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Censorship Your Rights Online

Libraries Asked To Destroy Reports, Databases 675

Posted by timothy from the we-never-said-that dept.
unix guy writes: "Our good friends and protectors in the U.S. Gov't have decided that what we used to know we can't know any longer. This LA Times story talks about libraries being ordered to destroy existing government reports and data sources in the name of homeland security." Is it really a fair trade to give up readily-available information about "airports, water treatment plants, nuclear reactors and more"?
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Libraries Asked To Destroy Reports, Databases More

Libraries Asked To Destroy Reports, Databases

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  • nothing new here (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Xross_Ied ( 224893 )
    trust us you don't need to know this stuff.

    welcome to the united police state of america

  • This is absurd. (Score:5, Informative)

    by trilucid ( 515316 ) <pparadis@havensystems.net> on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:22PM (#2582238) Homepage Journal

    If the damned terrorists want to know all about our nation's infrastructure, the information is readily available in A LOT OF PLACES, not all under government control. The ways of getting at such data are simply innumerable.

    This is wrong, and yes, I'm going to mention 1984 here. How much closer do we have to get? The government is, in effect if not by intent, enforcing the concept of revisionist history. I don't pretend to understand how to deal with our current problems (here in the U.S.), but this isn't the way.

    Maybe it's time to really step up efforts to archive data in places out of the reach of such efforts. Data warehousing might be what saves us in the future from this sort of insanity. Yes, it would have to have significant funding to work, but that funding could come from anywhere, anonymously if necessary. I for one would contribute.

    Of course, even given that, the government would no doubt make accessible such digital troves illegal at some point, potentially classifying the very action of such access as "terrorist in nature".

    Nobody is going to tell me I can't access public domain information and knowledge. No matter what, people will find a way. Sorry about the rambling here, this just pisses me off.

    Web hosting by geeks, for geeks. Now starting at $4/month (USD)! [trilucid.com]
    Yes, this is my protest to the sig char limit :).

    • Re:This is absurd. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hobaird ( 20269 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:25PM (#2582252)
      We have always been at war with Afghanistan. We have always been allies with Russia.

      • Wow, Orwell couldn't have said it better. The implications here are quite frightening. Our (U.S.) government has taken the current situation as a green light to go on the offensive against a whole host of civil liberties and freedoms, and this is just "another brick in the wall" (gratuitous Floyd reference).

        You know, growing up, I told myself I'd never need to own a firearm. I'm sad to say my view on that has changed recently. The most disturbing thing is the possibility that before long, we'll have a hard time deciding who's doing us the most damage: (1) evil people who terrorize our nation and others, or (2) governments that poison the minds of our children.

        Web hosting by geeks, for geeks. Now starting at $4/month (USD)! [trilucid.com]
        Yes, this is my protest to the sig char limit :).

    • I disagree. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by FallLine ( 12211 )
      While it is true that the terrorists may be able to access particular information if they try hard enough, there is a lot to be said for making sensitive and detailed information harder to get to. For instance:

      A) By making each piece of sensitive information harder to get to, you make it exponentially more time consuming to query FROM vast realms of it. e.g., if the terrorists wanted to know the exact engineering specifications used for all the nuclear plants around the country to look for a particularly weak design.

      B) By making information harder to come by, we can up the ante by forcing the terrorists as a GROUP, to become more sophisticated/educated. e.g., the size of the effort rules out the few top level people, but the scope/difficult rules out the average ignorant terrorist.

      C) By making information harder to come by, we can make the act of looking for that information much riskier. For instance, rather than merely having to go online or to any public library (anonymously), they must go to a few enumerated locations and risk being spotted and/or creating a trail after the fact.

      D) By clamping the flow of information, we can force the terrorists to work with far many more unknowns.

      Lastly, these various elements play off each other greatly. Just as widespread efficiencies in capitalist markets have allowed for expontentially more efficient production, so to can this widespread "inefficiency" make it vastly harder for the terrorists to get _all_ the intelligence that they need.

      The Press uses your same argument in defence of some of their more questionable publications. Besides being a disingenious assertion, it very much under-estimates the value of good intelligence. Intelligence is even more important for the terrorists in many ways, because they need to make their relatively few resources stretch much further. The further they stretch, the more they expose themselves and the fewer manhours they can devote to actual acts of terrorism.

