kept  Foster's  Travel  Office 
Notebook  From  Investigators  for  a  Year,"  The  Washington  Post, 
September  16) 

SEPTEMBER-  Recently  declassified  CIA  documents  relating  to 
the  1963  killing  of  President  John  F.  Kennedy  show  that  the 
agency  blocked  the  release  of  records  to  keep  from  acknowledging 
the  bugging  of  the  Soviet  Embassy  in  Mexico  City  and  other 
clandestine  operations.  The  Assassination  Records  Review  Board, 
in  releasing  39  CIA  JFK  documents,  said  some  words  and  phrases 
would  remain  secret  and  in  almost  every  case  found  that  "the 
redacted  information  contains  no  substantive  information  about  the 
assassination  of  President  Kennedy  or  about  Lee  Harvey  Oswald," 
the  man  accused  of  killing  the  president  in  Dallas.  ("CIA  Bugged 
Soviet  Embassy  in  Mexico  Cit>',"  The  Washington  Post.  September 
22) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  National  Reconnaissance  Organization,  the 
federal  agency  that  manages  the  nation's  spy  satellite  program,  has 
accumulated  unspent  funds  totaling  more  than  $1  billion  without 
informing  its  supervisors  at  the  Pentagon  and  CIA  or  Congress, 
according  to  Capitol  Hill  sources.  The  ability  of  the  agency  to  salt 
away  so  much  money  from  its  classified,  multimillion-dollar 
budget  reaffirmed  longstanding  concerns  in  Congress  that 
intelligence  agencies  sometimes  use  their  secret  status  to  avoid 
accountability.  Following  congressional  complaints  about  the 
NRO's  finances,  CIA  Director  John  M.  Deutch  launched  an 
inquiry  and  recently  ordered  a  restructuring  of  the  NRO's  financial 
management  and  spending. 

The  National  Reconnaissance  Organization,  whose  name  was 
classified  until  three  years  ago,  supervises  design,  development, 
procurement  and  launching  of  satellites  and  maneuvers  them,  at  the 
direction  of  CIA  and  Pentagon  program  managers.  The  unspent 
funds  were  discovered  after  the  Senate  intelligence  committee 
raised  questions  about  a  luxurious,  $300  million  new  headquarters 
complex  NRO  was  building  in  Fairfax  County',  whose  officials  had 


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been  told  the  building  was  for  Roctcwell  International  Corporation. 
("Spy  Agency  Hoards  Secret  $1  Billion,"  The  Washington  Post, 
September  24) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  Supreme  Court  has  agreed  to  review  the 
government's  refusal  to  adjust  the  1990  census  results  to  correct  an 
acknowledged  undercount  that  missed  a  disproportionate  number 
of  black  and  Hispanic  residents  of  large  cities.  The  Clinton 
Administration  appealed  the  census  case  to  the  Court  in  defense  of 
a  policy  judgment  made  in  1991  by  the  Bush  Administration.  The 
case  does  not  present  the  Court  with  the  ultimate  and  highly 
charged  question  of  how  the  1990  census  should  have  been 
conducted.  There  is  no  dispute  that  the  census  missed  about  five 
million  people,  or  that  the  statistical  adjustment  the  Bush 
Administration  considered  and  rejected  would  have  changed  the 
size  of  four  states'  congressional  delegations  and  realigned  power 
in  other  states.  The  legal  question  for  the  Court  is  whether  the  Bush 
Administration's  policy  choice  was  entitled  to  deference  from  the 
federal  courts  in  which  it  was  challenged  by  New  York  City  and 
other  big  cities,  or  whether  the  government  should  have  to  meet  a 
high  standard  of  proof  in  justifying  its  decision,  as  the  federal 
appeals  court  in  New  York  ruled  last  year.  The  case,  Wisconsin  v. 
New  York  City,  No.  94-1614,  will  be  argued  in  January  1996. 
("High  Court  to  Hear  Case  on  Government's  Refusal  to  Adjust 
Census,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  28) 

SEPTEMBER  -  Two  Senators  who  oversee  the  Central  Intel- 
ligence Agency  said  they  would  ask  the  Justice  Department  to 
determine  whether  senior  CIA  officials  broke  the  law  by  not  telling 
Congress  that  the  agency's  paid  agents  in  the  Guatemalan  military 
were  suspected  of  murder  and  torture.  Sen.  Arlen  Specter  (D-PA), 
chair  of  the  Senate  Intelligence  Committee,  and  Sen.  Robert 
Kerrey  (D-NE),  its  ranking  member,  said  the  agency  had 
"knowingly  misled"  the  committee  about  the  depth  of  human  rights 
abuses  by  the  Guatemalan  agents.  CIA  Director  John  M.  Deutch 
told  the  Senators  in  a  closed-door  hearing  that  "Congress  was  not 
kept  informed  as  required  by  law."  He  said  CIA  officers  had  also 
failed  to  tell  the  truth  to  their  own  colleagues  as  well  as  to  two 
successive  United  States  Ambassadors  to  Guatemala.  Deutch  said, 
"I  expect  to  find  further  instances"  of  falsity  or  failure  to  disclose 
the  facts  by  the  agency's  covert  operations  divisions. 

A  1980  law  requires  the  CIA  to  keep  Congress  "fully  and 
currently  informed"  about  its  activities  abroad.  The  law,  which 
carries  no  criminal  penalties,  is  the  foundation  of  a  painstaking 
series  of  rules  designed  to  keep  the  secret  agency  within  the  realm 
of  democracy.  But  it  was  broken  said  Tony  Harrington,  a 
Washington  lawyer  and  chairman  of  the  President's  Intelligence 
Oversight  Board,  an  independent  panel  reviewing  the  Guatemalan 
affair.  "There  was  a  violation  of  the  law  here — there  can  be  no 
dispute,"  Harrington  said.  "You  would  think  that  between  1980 
and  now  somebody  would  have  implemented  the  law  through  a 
thoughtful  process.  But  Deutch  is  committed  to  making  this  a 
serious  process.  He's  nailed  to  the  front  door  a  statement  saying 
this  is  important."  ("Senators  Seek  Legal  Inquiry  on  C.I. A.  in 


Guatemala,"  The  New  York  Times,  September  30) 

SEPTEMBER  -  The  following  article  is  quoted  in  its  entirety: 

Toxics  Release  Inventory  (TRI)  disinformation  is  being 
disseminated  by  the  Heritage  Foundation  in  its  book  A  Citizens 
Guide  to  Regulation  (page  13).  Senator  Orrin  Hatch  (R-Utah) 
used  the  foundation's  material,  apparently  without  further 
investigation,  in  a  "Top  Ten  List  of  Silly  Regulations"  released 
on  July  1 1 .  Number  one  was: 

/.  Fining  a  company  $34,000  for  failing  to  fill  out  "Form 
R  "  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  company  does  not  release  toxic 
materials. 

In  fact,  however,  the  company  (a  San  Diego,  Calif, 
manufacturer  of  electronic  components)  reports  TRI  off-site 
transfers  of  about  10,000  pounds  of  toxic  copper  wastes  each 
year.  Further,  the  fine  was  reduced  to  $4,500.  In  addition,  EPA 
had  already  changed  the  TRI  requirements  to  exempt  releases 
or  transfers  of  less  than  500  pounds  from  detailed  reporting. 

Copper  is  toxic  if  it  becomes  bioavailable.  It  damages  the 
liver  and  kidneys  at  high  levels,  and  can  harm  the  nervous 
system.  Infants  and  children  are  especially  susceptible. 
Approximately  50  Superfund  sites  need  clean  up  for  copper 
contamination — the  very  type  of  problem  that  TRI  reporting 
helps  to  prevent. 
("Disinformation  Watch,"  Working  Notes  on  Community  Right-to- 
Know,  September-October) 

OCTOBER-  When  Rep.  Newt  Gingrich  (R-GA)  wrote  Nashville 
real  estate  developer  Ted  Welch  a  letter  encouraging  him  to  make 
a  $IO,000-a-year  contribution,  he  offered  a  glimpse  into  GOPAC's 
strategy  that  illustrates  why  the  highly  secretive  group  became  so 
controversial.  That  letter  and  two  others  obtained  by  The 
Washington  Post  shed  light  because  little  has  been  known  about 
how  GOPAC  raised  and  spent  money  in  its  early  years.  Concern 
about  GOPAC's  secrecy  and  whether  it  was  violating  federal 
election  laws  has  only  heightened  since  Republicans  gained  control 
of  Congress  in  1994  in  keeping  with  the  group's  long-range  goal. 
The  Federal  Election  Commission  recently  brought  suit  against 
GOPAC,  questioning  the  legality  of  its  operations  during  several 
years  when  it  was  not  yet  registered  as  a  federal  political  action 
committee  but  working  to  gain  a  GPO  majority. 

Gingrich  wrote  Welch  that  GOPAC  was  "active  in  22 
congressional  districts"  and  working  with  the  National  Republican 
Congressional  Committee  to  develop  a  "farm  team"  of  GOP 
congressional  candidates  who  would  help  the  party  gain  control  of 
Congress.  Gingrich,  now  the  House  speaker,  has  insisted 
repeatedly  that  GOPAC  was  not  involved  in  raising  money  for 
national  political  races  until  after  it  registered  as  a  federal  political 
action  committee  in  May  1991.  But  GOPAC's  activities  and  its 
secretive  operating  style  have  been  a  recurring  issue  for  Gingrich, 
who  used  the  fijnd-raising  arm  to  build  his  national  reputation  and 
lend  support  to  his  GPO  allies  across  the  country.  ("Gingrich 
Letters  Offer  Insight  on  GOPAC's  Goals,"  The  Washington  Post, 
October  2) 


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OCTOBER  -  The  Advisory  Committee  on  Human  Radiation 
Experiments  proposed  that  surviving  subjects  of  three  research 
projects — or  the  famihes  of  deceased  subjects — should  receive 
monetary  damages  and  an  apology  from  the  government. 
Following  an  18-month  search  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
documents  fi^om  the  Atomic  Energy  Commission  and  other 
agencies  sponsoring  the  experiments  involving  tens  of  thousands 
of  individuals  between  1944  and  the  mid-1970s,  the  panel  issued 
a  1 , 000-page  report.  Apparently  individuals  in  vulnerable  popu- 
lation groups  including  children,  pregnant  women  and  African 
Americans  were  involved  unwittingly.  In  one  case,  mentally 
retarded  teenagers  at  the  Femald  School  in  Massachusetts  were  fed 
irradiated  cereal.  In  another,  the  testicles  of  federal  prisoners  in 
Oregon  and  Washington  state  were  irradiated  with  heavy  doses  of 
X-rays. 

Ruth  Faden,  chair  of  the  radiation  panel  and  a  bioethicist  at 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  said  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  aspects 
of  the  experiments  was  the  great  pains  taken  to  conduct  them  in  a 
shroud  of  secrecy.  Individuals  taking  part  in  tests  should  have  a 
right  to  know  of  their  participation,  she  added.  Faden  said  the  panel 
has  created  a  detailed  database  available  to  individuals  who  suspect 
they  or  their  relatives  may  have  been  subjects.  The  data  will  be 
widely  available  to  the  public  through  files  and  on  the  Internet. 
Even  today,  she  said,  rules  could  allow  some  experiments  to  be 
conducted  in  secret.  The  panel  also  proposed  establishing 
guidelines  to  protect  the  rights  of  subjects  in  future  experiments.  It 
suggested  that  the  federal  government  sharpen  the  rules  for  gaining 
consent  of  participants  and  for  public  disclosure  about  the  nature 
of  experiments.  ("Panel  Urges  Compensation  for  Radiation 
Subjects,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  3) 

[Ed.  Note:  Copies  of  the  report  can  be  obtained  by  writing  to  the 
U.S.  Government  Printing  Office,  P.O.  Box  371954,  Pittsburgh, 
PA  1 5250  or  by  calling  202-5 1 2- 1 800.] 

OCTOBER  -  During  a  congressional  hearing  on  October  24, 
representatives  of  five  federal  agencies  that  reviewed  the  White 
House's  handling  of  the  firings  of  White  House  travel  office 
employees  said  documents,  facts  or  witnesses  were  kept  from 
them.  Michael  Shaheen  of  the  Justice  Department's  Office  of 
Professional  Responsibility  was  the  most  blunt.  He  said  that  the 
White  House's  lack  of  "cooperation  and  candor"  was 
"unprecedented,"  rating  the  Administration  as  a  four  on  a  scale  of 
10  for  openness.  On  one  level,  Shaheen  gave  the  Administration 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt  for  being  inexperienced  in  May  1993,  but 
he  said  the  White  House  staff  should  have  handled  the  situation 
better  and  been  more  cooperative,  especially  since  Clinton 
promised  Attorney  General  Janet  Reno  that  they  would  be 
forthcoming.  ("Papers  Detail  Clinton  Friend's  Contract  Push,"  The 
IVashington  Post,  October  25) 

[Ed.  Note:  The  former  head  of  the  White  House  travel  office, 
whose  dismissal  became  an  embarrassment  for  the  Clinton 
Administration,  was  acquitted  of  criminal  charges  that  he  had 


embezzled  $68,000  paid  by  news  organizations  for  presidential 
trips.  ("Ousted  White  House  Travel  Chief  Is  Cleared  of 
Embezzlement,"  The  New  York  Times,  November  1 7)] 

OCTOBER-  Sen.  Daniel  Patt-ick  Moynihan  (D-NY)  accused  the 
White  House  of  deliberately  suppressing  a  study  of  the  pending 
Senate  welfare  reform  bill  that  concluded  it  would  push  1.1  million 
children  into  poverty  and  make  families  already  below  the  poverty 
line  worse  off.  The  study,  by  the  Department  of  Health  and  Human 
Services,  has  not  been  officially  made  public.  But  word  of  its 
existence  leaked  out  among  Democrats  who  say  the  White  House 
has  suppressed  it  because  the  President  wants  to  sign  some  form  of 
legislation  overhauling  welfare,  as  he  has  promised  to  do.  After 
Moynihan  charged  that  the  White  House  was  hiding  the  poverty 
study,  the  White  House  press  secretary  Michael  McCurry  referred 
inquiries  to  the  Department  of  Health  and  Human  Services.  But  a 
department  official  denied  that  such  a  study  existed.  ("White 
House  Held  On  to  Study  of  Senate  Bill's  Harm,"  The  New  York 
Times,  October  28) 

OCTOBER-  In  a  13-page  article  in  The  Washington  Post  Maga- 
zine, George  Wilson  and  Peter  Carlson  described  the  U.S.  Navy's 
A- 12  Avenger,  a  plane  that  has  never  flown  and  never  will,  a 
procurement  fiasco  that  has  already  cost  American  taxpayers  more 
than  $3  billion  and  is  quite  likely  to  cost  them  $2  billion  more.  In 
1988,  the  A-12  was  the  Navy's  great  hope  for  the  future.  The  A-12 
was  killed  in  1991  by  Secretary  of  Defense  Richard  Cheney  who 
was  angry  that  the  plane  was  at  least  a  billion  dollars  over  budget 
and  a  year  behind  schedule,  facts  that  the  Navy  and  its  contractors 
had  concealed  from  him  until  after  he  testified  to  Congress  that  the 
A-12  project  was  proceeding  just  fine.  When  the  bad  news  finally 
surfaced,  there  were  several  congressional  hearings  into  the 
debacle,  plus  a  criminal  investigation  by  the  Defense  Department's 
inspector  general.  The  investigation  never  led  to  the  filing  of  any 
criminal  charges,  and  the  Pentagon  promptly  classified  the 
investigators'  report  to  the  inspector  general,  even  though  it 
contains  no  militar>'  secrets.  ("Stealth  Albatross,"  The  Washington 
Post  Magazine.  October  29) 

OCTOBER  -  The  CIA  passed  to  U.S.  presidents  and  other  top 
officials  in  the  late  1980s  and  early  1990s  misleading  information 
obtained  from  Soviet  double  agents  put  in  place  by  the  KGB  with 
the  help  of  confessed  spy  Aldrich  H.  Ames,  according  to  rwo  new 
CIA  reports.  As  a  result  of  this  "massive  disinformation  campaign" 
by  the  Soviets,  one  former  top  intelligence  official  said,  "the  U.S. 
released  publicly  wrong  information  and  may  have  wasted  millions 
of  dollars  retooling  military  equipment  to  meet  fabricated  changes 
in  Soviet  capabilities."  The  disclosure  of  the  KGB's  double  agent 
operation  is  contained  in  the  damage  assessment  of  the  year- long 
inquiry  into  the  effect  of  Ames'  espionage  prepared  by  Richard  L. 
Haver,  executive  director  of  Intelligence  Community  Affairs,  and 
a  follow-up  investigation  by  CIA  Inspector  General  Frederick  P. 
Hitz.  The  apparent  delivery  of  double  agency  material  to 
Presidents  Ronald   Reagan  and  George   Bush   is  particularly 


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embarrassing  for  the  CIA,  one  former  top  official  said, 
"particularly  if  we  were  disseminating  information  that  was  fake 
and  the  agency  knew  it."  A  former  top  CIA  official  said  some 
agency  personnel  disagree  with  Hitz  and  say  that  the  nature  of  the 
sources  was  described  in  the  reports.  ("CIA  Passed  Bogus  News  to 
Presidents,"  The  Washington  Post,  October  3 1 ) 

[Ed.  Note:  A  November  17  article,  "Tainted  Intelligence  Issue 
Blunted,"  in  The  Washington  Post  reported  that  a  Defense 
Department  review  had  been  unable  so  far  to  find  any  policy  or 
weapon  purchase  decision  that  "in  and  of  itself  was  shaped  by 
tainted  Soviet  intelligence  provided  to  the  Pentagon  by  the  CIA 
between  1986  and  1994.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  CIA  released 
a  report  in  December,  Director  John  Deutch  concluded  that  the 
Soviet  deception  scheme  "diminished  our  ability  to  understand" 
crucial  political,  military  and  diplomatic  developments  inside  the 
Soviet  Union  and  Russia  for  nine  years,  and  the  consequences  were 
enormous.  ("C.I.  A.  Chief  Says  Moscow,  With  Help  From  Double 
Agent,  Warped  U.S.  Perceptions,"  The  New  York  Times,  December 
9)] 

