• PC World
• » Tech Industry

WASHINGTON -- Something is missing from government Web sites these days. But no one is sure exactly what.

Seeking to fortify national defense in the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government reevaluated its massive presence on the World Wide Web. But a year later, federal government officials aren't clear on what information remains online, what's been taken off, and whether any of it will ever return.

Observers and experts say the September 11 attacks changed the way the government views online information.

"There's much more tension between open access and national security," says Darrell West, a Brown University professor who tracks e-government. "I think the balance has shifted against putting everything online to trying to make sure that information online isn't used against the United States."

What's Missing

The Web site for Los Alamos National Laboratories, a government-backed nuclear weapons research facility, provides one example. Site visitors can no longer access an entire database of unclassified publications because chunks of it were ruled sensitive to national security.

Laboratory officials say it was simply too difficult to judge which parts of the database should remain online, so the whole source was removed.

"There's just so many documents there that the lab doesn't have the personnel to go through and decide what might be sensitive," says Jim Danneskiold, a Los Alamos spokesperson. "I think it's safe to say that people erred on the side of caution if they erred at all."

As another example, a Department of Energy site about hazardous materials transportation temporarily vanished soon after last year's attacks. The official who oversaw the operation couldn't recall how long the site was down or what, if anything, was changed.

"I don't think there were any big changes," says Bobby Sanchez, program manager. Caches of the page stored by the Internet Archive indicate the site was down for half of October 2001.

Few disagree that the government should restrict information that could jeopardize national security. But West says danger remains of a "swing too far," in which overzealous authorities keep too much information secret.

Who's Watching?

It remains difficult--if not impossible--to determine how aggressively Uncle Sam has retreated from the Internet. No government registry tracks the removals, and consequently no one really knows how much material is no longer available.

Even the Government Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, doesn't know what has been deleted.

"I'm not sure there's any sort of inventory of what's been taken off the Web," says Tony Cicco, GAO chief information officer. The GAO has removed two documents since September 11--one on access to federal buildings, another detailing the mechanism of a 50-caliber rifle.

Staff at the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the White House's information policy, deferred to FirstGov, a federal Web portal managed by the General Services Administration. However, the GSA didn't know who might be watching the changes.

"I don't think there is anyone who's totally tracking agency Web sites," says Eleni Martin, a GSA spokesperson.

Nor are the House and Senate government oversight committees investigating the disappearances. Some spokespeople say such tracking simply isn't practical because government Web sites change so frequently.

"In practice, rightly or wrongly, government Web sites are notoriously unstable," says Steve Aftergood, who directs the project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. Still, Aftergood advocates a registry of federal Web information, along with regulations dictating what information can be removed and when.

"This is one of the policy issues that ought to be addressed," says Aftergood, whose organization urges increased government disclosure. "Right now government on the Web is operating in a policy vacuum."

Volunteer Watchdogs

Without a central government tally of sites yanked in the security push, the burden of tracking changes in e-government likely will fall to the news media and nonprofit organizations, says Brown professor West.

OMBWatch, a government watchdog group, aims to do the job. The group tracks cases of information removal using FOIA requests, anecdotes, and tips to create a list of government materials restricted or removed from the Internet.

"I'm amazed that a nonprofit organization like OMBWatch has become the basis for [reporting] what kind of information was restricted," says Gary Bass, executive director.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is developing an overall policy for handling sensitive information related to homeland security, but after September 11, departments were left to evaluate their online information on their own.

As a result, agencies removed information in a piecemeal and possibly inconsistent fashion, Bass says. What's more, "there doesn't seem to be any policy decision or rationale for putting things back up," Bass adds. In many cases, information removed from the Internet has also been restricted in print, notes GAO's Cicco.

At the National Archives and Records Administration, sensitive materials were pulled from public record in both media, says Steven Tilley, chief of NARA's special access and Freedom of Information Act branch. A request under the Freedom of Information Act would be necessary to attempt to retrieve this information, Tilley adds.

People might be able to get printed copies of documents the GAO removed from the Web, says Jeff Nelligan, spokesperson. But it could be difficult for the public to determine what was missing in the first place.

Temporary or Trend?

Bass and others fear the withdrawal of information is a trend, and claim the current administration is more secretive than the Clinton White House.

They say Attorney General John Ashcroft has urged agencies to deny requests for information, and point to his October 2001 memo describing the administration's stance on freedom of information.

"That's very significant," says Barbara Fought, an associate journalism professor at Syracuse University. "Citizens won't be able to get as much [access] as they could beforehand."

OMBWatch's Bass argues that useful information is withheld. The restricted material could actually create community awareness and thus increase security, he says. "It appears that the administration has the view that access is harmful to homeland security," Bass adds.

But the United Nations recently praised the Bush administration for its online presence, giving the United States top ranking for its e-government efforts.

Bass says the government can allay concerns about yanking online information if it takes inventory of the removed data, then determines and implements a policy on such removal--even restoring some information.

Still, he remains skeptical of such changes. "I don't know if it's ever going to happen," Bass says. "I just don't get a sense of support when these kinds of issue are raised."

• See more like this:
• e-government,
• September 11,
• 9/11,
• 9-11,
• government,
• terrorist,
• Los Alamos National Laboratories,
• Department of Energy,
• Internet Archive,
• Government Accounting Office,
• GAO,
• General Services Administration,
• GSA,
• Federation of American Scientists,
• OMBWatch,
• Office of Management and Budget,
• Freedom of Information Act,
• FOIA,
• National Archives,
• Records Administration