Privatization Limiting Access To Information

Knutsi sends us to the Federation of American Scientists' blog Secrecy News for a post on how privatization can affect access to research material. The blog tells how a Harvard researcher on the history of nuclear secrecy was denied access that would have been granted in the past. Some followup is in the comments to this reposting of the FAS story. "Los Alamos National Laboratory will no longer permit historians and other researchers to have access to its archival records because Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the private contractor that now operates the Lab, says it has 'no policy in place' that would allow such access."

Comments

If research is or was

[rockclimber]

funded by public money, there should always be public access.

Re:If research is or was

[Vicissidude]

It's not entirely clear whether this is the contractor doing this on its own initiative, or, more likely, the contractor legitimately concerned about being accused by the government of giving someone improper access. So, LANS seems to be playing it safe by directing everyone to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) which is of course all but useless for students and many archival researchers.

The researchers had access before the privatization of the lab. This whole article is the result of the privatization stopping the flow of information, which had normally been filled without FOIA requests up until this time. Presumably, the government would not care since they previously released this information when they ran this lab. This would not be a big deal otherwise.

A very unfortunate state of affairs, but I'm not certain privatization is exactly what's to blame.

Interesting that people will not hesitate to call government bureaucracy for what it is. But, when the same thing happens in the private sector, people excuse the behavior.

This is corporate bureaucracy.

Libertarians like to point out all the positives of privatization without going into the negatives. Here is one glowing example. The bureaucracy is now worse under corporate operation because the private businesses don't have to follow the same laws as the government. More than likely, we're also paying more money as well. At least government limits the amount that executives are compensated.

Re:If research is or was

[OnlineAlias]

I work as a government contractor in a similar situation. All I can say is that "we" as contractors don't have any data. The data is still the government's, and we do whatever they say to do with it. I suspect what is going on here is that the guys overseeing the contract itself are ducking and not doing their jobs, as it is easier just to say the government doesn't have control over the data anymore. Fact is, the government still has the obligation to manage the data, they are just lazy and are putting their jobs off on the contractor.

It is not possible for the government to contract out government policy, as hard as they may try.

In ...

[Xiph]

In fascist America, the company owns you (and your government)

This was to be expected.

[Wizard052]

Now it's all about policy and bottom line. That's privatisation for you. It works wonders with inefficient utilities and such but this? By placing such restrictions, they are nipping the very root from which such institutions begin.

Open Source

[hoojus]

As a researcher in trying to integrate knowledge I find this more and more dissapointing. Where the research community is advocating a share model, companies like this come along and remove information from the public domain.
This introduces difficulty as a researcher as this is now a void over which we need jump in order to create new knowledge. As more and more companies become contractors for the government it will ensure that not only researchers but the public will have to pay for information which may be necessary for the growth and understanding of the community as a whole.
It is time for the government to realise that the public should come first and ensure that these types of restrictions do not occur in the future and if possible to revoke those that have already occured.

Mini Dark Age

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

As a researcher, I can tell you flat out that the privatisation of information is putting up serious barrier to the work I do. Aside from prohibitively high prices on journal papers, etc, many old papers, experiments and historical documents are under lock and key, with the private companies that hold onto them totally unwilling to go to the (minor) expense of open up their archives. Such papers have effectively dropped off the face of the earth, and when those companies go under or dissolve or simply move headquarters, it's likely that the papers will in truth become lost forever.

Try to find scientific articles or papers before about 1960. It's a nightmare. Aside from paying about $50-60 if you do find anything, finding it will be a challenge. Go back to the 50's and you're in trouble. The 40's is pretty bleak. You can find more papers on ancient Egypt than you can from the 1930's.

It's possible that you can find old articles in Libraries, if you're willing to try about a dozen libraries. But many libraries are "downsizing" their paper collections(for financial reasons brought on by high journal prices). You can try an inter library loan but there are incredibly stringent copyright signoffs for every single item.