NOVEMBER  -  In  a  notice  published  in  the  October  16  Federal 
Register,  the  FBI  has  proposed  a  national  wiretapping  system  of 
unprecedented  size  and  scope  that  would  give  law  enforcement 
officials  the  capacity  to  monitor  simultaneously  as  many  as  one  out 
of  every  100  phone  lines  in  some  high-crime  areas  in  the  country. 
Such  a  surveillance  ability  would  vastly  exceed  the  current  needs 
of  law  enforcement  officials  around  the  country,  who  in  recent 
years  have  conducted  an  annual  average  of  fewer  than  850  court- 
authorized  wiretaps — or  fewer  than  one  in  every  174,000  phone 
lines.  The  plan,  which  needs  congressional  approval  for  the  funds 
to  finance  it,  would  still  require  a  court  warrant  to  conduct 
wiretaps.  Still,  the  proposed  expansion  of  the  government's 
eavesdropping  abilities  raises  questions  about  why  the  FBI  believes 
it  may  require  such  broad  access  to  the  nation's  phone  network  in 
the  future.  And  privacy-rights  advocates  see  the  specter  of  a  Big 
Brother  surveillance  capability  whose  very  existence  might 
encourage  law  enforcement  officials  to  use  wiretapping  much  more 
frequently  as  an  investigative  tool.  ("F.B.I.  Wants  Advanced 
System  to  Vastly  Increase  Wiretapping,"  The  New  York  Times, 
November  2) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  Clinton  Administration  is  withholding  intel- 
ligence from  an  international  court  investigating  war  crimes  in 
Bosnia.  "There's  certain  types  of  intelligence  information  that  our 
government  cannot  share  with  the  international  community,"  said 
Michael  McCurry,  the  White  House  spokesperson,  when  asked 
about  complaints  from  the  court's  chief  prosecutor  that  the  United 
States  had  not  cooperated.  It  was  the  first  time  that  despite  its 
stated  policy  of  cooperating  fully  with  the  tribunal  the  United 
States  could  not  give  the  court  all  the  information  it  is  seeking, 
both  the  White  House  and  State  Department  acknowledged.  ("U.S. 
Says  It  Is  Withholding  Data  From  War  Crimes  Panel,"  The  New 
York  Times,  November  8) 


NOVEMBER  -  The  Clinton  Adminisfration  spent  $13.4  million 
preparing  its  doomed  health  care  initiative  and  another  $433,966 
defending  a  lawsuit  that  challenged  the  secrecy  in  which  First  Lady 
Hillary  Rodham  Clinton  and  others  assembled  the  plan,  congres- 
sional investigators  said.  The  overall  price  tag,  prepared  by  the 
General  Accounting  Office,  is  well  above  White  House  estimates 
and  raised  new  charges  from  Republican  legislators  about  the 
Administration's  credibility.  The  White  House  initially  predicted 
the  President's  Task  Force  on  National  Health  Care  Reform  would 
cost  "below  $100,000"  but  later  raised  the  figure  to  about 
$200,000.  ("GAO  Price  Tag  on  White  House's  Failed  Health  Care 
Initiative:  Almost  $14  Million,"  The  Washington  Post,  November 
10) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  partial  shutdown  of  the  federal  government 
is  jeopardizing  the  flow  of  government  statistics  to  many  users, 
including  federal  policymakers,  business  executives,  investors, 
bond  traders,  landlords,  forecasters  and  state  and  local  gov- 
ernments. At  risk  are  the  Labor  Department  statistics  on  the 
number  of  people  filing  initial  claims  for  jobless  benefits  during 
the  previous  week,  the  consumer  price  index  and  the  household 
employment  and  unemployment  figures  for  November. 
Meanwhile,  the  Commerce  Department  was  unable  to  issue  a 
scheduled  report  on  sales  and  inventories  for  the  manufacturing, 
wholesale  and  retail  trade  sectors  of  the  economy  in  September. 
("Shutdown's  Next  Casualty  May  Be  Government's  Numbers," 
The  Washington  Post,  November  1 6) 

NOVEMBER  -  Tom  Blanton  wrote  an  article  in  the  Outlook 
section  of  The  Washington  Post  adapted  from  his  new  book,  White 
House  E-Mail:  The  Top  Secret  Computer  Messages  the  Reagan/ 
Bush  White  House  Tried  to  Destroy.  He  described  the  remarkable 
case  of  the  White  House  e-mail  when  hundreds  of  senior  White 
House  staff  during  the  1980s  believed  that  the  stream  of  computer 
messages  they  generated  would  never  be  seen  by  outsiders.  In  fact, 
in  the  last  weeks  of  the  Reagan  Administration  in  January  1989, 
they  cleared  out  their  computer  disks.  But  the  e-mail  survived,  on 
backup  computer  tapes,  thanks  to  a  six-year  legal  battle  waged  by 
public-interest  groups,  historians  and  librarians  against  the  Reagan, 
Bush  and  Clinton  Administrations.  Some  5,907  computer  tapes  and 
disk  drives  are  now  in  the  National  Archives,  undergoing 
preservation  copying.  ("New  Rules  for  the  E-Mail  Generation," 
The  Washington  Post,  November  26) 

[Ed.  Note:  ALA  is  one  of  the  plaintiffs  in  the  case,  Armstrong  v. 
Executive  Office  of  the  President,  Blanton  discusses.] 

NOVEMBER  -  Three  people  suspected  of  paranormal  powers 
known  as  "remote  viewers"  have  been  employed  by  the  U.S. 
military  for  years,  working  at  Fort  Meade,  MD.  The  effort,  which 
cost  $1 1  million  from  the  mid-1980s  to  the  early  1990s,  was  of 
uncertain  value,  according  to  a  study  conducted  recently  for  the 
CIA.  The  agency  was  told  by  Congress  to  take  over  the  secret 
program  from  the  Pentagon  last  summer  and  decided  to  take  a 


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close  look  at  what  it  was  getting  into.  CIA  officials  said  they  have 
concluded  that  no  more  public  funds  should  be  spent  on  it. 
("Pentagon  Has  Spent  Millions  on  Tips  from  Trio  of  Psychics," 
The  Washington  Post,  November  29) 

NOVEMBER  -  The  Federal  Election  Commission  has  charged 
that  GOPAC,  the  political  organization  led  for  years  by  Speaker 
Newt  Gingrich,  provided  him  with  more  than  $250,000  in  hidden 
support  in  1990  as  he  faced  his  toughest  reelection  campaign.  Fn 
court  documents,  the  commission  said  the  support  included  paying 
the  salaries  and  expenses  of  GOPAC  political  consultants  who 
devoted  much  of  their  work  to  helping  Gingrich.  GOPAC's  stated 
mission  at  the  time,  which  freed  it  from  federal  regulation  and 
supervision,  was  to  help  Republicans  in  elections  for  state  and 
local  offices.  The  committee  made  donations  averaging  $300  to 
$500  to  candidates  in  1990,  the  election  commission  said.  The  FEC 
is  not  saying  that  Gingrich  benefited  illegally  from  the  GOPAC 
support.  Instead,  the  commission  is  charging  that  the  group 
violated  federal  election  law  by  actively  attempting  to  influence 
federal  campaigns  without  registering  as  a  federal  political 
committee,  a  step  that  would  have  required,  among  other  things, 
disclosure  of  donors  and  expenditures. 

Gingrich  told  the  FEC  that  he  was  aware  of  the  need  to  keep 
GOPAC  and  his  campaign  separated,  but  he  left  that  to  others. 
Democrats  have  argued  that  Gingrich  misused  GOPAC,  making  it 
into  a  secret  political  arsenal.  GOPAC  decided  this  year  to  disclose 
the  identity  of  its  donors,  a  break  from  past  practice.  ("Election 
Panel  Says  Gingrich  Got  Hidden  Aid,"  The  New  York  Times, 
November  30) 

DECEMBER  -  Independent  Counsel  Joseph  diGenova  called  the 
1992  preelection  search  of  then-candidate  Bill  Clinton's  passport 
by  Bush  Administration  officials  "stupid,  dumb  and  partisan."  But 
he  said  the  government  owed  an  apology  to  those  who 
subsequently  "were  unjustly  accused  of  violating  the  law." 
("Independent  Council  Calls  '92  Clinton  Passport  Search  'Stupid' 
but  Not  Illegal,"  The  Washington  Post,  December  1) 

DECEMBER  -  Asserting  the  attorney-client  privilege  for  the 
second  time  in  a  week,  the  White  House  ordered  an  adviser  to 
President  Clinton  not  to  answer  questions  from  the  Senate 
Whitewater  Committee  about  a  November  1993  meeting  of  the 
President's  top  personal  and  government  lawyers  and  other 
officials  to  discuss  Whitewater.  William  Kennedy,  former  White 
House  associate  counsel,  repeatedly  declined  to  answer  questions 
from  Senators  about  the  meeting  or  notes  he  took  at  it.  Sen. 
Alphonse  D' Amato  (R-NY)  who  heads  the  Whitewater  Committee, 
said  after  the  hearings  that,  if  the  White  House  refused  to 
cooperate,  he  would  ask  the  committee  to  issue  subpoenas. 
("Clinton  Adviser  Is  Ordered  Not  to  Answer  Whitewater  Queries," 
The  New  York  Times,  December  6) 

[Ed.  Note:  Paving  the  way  for  a  constitutional  and  political  clash, 
D' Amato  announced  that  the  Whitewater  Committee  would  issue 


a  subpoena  for  the  notes  of  a  1993  meeting  where  President 
Clinton's  top  lawyers  and  other  officials  discussed  Whitewater. 
("Senate  Panel  Will  Subpoena  Notes  of  Whitewater  Meeting,"  The 
New  York  Times,  December  7)] 

DECEMBER  -  Over  the  protests  of  the  Department  of  Defense, 
the  Clinton  Administration  has  decided  to  return  to  Haiti  tens  of 
thousands  of  sensitive  documents  that  were  seized  by  American 
troops  during  the  1994  intervention  and  which  have  become  the 
source  of  friction  between  Haiti  and  the  U.S.  military  and 
intelligence  officials  took  the  position  that  the  documents  did  not 
belong  to  the  Aristide  government  because  they  were  records  from 
the  previous  regime.  U.S.  officials  had  said  they  would  not  turn 
over  the  papers  for  fear  the  Haitian  government  would  use  them  to 
retaliate  against  people  named  in  the  documents.  ("U.S.  to  Return 
Documents  Seized  Last  Year  in  Haiti,"  The  Washington  Post, 
December  6) 

DECEMBER  -  Archivist  of  the  United  States  John  Carlin 
announced  that  the  Justice  Department  has  decided  not  to  appeal 
a  federal  court  ruling  that  voided  an  agreement  made  hours  before 
President  Bush  left  office.  The  agreement,  signed  by  then-Archivist 
Don  Wilson,  gave  Bush  "exclusive  legal  control"  over  all  White 
House  computer  records  and  backup  tapes.  Wilson  later  became 
executive  director  of  the  George  Bush  Presidential  Studies  Center 
at  Texas  A&M  University  and  his  agreement  with  the  President 
became  the  subject  of  a  lawsuit  and  conflict-of-interest  allegations. 
In  February,  U.S.  District  Judge  Charles  R.  Richey  overturned  the 
agreement,  ruling  that  it  violated  the  Presidential  Records  Act,  a 
law  enacted  after  Watergate  to  prevent  future  presidents  from 
destroying  presidential  documents.  Kate  Martin,  an  attorney  with 
the  National  Security  Archive,  said  the  Clinton  Administration  had 
recognized  "that  a  president  cannot  make  a  private  deal"  about 
what  happens  to  White  House  records.  The  Administration's 
decision  also  establishes  the  principle  that  presidential  decisions 
about  those  records  are  subject  to  review  by  the  courts,  Martin 
said. 

Archivist  Carlin  said  he  agreed  with  the  judge's  decision 
voiding  the  agreement  and  that  the  Clinton  Administration's  appeal 
was  planned  "on  technical  grounds."  Carlin  said  in  a  statement: 
"On  behalf  of  the  National  Archives,  I  strongly  support  the 
decision  of  the  solicitor  general  and  I  am  pleased  that  this  litigation 
is  fmally  behind  us."  ("White  House  Drops  Appeal  of  Ruling  in  E- 
Mail  Case,  The  Washington  Post,  December  16) 

[Ed.  Note:  ALA  is  a  plaintiff  in  the  above-mentioned  lawsuit, 
American  Historical  Association  v.  Peterson/Carlin.  originally 
filed  by  the  National  Security  Archive  and  others.] 

DECEMBER  -  The  official  historian  for  the  Internal  Revenue 
Service,  Shelley  Davis,  is  resigning  in  protest  from  the  agency.  Her 
job  for  seven  years  has  been  to  catalog  the  historical  records  of  an 
agency  that  is  ubiquitous  in  American  life,  and  chronicle  its  past. 
But  she  complains  that  the  agency  that  forces  millions  of  taxpayers 


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June  -  December  1995 


to  keep  meticulous  financial  records,  dumps  its  own  historical  files 
in  a  basement  or  in  desk  drawers — or  shreds  them.  The  IRS,  she 
has  been  told,  even  has  begun  an  investigation  of  her,  fearful  that 
she  may  have  passed  on  to  outsiders  too  much  history. 

When  Davis  came  to  work  at  the  IRS  in  1988,  she  found  there 
were  hardly  any  records  about  IRS  operations  after  1930.  And  the 
agency,  which  by  law  must  turn  over  records  of  historical 
significance  to  the  National  Archives,  had  last  done  so  in 
1971 — and  those  papers  involved  tax-assessment  lists  from  1909 
through  1917.  The  IRS  replies  that  it  is  caught  between 
contradictory  federal  statutes.  One  requires  it  to  turn  over  historical 
records  to  the  National  Archives,  but  another  one  prohibits  it  from 
turning  over  any  individual  tax  information  to  outsiders.  Wlien 
Davis  found  about  70  boxes  of  records  in  a  basement  office,  one 
box  had  files  relating  to  President  Nixon's  1970  and  1971  tax 
audits.  Then  unknown  to  her,  in  the  spring  of  1994  IRS  officials 
recommended  shredding  nearly  the  whole  load,  while  saving  a  few 
boxes  in  a  records  warehouse.  Davis  tried  to  halt  the  destruction 
and  contacted  the  National  Archives,  which  sent  a  stiff  letter  to  the 
IRS,  complaining  about  the  "paucity  of  the  IRS's  records  among 
our  holdings'"  and  urging  the  agency  to  save  the  records.  She  also 
complained  to  the  IRS's  internal-security  division.  Her  tactics 
worked;  the  boxes  remain  intact  in  the  IRS  basement.  By  last 
summer,  an  IRS  investigation  of  Davis  appeared  to  be  underway. 
Davis  considered  the  investigation  to  be  harassment,  and  cited  it  in 
her  December  8  letter  of  resignation,  which  is  effective  December 
29.  "It  was  this  final  instance  of  retaliation  that  made  me  realize  I 
had  exhausted  all  available  internal  channels,"  she  wrote.  "Without 
solid  policies  and  programs  in  place  to  ensure  that  vital 
documentation  is  not  destroyed,  there  can  be  no  history."  That  isn't 
much  of  a  problem  anymore  for  the  IRS.  The  agency  says  it  is 
abolishing  the  historian's  post  after  Davis  leaves.  ("IRS  Historian 
Quits  Over  How  Agency  Is  Treating  Its  Past,"  The  Wall  Street 
Journal,  December  1 5) 

[  Ed.  Note:  U.S.  Archivist  John  Carlin  has  given  the  IRS  90  days 
to  come  up  with  a  plan  to  identify,  safeguard  and  eventually  turn 
over  to  his  office  records  that  may  have  historic  value.  His  50-page 
evaluation  cited  "serious  shortcomings"  in  IRS  recordkeeping  and 
questioned  wither  some  important  records  had  been  lost  or 
destroyed.  ("U.S.  Archives  Warns  I.R.S.  Over  Secrecy,"  The  New 
York  Times,  December  2 1 )] 

DECEMBER-  The  Senate  voted  5 1-45,  breaking  entirely  on  party 
lines,  to  approve  a  resolution  to  ask  a  federal  judge  to  order 
President  Clinton  to  comply  with  subpoenas  and  turn  over 
Whitewater  material  that  the  White  House  has  said  is  protected  by 
the  lawyer-client  and  executive  privileges.  The  material,  notes  of 
a  1993  meeting  of  President  Clinton's  senior  aides  and  his  lawyers 
to  discuss  Whitewater,  has  been  the  subject  of  a  bitter  fight 
between  the  White  House  and  Republicans  on  the  Senate 
Whitewater  Committee  for  the  several  weeks.  Republicans  have 
speculated  that  the  notes  could  show  that  White  House  aides 
improperly  provided  confidential  information  about  two  politically 


sensitive  investigations  to  private  lawyers  for  the  President  and  his 
wife,  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton.  The  White  House  has  said  the  notes 
will  shed  no  significant  new  light  on  the  conduct  of  the  Clintons  or 
their  aides.  In  the  sharpest  Republican  attack  yet.  Sen.  Lauch 
Faircloth  (R-NC)  said  on  the  Senate  floor  that  Mrs.  Clinton  had 
lied  to  federal  investigators,  in  violation  of  the  law,  about  how  she 
and  her  law  firm  had  come  to  represent  the  savings  and  loan 
association,  Madison  Guaranty  Savings  and  Loan.  Democrats 
responded  angrily  that  Faircloth  and  others  had  distorted  the 
conclusions  of  investigators  and  that  months  of  federal  and 
congressional  investigations  had  uncovered  no  crimes  on  the  part 
of  the  Clintons. 

On  December  20,  the  White  House  dropped  most  of  its 
remaining  conditions  for  releasing  the  material  and  said  it  would 
make  the  documents  public  if  the  House  Banking  and  Financial 
Services  Committee,  which  is  also  investigating  Whitewater, 
agreed  that  such  a  disclosure  would  not  waive  the  President's 
lawyer-client  privilege.  The  White  House's  new  posture  came 
shortly  after  it  announced  Administration  officials  had  said  that  the 
Whitewater  independent  counsel,  Kenneth  W.  Starr,  agreed  to  this 
condition.  ("Senate  Asks  Judge  to  Order  President  to  Yield  on 
Notes,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  2 1 ) 

DECEMBER  -  The  following  article  is  quoted  in  its  entirity. 

Usually,  the  Federal  Aviation  Administration  issues  rules 
by  the  pound,  filling  shelves  in  law  offices  and  libraries  all  over 
America  with  weighty  tomes  printed  in  tiny  agate  type. 
Recently  it  switched;  In  releasing  what  was  described  as  the 
most  comprehensive  aviation  rulemaking  in  more  than  25 
years,  it  handed  out  floppy  disks.  And  nothing  else. 

The  rulemaking  covered  new  standards  for  commuter 
airplanes,  a  proposal  for  new  limits  on  how  many  hours  a  pilot 
can  be  on  duty  and  a  justification  for  forcing  airline  pilots  to 
retire  at  the  age  of  60.  It  came  to  1.4  megabytes,  on  two 
floppies. 

"The  printmg  costs  would  sink  us,"  said  Drucie  Andersen, 
a  spokeswoman  for  the  agency,  explaining  the  decision.  A 
printed  publication  of  the  regulation  would  have  been  1,000 
pages  long. 

The  agency  was  not  required  to  hand  out  any  copies;  under 
the  Administrative  Procedures  Act,  all  it  had  to  do  was  deliver 
one  to  the  Federal  Register  for  publication.  The  Register  is  still 
a  magazine-sized  paper  document,  but  the  quicker  way  to  gain 
access  to  its  contents  would  be  via  the  World  Wide  Web  on  the 
Internet  (at  the  address  http://www.access.gpo.gov/su-docs/). 
Among  the  advantages  of  using  the  site  is  its  built-in  search 
function. 

As  a  practical  matter,  though,  the  F.A.A.  was  looking  for 
publicity  and  had  to  give  out  something  to  the  dozens  of 
reporters  it  gathered  for  the  release  of  the  new  rules.  The 
material  on  the  disks  included  narrative  text  and  charts, 
showing  when  each  of  various  regulations  would  take  effect, 
complete  with  a  rich  harvest  of  footnotes,  asterisks  and  caveats. 

