Slashdot Mirror
Data Quality Act
The New York Times has a heads-up about a little-noticed add-on to a massive appropriations bill, signed into law by Clinton but taking effect in October. The amendment allows anyone to challenge data published by the Federal government and have it changed or deleted. The main proponents of the law are pro-business groups seeking to tie up environmental and similar regulations by challenging the government's data.
AN the easy distribution of data promised by the Internet actually bring the type of scrutiny that ultimately leads to less information being available?
That is the question being raised by a new law called the Data Quality Act, which requires the government to set standards for the accuracy of scientific information used by federal agencies. It is the latest move from Washington highlighting the balance of risks and rewards when disseminating information on the Internet.
The law, which takes full effect on Oct. 1, creates a system under which anyone could point out errors in documents; if an error is confirmed, an agency would have to remove the data from government Web sites and publications.
The Data Quality Act, along with recent efforts by government agencies to scrub their Web sites of information to guard national security, indicate a substantial shift to a more conservative culture of information, said Darrell West, a political scientist at Brown who tracks government information on the Web.
Though the Internet created fewer fortunes than had been expected, it did deliver riches of information, creating an age of government disclosure not seen before. Not so long ago, the mantra was openness; some legislators even scrambled to get lists of campaign contributors into cyberspace where the voters could see.
But that age may be over.
"The open-access people just put things online and worried about the consequences later," Professor West said. "Now we're hitting the consequences."
The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a primary backer of the Data Quality Act, has already started requesting changes in government information that is published in print and online.
This year, the center requested that the United States Global Change Research Program withdraw dissemination of the National Assessment on Climate Change on the basis of "numerous data quality and scientific flaws," according to a letter posted on the group's Web site.
The center also asked the Environmental Protection Agency to modify its Web site on global warming to reflect the scientific uncertainties about global climate change.
William Kelly, western representative for the center, said the poor quality of federal data created problems for everyone who used it, from regulators to consumers.
"With the blossoming of the Internet, it's turned into a huge problem for industry," Mr. Kelly said. "Agencies were encouraged to post virtually everything on the Internet. It wasn't such a problem when people had to go through a Freedom of Information Act request."
Some watchdog groups say that agencies need to create policies on how to treat information on the Internet, arguing that otherwise, haphazard decisions would lead to more restrictions.
"The problem is, it's much easier to make decisions about taking down information," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group in Washington. "The policy seems to be, take everything down, and we'll make decisions later."
Employees of the Interior Department learned the consequences of that approach earlier this year, when a federal judge ordered all the department's computer communications shut because its Web sites were vulnerable to hacking. Agencies fielded complaints from a wide range of people, from those planning vacations to national parks to those seeking the status of bird species. Most of the its Web sites have since been restored.
Removing information from Web sites became more of a government interest after Sept. 11, as agencies took down information they thought might be useful to terrorists.
A nonprofit group in Washington called OMB Watch is trying to assess just how much information agencies removed from public Web sites under the new directives. The group sent requests under the Freedom of Information Act to a dozen agencies in January. So far, only the Environmental Protection Agency has sent back a list.
According to OMB Watch, E.P.A. officials have restored much of the information that they withdrew from its Web sites last fall, including pages dealing with watersheds in New York City and the Envirofacts database, which allows users to retrieve information about air pollution, chemicals at government and business installations, water pollution and grants.
Responses to the group's inquiry indicate that other agencies may have removed a significant amount of information from the Web. The Energy Department, according to OMB Watch, reported that it had stacks of information waiting to be organized before it could be sent.
"We have nothing we can nail them down on, and we have no index of what they had in the past," said Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst with OMB Watch. He said the directives to remove data and the new data-quality guidelines were part of "an overarching mosaic that is about restricting information and removing information from public access."
"Unfortunately," Mr. Moulton said, "Sept. 11 is being utilized as a pivot point for industry to push an agenda they already had."
OMB Watch has advocated creation of an office that would oversee what data agencies publish online and the security measures they use.
But even when done with care for quality and security, publishing on the Internet can still bring unexpected trouble to agencies.
Five years ago, the Social Security Administration set up a service on its Web site that let individuals look up their income histories and check what benefits were available. People had to enter five pieces of information: full name, Social Security number, date of birth, place of birth and mother's maiden name.