      Btw, I would not at all be surprised, for instance, if Saddam Hussain got more worthwhile intelligence from the likes of CNN (e.g., troup movements, morale, technology, etc) in the comfort of his bedroom than he did from his entire intelligence service during the Gulf War. The Press can use their apparent legitimacy to get DIRECT, NEAR REAL TIME, and RISKLESS (for the enemy) access to top level officials; whereas with proper controls in place this kind of intelligence would require a capable intelligence agency with significant resources.

      • Re:I disagree. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 1010011010 ( 53039 )
        Well, shit, you're right.

        I'll put my rights in a #10 envelope and send them right off to Ashcroft.

        I'm so much happier now! That Guy Montag is an asshole. I'm glad they got him.

        • Re:I disagree. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by FallLine ( 12211 )
          Your rights? Is it your right, for instance, to know the exact path and time of the Presidents limo for the next year? How about its weaknesses?

          Can you at least admit the possibility that some information is a FAR greater threat to our collective rights than its absence? It's not at all a stretch to assert that this kind of information exists, even the most brazen free speech advocates have seen the wisdom of moderation of some restrictions during times of war and in other cases.

          We limit your right to yell fire. We limit commercial speech. We limit your right to speak intentional lies about people (e.g., slander/libel laws). All are generally recognized to be in the public's best interest. Why is it any less legitimate to not allow the public 100% free and open access to sensitive and detailed information? Many of the supposed harms inflicted by these acts are not necessarily harms at all. For instance, I've heard the argument that students of engineering need to know the principles involved in building a dam. Fine, but they don't need to know exactly the structural weaknesses of particular sites, or who would die if it were, or the schedules of security. Their needs can be met without significantly putting the public at threat. Where there is significant intersection, it's at least reasonable to put some controls on that information.

          If you have particular grievances, fine, then enumerate them. You're reacting to one extreme (e.g., the scenario depicted in F451) by going to another extreme. It may be true that some legitimate information may be temporarily unavailable, but it may require substantial time to sort through all of it to make those distinctions, in the mean time, terrorists can have their way with us. Cost/Risk vs Benefit...it simply doesn't compute with the vast majority of the information listed.
      • Law does not prevent crime. There is a reason for this, namely, because laws are absurdly easy to disobey. So easy, in fact, that you and I probably break laws every day, most of which we're not even aware of.

        To counterbalance this, laws have to be crafted to make them impossible to disobey. For example, rather than saying "action x is prohibited" (which anyone can do) you say "action x is punishable by sentence y" (which then leaves the matter to the courts to obey or disobey, and obeying the law is basically what courts do, so you're safe).

        If you want to prevent crime, there is only one way: education, not legislation. And even this will fail sometimes. That is something a free society must accept; sometimes the bad guy will get away with crimes, but this is worth it if the innocent remain free because of it.

        All governmental actions like this do is keep the information out of the hands of innocent, law-abiding citizens who have legitimate reasons (or at least non-malicious ones) for not wanting the data. Criminals will get whatever it is they want, no matter what you do, so the difference that these orders make is negligible at best.

  • Sad... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bluephone ( 200451 ) <grey@nOspAm.burntelectrons.org> on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:26PM (#2582256) Homepage Journal
    The free and legal exchange of information we need as citizens is slowly being eroded by pinheads in Washington. What scares me more and more is that this information is being taken from us NOT by people we elected, but people who were appointed, and I don't just mean Tom Ridge. For a moment I was glad that my state no longer had him as Governor, then I realized how much more damage he can do at a national level.

    Tom Ridge also has a history of denying information to his citizens. As the former governor of PA, he made it illegal to have cellular phone programming information if you were not directly related to a cellular company, whether a seller of phones, repair shop, etc. The Black Crawling Systems BBS archives formerly for sale by l0pht could not be sent to PA because of my wonderful unconstitutional legislature and governor. I fear what else Tom Ridge will try to take away.

    • Re:Sad... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by istartedi ( 132515 )

      Sheesh... what a pity you can't clone phones and steal service anymore. That was no different than saying that it is illegal to duplicate a skeleton key. If you've ever seen such a key, you might notice something on the key that says to the locksmith, effectively "don't duplicate this key or you could get in trouble".

      The main problem with this kind of stuff is that the hacker's legitimate rights to experiment are running afoul of the need to translate the physical lock and key into the "virtual" realm. If hackers had a clue, they would have lobbied for something like a "student locksmith license" with a nominal fee and ethical guidelines as to how it could be used.