Releasing  data  electronically  is  not  new  for  the  Gov- 


ALA  Washington  Office 


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Less  Access. . . 


June  -  December  1995 


eminent,  but  releasing  rules,  not  merely  information,  in  that 
format  only  is  unusual.  The  Environmental  Protection  Agency 
has  distributed  information  that  way  exclusively.  For  example, 
it  has  provided  electronic  data  bases,  like  toxic  release 
inventories  and  summaries  of  advice  on  limiting  consumption 
of  freshwater  fish  from  polluted  waters.  President  Clinton's  ill- 
fated  health  care  reform  package  was  distributed  elecfronically 
as  well. 

The  Justice  Department,  in  issuing  data  on  compliance  with 
the  Americans  with  Disabilities  Act,  published  a  braille  edition, 
Ruth  Pontius,  a  senior  editor  at  the  Federal  Register,  said. 

The  Federal  Government  issues  a  compilation  every  two 


years  of  all  the  data  bases  it  maintains  that  have  information  about 
individuals  in  them.  The  last  edition,  published  in  1994  and 
covering  1993,  was  issued  only  on  CD-ROM,  Ms.  Pontius  said. 
"It's  probably  going  to  be  the  wave  fo  the  fiiture,"  she  said. 
But  maybe  not  for  the  F.A.A.  itself  Developing  new 
computers  and  software  for  air  traffic  control,  it  had  at  one 
point    decided    to    store    all    the    numerous    procedures 
electronically,  but  later  gave  up  on  the  idea  as  too  cumbersome; 
the  plan  now  is  that  they  will  stay  on  paper,  in  three-ring 
binders  chained  to  desktops. 
("F.A.A.,  Publicizing  New  Rules,  Passes  on  Paper  to  Choose 
Disks,"  The  New  York  Times,  December  25) 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  been  compiled  in  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods  April  1981 -December  1987 
and  January  1988-December  1991.  Less  Access...  updates  are  available  for  $1.00;  the  1981-1987  volume  is  $7.00;  the  1988-1991 
volume  is  $10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Association  Washington  Office,  1301  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  NW,  #403, 
Washington,  DC  20004-1701;  202-628-8410,  fax  202-628-8419.  All  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  include  a  self-addressed 
mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  Office 


12 


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ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1301  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  NW,  Suite  403 

Washington,  DC  20004-1701 

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

July  1996 


LESS  ACCESS  TO  LESS  INFORMATION  BY  AND  ABOUT 

THE  U.S.  GOVERNMENT:  XXVI 
A  1996  Chronology:  January  -  June 


INTRODUCTION 

For  the  past  1 5  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has  documented 
efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize  government  information.  For  the  first 
time,  it  is  an  electronic  publication.  The  ALA  Washington  Office 
plans  to  distribute  a  printed  version  of  this  chronology  in  September 
1996. 

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

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


On  the  other  hand,  the  Government  Printing  Office  GPO  Access 
system  and  the  Library  of  Congress  THOMAS  system  have  enhanced 
public  access  by  providing  free  online  access  to  goverrunent 
databases.  A  recent  study  for  Congress  prepared  by  GPO 
recommends  a  five  to  seven  year  transition  to  a  more  electronic 
depository  program  instead  of  the  rapid  two-year  transition  proposed 
in  1 995  by  the  House  of  Representatives. 

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

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

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


Less  Access.. 


January  -  June  1996 


CHRONOLOGY 

JANUARY  -  According  to  the  General  Accounting  Office,  the 
Postal  Service  is  spending  $1 1 .9  million  to  survey  businesses  on  how 
well  it  delivers  their  mail,  but  is  keeping  the  results  secret,  fearing  the 
information  would  help  its  competitors.  In  1 993  when  the  Postal 
Service  contracted  with  the  Gallup  Organization  to  survey  its 
business  customers,  many  businesses  expected  the  results  to  be  made 
public.  According  to  GAO,  it  was  after  the  Postal  Service  got  the 
first  results  in  April  1 994  that  the  agency  decided  against  making 
them  public. 

The  GAO  report  comes  six  weeks  after  postal  officials  confirmed 
that  they  will  no  longer  publicize  a  key  consumer  satisfaction  rating 
that  the  postal  service  developed  to  gauge  how  residential  customers 
around  the  country  view  their  mail  service.  The  GAO  suggested  in 
its  report  to  Representative  John  McHugh  (R-NY),  chair  of  the 
House  Postal  Service  Subcommittee,  that  the  agency  should  have 
been  making  greater— not  less— public  use  of  the  ratings.  ("Postal 
Service  Won't  Reveal  Data  from  Customer  Survey,"  The  Washington 
Post,  January  3) 

JANUARY  -  The  New  York  Times  editorialized:  "Too  little  has  been 
made  of  a  landmark  victory  for  open  government.  Hundreds  of 
millions  of  classified  documents  will  soon  become  public  thanks  to 
Executive  Order  1 2958,  which  came  into  force  Oct.  1 5  and  requires 
the  automatic  declassification  of  most  U.S.  Government  files  more 
than  25  years  old.  The  struggle  against  obsessive  secrecy  is  far  from 
over,  but  President  Clinton  has  honored  his  promise  to  let  more 
sunshine  in.  It  has  begun  to  shine  even  at  the  Central  Intelligence 
Agency." 

The  editorial  maintains  that  the  Executive  Order  is  "nothing  less 
than  an  act  of  liberation  for  the  National  Archives,  guardian  of  five 
billion  Federal  documents.  Uniform  standards  for  classification  will 
apply  for  the  first  time  to  all  Federal  agencies,  and  the  burden  is  now 
on  officials  to  show  why  a  document  should  be  kept  secret  for  10 
years,  the  new  limit  for  most  files.  In  theory,  this  should  sharply 
reduce  the  number  of  secret  files.  In  practice,  it  will  require 
continuous  oversight  by  citizens  to  make  sure  their  public  servants 
abide  by  the  new  rules."  ("The  Struggle  Against  Secrecy,"  The  New 
York  Times,  January  3). 

JANUARY  -A  new  prosecutor  agreed  to  drop  felony  charges  against 
former  Secretary  of  Interior  James  Watt  in  exchange  for  Watt's  guilty 
plea  to  a  single  misdemeanor.  Watt  had  been  indicted  in  1 995  on  25 
counts  charging  him  with  lying  to  Congress  and  a  grand  jury  and 
obstructing  prosecutors.  Watt's  legal  troubles  stemmed  principally 
from  his  insistence  that  he  had  few  documents  of  "marginal,  if  any, 
relevance"  to  the  grand  jury  investigating  political  favoritism  and 
mismanagement  at  the  Department  of  Housing  and  Urban 
Development  during  the  Reagan  Administration.  But  during  a  search 
of  his  family  garage  early  in  1995,  Watt  found  documents  including 
letters  he  had  written  to  then-HUD  Secretary  Samuel  R.  Pierce  Jr., 
another  focus  of  the  investigation,  as  well  as  to  business  associates 


and  a  HUD  under  secretary  about  certain  projects  of  interest  to  clients 
of  Watt,  a  consultant.  When  Watt  turned  them  over,  prosecutors  were 
incensed  because  he  had  failed  to  turn  them  over  sooner.  The 
independent  counsel  even  blamed  Watt  for  dragging  out  his 
investigation,  which  began  in  1 990,  and  driving  up  its  expense.  Its 
cost  increased  $3  million  since  January  1995.  (  "When  Subpoenaed 
in  1990,  Watt  Made  the  Wrong  Call,"  The  iVashington  Post,  January 
5) 

JANUARY  -  A  memo  by  David  Watkins,  a  former  top  Clinton  aide, 
depicts  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton  as  the  central  figure  in  the  1993 
fravel  office  dismissals,  a  politically  damaging  episode  that  the  aide 
said  resulted  from  a  climate  of  fear  in  which  officials  did  not  dare 
question  her  wishes.  The  newly  released  draft  memo  also  sharply 
contradicts  the  White  House's  official  account  of  Mrs.  Clinton  as 
merely  an  interested  observer  in  the  events  that  led  to  the  dismissal 
of  the  White  House  travel  staff'  and  their  replacement  with  Clinton 
associates  from  Arkansas.  Watkins  was  dismissed  in  1994  after 
using  a  government  helicopter  for  a  golf  outing,  and  White  House 
officials  discounted  his  description  of  Mrs.  Clinton's  role  as 
inaccurate. 

The  Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  inquiry  on  the  fravel  office 
resulted  in  the  indictment  of  Billy  Dale,  the  fravel  office  director,  in 
December  1 994,  on  charges  that  he  embezzled  $68,000  paid  by  news 
organizations  for  Presidential  trips.  In  November  1995,  a  jury 
acquitted  him.  ("Memo  Places  Hillary  Clinton  at  Core  of  Travel 
Office  Case,"  The  New  York  Times,  January  5) 

JANUARY  -  After  nearly  two  years  of  searches  and  subpoenas,  the 
White  House  said  that  it  had  unexpectedly  discovered  copies  of 
missing  documents  from  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton's  law  firm  that 
describe  her  work  for  a  failing  savings  and  loan  association  in  the 
1980s.  Federal  and  Congressional  investigators  have  issued 
subpoenas  for  the  documents  since  1994,  and  the  White  House  has 
said  it  did  not  have  them.  The  originals  disappeared  from  the  Rose 
Law  Firm,  where  Mrs.  Clinton  was  a  partner,  before  President 
Clinton  took  oflice.  The  newly  discovered  documents  were  copies  of 
billing  records  from  the  Rose  firm,  where  Mrs.  Clinton  helped  to 
represent  Madison  Guaranty,  a  savings  association  run  by  the 
Clinton's  business  partner  in  the  Whitewater  land  venture.  The 
Clinton's  personal  attorney  said  the  documents  show  that  the  work 
Mrs.  Clinton  performed  was  limited  both  in  time  and  scope,  as  she 
has  repeatedly  said.  ("Elusive  Whitewater  Papers  Are  Found  at 
White  House,"  The  New  York  Times,  Januar>'  6) 

JANUARY  -  A  coalition  of  big  cities,  led  by  New  York  City,  argued 
their  case  before  the  Supreme  Court  against  the  Department  of 
Commerce  for  making  a  statistical  adjustment  to  the  1 990  census  to 
offset  a  racially  skewed  undercount.  After  winning  a  lower  court 
decision,  the  cities  argued  that  a  constitutional  principle  was  violated 
because  members  of  minorities  were  disproportionately  missed  by 


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census-takers.  Although  the  decision  not  to  adjust  the  count  was 
made  during  the  Bush  Administration,  the  Chnton  Administration 
decided  to  appeal  the  lower  court's  decision  to  the  Supreme  Court. 
By  the  end  of  the  hour  long  argument,  it  was  clear  that  whatever  the 
merits  of  a  statistical  adjustment  as  a  question  of  policy,  the  Court  is 
not  about  to  order  it  as  a  matter  of  constitutional  law  ("High  Court 
Hears  Arguments  for  Census  Alteration  by  Race,"  The  New  York 
Times,  January  1 1 ) 

I  JANUARY  -  The  Army  revealed  another  layer  of  Cold  War  secrecy 
by  disclosing  the  amount  and  types  of  its  chemical  weapons— 30,000 
tons  of  nerve  and  blister  agents,  stored  in  eight  states  and  being 
destroyed  at  a  cost  of  $  1 2  billion.  The  approximate  size  of  the 
American  chemical  weapons  arsenal  has  been  known  for  years.  By 
dropping  official  secrecy,  the  Army  provided  a  more  detailed 
breakdown  of  where  the  deadly  materiel  is  stored  and  the  kinds  of 
chemical  agents  in  the  actual  rockets,  cartridges,  missiles  and  other 
weapons.  Maj.  Gen.  Robert  Orton,  head  of  the  Army's  chemical 
weapons  destruction  project,  told  a  Pentagon  news  conference  that 
declassifying  the  information  will  expedite  efforts  to  get  the 
environmental  clearances  needed  to  incinerate  the  weapons.  "It  also 
may  enhance  our  credibility  by  confirming  that  we  are  not  holding 
back  from  regulators  and  the  public,"  Orton  said. 

Asked  why  the  information  was  being  declassified  only  now, 
several  years  after  the  chemical  weapons  destruction  effort  began, 
Maj.  Gen.  Edward  Friel  said  chemical  weapons  were  part  of  the  U.S. 
war-making  arsenal  until  1993,  when  the  United  States  officially 
renounced  them.  The  overall  figure  of  30,599  tons  is  not  the  true 
total.  It  is  only  the  amount  of  "unitary"  chemical  weapons  in  the 
stockpile,  or  those  with  one  active  chemical  component.  The  Army 
also  stores  680  tons  of  "binary"  weapons,  a  newer  and  safer 
technology,  armed  by  mixing  two  active  components.  The  Army  also 
has  13,630  tons  of  chemical  agents  not  counted  in  its  active 
inventory,  which  are  used  for  testing,  research  and  other  purposes. 
("U.S.  Army  Details  Extent  and  Content  of  Chemical  Arsenal,"  The 
Washington  Post,  January  23) 

JANUARY  -  Voices  shaking  with  emotion,  seven  fired  White  House 
travel  office  employees  accused  the  Clinton  Administration  of 
abusing  its  power  when  it  dismissed  them  nearly  three  years  ago  and 
of  continuing  to  spread  "lies"  about  them,  especially  former  director 
Billy  Dale.  The  longtime  employees,  some  of  whom  served 
presidents  as  far  back  as  John  F.  Kennedy,  told  the  House 
Government  Reform  and  Oversight  Committee  that  they  continue  to 
suffer  White  House  attacks. 

Dale  is  still  waiting  for  completion  of  an  Internal  Revenue 
Services  audit  launched  during  the  criminal  investigation  of  the  travel 
office  Each  of  the  former  employees  has  gone  into  debt— close  to 
$600,000  total— to  pay  for  the  lawyers  they  had  to  hire  to  debunk 
White  House  charges  that  there  were  gross  financial  mismanagement 
in  the  office.  All  seven  workers  denied  that  they  ever  did  anything 
wrong.  While  they  realized  that  they  served  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
president,  they  did  not  expect  to  be  given  two  hours  to  clear  out  of 


their  offices,  they  said.  "What  they  didn't  seem  to  understand  about 
the  seven  of  us  that  staffed  the  travel  office  under  the  administrations 
of  as  many  as  eight  presidents  is  that  we  were  their  people,"  said  John 
Dreylinger,  a  25-year  office  employee. 

The  White  House  had  recently  released  a  memorandum  wntten 
by  David  Watkins,  former  director  of  White  House  administration. 
In  it,  Watkins  said  he  felt  pressured  coming  from  Hillary  Clinton  to 
fire  the  employees  or  there  would  be  "hell  to  pay."  The  memo 
appeared  to  contradicted  Clinton's  repeated  contentions  that  she 
played  "no  role"  m  the  confroversial  firings  on  May  19,  1993,  that 
resulted  in  intense  criticism  of  the  White  House  and  accusations  of 
cronyism  and  misuse  of  the  FBI  by  bringing  in  agents  to  investigate 
the    employees.  ("Ex-Travel    Office    Workers    Condemn 

Administration  'Lies'"  The  Washington  Post.  January  25) 

JANUARY  -  On  January  26,  first  lady  Hillary  Rodham  Clinton  spent 
four  hours  testifying  before  a  federal  grand  jury  about  the 
disappearance  and  sudden  recovery  of  her  law  firm  billing  records 
along  with  other  matters  related  to  the  Whitewater  scandal.  ("First 
Lady  Testifies  for  Four  Hours,"  The  Washington  Post,  January  27) 

JANUARY  -  The  National  Reconnaissance  Office,  the  secret  agency 
that  builds  spy  satellites,  lost  track  of  more  than  $2  billion  in 
classified  money  in  1995,  largely  because  of  its  own  internal  secrecy, 
intelligence  officials  say.  Critics  of  the  reconnaissance  office  said  that 
the  money  was  hidden  in  several  rainy-day  accounts  that  secretly 
solidified  into  a  "slush  fiind."  One  Senate  intelligence  committee 
aide  described  the  misplaced  money  as  a  severe  accounting  problem, 
which  grew  from  a  lack  of  accountability,  in  turn  created  by  the 
exlraordinary  secrecy  under  which  the  reconnaissance  office  works. 

The  reconnaissance  office  operates  in  the  deepest  secrecy  of  any 
government  agency.  Financed  by  the  $28-billion-a-year  "black 
budget"  (classified  above  top  secret)  for  military  and  intelligence 
programs,  it  spends  an  estimated  $5  billion  to  $6  billion  annually, 
outside  analysts  say;  the  sum  varies  from  year  to  year,  depending  on 
how  many  satellites  the  agency  is  building. 

The  reconnaissance  agency  is  really  a  set  of  secret  offices— so 
secret  that  they  have  been  shielded  from  each  other,  like  safes  locked 
within  safes.  Each  office,  and  each  program,  had  separate 
management  and  accounting  systems,  all  "black."  When  these  offices 
and  programs  were  consolidated  in  the  reconnaissance  office's  new 
headquarters  in  1995,  its  top  managers  found  that  "no  one  had  a 
handle  on  how  much  money  they  had,"  the  Senate  intelligence 
committee  aide  said.  There  was  little  or  no  accountability  because  of 
the  office's  secrecy,  he  said.  In  the  past.  Congressional  oversight  of 
the  reconnaissance  office  has  been  sketchy,  he  said,  because  few 
members  of  Congress  understood  the  highly  technical  language  of  spy 
satellites  and  some  did  not  know  what  they  were  approving  when  they 
authorized  billions  of  dollars  a  year  in  secret  spending.  ("A  Secret 
Agency's  Secret  Budgets  Yield  'Lost'  Billions,  Officials  Say,"  The 
New  York  Times,  January  30) 

JANUARY  -  The  collection  and  release  of  community  right-to-know 


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information  from  industry  will  be  delayed  due  to  the  recent 
government  shutdown.  The  reportmg  delay  affected  the  data  which 
include  for  the  first  time  reports  on  the  286  chemicals  EPA 
Administrator  Carol  M.  Browner  added  to  the  list  in  November  1 994. 
The  shutdowns  in  December  1 995  and  continued  budget  cuts  also 
have  led  to  a  delay  in  the  Agency's  ability  to  process  right-to-know 
data  already  collected  from  1994.  The  public  will  receive  1994 
community  right-to-know  information  more  than  two  months  late  this 
year  than  the  usual  March  release  date. 