Books are not so bad. Libraries usually have good collections, and book publishers don't seem to be as rabidly concerned with copyright as journal publishers. If the material you want is in a book, you're OK. The book can have been published in 1700 and you'll still be able to find a copy relatively easily, and cheaply. Paper's from the 1700's, except seminal ones, probably have all been lost by now.

Private companies cannot be trusted to archive material. I really cannot put it plainer than that. If we place our scientific data, history and writings in the hands of private industry future generations will speak of a "Dark Age" in the 20th century, where apparently a lot was accomplished, but there will simply be no record of it. Our books aren't getting burned, they're getting privatised, a much surer method of destruction.

Re:Mini Dark Age

[alphamugwump]

Damn right. If data is too difficult to access, it's the same as if it didn't exist. The Ark of the Covenant might really be stored in some government warehouse, and it wouldn't make a difference. To be easily accessible, data must be indexed, redundant, and digital. Which, practically speaking, means it must be on the internet. You might have some nifty search routines, but I guarantee they're not half as good as google. This is my problem whenever I try to search an academic database: their search sucks. Even if you have a general idea of the title, an article can still be hard to find.

But more frightening is the rapid obsolescence of the physical medium. If you can't read the data, it also does you no good. Example: my parents recently mailed me a VHS tape. I don't have a VCR. Nobody I know has a VCR. My parents have a VCR. But when it breaks, there won't be any VCR repairmen left to fix it, or any companies making VCRs. They might be able to find something on ebay, but it would be a collector's item.

What happens when all those microfilm readers break? Do you order a device custom-built to read your data? No, as important as it may be, it probably isn't worth it. That data is effectively gone. Every time there is an article about archival on Slashdot, someone mentions how durable paper is. Of course, stone is even more durable, but it has massive problems with storage density. And of course, there's the fact that nobody will know how to read your runes in a couple hundred years. Hell, a hundred years from now, we'll probably be plugging ethernet into our skulls. We probably won't be able to read anymore.

Funny thing is, we (or my generation, anyway) like to think that the internet has always existed, and that every scrap of human knowledge is in there somewhere. It feels big, nebulous, and immortal. But try searching for things that happened before, say, 1995. Not big things, like wars and shootings. Try googling your grandparents. Or minor news, like some school being opened, or old radio shows, or something.

It won't be there. And your radio station or newspaper isn't about to digitize all their archives, if they still have them. In theory, there's a record, but in practice, it never happened. Written history has given way to "internet history", just as the oral tradition gave way to written history. And it's like we're not writing down the Odyssey because the Bards Association of America will sue us if we do. So only information worth risking a DMCA is getting saved.

Thus, Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons from the 60s are easily available. But the news? You're pretty much out of luck.

Titanic

[Morosoph]

Yeah, Iceberg; it's such a giveaway!

Re:Problem with Privacy

[pionzypher]

First off, I agree with you on your last point. There is certain knowledge that shouldn't be publicly available to everyone.

That said, the constitution doesn't mention a right to privacy because the constitution was created to spell out the limited rights granted to the government. During its creation, this was clearly understood by those in participation. This is why the bill of rights was written later- the governmental powers were quite limited in scope at the outset and it was assumed that all else was in favor of the citizens.

Some of the founders believed that there might be confusion regarding this, hence the bill of rights. Which brings us to amendments 9 & 10. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. and The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.. Thus, since it isn't written anywhere in the constitution nor in any of the amendments that americans do not have a right to privacy, we the citizens retain that right by omission.

I also disagree with the founding fathers finding our expectation to privacy laughable. They were attempting to crawl out from under the thumb of the british empire. In fact, it would appear to me that the early workings of the government suggest that the attitude was more of a "to each his own" style. As you yourself stated "We in America are guaranteed our right to live the way we want as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's rights or on mutually agreed upon laws."

Finally, I disagree partially with your suggestion that the government has its own right to privacy. Public office? Funded by taxpayers? Not a private citizen? The government was intended to work for and in a sense be monitored by the citizens. Representation, accountability, those were what we were shooting for back then. Privatization and the ensuing loss/lockup of what was previously not public, but available to those with clearance doesn't promote any of these things.