"By requiring those five items, we felt that was adequate security. It was addressed," said Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration.
That is more information than most people need now to check their bank accounts online, but the agency received a letter from several senators with concerns that hackers could steal individuals' personal information from the site.
Though no fraud was ever reported, the agency took down the database. Now, Social Security sends earnings records each year by mail.
Gosh, what if the data is wrong or like the case out west, where gov't scientists falsified reports (planted fur from a rare animal on a scratching post) in order to support their environmental aims?
You have accepted the Bush admin spin, oh sorry it was the Clinton whitehouse that did spin, the hero of Air Force One on 9/1 does not spin.
The real difference is that the Kyoto treaty mandates an actual reduction of greenhouse gases of 8% for the biggest polluters - which includes the US which is per capita the biggest polluter of all.
What the Bush admin 'committed' to was to reduce greenhouse emissions per unit of economic output by 7%. Why is this different? Well if we lived in the Victorian age when economic output was output of physical stuff the commitment might mean something. The US economy grew by 3-4% each year under Clinton but the actual manufacturing base was almost unchanged, the economic growth comes in industries that do not produce much in the way of greenhouse gases, mainly IT.
So in fact comparing like for like the EU is cutting emissions by 8% while the Bush admin is allow itself to increase them by 30%. So don't be suprised if the EU say that the US is not doing its share.
It will be interesting to see what the car industry does with this act since the recent increase in US steel tarifs will cost them (and consumers who buy cars) hundreds of millions. The data on which the tarif was justified is pretty flimsy, not all of the US steel industry is having dificulties. The mini-mill manufacturers in the US are as competative as the ones in the EU or anywhere and can sell steel to the auto industry for less than anyone because of shipping costs. The uncompetative steel producers are operating the old integrated plants
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
"After all, those surgeon general warnings are technically government data. . . .and I'm in government service, sorry to say."
.
g /iqg_draft_gu idelines.pdf
I concur in your regret that you're in government service.
First, the Surgeon General's Warning is most certainly NOT government data under the Data Quality law. It is a legally mandated regulatory statement, like the VIN number of your car or the safety warnings on your airbags. There is absolutely no way anyone could challenge those mandates under the Data Quality law, or the OMB Guidelines or Agency Procedures issued in the Federal Register to implement it. To change this a party would need to change Federal laws and regulations, not challenge data.
Everyone is ranting generally about these challenges. The law and the OMB Guidelines and agency procedures will require more than a mere challenge. A request to correct or remove data must be accompanied by a specific explanation of the basis for the challenge and proof that the challenge is legitimate. In other words, a challenger must prove not only that the gov't is wrong, but that s/he is right.
Second, merely stamping a document as "DRAFT" does not automatically exempt it from FOIA. To paraphrase "A whole hell of a lot of court cases have been won and lost" through government folks applying such a simplistic understanding of the FOIA. To be exempt from disclosure, the document generally must be exempt from discovery in litigation - there must be a privilege such as attorney work product, attorney-client privilege or deliberative process privilege. Also, the document must be both "pre-decisional" and "deliberative." This often includes drafts, but not because some functionary simply stamped the document "DRAFT." No wonder no one has faith in the FOIA anymore.
More important, just because a document is exempt doesn't mean it's not "FOIA-able." The FOIA is a *disclosure* law, not a *secrecy* law (i.e. the Privacy Act or the Bank Secrecy Act) - it is intended to encourage disclosure by leaving to the agency's discretion whether to apply the available exemptions. Request whatever you want, the agency is not required to assert an exemption and it is often in the agency's interest to release drafts at some point. LatentIT's agency's practice undermines confidence in the gov't and the FOIA because it is failing to actually consider whether any given document should be disclosed and avoiding the trouble by reflexively stamping it "DRAFT" - that's lazy government at work.
I share many reader's frustration with lawyers and with the government, but being a lawyer and having some small experience with government service, I also know that much of that frustration stems from ill-informed judgments of what lawyers do and how the law works (and is supposed to work). IMHO it is *always* more effective to gripe about the law and the government based on actually reading the law and the procedures rather than react to the media's characterization . .
For the OMB Data Quality Guidelines:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/infore
BTW - the comment period is open through July, make all this back and forth worthwhile - read the proposal and submit some comments "this is exactly what *should* happen."
For good FOIA information:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/