Widespread  public  access  is  available  from  libraries,  state  and 
federal  environmental  offices,  CD-ROM,  and  a  toll-free  hotline. 
Since  1986,  reported  releases  of  toxic  chemicals  under  the 
community  right-to-know  laws  have  declined  by  43  percent 
nationwide.  ("Community  Right-to-Know  Reporting  Program 
Delayed  by  Government  Shutdown,"  0MB  Watch,  January  30) 

JANUARY  -  The  United  States  Ambassador  to  Austria,  Swanee 
Hunt,  provided  the  Austrian  government  with  the  location  and 
contents  of  79  arms  caches  the  U.  S.  set  up  in  Austria  in  the  early 
1950s.  The  weapons  were  stockpiled  in  the  zone  of  American 
occupation  after  World  War  II  and  were  meant  for  anti-Communist 
partisans  in  the  event  of  a  Soviet  invasion  The  existence  of  the 
stockpiles  came  to  light  when  the  CIA  and  other  U.S.  government 
agencies  examined  cold-war  programs.  Hunt  apologized  to  the 
Austrians  for  keeping  the  stockpiles  secret  for  so  long.  She  gave  the 
secret  list  to  Interior  Minister  Caspar  Einem,  who  said  Austria  had 
found  five  of  the  weapons  depots  over  the  years.  ("U.S.  Reveals 
Secret  Arms  Caches  in  Austria,"  The  New  York  Times,  January  30) 

FEBRUARY  -  House  Speaker  Newt  Gingrich's  (R-GA)  office 
released  the  names  of  members  of  a  task  force  he  authorized  to 
develop  recommendations  for  states  to  reform  the  workers' 
compensation  system.  The  disclosure  came  after  Roll  Call  on 
January  25  reported  that  the  task  force— whose  membership  had  not 
previously  been  made  public— was  headed  by  Richard  Scrushy,  an 
Alabama  health  care  executive  who  is  a  major  fundraiser  for 
Gingrich. 

Tony  Blankly,  Gingrich's  press  secretary,  in  a  letter  to  Roll  Call, 
disputed  the  use  of  the  word  "secret"  to  describe  the  membership  of 
the  group,  arguing  that  the  list  of  members  was  readily  available  in 
the  report,  which  was  "presented  last  December  to  the  American 
Legislative  Exchange  Council,  a  3,000-member  group  of  state 
legislators."  But  ALEC,  a  conservative,  free-market  group, 
disavowed  producing  the  report  Gingrich's  office  released  even 
though  its  name  appeared  on  the  cover  in  large  typeface.  The  cover 
indicated  that  the  proposals  came  from  ALEC's  Business  &  Labor 
Task  Force  Study  Group  on  workers'  compensation.  In  a  statement, 
ALEC  said  it  had  "no  direct  relationship"  with  the  task  force  and  that 
the  proposals  "are  not  a  product  of  ALEC,  nor  has  ALEC  adopted 
them  in  any  fashion."  ("Gingrich's  Office  Releases  Task  Force 
Names,"  Roll  Call,  February  1 ) 

FEBRUARY  -  A  long-sealed  Justice  Department  report  on  the 


White  House  travel  office  was  released  on  January  31.  It  criticized 
White  House  officials  for  engaging  in  "ill-advised  and  erroneous 
actions"  in  abn^tly  dismissing  seven  employees  of  the  office  in  1 993. 
But  the  report  did  not  fmd,  as  Republicans  have  suggested,  that 
presidential  aides  had  pressured  the  FBI  to  investigate  the  dismissed 
employees.  The  report  was  completed  in  March  1 994  by  the  Office 
of  Professional  Responsibility,  the  Justice  Department's  internal 
ethics  unit.  The  report  focused  primarily  on  the  White  House 
dealings  with  the  FBI,  finding  that  the  agency  had  engaged  in  no 
wrongdoing  by  investigating  the  travel  office.  Signed  by  Michael  E. 
Shaheen,  Jr.,  the  report  says  the  White  House  had  created  the 
appearance  that  it  had  pressured  the  FBI  to  embark  on  an 
investigation  by  hurriedly  dismissing  the  employees  and  disclosing 
the  existence  of  the  FBI  inquiry,  which  had  already  begun.  Shaheen's 
report  on  Billy  Dale,  former  director  of  the  travel  office,  was  released 
in  response  to  Freedom  of  Information  Act  requests  by  several  news 
organizations.  It  had  been  withheld  pending  the  outcome  of  Dale's 
prosecution.  ("Justice  Department  Faults  White  House  in  Travel 
Office  Dismissals,"  The  New  York  Times,  February  1 ) 

FEBRUARY  -  In  the  months  after  the  United  States  invasion  of 
Haiti,  American  officers  repeatedly  told  their  troops  that  the  country's 
most  dreaded  paramilitary  group  was  actually  a  legitimate  opposition 
political  party.  "They're  no  different  from  Democrats  or 
Republicans,"  soldiers  in  Haiti  dutifully  echoed  when  asked  about 
their  instructions.  But  a  review  of  classified  cables  sent  by  the 
American  Embassy  in  Haiti  to  the  Defense  and  State  Departments 
shows  that  for  a  year  before  the  invasion  in  September  1994  the 
Pentagon  knew  that  the  official  version  was  not  true. 

Within  weeks  of  the  founding  of  the  Front  for  the  Advancement 
and  Progress  of  Haiti,  the  papers  indicate,  American  intelligence 
agencies  had  concluded  the  group  was  a  gang  of  "gun-carrying 
crazies"  eager  to  "use  violence  against  all  who  oppose  it."  With  the 
United  States  troops  now  in  Bosnia  pursuing  some  of  the  same 
objectives  as  in  Haiti,  the  documents  raise  questions  about  the 
soldiers'  mission,  the  information  they  are  given  by  superiors  and  the 
action  they  take  in  the  field. 

Human  rights  observers  and  others  who  have  seen  the  papers  say 
they  also  raise  the  question  whether  the  military  ordered  American 
troops  to  ignore  human  rights  abuses  committed  before  they  arrived. 
What  remains  uncertain  is  why  the  Pentagon  took  a  public  stance 
clearly  at  odds  with  the  classified  information  in  had  collected  in 
Haiti.  A  Pentagon  official  denied  that  there  was  any  conflict  between 
the  official  position  and  the  inside  information.  ("Cables  Show  U.S. 
Deception  on  Haitian  Violence,"  The  New  York  Times,  February  6) 

FEBRUARY  -  American  makers  of  nuclear  weapons  have  been 
classifying  virtually  everything  for  so  long  that  the  Department  of 
Energy  now  has  more  secrets  than  it  can  cope  with,  and  the 
department  and  its  contractors  may  have  released  information  they 
should  have  kept  secret,  officials  said.  The  department  has  100 
million  pages  of  documents  that  it  wants  to  review  for  possible 
release  but  does  not  have  the  resources  to  do  the  reviewing.   It  is 


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spending  $3  million  to  develop  a  computer  program  to  scan  the 
documents  and  make  an  initial  assessment.  The  goal  is  to  reduce  the 
secrets  to  a  manageable  quantity. 

In  the  Department's  current  scheme,  ideas  are  "classified  at 
birth,"  or  presumed  secret  until  proved  otherwise,  and  some 
department  officials  and  employees  of  contractors  have  lost  track  of 
what  needs  to  be  kept  quiet.  Hazel  R.  O'Leary,  the  Energy  Secretary, 
said  that  most  of  what  was  still  secret  had  "occasional  mention  of 
something  that  was  perhaps  bom  classified."  She  said  much  of  that 
could  probably  be  declassified.  Some  material  that  is  still  classified 
is  guarding  useless  secrets  but  would  be  useful  in  defming  the 
environmental  and  health  damage  associated  with  the  production  and 
testing  of  nuclear  weapons.  Energy  Department  officials  said. 

Mrs.  O'Leary  gave  another  reason  for  declassification:  to  provide 
the  public  with  information  that  could  be  used  in  deciding  what  to  do 
with  nuclear  wastes.  The  plutonium  inventories  that  the  department 
detailed  will  eventually  have  to  be  disposed  of  ("Millions  of  Secrets 
Burden  Energy  Agency,"  The  New  York  Times,  February  7) 

FEBRUARY  -  Two  years  before  he  died,  Helen  Frost  says  her 
husband,  Robert,  returned  from  his  sheet-metal  job  at  a  top-stcret  Air 
Force  base  with  flaming-red  skin  that  soon  began  peeling  off  his  face 
Mrs.  Frost  is  one  of  two  widows,  who  along  with  four  former  civilian 
workers,  are  suing  the  Defense  Department  in  a  so-called  citizen's 
lawsuit.  They  contend  that  it  violated  federal  hazardous-waste  law  by 
repeatedly  burning  ordinary  chemicals  and  highly  toxic  classified 
materials  in  open  pits  at  the  base,  which  is  located  125  miles  from 
Las  Vegas.  The  workers,  who  say  their  exposure  to  toxic  fumes 
throughout  the  1980s  caused  health  problems  ranging  from  skin 
lesions  to  cancer,  are  seeking  information  to  facilitate  medical 
treatment  and  help  with  medical  bills  but  no  other  monetary  damages. 
As  employees  of  government  subcontractors  some  of  the  plaintiffs  say 
they  have  no  medical  insurance.  They  also  want  a  court  order 
requiring  the  government  to  follow  the  law  and  dispose  of  such  waste 
safely.  They  themselves  can't  bring  criminal  charges. 

So  far,  the  government  refuses  to  confirm  or  deny  their  allegations 
or  to  respond  to  their  request  for  criminal  prosecution.  Instead,  it 
asked  a  U.S.  District  Court  judge  to  dismiss  the  lawsuit,  arguing  that 
almost  any  disclosure  about  the  base  could  pose  a  "serious  risk"  to 
national  security.  The  strategy  is  startling  because  the  government 
apparently  has  never  before  invoked  the  so-called  national-security 
privilege  in  a  case  in  which  the  effect  is  to  shield  itself  from  criminal 
liability.  The  privilege  is  intended  to  prevent  courtroom  disclosures 
of  state  secrets  involving  intelligence  gathering  or  military  planning. 
But  the  burning  alleged  by  the  workers  is  a  serious  crime,  punishable 
by  up  to  15  years  in  prison  and  a  $  1  million  fine.  Constitutional 
experts  say  the  case  could  ultimately  go  to  the  Supreme  Court 
because  it  tests  the  limits  of  executive-branch  power.  The 
government  in  effect  argues  that  the  national-security  privilege  gives 
the  military  more  leeway  than  the  president  has  to  keep  information 
secret,  even  if  it  involves  a  crime.  ("Secret  Air  Base  Broke 
Hazardous- Waste  Act,  Workers'  Suit  Alleges,"  The  Wall  Street 
Journal,  February  8) 


FEBRUARY  -  CIA  Director  John  M.  Deutch  said  that  the  agency 
maintained  the  right  to  use  U.S.  journalists  or  their  organizations  as 
cover  for  intelligence  acitivites  but  only  under  retrictive  regulations 
pubhshed  19  years  ago.  Disclosure  that  the  CIA's  ban  on  recruiting 
U.S.  journalists  or  using  American  news  organizations  as  cover  could 
be  waived  under  a  little-publicized  regulation  has  surprised  many 
journalists  and  former  government  officials.  It  also  undercut  a 
recommendation  made  recently  by  an  independent  blue-ribbon  panel 
sponsored  by  the  Council  on  Foreign  Relations.  The  group,  unaware 
the  ban  on  using  "journalistic  cover"  could  be  lifted  by  the  director  in 
extraordinary  circumstances,  called  for  "a  fresh  look"  at  whether  the 
CIA  should  ease  the  ban  on  use  of  journalistic  and  other  non-official 
covers  for  clandestine  activities  overseas. 

Leslie  H.  Gelb,  president  of  the  council  and  a  member  of  the 
panel,  took  issue  with  the  group's  recommendation  and  with  current 
CIA  policy.  Gelb  said,  "I  was  and  am  flatly  opposed  to  using 
Amencan  journalists  as  spies  and  American  spies  as  journalists."  He 
made  clear  the  panel's  views  were  not  those  of  the  entire  council,  an 
exclusive,  nonpartisan  organization  whose  members  include  many 
journalists.  ("CIA  to  Retain  Right  to  Use  Journalistic  Cover,"  The 
Washington  Post,  February  17) 

FEBRUARY  -  An  article,  "A  Small  Arms  War  on  Children,"  in  the 
February  1 8  San  Francisco  Examiner  described  how  the  United 
States  has  sold  or  given  away  tens  of  thousands  of  rifles,  shotguns, 
land  mines  and  other  weapons  to  foreign  countries,  where  they  are 
helping  ftiel  an  alarming  rise  in  the  number  of  children,  killed  or 
traumatized  by  war.  A  new  report  by  the  United  Nations  Children's 
Fund  cites  "the  proliferation  of  light  weapons"  as  a  major  reason  for 
the  upsurge  of  war-related  violence  against  children  and  the  growing 
practice  of  using  children  under  the  age  of  1 5  as  soldiers.  UNICEF 
estimates  that  about  2  million  children  have  been  killed  in  conflicts 
during  the  past  decade,  with  4  million  disabled,  12  million  left 
homeless  and  1 0  million  traumatized. 

U.S.  policy  requires  the  weapons  be  sold  only  to  friendly 
government  and  not  resold.  But  over  time,  the  weapons  may  change 
hands  or  be  resold  for  use  in  new  conflicts.  Fifty  countries,  including 
the  U.S.,  manufacture  small  arms,  and  the  majority  of  the  United 
Nations'  185  members  make  small  arms  ammunition.  The  profiision 
of  small  arms  makes  it  virtually  impossible  to  track  them,  CIA 
officials  say.  And  while  the  Clinton  Administration  is  working  with 
27  other  nations  for  new  export  controls  on  the  arms  trade,  it  has 
excluded  small  arms  from  consideration. 

On  the  same  page  with  the  above  article  is  one  describing  how  the 
secrecy  surrounding  the  small-arms  trade  is  a  major  reason  why 
controlling  these  weapons  is  difficult.  Information  obtained  through 
the  Freedom  of  Information  Act  by  the  Federation  of  American 
Scientists,  a  nonprofit  research  group,  shows  that  U.S.  sales  and 
grants  since  1980  include  at  least  50,000  pistols  and  revolvers; 
170,000  rifles  and  shotgims;  12,000  grenade  launchers  as  well  as 
anti-personnel  land  mines;  more  than  a  million  hand  grenades, 
demolition  charges  and  flechette  rockets  whose  warheads  spew 
clouds  of  lethal  steel  darts.  Almost  325,000  land  mines  were  sold  to 


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El  Salvador,  Columbia,  Ecuador,  Lebanon,  Niger,  Thailand  and 
Somalia,  and  1.4  million  hand  grenades  to  Belize,  Colombia,  El 
Salvador,  Lebanon,  Panama,  Somalia,  Sudan,  Tnnidad,  Bolivia  and 
Antigua. 

Although  much  of  this  weaponry  was  intended  for  the  anti- 
communist  campaigns  of  the  1980s,  the  lethal  legacy  lives  on 
Today,  bloody  wars  are  being  fought  with  U.S.-supplied  small  arms 
in  Columbia,  Liberia,  Somalia  and  Angola,  and  the  weapons  are  used 
in  continuing  political  violence  in  the  Philippines,  Haiti  and 
elsewhere.  Officially,  the  Clinton  Administration  supports  increased 
openness  of  its  own  small  arms  dealings.  But  the  State  Department, 
which  oversees  U.S.  arms  exports,  has  turned  down  repeated  requests 
for  data  on  small  arms  exports,  and  State  Department  officials  decline 
to  discuss  arms  policy  or  its  ramifications.  Similarly,  the  Pentagon 
routinely  withholds  information  on  the  weapons  its  sell  or  gives  away 
abroad.  ("Why  Control  Is  So  Difficult,"  San  Francisco  Examiner, 
February  18) 

MARCH  -  A  report  released  by  the  CL\'s  inspector  general 
concluded  that  blunders  by  agency  operatives  trying  to  gather  secret 
information  on  French  trade  negotiations  and  economic  espionage  led 
to  an  international  embarrassment.  One  legendary  spy  resigned,  the 
CIA's  role  in  gathering  economic  intelligence  may  be  damaged,  and 
its  reputation  may  suffer  another  self-infficted  wound  as  a  result  of  the 
internal  investigation  into  the  CL\'s  Paris  station,  officials  familiar 
with  the  report  said.  The  classified  report  is  likely  to  intensify  the 
debate  over  the  risks  and  rewards  of  spying  on  allies  for  economic 
intelligence.  It  found  that  the  CIA  station  chief  in  Paris,  Dick  Holm, 
kept  the  United  States  Ambassador  to  France,  Pamela  Harriman,  in 
the  dark  about  important  aspects  of  his  work.  Holm  retired  last  year 
while  the  inspector  general's  investigation  was  underway.  The  chief 
of  the  Europe  division  of  the  CIA's  clandestine  service  has  been 
placed  in  administrative  limbo  and  at  least  four  covert  operators  have 
been  recalled  from  Paris. 

Soon  after  several  CIA  operatives  set  up  a  two-pronged  project- 
to  undercover  French  positions  on  world  trade  talks  and  to  counter 
French  economic  espionage  against  American  companies—  French 
counterintelligence  officials  knew  there  was  a  network  of  CIA 
officers  operating  against  them.  The  French,  ignoring  the  traditional 
protocol  in  such  cases,  raised  an  uproar  over  the  spying  rather  than 
letting  the  four  accused  spies  working  under  diplomatic  cover  slip  out 
of  the  country  for  activities,  "incompatible  with  their  diplomatic 
status."  The  ensuring  publicity  raised  questions  about  whether 
spying  on  allies  for  economic  data  is  a  worthy  pursuit  for  the  CIA,  or 
whether  its  operatives  would  do  better  to  concentrate  on  the  activities 
of  terrorists  and  other  deep  political  secrets  abroad.  ("CIA. 
Confirms  Blunders  During  Economic  Spying  on  France,"  The  New 
York  Times,  March  1 3) 

MARCH  -  Citing  budget  cuts,  officials  of  the  Internal  Revenue 
Service  say  they  may  discontinue  Publication  17,  "Your  Federal 
Income  Tax,"  a  handy  summary  of  tax  rules  affecting  individuals. 
Publication  334,  "Tax  Guide  for  Small  Business,"  might  also  be 


dropped.  A  spokesman  said  all  the  information  in  these  free 
pubUcations  is  contained  in  other  IRS  materials,  adding  that  "budget 
pressures  cause  tough  decisions."  Some  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  are  incensed  by  this  idea  and  by  the  IRS's  move 
earlier  in  the  year  to  reduce  the  number  of  taxpayer-service  walk-in 
offices.  Some  IRS  tax  specialists  say  eliminating  Publication  1 7 
would  be  a  mistake  and  would  antagonize  taxpayers.  ("The  IRS  May 
Eliminate  Some  Popular  Publications  Next  Year,"  The  Wall  Street 
Journal,  March  20). 

MARCH  -  By  a  unanimous  vote,  the  Supreme  Court  ruled  that  the 
federal  government  need  not  adjust  1990  census  figiires  to 
compensate  for  the  undercounting  of  Blacks,  Hispanics  and  other 
minority  groups  in  the  nation's  cities  and  along  the  border.  The 
decennial  census  figures  are  important  because,  among  other 
purposes,  they  are  used  to  draw  congressional  districts  and  to 
calculate  federal  funding  to  states.  The  case  arose  after  New  York, 
several  other  cities  and  civil  rights  groups  challenged  the  Commerce 
Department's  decision  not  to  increase  some  cities'  1 990  population 
counts.  The  department,  parent  agency  for  the  Census  Bureau,  had 
questioned  the  value  of  adjusting  the  figures  although  it 
acknowledged  Blacks  had  been  undercounted  by  4.8  percent, 
Hispanics  by  5.2  percent.  Native  Americans  by  5  percent  and  Asian- 
Pacific  Islanders  by  3. 1  percent. 