      Instead they elevate their base desires to moral posturing and attempt to wrap themselves in the 1st ammendment. They refuse to recognize the need for people to protect their services; refuse to work with the authorities and insist on working against them. It's no wonder they get no respect.

  • This is the most upsetting story I've ever read on Slashdot; it reminds of Fahrenheit 451.

    Please, citizens of the US, stop your government before it's too late.

    • This is the most upsetting story I've ever read on Slashdot; it reminds of Fahrenheit 451.

      Please, citizens of the US, stop your government before it's too late.

      We can't. Akira's forgotten to take his drugs again.

    • I just finished reading Farenheit 451 again.

      For those of you who have not read it or do not remember, it is set in Future America where the "firemen" destroy books and control access to information. How did it get to be that way? Bit by bit -- incremental removal of information that offends some minority, is "dangerous," etc. Posessing and/or distributing proscribed information meant that you were an enemy of the state.

      The U.S. remains a powerful, but insular, nation in this future. And it has plenty of enemies. The government is apparently making war -- on who, and why, people don't know. But citizens are drafted to fight in it.

      It's not clear that the U.S. wins the war.

      Everyone should read FH451. The author's not in the back was very interesting as well, talking about censorship of his works, FH451 even, by publishers. Including in textbooks which include his works.

      His book, and afternote, reminded me of the "DVD censorship" software /. mentioned recently. On CNN a few days ago I saw that a group of biblethumpers had planned to burn six copies of Harry Potter because it mentions witchcraft. The local (Texas) law officials denied them the request, so they had to make do with shredding the books publically. I wish I had been there -- I would have started tossing bibles in the fire, or shredder, to make a point.

      Everyone please go read FH451, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. Read a little Medieval history; the Church (the also the state) caused the Dark Ages! It burned books, burned heretics, and controlled information. Irish heretics preserved the old works, which allowed the Renaissance and Enlightenment to happen. Not coincidentally, the power and influence of the Church dropped and Western Civilization was reborn and the enlightenment and science progressed.

      The authors and backers of the DMCA, SSSCA, and similar laws, and the "copyright holders" who wish to further erode the Public Domain, are of a kindred spirit with the Firemen in Farenheit 451 -- limit information, but include lots of commercials! Be a good little citizen.

      Someone please dig up the Founding Fathers.
      • How did it get to be that way? Bit by bit -- incremental removal of information that offends some minority, is "dangerous," etc. Posessing and/or distributing proscribed information meant that you were an enemy of the state.

        Can it actually work this way? Since the invention of the printing press, I can't recall a single instance in which society allowed itself to be censored into ignorance by the existing govenrment. There have been numerous cases where a revolution has led to information censoring and revisionist history. New leaders and new power structures may seek to control the flow and dissemination of information, but they tend to do so in broad and blunt strokes.

        I tend to doubt that the genie of information can ever be substantially eroded by anything short of revolution. This seems to be true to an especially high degree in America where citizens often believe in their right to free information to a higher degree than anywhere else on earth.

    • This is the most upsetting story I've ever read on Slashdot; it reminds of Fahrenheit 451.

      Please, citizens of the US, stop your government before it's too late.

      (bleh. I was so shocked that a nation of freedom could do such a thing that I screwed up my analogy and forgot about the preview button.)

      We can't. Tetsuo forgot to take his pills again.

      I don't think that I'll ever forget that scene from Akira where Tetsuo loses control of his powers. This is what's happening: our government is trying to control a power it never should have had in the first place: censorship. It never was designed to have that power. Now, because the people share the sentiment of censorship, the whole thing is mutating out of control. There's nothing we can do about it, even if we wanted to.

      It already is too late.

    • I'm going to have to read Fahrenheit 451. From the excerpts I've read here and elsewhere it sounds omniously scary.

      Please, citizens of the US, stop your government before it's too late.

      I normally don't push libertarianism in this forum, other than via my sig, but this is getting way out of control. If we want to do something about this long-term we need to work on getting people in office which share our ideals.

      After being fed up the last presidential election with the Republicrats, I decided to go out and look at the different parties. After much searching I discovered the Libertarian party.

      Without going into a long post about their ideals, I'll just summarize by saying I hear a large portion of the vocal slashdot community spouting those ideals. Perhaps the most relevant portion of their platform to this discussion is this:

      We oppose any abridgment of the freedom of speech through government censorship, regulation or control of communications media...

