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ABC NewsUnclassified Documents Still Missing From Web, Critics ComplainWhile watchdog groups have hailed President Barack Obama's moves towards greater government openness, millions of bytes of once-public government data have yet to be returned to the Internet after being removed during post-9/11 security efforts.
Unclassified military after-action reports, an FAA database of enforcement actions against flight personnel, pipeline mapping data the Bush administration removed these and many other government resources from the Web after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, amid fears that terrorists might find information there to help devise future attacks against the United States.
"I think most of the removals were probably performed in good faith," said Steven Aftergood, whose Project on Government Secrecy tracks such issues at the Federation of American Scientists. "It's now clear that kind of secrecy does not serve us well. . . but the pendulum has not yet swung back."
"To my memory, there was no document, no database. . . that was taken down that shouldn't be made publicly available," said Gary Bass, executive director of the DC-based nonpartisan OMBWatch. His group in 2005 attempted to compile a list of once-public information sources that the government had removed following the 9/11 attacks.
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The White House did not respond with comment for this story. Obama has announced plans for an Open Government Directive, which will direct government offices to take "specific actions" towards openness. Insiders say the directive could include steps that would help reverse the post-9/11 moves to secrecy.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7496067&page=1
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