The  2nd  U.S.  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  in  New  York  ruled  for  the 
cities,  saying  Commerce  failed  to  make  a  good-faith  effort  to  obtain 
an  accurate  population  count.  Reversing  that  ruling,  the  Supreme 
Court  said  the  Constitution  gives  Congress  virtually  unlimited 
discretion  for  the  census  and  Congress  has  delegated  authority  to  the 
Secretary  of  Commerce.  Chief  Justice  William  Rehnquist  wrote, 
"The  secretary's  decision  not  to  adjust  needs  bear  only  a  reasonable 
relationship  to  the  accomplishment  of  an  actual  enumeration  of  the 
population."  He  said  the  Census  Bureau  had  "made  an  extraordinary 
effort  to  conduct  an  accurate  enumeration,  and  was  successfiil  in 
counting  98.4  percent  of  the  population."  ("Census  Need  Not  Adjust 
for  Minority  Undercount,  Justices  Rule,"  The  Washington  Post, 
March  21) 

MARCH  -  Bosnia's  representative  at  the  United  Nations  accused  the 
United  States  of  failing  to  turn  over  information  on  a  notorious 
Serbian  paramilitary  leader,  knov\Ti  as  Arkan,  who  has  been  linked  to 
killings  of  Bosnian  Muslims  as  late  as  the  fall  of  1995.  The 
representative,  Muhamed  Sacirbey,  essentially  charged  that  the 
United  States,  needing  the  cooperation  of  Serbian  President  Slobodan 
Milosevic  to  enforce  the  Dayton  peace  accords,  was  holding  back 
infonnation  that  might  lead  to  questions  about  Serbian  involvement 
in  the  massacres  of  Bosnians.  Sacirbey  said  Milosevic  had  been 
handed  an  account  of  the  activities  of  Arkan  by  Richard  I  lolbrooke, 
the  former  Assistance  Secretary  of  State  who  brought  the  Balkan 
parties  together  at  the  Dayton  conference.  "If  Mr.  Milosevic  is 
entitled  to  that  written  information,  than  I'm  not  sure  why  we,  the 
Bosnians,  the  international  community,  or  The  Hague  war  crimes 
tribunal  is  not,"  Sacirbey  said.  ("U.S.  Said  to  Withhold  War-Crime 


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Data,"  The  New  York  Times,  March  28) 

APRIL  -  The  National  Security  Agency  said  that  it  had  declassified 
more  than  1  3  million  pages  of  secret  documents,  some  from  before 
World  War  I.  All  the  declassified  matenal  is  more  than  50  years  old, 
older  than  the  agency  itself,  and  represents  a  tmy  fragment  of  the 
biUions  of  pages  of  government  documents  that  have  been  kept  secret 
on  the  grounds  that  their  release  would  damage  national  security. 
Agency  ofiicials  were  at  a  loss  to  explain  why  these  documents,  now 
at  the  National  Archives,  had  remained  secret  for  so  long. 

Among  the  documents  declassified  was  a  January  1919 
memorandum  from  Army  Col.  A.  W.  Bloor,  a  commander  of  the 
American  Expeditionary  Force  in  France,  explaining  the  origin  of  the 
"code  talkers,"  American  Indian  soldiers  who  spoke  in  their  native 
tongues  to  confound  enemy  code  breakers  in  World  War  1  and  World 
War  II.  Their  languages  were  largely  unwritten  and  largely  unstudied 
by  foreigners,  and  so  constituted  an  instant  code  translatable  only  by 
the  speakers.  Col.  Bloor  wrote  that  he  had  a  company  of  Indians  in 
his  regiment  who  among  them  spoke  26  languages  or  dialects,  and 
that  "there  was  hardly  a  chance  in  a  million"  that  the  Germans  could 
translate  them.  David  Hatch,  the  National  Security  Agency's 
historian,  said  Choctaws,  Navajos,  Comanches,  Winnebagos, 
Pawnees,  Kiowas  and  Cherokees  served  as  code  talkers.  In  World 
War  II,  he  said,  the  Marine  Corps  used  more  than  400  Navajos  as 
communicators  in  the  Pacific  campaign.  Hatch  could  not  explain  why 
the  documents  stayed  secret  for  so  long.  The  agency's  archives  run 
into  the  billions  of  pages,  and  the  agency,  loath  to  disclose  anything 
concerning  codes,  has  only  begun  to  consider  declassifying 
documents  in  the  past  four  years.  ("Pentagon  Spy  Agency  Bares 
Some  Dust>'  Secret  Papers,"  The  New  York  Times,  April  5) 

APRIL  -  The  CIA  publicly  promised  in  1993  to  release  its  files 
within  a  few  months  on  its  most  important  covert  actions  of  the  cold 
war--coups  in  Iran  and  Guatemala  and  the  Bay  of  Pigs.  However,  the 
documents  remain  secret  because  of  "a  clash  of  cultures"  inside  the 
CIA  pitting  cold  warriors  against  open-minded  historians.  Another 
factor  may  be  that  the  agency  has  devoted  only  three  ten-thousandths 
of  its  budget  and  seven  fiill-time  employees  to  the  task  of  making  the 
documents  public.  A  stack  of  secret  files  taller  than  50  Washington 
Monuments  awaits  them. 

The  CIA  has  another  explanation.  They  say  that  Oliver  Stone's 
1991  movie,  "J.F.K.",  which  insinuated  that  a  military-industrial- 
espionage  conspiracy  killed  President  Kennedy  in  1 963 ,  led  Congress 
to  establish  a  J.F.K.  Assassination  Records  law  in  1992.  It  ordered 
that  the  government  files  on  the  assassination  be  made  public. 
President  Clinton  took  nearly  a  year  to  name  members  of  a  review 
board  to  oversee  the  release  of  the  files.  Now  the  CIA's  historians 
are  explaining  to  the  board  every  one  of  the  thousands  of  excisions 
they  want  to  make  in  its  documents.  That  time-consuming  effort 
made  the  pledge  on  the  covert-action  records  impossible  to  keep,  the 
agency  said.  ("C.I.  A.  Is  Slow  to  Tell  Early  Cold  War  Secrets,"  The 
New  York  Times,  April  8) 


APRIL  -  House  Speaker  New  Gingrich  (R-GA)  said  that  President 
Clinton  misled  Congressional  leaders  about  the  United  States'  true 
role  in  Bosnia  at  a  time  the  Administration  was  secretly  acquiescing 
in  the  creation  of  an  Iranian  arms  pipeline  to  the  Bosnian  Muslims. 
Gingrich  said  that  he,  Senate  Majority  Leader  Robert  Dole  (R-KS) 
and  other  lawmakers  had  many  meetings  with  Clinton  about  U.S. 
Bosnia  policy  over  the  past  three  years— at  a  time  when  the  U.S.  was 
publicly  upholding  the  international  arms  embargo  against  Bosnia. 
Never,  he  said,  did  the  president  indicate  that  the  United  States  had 
given  a  green  light  to  Iranian  arms  smuggling. 

In  response.  White  House  press  secretary  Michael  McCurry 
denied  that  Gingrich  had  been  misled.  Congressional  leaders  had  full 
access  to  U.S.  intelligence  information  that  provided  clear  evidence 
of  Iranian  arms  shipments  into  Bosnia,  McCurry  said.  "Those  are 
truly  extraordinary  comments  by  the  speakers,  given  the  high  degree 
of  attention  that  we  presume  the  Congress  was  paying  to  Bosnia  at  the 
time,"  McCurrey  said.  "It  was  clear,  from  the  intelligence 
information  available  to  the  speaker  and  his  staff  at  the  time,  what  our 
understanding  was  about  the  nature  of  arms  flows  into  Bosnia.  And 
at  any  time  there  could  have  been  a  more  thorough  discussion  of  the 
arms  flows  into  Bosnia,  because  that  information  was  widely 
available  to  Congress."  ("Gingrich  Charges  Clinton  With  Misleading 
Congress,"  The  IVashington  Post,  April  1 1 ) 

APRIL  -  The  White  House  will  assert  executive  privilege  and  refuse 
to  give  Congress  a  secret  internal  report  on  President  Clinton's  1 994 
decision  to  do  nothing  about  weapons  shipments  from  Iran  to  Bosnian 
Muslims.  "Consistent  with  the  practice  of  past  administrations,"  a 
senior  Administration  official  said,  "we  will  insist  on  protecting  the 
confidentiality  of  internal  deliberations  and  communications  between 
the  President  and  his  advisers." 

At  least  six  Congressional  committees  are  contemplating  hearings 
on  the  President's  decision.  The  claim  of  executive  privilege  appears 
likely  to  anger  Congress  and  provide  ammunition  for  Clinton's 
opponents  in  the  1 996  Presidential  election.  ("Congress  Is  Denied 
Report  on  Bosnia,"  The  New  York  Times,  April  1 7) 

APRIL  -  The  White  House  announced  that  beginning  this  year  it 
would  ask  Congress  to  release  an  overall  "bottom  line"  figure  for  the 
budget  of  American  intelligence  agencies,  a  figure  now  widely 
estimated  at  $24  billion  to  $30  billion  a  year.  In  making  the  figure 
public,  the  White  House  said,  it  hoped  to  foster  a  new  sense  of 
openness  in  the  intelligence  community.  ("White  House  Seeks 
Release  of  Intelligence  Budget  Total,"  The  New  York  Times,  April 
24) 

MAY  -  A  1 0-page  article,  "Nuclear  Reactions,"  in  May  5  The 
Washington  Post  Magazine  describes  efforts  to  clean  up  the  area 
around  Hanford,  Washington— "the  biggest  environmental  disaster  in 
America."  The  cleanup  is  expected  to  cost  about  $230  billion  over 
75  years.  The  area  around  Hanford's  plutonium  factory,  built  during 
World  War  E  as  part  of  the  U.S.  effort  to  develop  an  atomic  bomb,  is 
home  to  two-thirds  of  the  country's  high-level  radioactive  waste. 


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In  1986,  when  an  environmental  group  in  Spokane  forced  the 
release  of  classified  documents  from  Hanford,  the  public  learned  that 
the  plutonium  factory  had  made  a  practice  of  poisoning  it  downwind 
and  downstream  neighbors.  Huge  atmospheric  releases  of  radiation, 
all  them  secret  and  some  of  them  deliberate,  occurred  throughout  the 
second  half  of  the  1 940s  and  early  1 950s.  Hanford  documents  show 
that  biologists  secretly  discussed  the  "advisability  of  closing"  a 
downstream  stretch  of  the  Columbia  River  to  public  fishing  and 
hunting  in  the  late  1 950s  when  plutonium  production  was  at  its  peak 
and  resident  fish  and  ducks  showed  dangerously  high  concentrations 
of  radioactive  phosphorus.  But  no  warnings  were  issued.  "Nothing 
is  to  be  gained  by  informing  the  public  ,"  Herbert  M.  Parker,  the  head 
of  health  and  safety  at  Hanford,  wrote  in  1 954. 

MAY  -  Columnist  Mary  McGrory  wrote  of  the  struggle  of  Sister 
Dianna  Ortiz,  an  Ursuline  nun,  to  pry  out  of  intelligence  agencies  the 
documents  that  could  tell  her  why  and  with  whose  help  she  was 
kidnaped,  tortured  and  raped  by  Guatemalan  security  forces  in  1989. 
"My  crime,"  she  said  at  one  point  during  her  packed  news  conference 
at  the  J.W.  Marriott  Hotel,  "was  to  teach  little  Mayan  children  to  read 
and  write."  ("CIA's  Unlikely  Exorcist,"  The  IVashinglon  Post,  May 
7) 

MAY  -  The  House  Government  Reform  and  Oversight  Committee 
voted  along  party  lines  to  cite  the  White  House  counsel.  Jack  Quinn, 
for  contempt  of  Congress  for  refiising  to  turn  over  subpoenaed 
documents  related  to  the  fuings  in  the  White  House  travel  office. 
Committee  Chair  William  dinger  (R-PA)  has  waged  an  aggressive 
campaign  to  capture  the  fiiU  paper  trail  on  the  1 993  firings  of  seven 
travel  office  employees.  He  has  sharply  criticized  the  White  House 
for  not  being  fully  forthcoming,  while  the  White  House  has  countered 
by  calling  dinger's  demands  vague  and  overly  broad.  ("House  Panel 
Votes  for  Contempt  Citation,"  The  IVashinglon  Post,  May  10) 

MAY  -  In  a  complete  coll£^se  of  accountability,  the  highly  secretive 
National  Reconnaissance  Office  accumulated  about  $4  billion  in 
uncounted  secret  money,  nearly  twice  the  amount  previously  reported 
to  Congress.  The  secret  agency  was  unaware  until  very  recently 
exactly  how  much  money  it  had  accumulated  in  its  classified 
compartments.  To  put  the  $4  billion  in  perspective,  the  agency  lost 
track  of  a  sum  roughly  equal  to  the  combined  annual  budgets  for  the 
Federal  Bureau  of  Investigation  and  the  State  Department.  All  the 
money  spent  by  the  secret  agency,  a  clandestine  branch  of  the  Air 
Force,  is  hidden  through  various  false  line  items  that  comprise  the  co- 
called  "black  budget,"  which  finances  secret  intelligence  and  military 
programs  and  is  shielded  fi"om  public  scrutiny. 

The  reconnaissance  office  issues  secret  government  contracts  to 
build  systems  and  components  for  space  satellites  that  take  pictures, 
record  radar  images  and  eavesdrop  on  telecommunications.  It  spends 
about  $6  billion  in  secret  money  a  year  building  the  satellites  for  the 
CIA,  the  Air  Force  and  the  Navy.  The  agency's  secrecy  made 
Congressional  oversight  next  to  impossible,  intelligence  officials  said 
Thus,  the  Congressional  intelligence  committees  kept  appropriating 


money  for  the  secret  agency,  unaware  that  it  was  buildmg  up  a 
surplus  of  billions  of  dollars.  ("A  Spy  Agency  Admits  Accumulating 
$4  Billion  in  Secret  Money,"  The  New  York  Times,  May  1 6) 

MAY  -  The  Washington  Post  editorialized  about  the  game  the 
Administration  and  Congress  are  playing  over  proposals  to  make 
public  the  aggregate  figure  for  U.S.  intelligence  spending  Each  is 
waiting  for  the  other  to  move  first  to  make  this  information  public. 
"The  White  House  has  put  out  word  that  the  president  is  'determined 
to  promote  openness  in  the  Intelligence  Community'  and  'has 
authorized  Congress  to  make  public  the  total  appropriation. '  But  it 
is  the  executive  branch  that  has  classified  this  information  in  the  first 
place,  and  the  president  doesn't  need  the  consent  of  Congress  to 
declassify  it.  He  may  want  company  in  taking  this  step,  but  he  has  the 
authority  to  act  on  his  own.  If  Congress  is  reluctant  to  move,  he 
should  take  the  lead."  ("The  Intelligence  Number,"  The  Washington 
Post,  May  27) 

MAY  -  Russian  military  analyst  Harriet  Scott,  and  her  husband,  Bill, 
are  unhappy  that  they  have  to  use  a  computer  to  access  the  CIA's 
Foreign  Broadcast  Information  Service  (FBIS),  the  most 
comprehensive  media-monitoring  service  in  the  world.  The  FBIS 
publishes  translated  transcripts  from  hundreds  of  sources  per  day, 
including  the  world's  leading  news  agencies,  newspapers  and 
broadcasts.  For  decades,  its  output  has  been  indispensable  to  national 
security  and  foreign  policy-makers.  But  FBIS  efforts  to  keep  up  with 
the  electronic  revolution  have  provoked  a  furious  reaction  from  critics 
who  say  that  instead  of  making  the  product  more  accessible,  FBIS  is 
doing  the  opposite.  Before  the  computer  age,  FBIS  published  an 
indexed  pamphlet  that  readers  could  easily  scan  for  information.  But 
thanks  to  the  information  revolution— as  implemented  by  the  U.S. 
government—that  simple  chore  can  take  nearly  two  hours,  Mrs.  Scott 
said. 

"It  takes  me  a  minute  or  so  to  download  a  piece  of  e-mail  into  my 
computer.  That's  fine.  But  the  way  they've  formatted  the  FBIS 
material,  100  items  are  all  packaged  as  separate  pieces  of  e-mail,  so 
it  takes  me  100  minutes  just  to  download  them  before  I  can  even 
think  about  starting  to  read  them,"  she  said.  Mrs.  Scott's  complaints 
are  being  widely  echoed.  Afler  this  summer,  FBIS  material  will  only 
be  available  electronically  on  the  World  News  Connection  of  the 
National  Technical  Information  Service.  An  academic  fi"om  the 
Midwest  who  has  used  FBIS  material  for  his  graduate  students  noted 
that  key  documents  once  could  be  easily  photocopied  and  distributed. 
But  now  his  students  have  to  line  up  at  one  or  two  terminals  that  have 
Internet  access. 

Ending  the  daily  mountain  of  published  FBIS  reports  saves 
significant  money  according  to  CIA  officials.  But  critics  of  the  way 
the  change  was  handled  say  this  kind  of  talk  is  trendy  techno  babble. 
One  Congressional  analyst  said,  "The  result  is  that,  for  all  their  talk, 
people  in  the  government,  as  well  as  a  lot  of  the  experts  who  use 
FBIS  products  to  avoid  being  dependent  on  government  statements 
and  interpretations  of  events,  are  not  going  to  have  the  time  or  the 
opportunity  to  use  the  product."  Some  government  officials  who  use 


ALA  Washington  Office 


July  1996 


Less  Access... 


January  -  June  1996 


the  FBIS  said  they  will  not  have  time  to  keep  up  with  it  once  it 
becomes  electronic  only.  ("Lost  in  Computer  Age,"  The  Washington 
Times,  May  28) 

MAY  -  The  White  House  provided  Congress  with  some  1,000 
pages  of  documents  it  had  withheld  on  the  1993  travel  office  fuings, 
but  declined  to  turn  over  twice  as  many  more,  leaving  the  House  to 
consider  whether  to  go  forward  with  a  threatened  contempt  of 
Congress  citation  against  presidential  aides.  Instead,  the  White 
House  provided  an  1 1  -page  list  of  the  documents  for  which  it  is 
exerting  a  constitutional  claim  of  executive  privilege.  ("White  House 
Gives  Congress  1,000  Page  of  Travel  Office  Papers,"  The 
IVashinglon  Post,  May  3 1 ) 

June  When  the  White  House  relinquished  a  thousand  documents 
at  the  end  of  May  to  the  House  Goverrunent  Reform  and  Oversight 
Committee,  it  included  a  request  for  background  information  on  Billy 
Dale,  the  ousted  head  of  the  White  House  travel  office.  This 
information  quickly  became  one  of  the  biggest  stories  of  the  month 
because  it  led  to  the  revelation  that  White  House  officials  obtained 
FBI  background  material  on  Dale  and  hundreds  of  other  officials, 
some  of  whom  had  worked  at  the  White  House  in  previous 
administrations.  ("White  House  Obtained  FBI  Data  on  Fired  Travel 
Chief,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  6) 

June  Three  months  after  it  introduced  plans  for  improving  the 
nation's  census  in  2000,  the  Census  Bureau  is  being  challenged  by 
minority  groups  and  some  Republicans.  The  minority  groups  say  the 
sampling  technique  planned  by  the  bureau  would  worsen,  not  lessen, 
the  problem  of  undercounting  the  nation's  Black  and  Hispanic 
population,  and  the  Republicans  say  that  technique  would  result  in 
improperly  drawn  legislative  districts.  Representative  Carrie  Meeks 
(D-FL)  introduced  a  bill  that  would  forbid  the  Census  Bureau  to 
proceed  with  its  plan:  to  count  at  least  90  percent  of  the  households 
in  each  county  and  then  use  statistical  sampling  methods  to  estimate 
the  number  missed.  She  proposed  an  alternative  statistical  method 
for  estimating  the  nation's  uncounted  population.  Representative 
Thomas  Petri  (R-WI)  introduced  legislation  that  would  prohibit  the 
Census  Bureau  from  applying  sampling  techniques  of  any  kind  to 
determine  a  population  count.  He  said  the  bureau  should  do  whatever 
it  takes  to  obtain  an  accurate  count  without  relying  on  sampling. 