      I'll spew one or more two references and then shut up. If you'd like to figure out where your views really fit in with politics, the libertarian party has The World's Smallest Political Quiz [lp.org] which is a set of ten questions which will rank you into which area you best fit.

      For more info on the Libertarian party, click on the link in my sig...

    • Yeah seriously..

      "Let's make LIBRARIANS destroy this information for us! Hey, come to think of it, they have records of who's checked out various books, don't they? Let's make all librarians federal employees and give them powers to go to people's homes and destroy any copies of information which has been withdrawn! Who better to do it?"

      Actually, I was reminded of a SF author's work as well, but it wasn't Bradbury- it was Asimov. Remember that bit in the Foundation trilogy where Hober Mallow's just learned a spy^H^H^Hmissionary has been let onto his ship? And he relieves the guy of duty immediately- and what he says about that?

      "There's no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I'll have it in the face of death, or it's useless."

      What use is freedom that only works under ideal circumstances? What good are rights that only apply if you won't use them? We ARE looking at freedom in the face of death- as we learned painfully. Unfortunately it seems like a lot of people instantly conclude, "Oh- never mind!" and only gave a rat's ass for their freedom and rights so long as nobody was getting hurt. It doesn't work like that. We need to embrace our freedoms MORE in the face of death- they are all that separate us from the Taliban itself.

      Yes, this is a US citizen saying this. Sorry, but I'm a stranger here myself... do you really think we are in control here?

  • What's the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by statusbar ( 314703 ) <jeffk@statusbar.com> on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:31PM (#2582274) Homepage Journal
    All a person REALLY needs in life is McDonalds, Music, Movies, Sports and Religous Dogma.

    It is dangerous to give people Education, Information and Freedom. After all, they might be terrorists like the evil Taliban who refuse to give their citizens Education, Information and Freedom.

    Hey, did anyone watch the debate a couple of weeks ago on CNN where they discussed giving U.S. federal agents the right to use torture?

    Get ready for the future: it is murder - leonard cohen

  • Good grief... calm down (Score:3, Insightful)

    by imrdkl ( 302224 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:46PM (#2582329) Homepage Journal
    People, this is about not being quite so liberal with the plans for our US infrastructure. Note the article says that the information was "yanked", and not destroyed.

    I argue it never should have been so carelessly deployed in the first place. The hype and the rush to make information available on the web could have been more carefully evaluated, especially by the holders of the plans. Not just plans to dams and waterways, either. Now it's deployment-readiness is being re-evaluated. I doubt it's much more than that.

    It is time for our government to introduce the same amount of security that we've been deploying on company webservers and mail systems for years.

    I dont believe for a second that this information will now not be inaccessible to someone who is interested for any non-deadly reason.

    I believe in Librarians too much for that.

    • Re:Good grief... calm down (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @08:08PM (#2582404) Homepage
      carelessly deployed?

      I'm sorry but information on how to design a water filtration plant should be public knowlege and should be a required class for high school kids. Designs and research on civil engineering projects is a vital and valuable resource to engineers, scientists, and the members of the public that have brains that are consisted of something other than jello.

      The only way to breed the geniuses for the next decade is to give them complete access to how things were done and accomplished. Yes studying the plans for the Hoover Dam will teach a student far better than point to a picture and this is a dam, it holds back water... mmmm kay?

      Our society is content with breeding morons and holds contempt against anyone that has an interest or knowlege above the "norm"

      Yes, I know how a nuclear bomb works, but there is no way in hell anyone with just the raw materials can build one. and any of these over-hyped "terrorists" could never accomplish it.

      All they were able to do was crash a few planes, devastating as it was, it's not rocket science.

      Yes I demand access to all that science has to offer. I demand access to microbiological research. and I demand access to chemical research... I demand access to engineering and civil design research.

      and sadly, being a scientist (anyone interested in science is a scientist so bug off phd weenies) I'll probably be among the first targetted by my own government in the name of security.

    • Have to go to China now (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mandelbrute ( 308591 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @08:09PM (#2582410)
      Now if I want to find out about US nuclear engineering I'll have to go to China and read their copy.

      If I want to find out about US weapons I'll have to get a brochure from the manufacturer, or ask military in another country about how they perform in combat conditions (I'll just need to go to Latin America).

      Seriously, any street map or telephone book has military value, but that is no reason to go overboard and ban them. If information is only a tool of the state, the state will soon run out of people that can use information.