The  twin  challenges  to  Census'  plans  add  to  the  burdens  on  an 
agency  that  is  under  pressure  to  increase  the  accuracy  of  the  next 
census,  hold  down  costs  and  at  the  same  time  respond  to  concerns  of 
lawmakers  who  control  its  budget,  who  generally  have  little 
understanding  of  statistical  methods  and  whose  districts  are  drawn  on 
the  basis  of  its  work.  ("Census  Plan  for  2000  Is  Challenged  on  2 
Fronts,"  The  New  York  Times,  June  6) 


JUNE  -  Louis  Freeh,  the  Director  of  the  FBI,  said  that  he  and  the 
bureau  had  been  "victimized"  by  improper  requests  from  the  Clinton 
White  House  for  files  on  more  than  400  people,  most  of  them 
employees  of  prior  Republican  Administrations.  In  issuing  a  report 
on  the  bureau's  inquiry  into  the  episode,  Freeh  said  the  White  House 
and  the  FBI  committed  "egregious  violations  of  privacy"  when  the 
bureau  delivered  summanes  from  these  files  to  Presidential  aides, 
beginning  in  late  1 993  and  continuing  for  several  weeks.  The  FBI 
and  the  White  House,  which  has  described  the  requests  as  a  result  of 
an  innocent  bureaucratic  mistake,  said  that  new  controls  had  been 
adopted  to  prevent  future  abuses.  Freeh  blamed  himself  for  a  lack  of 
vigilance  in  safeguarding  a  longstanding  system,  vulnerable  to 
political  abuse,  in  which  the  FBI  routinely  complied  with  White 
House  requests  for  sensitive  information. 

The  Director's  choice  of  words  seemed  to  puzzle  the  White 
House,  "I  do  not  understand  that  statement,"  said  President  Clinton's 
press  secretary  Michael  McCurrey,  who  added,  "There  has  been  no 
abuse  of  the  information  in  the  files."  ("Request  for  Files 
'Victimized'  F.  B.  I.,  Its  Director  Says,"  The  New  York  Times,  June 
15) 

JUNE  -  The  Senate  Whitewater  Committee  closed  after  1 3  months, 
releasing  a  768-page  report.  The  final  report  accused  the  Clinton 
White  House  of  stonewalling  and  obfuscating,  and  the  Democrats,  in 
a  minority  rebuttal,  claimed  that  the  President  and  Mrs.  Clinton  had 
been  victimized  by  a  modem-day  witch  hunt.  ("The  Hearings  End 
Much  as  They  Began,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  1 9) 

JUNE  -  Independent  Counsel  Kenneth  Starr  was  given  authority  to 
investigate  the  FBI  files  controversy,  concentrating  fu"st  on  the 
former  White  House  aide  who  obtained  confidential  reports  about 
Clinton  White  House.  The  investigator,  Anthony  Marceca,  was  the 
only  one  named  in  the  two-page  court  order  expanding  Starr's 
jurisdiction,  but  the  mandate  is  broad,  covering  any  other  "person  or 
entity"  who  might  have  committed  a  serious  federal  crime,  engaged 
in  an  unlawflil  conspiracy  or  aided  or  abetted  any  offense. 

The  order  was  issued  at  the  request  of  Attorney  General  Janet 
Reno  by  the  special  three-judge  court  in  charge  of  independent 
counsels.  Reno  said  she  had  conducted  a  truncated  preliminary 
inquiry,  enough  to  convince  her  that  it  would  be  "a  political  conflict 
of  interest"  for  the  Justice  Department  to  go  any  fiulher  because  the 
matter  "necessarily  will  involve  an  inquiry  into  dealings  between  the 
White  House  and  the  FBI."  ("Starr  Gets  Authority  for  FBI  Files 
Probe,"  The  Washington  Post,  June  22) 


Semi-annual  updates  of  this  publication  have  been  compiled  in  two  indexed  volumes  covering  the  periods  April  1981 -December  1987 
and  January  1 988-December  1991.  Less  Access...  updates  are  available  for  $1.00;  the  1981-1987  volume  is  $7.00;  the  1988-1991 
volume  is  $10.00.  To  order,  contact  the  American  Library  Association  Washington  Office,  1301  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  NW,  #403, 
Washington,  DC  20004-1701;  202-628-8410,  fax  202-628-8419.  All  orders  must  be  prepaid  and  must  include  a  self-addressed 
mailing  label. 


ALA  Washington  Office 


July  1996 


ALA  Washington  Office  Chronology 
INFORMATION  ACCESS 

American  Library  Association,  Washington  Office 

1301  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  NW,  Suite  403 

Wasfiington,  DC  20004  1701 

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

December  1996 


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

A  1996  Chronology:  June  -  December 


CONTENTS 


Introduction 2 

JUNE 

Has  Big  Brother  found  a  way  around  the 

Constitution? 3 

The  cost  of  keeping  secrets  secret  revealed  3 

CIA  knew  of  abuses  in  Guatemala 3 

SEPTEMBER 

Report  questions  credibility  of  Pentagon  on 

Gulf  War  Illness 3 

Scope  of  Special  Counsel  report  questioned 4 

Documents  show  U.S.  knew  North  Korea  held 

American  P.O  Ws 4 

House  rejects  release  of  preliminary  report  on  House 

Speaker 4 

U.S.  Army  intelligence  manuals  instructed 

Latins  on  coercion 4 

Priest  vindicated  by  military's  disclosure   5 

Six-month  gap  disclosed  in  White  House  logs     5 

OCTOBER 

Gulf  War  combat  logs  fail  to  report  explosions 5 

Government  no  longer  maps  Gulf  Stream 

due  to  budget  cuts 5 

US  military  warned  by  Czechs  of  nerve  gas 

detected  dunng  the  Gulf  War    6 

Declassifying  documents  delayed  at  the  CIA 6 

Editorial  advocate  resumption  of  crowd  counts  6 


Former  FBI  aide  pleads  guilty  for  role  in  Ruby  Ridge       6 
Publisher  puts  Gulf  War  data  on  the  Internet 6 

NOVEMBER 

Advocates  of  less  secrecy  try  to  make  government 

research  available 7 

US.  does  not  participate  in  chemical  arms  treaty   ....  7 

Bosnian  arms  policy  criticized    7 

EPA  loses  hundreds  of  confidential  documents 7 

Compensation  awarded  to  survivors  of  government 

radiation  experiments   8 

Air  bag  safety  questioned  in  1969    8 

Sexual  misconduct  probed  at  Army's  top  levels 8 

DECEMBER 

Public  government  information  is  increasingly 

privatized 8 

We  cannot  afford  to  not  know  accurate  numbers 9 

Security  clearance  revoked  for  disclosing  secret 

to  Congress 9 

FBI  still  does  not  know  who  leaked  Jewell 

information 9 

Independent  panel  finds  incomplete  data  on 

nerve  gas  exposure 10 

House  Speaker  admits  to  ethical  wrongdoing    10 

Democratic  National  Committee  will  allow  access 

to  records    10 

Panel  "shielded  from  all  information"  about 

Gingrich  investigation   10 


Less  Access... 


June  -  December  1996 


LESS  ACCESS  TO  LESS  INFORMATION  BY  AND  ABOUT 

THE  U.S.  GOVERNMENT:  XXVII 
A  1996  Chronology:  June  -  December 

INTRODUCTION 


For  the  past  15  years,  this  ongoing  chronology  has 
documented  efforts  to  restrict  and  privatize  government 
information.  It  is  distnbuted  as  a  supplement  to  the  ALA 
Washington  Office  Newsletter  and  as  an  electronic 
publication  at  http://www.ala.org/washoff/lessaccess.html. 

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

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


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

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

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

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


ALA  Washington  Office 


December  1996 


Less  Access. . 


June  -  December  1996 


CHRONOLOGY 


JUNE 
Has  Big  Brother  found  a  way  around  the 
Constitution? 

The  Washington  Post  Magazine  featured  a  10-page  article, 
"Someone  to  Watch  Over  Us",  by  Jim  McGee  and  Brian 
Duffy  describing  the  workings  of  a  secret  court  in  the  U.S. 
Department  of  Justice  that  authorized  a  record  697 
"national  security"  wiretaps  in  1995  on  American  soil. 
These  wiretaps  were  outside  normal  constitutional 
procedures  The  authors  asked:  "Is  the  world  growing 
more  dangerous — or  has  Big  Brother  found  a  way  around 
the  Fourth  Amendment?" 

According  to  Justice  Department  statistics,  in  1994 
federal  courts  authorized  more  wiretaps  for  intelligence- 
gathering  and  national  security  purposes  than  they  did  to 
investigate  ordinary  federal  crimes — 576  to  554.  In  1995, 
surveillance  and  search  authorizations  rose  to  697  under 
the    Foreign    Intelligence    Surveillance    Act    (FISA). 

This  1978  law  permits  secret  buggings  and  wiretaps  of 
individuals  suspected  of  being  agents  of  a  hostile  foreign 
government  or  international  terronsts  organization,  even 
when  the  target  is  not  suspected  of  committing  any  crime. 
Under  FISA,  requests  for  such  warrants  are  routed  through 
lawyers  in  the  Office  of  Intelligence  Policy  and  Review  in 
the  Department  of  Justice.  If  these  lawyers  decide  a 
warrant  request  has  merit,  they  prepare  an  application  and 
take  it  before  a  judge  who  sits  in  a  restricted  area  of  the 
courtroom  in  the  Department. 

McGee  and  Duffy  assert  that  the  FISA  system's 
courtroom  advocacy  is  monumentally  one-sided.  In  the 
closed  FISA  court,  when  a  Justice  Department  lawyers 
presents  an  application  for  a  national  security  wiretap,  no 
lawyer  stands  up  to  argue  the  other  side  of  the  case. 
Moreover,  the  target  of  FISA  surveillance  normally  is  never 
told  about  it  and  has  no  opportunity  for  formal  review  or 
redress  later,  as  would  the  target  of  surveillance  protected 
by  the  Fourth  Amendment. 

According  to  the  article,  the  FISA  court  has  never 
formally  rejected  an  application.  The  FISA  system  raises 
the  question  of  when  evidence  gathered  for  national 
security  purposes  can  be  used  for  regular  cnminal 
prosecutions.  Yet,  the  authors  acknowledge,  sometimes 
national  security  wiretaps  turn  up  vital,  important  evidence 
of  serious  domestic  crimes.  (McGee,  Jim  and  Brian  Duffy. 
"Someone  To  Watch  Over  Us."  Washington  Post 
Magazine.  23  June  1996,  9-13,  21-5.) 

The  cost  of  keeping  secrets  secret  revealed 

Representative  David  Skaggs  (D-CO),  a  member  of  the 


House  Intelligence  Committee,  reported  that  the  federal 
government — not  counting  the  Central  Intelligence 
Agency — spent  at  least  S5  6  billion  in  1995  keeping  secret 
documents  secret. 

The  CIA  provides  no  public  report  on  how  much  it 
spends  to  maintain  classified  documents.  Security  officials 
estimate  that  billions  of  pages  of  classified  documents 
exist,  although  no  one  knows  for  sure  Skaggs  says  that 
less  than  1  percent  of  the  $5.6  billion  is  being  spent  on 
declassifying  documents  A  billion-page  backlog  has  built 
up  of  documents  that  are  more  than  25  years  old  and  thus 
by  law  are  ready  for  declassification  and  release  to  the 
public. 

The  Pentagon  spent  nearly  90  percent  of  the  $5  6 
billion  But  other  agencies  spent,  too:  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  ($1,153,000),  the  Federal  Reserve  Board 
($305,000),  the  Federal  Communications  Commission 
($156,000)  and  the  Manne  Mammal  Commission  ($1,000). 
Military  and  intelligence  agencies  that  hold  the  classified 
documents  maintain  that  the  high  cost  of  declassification  is 
delaying  the  release  of  documents  older  than  25  years  that 
President  Clinton  has  ordered  to  be  made  public.  (Weiner, 
Tim.  "Lawmaker  Tells  of  High  Cost  of  Keeping  Secret  Data 
Secret,"  New  York  Times,  28  June  1996,  A20.) 

CIA  knew  of  abuses  in  Guatemala 

The  Intelligence  Oversight  Board,  a  presidential  advisory 
panel,  revealed  that  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  during 
the  past  decade  employed  many  informants  in  the 
Guatemalan  government  and  military  who  agency  officials 
knew  were  involved  in  assassinations,  torture,  kidnappings 
and  murders.  The  board  also  concluded  that  CIA  officials 
kept  information  about  these  crimes  and  other  human 
rights  abuses  from  Congress,  violating  U.S.  law.  The 
board  blamed  the  agency's  failure  to  heed  the  issue  of 
human  rights  until  1994.  A  series  of  reforms  instituted  early 
this  year  by  CIA  director  John  Deutch  included  "a  new 
directive  generally  barring  the  recruitment  of  unsavory 
informants  except  when  senior  CIA  officials  decide  their 
assistance  is  warranted  by  national  interests."  ("Panel 
Confirms  CIA  Officials  Knew  of  Abuses,"  The  Washington 
Post.  29  June  1996,  p  A1.) 

SEPTEMBER 
Report  questions  credibility  of  Pentagon  on  Gulf  War 
illness 

Investigators  for  the  Presidential  Advisory  Committee  on 
Gulf  War  Veterans'  Illnesses,  created  in  1995  by  President 
Clinton,  said  that  the  credibility  of  the  Department  of 


ALA  Washington  Office 


December  1996 


Less  Access.. 


June  -  December  1996 


Defense  had  been  "gravely  undermined"  by  its  inquiry  into 
the  possible  exposure  of  American  troops  to  Iraqi  chemical 
weapons  during  the  1991  gulf  war.  They  recommended 
that  an  outside  body  take  over  the  investigation  from  the 
Pentagon.  Despite  reports  of  mysterious  illnesses  among 
thousands  of  gulf  war  veterans,  the  Pentagon  insisted 
publicly  until  1996  that  it  had  no  evidence  that  large 
numbers  of  American  soldiers  were  exposed  to  chemical 
or  biological  weapons 

At  the  same  time,  a  long-classified  intelligence  report 
was  released  showing  that  officials  at  the  White  House,  the 
Pentagon,  the  Central  Intelligence  Agency  and  the  State 
Department  were  informed  in  November  1991  that 
chemical  weapons  had  been  stored  at  an  ammunition 
depot  demolished  by  American  troops  in  March  of  that 
year.  (Shenon,  Philip.  "Report  Is  Sharply  Critical  of  the 
Pentagon  Inquiry  into  Troop  Exposure  to  Nerve  Gas,  " 
New  York  Times,  6  September  1996,  A22.)  [Ed.  Note.  This 
article  was  one  of  the  earliest  on  this  issue  which  at  press 
time  continues  to  unfold.] 


testified  before  a  Congressional  subcommittee  that  on  the 
basis  of  "very  compelling  reports,"  he  believed  that  as 
many  as  15  Amencans  were  still  being  held  prisoner  in 
North  Korea  The  Defense  Department  has  said  it  has  no 
clear  evidence  that  any  Americans  are  being  held  against 
their  will  in  North  Korea,  and  has  pledged  to  continue  to 
investigate  reports  of  American  prisoners  there  (Shenon, 
Philip  "US,  in  50's,  Knew  North  Korea  Held  American 
P  O.W.'s."  New  York  Times.  17  September  1996,  A1.) 

House  rejects  release  of  preliminary  report  on  House 
Speaker 

The  House  voted — without  debate — against  a  Democratic 
move  to  force  the  ethics  committee  to  make  public  its 
counsel's  preliminary  report  on  charges  against  Speaker 
Newt  Gingnch.  Representative  John  Lewis  (D-GA) 
accused  Republicans  of  a  "systematic,  deliberate  effort  to 
cover  up  this  report  "  (Clymer,  Adam  "House  Rejects  Bid 
to  Force  Release  of  Ethics  Report  on  Gingrich,"  New  York 
Times,  20  September  1996  ) 


Scope  of  Special  Counsel's  report  questioned 

No  findings,  analysis,  conclusions  or  recommendations  are 
included  in  the  document  produced  by  James  Cole,  the 
outside  counsel  hired  by  the  House  Committee  on 
Standards  of  Official  Conduct  (Ethics),  to  investigate  House 
Speaker  Newt  Gingnch  (R-GA).  One  of  the  former  outside 
counsels  who  worked  for  the  House  ethics  committee  on 
prior  cases  was  surprised  at  the  description  of  Cole's 
report.  "It's  very  unusual,"  said  Richard  Phelan,  the 
Chicago  attorney  who  served  as  outside  counsel  in  the 
case  that  resulted  in  the  resignation  of  House  Speaker  Jim 
Wnght  (D-TX).  "I  would  say  that  the  committee  is 
minimizing  [Cole's]  role,"  Phelan  said.  "There  were  no 
such  restrictions  placed  on  my  work.  I  was  able  to  come  to 
conclusions  and  make  recommendations."  (Chappie, 
Damon  "Was  the  Gingrich  Special  Counsel  Limited  in  His 
Probe  of  Speaker?"  Roll  Call,  9  September  1996.) 