    • The article clearly says that the information is being destroyed:

      Some librarians asked if they could simply pull the CD from shelves and put it in a secure place, but federal officials told them it had to be destroyed.

      You also wrote:

      I argue it never should have been so carelessly deployed in the first place. The hype and the rush to make information available on the web could have been more carefully evaluated, especially by the holders of the plans. Not just plans to dams and waterways, either. Now it's deployment-readiness is being re-evaluated. I doubt it's much more than that.

      I can't think of information that would be of more public interest than whether my community is at risk from a poorly built chemical plant, from an ill-placed dam, or whether a watershed or water supply is at risk from logging or contamination.

      Your view is the traditional "security through obscurity". It doesn't work: it only puts people at risk from accidents and exploitation. Vulnerabilities need to be corrected, not hidden, no matter how inconvenient that may be for industry or the government. A smart terrorist has lots of time on his hands and doesn't need the library to figure this stuff out for one target; the people who need that information are environmentalists and citizens, who cannot devote their whole lives to this stuff but still want to protect and create livable and safe communities everywhere.

      • Your view is the traditional "security through obscurity". It doesn't work...

        Previous post:

        It is time for our government to introduce the same amount of security that we've been deploying on company webservers and mail systems for years.

        Of course this guy wants security through obscurity -- look at how well it worked with "I love you," "Red Alert," "sadmind," et cetera!! Since companies do so well with their "security," why shouldn't the government emulate that?

        What'samaddayou, you some kinda think-nik? Don't worry, the "Peace Police" will be 'round shortly to round you up.

  • the RPG called the morrow project?

    Everything happening parallels the prologue of the morrow project awefully closely... Governments destroying knowlege databases and books, and controlling access to information in the name of security.

    I urge many of you to start an information cache. If you must, bury PVC vaults with information in them in safe locations (Geocaches)

    Myself? I have all of my water filtration information from when I ran a water planet 3 years ago.. I have all of the theory, chemistry, microbiological and design information. (Heck I think i even have a copy of the plant's bleprints from 1929 and the revisions from 1978.)

    Whats next? ban chemistry and chemistry information for the safety of the country?.. Outlaw science outside sanctioned government departments?

  • Urban Exploration (Score:2, Interesting)

    by wormyguy1 ( 266395 )
    About two years ago, I became really interested in urban exploration (exploring storm drain tunnels, etc). While I never actually went down in a drain (maybe some day), I remember going to city hall and spending some 5 bucks for gigantic plotted maps of the city storm drain and sewer system. The guy behind the counter in the engineering department gave me a few weird looks as to why I would need these maps and information, but legally he had to do so for various reasons, one of them being that I'm paying for these systems to be maintained with my tax dollars, I have a right to know about them. I think some of the more libral libraries might still give out this information, I have a hard time believing any library taking the US gov't seriously about this.

  • Is scientific information next? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mj6798 ( 514047 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:54PM (#2582355)
    Many of the books on the shelves at libraries are probably much more "dangerous" than those government reports. Standard textbooks and research papers contain information about how to create dangerous chemicals and organisms, how to protect yourself during laboratory work, and how such dangerous chemicals and organisms can be dispersed. Of course, those textbooks don't talk about terrorism or warfare, they talk about agriculture, organic chemistry, and molecular biology.

    At the end of this path is a society in which a few, carefully screened individuals have all the knowledge and the rest of the population lives in ignorance. In fact, throughout history, we have had societies like that. The "knowledge elite", of course, derives lots of power and wealth from their knowledge and soon dispenses with the need to consider input from the masses, who don't know what's going on anyway.

    It is up to us in a democratic society to decide how far we want to go down that path. At least we still have the choice for now--once we are too far down that path, democracy inevitably disappears, since you can't make informed political decisions if you don't have information.

  • This has been going on for *years*... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ed Bailey ( 1912 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @07:56PM (#2582359) Homepage
    Way back about 20 years ago when I was entering the World of Work(tm) I worked at a university, in their data center. A prof was doing research on the state of bridges in Connecticut (there had been a recent high-profile bridge failure in the state).

    Anyway, he got a data tape from either the state or federal government (I don't recall which) of a bunch of bridge-related information. It was my job to pull the data from the tape, and do some initial checking to make sure we read the data correctly. In order to make sure everything looked OK, the tape came with a record definition, showing each field in the record, its size, and the type of data it contained.