Documents  show  U.S.  knew  North  Korea  held 
American  P. O.W.'s 

Recently  declassified  documents  from  the  Dwight  D. 
Eisenhower  Presidential  Library  and  other  government 
depositories  show  that  the  United  States  knew  immediately 
after  the  Korean  War  that  North  Korea  kept  hundreds  of 
American  prisoners  known  to  be  alive  at  the  end  of  the  war. 
The  documents  deepen  the  mystery  over  the  fate  of 
Americans  still  considered  missing  from  the  Korean  War, 
adding  to  growing  speculation  that  Amencan  prisoners 
might  still  be  alive  and  in  custody  there 

In  June  a  Defense  Department  intelligence  analyst 


U.S.  Army  intelligence  manuals  instructed  Latins  on 
coercion 

According  to  a  secret  Defense  Department  summary  of 
intelligence  manuals  compiled  dunng  a  1992  investigation, 
counterintelligence  agents  should  use  "fear,  payment  of 
bounties  for  enemy  dead,  beatings,  false  imprisonment, 
executions  and. ..truth  serum."  Pentagon  documents  show 
that  U.S.  Army  intelligence  manuals  used  to  train  Latin 
American  military  officers  in  Army  school  from  1982  to 
1991  advocated  executions,  torture,  blackmail  and  other 
forms  of  coercion  against  insurgents,  a  violation  of  Army 
policy  and  law  at  the  time  they  were  in  use  The  manuals 
were  used  in  courses  at  the  US  Army's  School  of  the 
Americas,  located  at  Fort  Benning,  GA,  where  nearly 
60,000  military  and  police  officers  from  Latin  American  and 
the  United  States  have  been  trained  since  1946 

The  Defense  Department  said  the  school's  curriculum 
now  includes  mandatory  human  rights  training  "The 
problem  was  discovered  in  1992,  properly  reported  and 
fixed,"  said  Lt  Col  Arne  Owens,  a  Pentagon  spokesman. 
When  reports  of  the  1992  investigation  surfaced  this  year 
during  a  congressional  inquiry  into  the  CIA's  activities  in 
Guatemala,  spokesmen  for  the  school  denied  the  manuals 
advocated  such  extreme  methods  of  operation.  The 
Defense  Department  is  trying  to  collect  the  manuals  but,  as 
the  1992  investigation  noted,  "due  to  incomplete  records, 
retrieval  of  all  copies  is  doubtful "  (Priest,  Dana.  "U.S. 
Instructed  Latins  on  Executions,  Torture,"  Washington 
Post.  21  September  1996,  A1.) 


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Priest  vindicated  by  military's  disclosure 

In  her  column,  Mary  McGrory  describes  how  Father  Roy 
Bourgeois,  a  Maryknoll  priest,  was  imprisoned  for  six 
months  in  the  Atlanta  Federal  Penitentiary  for  leading  a 
nonviolent  civil  disobedience  protest  at  Fort  Benning  Now 
he  believes  he  has  been  vindicated  because  the  Army  has 
finally  admitted  the  existence  of  the  grisly  manuals  used  in 
the  Army's  School  of  the  Americas  The  Freedom  of 
Information  Act  was  used  to  obtain  information  about  the 
manuals  "They  lied,"  fumed  the  priest  over  the  prison 
telephone.  "They  have  kept  on  lying  about  it  as  recently  as 
last  month  In  an  interview  with  the  Columbus  Ledger  \he 
commandant  of  the  school  talked  about  'the  small 
percentage  of  graduates  who  have  done  some  terrible 
things;  we  cannot  take  responsibility  for  those  who  have 
gone  astray.'  He  denied  there  was  a  manual "  (McGrory, 
Mary  "Manuals  for  Murders."  Washington  Post,  26 
September  1996,  A2) 

Six-month  gap  disclosed  in  White  House  logs 

Senate  Republicans  disclosed  there  is  a  six-month  gap  in 
White  House  logs  showing  who  checked  out  confidential 
FBI  background  reports  from  the  Office  of  Personnel 
Security.  The  lapse  began  in  March  1994,  after  an 
investigator  for  the  personnel  office,  Anthony  B.  Marceca, 
stopped  collecting  files  on  hundreds  of  Republicans  from 
the  Reagan  and  Bush  Administrations,  Senator  Orrin 
Hatch  (R-UT),  chair  of  the  Senate  Judiciary  Committee, 
stressed  there  was  still  no  conclusive  evidence  to  show 
whether  the  files  were  used  for  a  "nefarious  purpose  "  The 
White  House  blamed  poor  record  keeping  for  the  gap 
(Lardner,  George.  "GPO  Says  White  House  Logs  on 
Readers  of  FBI  Reports  Have  6-Month  Gap,"  Washington 
Post.  26  September  1996,  A10.) 

OCTOBER 
Gulf  War  combat  logs  fail  to  report  explosions 

An  apparent  gap  in  Gulf  war  combat  logs  that  should  have 
recorded  the  destruction  of  an  Iraqi  ammunition 
bunker — an  incident  that  may  have  exposed  more  than 
15,000  American  troops  to  nerve  gas  and  other  chemical 
weapons — is  being  investigated  by  the  Pentagon. 
Defense  Department  officials  said  that  combat  logs  showed 
a  gap  between  March  3  and  March  12,  1991.  The 
explosions  in  questions  occurred  on  March  4  and  on  March 
10.  The  logs  may  have  been  lost,  destroyed,  or  there  may 
never  have  been  entries  for  that  period,  officials  cautioned. 
GulfWATCH,  a  veterans  group,  got  copies  of  the  logs 
from  the  Pentagon  under  the  Freedom  of  Information  Act, 
and  detected  the  gap.  GulfWATCH  and  other  veterans 
organizations  said  the  gap  is  evidence  that  the  Defense 


Department  has  hidden  information  about  the  exposure  of 
American  troops  to  Iraqi  chemical  weapons  in  the  gulf  war 
and  afterward.  A  Pentagon  spokesman.  Captain  Michael 
Doubleday,  said  "That  absolutely  is  incorrect,"  and  asked 
for  patience  as  the  Pentagon  tried  to  determine  if  American 
troops  had  been  exposed  to  Iraqi  chemicals  (Shenon, 
Philip  "Records  Gap  on  Gulf  War  Under  Scrutiny,"  New 
York  Times,  9  October  1996,  A14  ) 

Government  no  longer  maps  Gulf  Stream  due  to 
budget  cuts 

After  21  years  of  charting  the  position  of  the  Gulf  Stream, 
government  oceanographers  at  the  National  Oceanic  and 
Atmospheric  Administration  have  been  forced  by  budget 
cuts  to  stop  mapping  the  position  of  the  ever-shifting  Gulf 
Stream,  a  swift  current  that  forms  in  the  Caribbean  and 
flows  north  to  Greenland  and  Iceland.  Thousands  of 
fishermen,  researchers,  yachtsmen,  and  freighter  captains 
who  navigated  by  the  government's  thrice-weekly  Gulf 
Stream  charts  will  be  left  to  find  their  own  way  "People  are 
going  to  be  just  a  little  bit  more  unsafe  than  they  were 
before,"  said  oceanographer  Stephen  Baig.  Baig  faxed  the 
Gulf  Stream  charts  for  free  to  anyone  who  asked.  David 
Hendrix  of  Savannah  said,  "It  helps  us  to  decide  in  small 
boats  whether  to  go  out  or  not."  Baig's  maritime  clientele 
had  grown  to  about  10,000  users  a  year — including  NASA, 
which  used  the  service  to  help  recover  space  shuttle 
boosters. 

NOAA,  as  a  matter  of  government  policy,  decided  to 
leave  the  business  to  several  private  companies — mostly 
fishing  forecasters — because  they  provide  some  limited 
Gulf  Stream  charting  by  fax  While  one  government 
agency  may  be  saving  money,  its  action  means  more 
expenses  for  other  public  agencies  that  need  to  know  the 
Gulf  Stream's  location.  The  Coast  Guard,  marine 
researchers,  fishery  analysts  and  hazardous  materials 
experts  must  now  pay  up  to  $50  apiece  for  a  Gulf  Stream 
chart.  "We  don't  really  have  the  money  to  buy  that 
service,"  said  Karen  Steidinger,  a  research  scientist  with 
the  Florida  Marine  Research  Institute  in  St.  Petersburg, 
who  has  relied  on  the  Gulf  Stream  charts  to  help  track  red 
tides  before  they  reach  shore  Bradford  Benggio,  with 
NOAA's  Hazardous  Materials  Response  and  Assessment 
Division,  has  used  the  charts  to  predict  the  course  of  oil 
and  chemical  spills  along  the  eastern  seaboard  "We  had 
so  many  incidents  where  that  information  was  really 
critical,"  he  said.  Now  his  agency  must  use  public  money 
for  private  Gulf  Stream  locators  (Nolin,  Robert  and  Maya 
Bell  "Government  No  Longer  Follows  the  Gulf  Stream," 
Washington  Post.  15  October  1996,  A 13.) 


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U.S.  miljtat7  warned  by  Czechs  of  nerve  gas  detected 
during  the  Gulf  War 

Czech  solders  whose  responsibility  during  the  1991 
Persian  Gulf  war  was  chemical  detection  say  that  American 
military  commanders  were  repeatedly  warned  that  sensitive 
detection  equipment  had  identified  Iraqi  chemical  weapons 
on  the  battlefield — and  that  the  toxins  were  spreading  over 
unprotected  American  troops  Combat  logs  of  officers 
working  for  General  H  Norman  Schwarzkopf  show  that 
Amencan  commanders  ignored  Czech  warnings  that  low 
levels  of  nerve  and  mustard  gas  had  been  detected  in  the 
vicinity  of  American  troops.  The  Defense  Department  was 
informed  after  the  war  that  Czech  soldiers  suffered  from 
many  of  the  same  health  problems  that  have  afflicted  the 
American  veterans,  according  to  former  Czech  military 
officials.  Interviews  with  Czech  officials  raise  new  doubts 
about  public  statements  from  the  Pentagon,  which  has 
been  criticized  over  its  treatment  of  gulf  war  veterans. 
("Czechs  Told  U.S.  They  Detected  Nerve  Gas  During  the 
Gulf  War,"  New  York  Times.  19  October  1996,  A1.) 

Declassifying  documents  delayed  at  the  CIA 

In  1995,  when  President  Clinton  ordered  the  CIA  and  other 
government  agencies  to  release  all  classified  documents 
more  than  25  years  old  (that  would  not  compromise  current 
national  security),  the  files  contained  some  40  million 
pages.  Included  was  the  CIA's  assessment  of  the  vast 
military  research  effort  of  the  former  Soviet  Union.  In  their 
declassification  effort,  the  CIA  decided  to  set  up  a  series  of 
powerful  computer  workstations,  scanners  and  printers. 
Technicians  would  feed  the  pages  into  the  scanners,  while 
retired  CIA  employees,  reading  each  file  on  screen,  would 
electronically  tag  information  that  must  remain  classified, 
such  as  sources  whose  safety  might  be  endangered  if  their 
identity  were  known  A  declassified  version  of  the 
document  would  then  be  pnnted  out  and  made  public. 

The  CIA  was  supposed  to  declassify  9  million  pages  of 
histoncal  documents  this  year,  but  so  far  not  a  single 
document  has  been  released.  Embarrassing  technical 
problems  have  undermined  the  effort  Apparently,  the  CIA 
tried  to  modify  its  existing  software  to  censor  the  sensitive 
passages,  only  to  discover  the  software  was  too  inflexible. 
The  agency  had  to  start  again  from  scratch  with  a  newer 
set  of  commercial  computer  programs.  Mark  Mansfield,  a 
CIA  spokesman,  refused  to  tell  how  much  money  was 
spent  on  the  first  attempt  at  the  project.  The  new  system 
is  scheduled  to  go  into  production  by  March  1997,  but 
some  advisers  are  not  sure  it  will  work  "We  appreciate  the 
CIA  trying  to  figure  out  a  way  to  declassify  a  lot  of  records, 
but  we're  skeptical  as  to  whether  this  is  going  to  work," 
says  Page  Putnam  Miller  of  the  National  Coordinating 


Committee  for  the  Promotion  of  History,  who  is  a  member 
of  a  panel  that  advises  the  CIA  on  declassification  policy. 
(Kiernan,  Vincent  "Why  Cold  War  Secrets  Are  Still  Under 
Wraps,"  New  Scientist.  19  October  1996.) 

Editorial  advocates  resumption  of  crowd  counts 

The  Washington  Post  editorial,  "When  the  Park  Police 
Don't  Count,"  encouraged  the  resumption  of  crowd  counts 
in  major  demonstrations  by  the  Park  Police  When  the 
Park  Police  were  asked  for  a  crowd  estimate  for  the  Latino 
March  in  mid-October,  spokespersons  for  the  National  Park 
Service  said  Congress  prohibited  their  crowd  estimates. 
They  cited  the  latest  appropriations  bill  for  the  Department 
of  the  Interior,  which  stated  that  if  event  organizers  want 
crowd  counts,  they  should  hire  an  outside  agency  The 
issue  drew  attention  after  the  Million  Man  March  After  the 
Park  Police  came  up  with  a  rough  estimate  of  400,000, 
organizers  threatened  to  sue  ("When  the  Park  Police 
Don't  Count"  Wasliington  Post.  20  October  1996  ) 

Former  FBI  aide  pleads  guilty  for  role  in  Ruby  Ridge 

A  senior  official  of  the  FBI,  E  Michael  Kahoe,  agreed  to 
plead  guilty  to  obstruction  of  justice  for  destroying  an 
internal  review  of  the  1992  siege  in  Idaho  known  as  Ruby 
Ridge  The  charge  against  Kahoe  involves  a  review  of  the 
FBI's  actions  at  Ruby  Ridge  that  his  superiors  ordered  him 
to  prepare.  As  Kahoe  and  his  colleagues  completed  the 
review  in  early  1993,  federal  prosecutors  in  Idaho  asked 
the  FBI  to  turn  over  all  papers  it  had  about  the  deadly 
siege.  Kahoe  and  "certain  of  his  superiors  at  F.B.I, 
headquarters,"  who  were  not  identified,  had  resisted  that 
request  according  to  the  criminal  charge.  Court  papers  say 
that  Kahoe  then  withheld  the  internal  review  from  the  Idaho 
prosecutors,  destroyed  his  copies  of  the  review  and 
ordered  a  subordinate  to  destroy  other  copies  to  make  it 
appear  as  if  the  review  had  never  existed  (Labaton, 
Stephen  "FBI  Official  to  Plead  Guilty  to  Destroying  Files  on 
1992  Siege. "Wew  Yorl<  Times,  23  October  1996,  A19.) 

Publisher  puts  Gulf  War  data  on  the  Internet 

Publisher  Bruce  Kletz  of  Insignia  Publishing  made  public 
more  than  300  government  documents  about  Iraqi 
chemical  weapons  removed  from  a  Defense  Department 
Internet  site,  known  as  GulfLINK,  earlier  this  year. 
According  to  the  article,  the  documents  were  removed  from 
the  Defense  site  at  the  request  of  the  CIA  Kletz  posted 
the  documents  on  the  Internet  because  he  believes 
government  leaders  are  "trying  to  hide  the  documents  only 
to  avoid  political  and  personal  embarrassment."  The 
documents  concern  the  release  of  Iraqi  chemical  and 
biological  weapons  near  US.  troops  during  the  1991 


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Persian  Gulf  War.  Kletz  declined  to  tell  the  New  York 
Times  how  he  obtained  the  documents.  ("Civilian  defies 
Pentagon,  puts  Gulf  War  data  on  Internet,"  CNN  31 
October  1996,  http://cnn.com/US/9610/31/gulf.war.reports/ 
index.html)  [Ed  Note:  Soon  after  this  article  appeared,  the 
CIA  announced  that  it  had  restored  hundreds  of  other 
intelligence  reports  to  the  Pentagon's  Internet  site,  known 
as  GulfLINK  (http://www.  dticdla.mil/gulflink/.)  (Shenon, 
Philip.  "CIA  Orders  Inquiry  Into  Charges  of  Chemical  Arms 
Cover-Up,"  New  York  Times,  2  November  1996,  P9.)] 

NOVEMBER 
Advocates  of  less  secrecy  try  to  make  government 
research  available 

Michael  Ravnitzky,  technical  director  of  the  Industrial 
Fabrics  Association  International  in  St.  Paul,  MN,  has  been 
trying  to  pry  information  out  of  the  Defense  Technical 
Information  Center  (DTIC)  in  Alexandria,  VA,  for  the  past 
nine  years.  "Decades  of  work  done  by  the  Defense 
Department  and  its  contractors  in  the  area  of  safety  and 
protective  fabncs  would  be  of  enormous  use  to  our 
industry,"  Ravnitzky  says. 

The  data  could  aid  the  development  of  protective 
clothing,  helping  companies  make  more  fire-resistant  tents, 
sleeping  bags  and  children's  clothing.  Even  defense 
contractors  who  build  supersecret  weapons  systems  urge 
more  openness.  Jack  Gordon  is  the  president  of  Lockheed 
Martin's  famous  Skunk  Works,  which  developed  the  U-2 
spy  plane  and  the  F-1 17  stealth  fighter.  Last  year  he  told 
a  government  commission  that  a  "culture  of  secrecy"  often 
leads  the  military  to  classify  too  much  and  declassify  too 
little.  "The  consequence  of  this  action  directly  relates  to 
added  cost,  affecting  the  bottom  line  of  industry  and 
inflating  procurement  costs  to  the  government,"  he  wrote. 

The  government  is  well  aware  of  the  potential  payoff  in 
declassification  and  less  secrecy.  In  1970  the  Pentagon 
produced  a  study  showing  that  "the  U.S.  lead  in  microwave 
electronics  and  in  computer  technology  was  uniformly  and 
greatly  raised  after  the  decision  in  1946  to  release  the 
results  of  wartime  research  in  these  fields."  The  same 
study  said  an  open  research  policy  also  benefited  nuclear 
reactor  and  transistor  technology  development.  (Dupont, 
Daniel  G.  and  Richard  Lardner.  "Defense  Technology; 
Needles  in  a  Cold  War  Haystack,"  Scientific  American, 
November  1996,  p.  41.) 

U.S.  does  not  participate  in  chemical  arms  treaty 

Hungary  ratified  an  international  treaty  banning  production 
or  use  of  nerve  gas  weapons,  becoming  the  65th  nation  to 
do  so,  and  setting  enforcement  in  motion.  With  Hungary's 
deposit  of  its  ratification   documents  with  the  United 


Nations,  a  six-month  clock  starts  that  will  bring  the 
Chemical  Weapons  Convention  into  force  April  29,  1997. 
Because  the  Senate  has  not  ratified  the  treaty,  the  United 
States  is  precluded  from  participating  in  enforcement 
preparations,  will  have  no  representatives  on  the  treaty's 
executive  council  in  The  Hague,  will  not  be  represented  on 
the  teams  conducting  international  challenge  inspections 
and  will  not  have  access  to  information  those  inspections 
develop.  "If  we  don't  ratify,  we'll  be  the  loser,  because  we'll 
have  to  live  under  an  enforcement  regime  devised  by  other 
countries,"  said  State  Department  Spokesman  Nicholas 
Burns. 

The  United  States  promoted  the  treaty  beginning  in  the 
Reagan  Administration.  The  treaty  has  strong  bipartisan 
support,  but  the  Clinton  Administration  did  little  to  press  for 
ratification  when  Democrats  controlled  the  Senate.  When 
control  of  the  Senate  shifted,  conservative  Republicans, 
including  Majority  Leader  Trent  Lott  (R-MS)  and  Foreign 
Relations  Committee  Chair  Jesse  Helms  (R-NC)  opposed 
ratification,  despite  support  for  the  treaty  from  the 
Pentagon,  the  State  Department  and  the  major  U.S. 
chemical  manufacturers.  (Lippman,  Thomas  W.  "Chemical 
Arms  Treaty  Heads  for  Enactment  Without  U.S. 
Participation,"  Washington  Post,  2  November  1996,  A9.) 

Bosnian  arms  policy  criticized 

The  Senate  intelligence  committee  chticized  the  secrecy  of 
the  Clinton  Administration's  policy  of  turning  a  blind  eye  in 
1994  to  Iranian  weapons  shipments  to  Bosnia's  Muslim 
government.  The  committee  said  that  the  policy  caused 
confusion  among  high-ranking  U.S.  policy  makers  and  kept 
Congress  in  the  dark.  "Very,  very  grave  risks  are  involved 
here  when  you  violate  the  protocol  and  the  standard  rules," 
Committee  Chairman  Senator  Arlen  Specter  (R-PA)  told 
reporters  in  discussing  the  White  House  decision  to  keep 
secret  from  its  allies  a  policy  that,  he  said,  "supported  a 
violation  of  the  U.N.  arms  embargo."  He  also  said,  "There 
are  obvious  penalties  for  misleading  Congress."  At  the  time 
Congress  was  debating  whether  the  United  States  should 
unilaterally  withdraw  from  the  United  Nations  embargo 
without  knowing  of  the  Administration's  actions.  (Pincus, 
Walter.  "Policy  on  Bosnia  Arms  Gets  Mixed  Review," 
Washington  Post,  8  November  1996,  A26.) 

EPA  loses  hundreds  of  confidential  documents 

Confidential  documents  collected  in  1994  and  1995  by  the 
Environmental  Protection  Agency  containing  sensitive  data 
belonging  to  chemical  companies  have  been  lost  by  the 
Environmental  Protection  Agency.  The  200  lost  documents 
may  contain  trade  secrets  that  could  be  worth  millions  to 
the  companies.     Agency  officials  have  no  evidence  the 


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papers  were  stolen,  indicating  that  they  may  have  been 
misplaced  or  destroyed.  EPA  is  conducting  an 
investigation  and  has  tightened  security.  An  internal  memo 
obtained  by  the  Associated  Press  said  the  incident  "Will  be 
an  embarrassment  to  the  agency  which  could  damage  our 
reputation  and  put  into  question,  our  ability  to  handle 
sensitive  information."  The  agency  said  the  missing 
documents  are  not  a  serious  security  breach.  "More  than 
one-half  million  of  these  papers  are  managed  annually  by 
EPA,  and  about  200  may  have  been  misplaced,  most  likely 
within  the  agency,"  said  Lynn  Goldman,  assistant 
administrator  for  prevention,  pesticides  and  toxic 
substances.  ("EPA  Loses  Papers,"  Washington  Post,  14 
November  1996,  A1 9.) 

Compensation  awarded  to  survivors  of  government 
radiation  experiments 

Energy  Secretary  Hazel  O'Leary  said  the  federal 
government  has  agreed  to  pay  $4.8  million  as 
compensation  for  injecting  12  people  with  radioactive 
Plutonium  or  uranium  in  secret  cold  war  experiments.  The 
settlement  is  part  of  a  effort  to  compensate  those  subjected 
to  experiments  carried  out  by  government  doctors, 
scientists  and  military  officials  from  1944  to  1974, 
Secretary  O'Leary  said  government  officials  should  make 
a  commitment  "that  never  again  will  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  perform  tests  on  our  citizens  and  do  so  in 
secrecy."  Soldiers  were  marched  through  nuclear  explosion 
sites,  without  informing  them  of  possible  risks,  while  other 
experiments  involved  injecting  people  with  radioactive 
substances,  again  without  their  knowledge.  (Hilts,  Philip  J. 
"Payments  to  Make  Amends  for  Secret  Tests  of  Radiation," 
New  York  Times,  20  November  1996,  A1.) 

Air  bag  safety  questioned  in  1969 

It  was  not  until  1991  that  the  National  Highway  Traffic 
Safety  Administration  warned  parents  that  children  in  infant 
safety  seats  should  not  be  placed  in  front  of  an  air  bag, 
although  federal  and  auto  industry  officials  suspected  since 
1969  that  air  bags  could  injure  or  kill  some  children  and 
small  adults.  And  it  wasn't  until  late  1995  that  the  agency 
publicly  stated  that  air  bags  could  cause  injuries  and  death. 
According  to  documents  spanning  more  than  20  years  of 
debate  over  air  bags,  the  government  did  not  warn  the 
public  as  it  campaigned  to  win  widespread  public 
acceptance  of  the  devices. 

Until  recently,  when  news  of  fatalities  caused  by  air 
bags  became  widespread,  much  of  the  debate  over  the 
safety  of  the  bags  was  held  behind  closed  doors. 
Lobbyists,  industry  representatives,  consumer  groups, 
insurers   and   the   government  fought   over   proposed 


regulations  governing  their  use  As  the  government 
struggled  to  come  up  with  "passive  restraint"  regulations, 
the  safety  aspects  of  the  proposed  rules  were  stuck  in 
political,  economic  and  marketing  battles  waged  among 
these  same  groups  (Brown,  Warren  and  Cindy  Skrzycki. 
"U.S.  Doubts  on  Air  Bags  Date  to  '69,"  Washington  Post. 
21  November  1996,  A1.) 

Sexual  misconduct  probed  at  Army's  top  levels 

Army  Secretary  Togo  West  has  ordered  an  investigation 
into  the  responsibility  of  those  in  the  chain  of  command  at 
Maryland's  Aberdeen  Proving  Ground  concerning  the 
sexual  abuse  scandal  there.  In  addition,  the  Pentagon  said 
it  does  not  know  how  many  female  service  members  are 
victims  of  sexual  violence  each  year  because  it  does  not 
collect  the  information,  although  a  1988  law  requires  it  to 
do  so.  Some  of  the  services  do  not  keep  centralized 
statistics  on  sexual  crimes  such  as  rape  and  indecent 
assault.  Holly  Hemphill,  a  Washington  attorney  and 
chairwoman  of  a  defense  advisory  panel  on  women  in  the 
armed  services,  said  the  committee  had  tried  many  times 
to  get  the  services  to  give  it  information  on  sexual  violence 
against  female  soldiers  but  "we  kept  getting  the  wrong 
information."  She  said  the  services  collect  statistics  on 
spouse  abuse,  but  not  abuse  of  their  female  members 

Defense  Department  spokesman  Kenneth  Bacon  said 
one  problem  was  that  Congress  had  not  given  the 
department  any  money  to  create  the  new  database. 
Congress,  he  added,  still  had  not  come  up  with  any  new 
funds  "but  basically,  after  this  hadn't  been  done  for  awhile, 
somebody  decided  that  it  was  time  to  do  [it]...."  He  said  the 
directive  was  issued  October  15  The  information  in  the 
new  Defense  Incident  Base  Reporting  System  also  will  be 
shared  with  the  Justice  Department.  Other  federal 
agencies  are  under  the  same  mandate  to  report  crime  in 
their  ranks  to  the  Justice  Department,  but  many  have  not 
complied  either.  Pentagon  officials  noted.  (Priest,  Dana. 
"Army  Probe  to  Focus  on  Top  Levels,"  The  Washington 
Post,  22  November  1996,  A1.) 

DECEMBER 
Public     government    information     increasingly     is 
privatized 

In  an  op-ed  piece,  "When  Public  Business  Goes  Private," 
in  the  December  4  New  York  Times,  Bill  Kovach  warns  that 
watchdog  journalism  is  facing  a  new  and  little-noted 
challenge.  Kovach,  curator  of  the  Nieman  Foundation  at 
Harvard,  describes  how  for-profit  and  nonprofit 
organizations  increasingly  displace  government  agencies 
in  running  public  programs  He  points  out  that  as  tax- 
supported  public  programs  become  pnvatized,  they  may 


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move  largely  outside  the  reach  of  the  press  As  examples, 
he  gives  these: 

•  The  Reporters  Committee  for  Freedom  of  the  Press 
says  that  a  publisher  in  Mississippi  has  exclusive  rights 
to  distribute  and  sell  the  electronic  version  of  the  state's 
laws. 

•  The  National  Technical  Information  Service  grants 
exclusive  nghts  to  private  companies  to  sell  once-public 
data  from  the  National  Institutes  of  Health,  the  Social 
Secunty  Administration  and  the  Federal 
Communications  Commission. 

•  The  Amentech  Corporation  wants  to  acquire  the  nghts 
to  become  the  sole  electronic  source  of  more 
government  information. 

In  addition  to  the  disappearance  of  government  information 
into  private  databases,  still  another  problem  will  result  from 
the  new  welfare  law:  less  information  about  the  allocation 
of  public  funds  will  be  available  Access  to  the  public  and 
the  press  to  this  information  will  depend  on  state  laws  and 
how  each  state  writes  its  welfare  regulations  Private 
contractors  may  take  over  some  state  welfare  programs 
For  example,  in  Texas,  Electronic  Data  Systems,  an 
information  technology  company,  and  Lockheed  Martin,  a 
military  contractor,  are  bidding  to  take  over  the  state's  $563 
million  welfare  program. 

Will  corporate  rights  to  privacy  be  invoked  if  journalists 
tried  to  obtain  information  about  such  operations?  Kovach 
warns  his  colleagues:  "If  these  examples  are  part  of  a 
trend,  then  the  press  and  the  public  are  being  slowly 
blinded.  A  press  dedicated  to  the  watchdog  role  is 
discovering  that  it  lacks  the  tools  to  adequately  monitor 
corporate  managers  of  the  public  weal  Freedom  of 
information  laws. ..do  not  cover  private  businesses." 
(Kovach,  Bill.  "When  Public  Business  Goes  Private,  New 
York  Times.  4  December  1996,  A29.) 

We  cannot  afford  not  to  know  accurate  numbers 

Robert  J  Samuelson,  writing  an  op-ed  piece,  "The 
Squeeze  on  Statistics,"  says  that  accurate  numbers  are 
society's  eyes  and  ears  and  that  we  cannot  afford  not  to 
know  them.  He  says  that  statistics  allow  us  to  judge  the 
economy,  social  conditions  and  government  policies. 
Without  reliable  numbers,  we  cannot  say  how  well — or 
poorly — we  are  doing.  And  the  numbers  do  not  simply 
materialize,  they  must  be  collected,  verified  and  analyzed. 
"It's  exacting,  time-consuming  work  that  Congress  is  slowly 
crippling  by  starving  it  of  money." 

Samuelson  provides  this  example:  This  year,  faced  with 
a  tight  budget,  the  Bureau  of  Economic  Analysis  ended  its 
annual  survey  of  pollution-control  spending  by  business. 
In  1994  (the  survey's  last  year),  companies  spent  $77 


billion  to  control  pollution.  But  in  the  future,  we  won't  know 
exactly  how  much  they're  spending.  Debates  over 
environmental  policy  will  proceed  with  less  information  on 
costs  and  benefits  BEA's  experience  is  typical;  not 
enough  money  is  being  spent  on  statistical  agencies  to 
keep  up.  Between  fiscal  1990  and  1997,  the  BEA 
requested  $36.7  million  for  statistical  improvements.  Of  the 
request.  Congress  approved  only  $6.5  million.  In  five  of 
seven  years,  no  money  at  all  was  approved.  (Samuelson, 
Robert  J.  "The  Squeeze  on  Statistics,"  Washington  Post,  4 
December  1996.) 

Security  clearance  revoked  for  disclosing  secret  to 
Congress 

Departing  CIA  Director  John  Deutch  revoked  the  security 
clearance  of  a  senior  State  Department  official  who 
revealed  a  CIA  secret  to  Senator-elect  Robert  Torricelli  (D- 
NJ)  The  action  effectively  ends  the  government  career  of 
the  official,  Richard  Nuccio,  who  was  the  State 
Department's  envoy  on  peace  talks  between  the 
Guatemalan  military  and  Guatemalan  guerrillas.  Two 
years  ago  Nuccio  discovered  that  a  paid  informer  for  the 
CIA,  a  Guatemalan  colonel,  was  involved  in  the  killing  in 
Guatemala  of  an  American  innkeeper  and  of  a  captured 
Guatemalan  guerrilla  who  was  married  to  an  American 
lawyer.  Convinced  the  CIA  was  covering  up,  and  that 
Congress  had  been  misled  about  what  happened,  he  gave 
this  information  to  Torricelli.  When  Torricelli  told  Ttie  New 
York  Times,  the  disclosure  led  to  the  dismissal  of  several 
CIA  officials  who  had  failed  to  provide  Congress  and  CIA 
headquarters  with  clear  information  about  the  case. 
Reportedly,  Deutch  "felt  that  the  CIA's  absolute  need  to 
protect  the  secret  identities  of  its  informers  outweighed  the 
burden  the  information  had  placed  on  Mr.  Nuccio's 
conscience."  (Weiner,  Tim  "CIA  Chief  Disciplines  Official 
for  Disclosure,"  New  York  Times,  6  December  1996,  A20.) 

FBI  still  does  not  know  who  leaked  Jewell  information 

FBI  Director  Louis  Freeh  acknowledged  to  the  Senate 
Judiciary  Committee  that  Justice  Department  investigators 
have  been  unable  to  find  the  law  enforcement  official  who 
told  reporters  that  security  guard  Richard  Jewell  was  a 
leading  suspect  in  the  bombing  at  the  Summer  Olympic 
Games  in  Atlanta.  In  late  October,  the  Justice  Department 
said  that  Jewell  was  no  longer  a  suspect. 

Senator  Arlen  Specter  (R-PA),  who  chaired  the 
hearing,  suggested  he  might  introduce  legislation  that 
would  make  it  easier  to  prosecute  government  employees 
who  give  confidential  information  to  reporters.  But  Specter 
stressed  "We've  tried  to  make  clear  our  oversight  is  over 
the  federal  government — not  the  media." 


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Freeh  also  disclosed  that  investigators  have  been 
unable  to  identify  the  leaker  who  tipped  reporters  about  the 
pending  arrest  of  Unabomber  suspect  Theodore  Kaczynski 
and  the  planned  search  of  his  Montana  cabin.  (McAllister, 
Bill.  "Probe  Has  Failed  to  Detect  Leaker  in  Jewell  Episode, 
Freeh  Tells  Panel,"  Washington  Post,  20  December  1996, 
A25.) 

independent  panel  finds  incompiete  data  on  nerve  gas 
exposure 

An  independent  panel  of  scientists  from  the  Institute  of 
Defense  Analysis  said  there  is  Pentagon  may  never  be 
able  to  determine  with  any  accuracy  the  number  of  troops 
who  were  exposed  to  chemical  agents  in  the  one  verifiable 
release  known  to  have  occurred  during  the  Persian  Gulf 
War.  The  group  said  there  is  not  enough  reliable  data 
about  the  quantity  of  nerve  gas  released  or  about  weather 
conditions  at  the  time  to  determine  how  many  U.S.  troops 
might  have  been  exposed.  Without  firm  data,  the  Pentagon 
has  nonetheless  estimated  than  20,000  troops  may  have 
been  exposed  in  the  release.  The  Pentagon  is  trying  to 
contact  the  20,000  troops  and  is  encouraging  them  to 
participate  in  a  special  medical  evaluation  program,  which 
so  far  2,000  have  joined.  (Priest,  Dana.  "Data  Lacking  on 
Nerve  Gas  Exposure,"  Washington  Post,  21  December 
1996,  A3.)  [Ed.  Note:  Two  studies  of  Gulf  War  veterans' 
health  published  in  the  New  England  Journal  of  Medicine 
concluded  that  the  health  of  veterans  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
War  has  differed  slightly  from  that  of  other  groups  of 
soldiers,  but  not  in  a  way  that  suggests  a  "mystery  illness" 
is  afflicting  them.  (Brown,  David  and  Bill  McAllister.  "Two 
Studies  Find  No  Gulf  'Mystery  Illness',"  Washington  Post, 
14  November  1996,  A3)] 

i-iouse  Spealcer  admits  to  etiiicai  wrongdoing 

After  more  than  two  years  denying  wrongdoing,  House 
Speaker  Newt  Gingrich  (R-GA)  on  December  21  admitted 
that  he  broke  the  rules  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  "brought  down  on  the  people's  house  a  controversy 
which  could  weaken  the  faith  people  have  in  their 
government."  Responding  to  allegations  of  the  House 
Committee  on  Standards  of  Official  Conduct  (Ethics),  he 
said:  "In  my  name  and  over  my  signature,  inaccurate, 
incomplete  and  unreliable  statements  were  given  to  the 
committee,  but  I  did  not  intend  to  mislead  the  committee." 
Gingrich  admitted  to  the  charges  in  the  House  ethics 
committee's  22-page  "Statement  of  Alleged  Violations",  the 
House  version  of  an  indictment.  It  said  Gingrich  failed  to 


ensure  that  a  college  course  he  taught  and  a  televised 
town  hall  would  not  violate  federal  tax  law.  Both  were 
financed  with  tax  deductible  contributions.  Gingrich's 
admission  does  not  end  the  committee's  investigation  of 
him.  (Yang,  John  E.  "Speaker  Gingrich  Admits  House 
Ethics  Violation,"  Washington  Post,  22  December  1996, 
A1.)  [Ed.  Note:  The  "Statement  of  Alleged  Violation"  and 
the  "Respondent's  Answer  to  Statement  of  Alleged 
Violation"  are  available  from  the  House  Committee  on 
Standards  of  Official  Conduct  (202-225-7103).] 

Democratic  National  Committee  will  allow  access  to 
records 

The  Democratic  National  Committee  (DNC)  said  it  would 
allow  reporters  to  have  access  to  some  3,000  documents 
connected  to  former  political  fundraiser  John  Huang 
shortly  after  it  cut  off  media  access  to  the  documents 
The  reversal  came  after  the  White  House  heard  the  DNC 
had  decided  reporters  had  "ample  opportunity"  to  look  at 
one  set  of  the  records  during  the  10  hours  they  were 
available  DNC  spokeswoman  Amy  Weiss  Tobe  would  not 
comment  on  how  the  decision  was  made  to  shield  the 
records  from  further  media  scrutiny.  (Schmidt,  Susan  and 
Anne  Farris.  "In  Reversal,  DNC  Decides  Not  to  Close 
Records  Connected  to  Huang,"  Washington  Post,  24 
December  1996,  A6.) 

Panel  "shielded  from  all  information"  about  Gingrich 
investigation 

Representative  Jim  McDermott  (D-WA),  senior  Democrat 
on  the  House  Committee  on  Standards  of  Official  Conduct, 
said  that  he  and  five  other  committee  members  were 
"shielded  from  all  information"  while  other  members  of  the 
Committee  worked  with  special  counsel  James  Cole  to 
develop  facts  on  the  complex  financial  transactions  and 
determine  that  there  was  reasonable  cause  to  believe 
Gingrich  violated  House  rules.  "At  this  point,  none  of  the 
six  of  us  is  clear  what  really  occurred  If  there  are  to  be 
public  hearings  before  we  set  the  speaker's  punishment, 
we  have  to  be  prepared  to  ask  intelligent  questions  of  Mr. 
Cole  and  the  speaker's  attorney  and  the  speaker  himself, 
if  he  chooses  to  appear."  McDermott  said  he  had  been  told 
by  another  member  of  the  ethics  committee  that  the  files 
and  notebooks  they  have  to  review  are  "voluminous." 
(Broder,  David  S.  and  Helen  Dewar.  "Swift  Vote  on 
Gingrich  Faces  Hurdle,"  Washington  Post,  30  December 
1996,  A1.) 


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