    The interesting thing was that two fields were listed in the record definition, but were zero'ed out on the tape -- the latitude and longitude of each bridge. It turned out that the agency responsible for the data would not release that one datum; the concern was that the data could be militarily significant in time of war.

    So making data harder to find in the name of homeland security is nothing all that new...

    Ed

  • They should publicly burn [historyplace.com] those documents. It's the only way to be sure.

  • Sorry Mr. Ridge. There is this invention called the Google Cache. A new terrorist tool used to defeat draconian ISP's, the RIAA, and now the US Government from stoping the flow of information.

    Speaking of flow, how about some USGS dam safety links at
    http://www.wes.army.mil/ITL/damsafe/sites.html, what??? 404? Not found??

    Lets try this google cache thingy [google.com]

    Wow. I can still see the website. We had better shut down that evil Google ;)

  • Hummm. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GISboy ( 533907 )
    Google was mentioned as a place to get chached information, but no one drew the conclusion that it could be considered a circumvention device under the DMCA.

    Scary, really, scary...when you consider that it is not the "powerful" aspects of the DMCA, but the more subtle/incidious/recurring detriments of the act/law.

    What I find even more sad is that even though you consider the damage Bin Laden did, it pales to what we are doing to him. We are taking his life, his livelyhood and turning his own people, much less the whole world, against him.

    Be careful what you wish for, eh? He wanted to see those towers come down, I believe was the direct quote.

    So, limiting access to information in this way, well what happens when the people who need it can't get it? And the damn breaks quite literally and figuratively?

    Again, I say, be careful what you wish for.
    • The way I see it, there are two genies out of the bottle here. Neither can be put back. The first is information, the other is encryption. The latter is available to ALL of the owners and guardians of former. Destruction of information is a stupid mistake, and most likely a knee-jerk reaction in this case. In spite of all the great arguments to the contrary in this thread, I still gotta believe that librarians will dispense this information according to their own discretion.

  • Spooky (Score:5, Insightful)

    by T.Hobbes ( 101603 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @08:01PM (#2582380)
    This quote says it all:
    "We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. "Information will kill us in the techno-terrorist age, and I think it's nuts to put that stuff on Web sites."

    The debate here is between the idea there is and that there is not a net benefit in having an open society, where individuals by virtue of citizenship have access to whatever information they want so long as it doesn't post an immediate and vital security threat. Once you start censoring papers and publications because they can fathomably be used to hurt the government, you limit the public's ability of oversight in public health, security, and spending. No longer can public-interest groups review and recommend changes to public works and such. You also reduce accountability of the government to the people and the press: if the plans on public works are state secrets, graft and corruption become much easier and less dangerous. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, because this style of censorship does not have a clear standard of justification - a 'clear & present danger', say - the issue of a slippery slope comes into play. There is, I suppose, one fundamental questions to be asked: first, is the realistic danger of the censorship greater than the realistic danger of the information being censored?
  • Well they didn't have terrorism in Orwell's 1984, right?

    Next we won't need to vote because terrorists could go to the polls and vote for terrorist friendly politicians

  • Illusion of Security (Score:2, Insightful)

    by smasch ( 77993 )
    What really scared me about the Sept. 11 attacks was not that I would get killed/injured/harmed by a terrorist attack, it's that people would effectively give the government free reign to do whatever they want. Right now, President Bush's approval rating is an astonishingly high 89% -- this is at least close to the highest it's ever been. Doesn't that scare anyone out there?

    The problem is that everybody's still shell shocked over the Sept 11 attacks and everybody wants closure over this and the feeling of security. Sure, airports security has been stepped up, but has it gotten any better? They're collecting far more nail clippers now, but they're still getting knives through. [go.com] No matter how much security they place at the airport, or any other place for that matter, "bad stuff" will still get through. And even if they made something completely safe, the terrorists will simply go elsewhere.

    Let's face it, had the government pulled this shit a year ago, people would have been absolutely pissed. People would have been writing to their congressmen, there may have been protests, but bottom line it would not have happened. Does anybody out there think that government documents like this would have been pulled a year ago? Do you think there would have been an anti-terrorism bill a year ago?

    The only good thing is that this will probably come full circle. Maybe it will be in a year, maybe two years, maybe longer, the general public will want this stuff public again. Some accident will occur, people will want to know more about what their local chemical plant is doing, people will want to know where their water is coming from, and after all this terrorist fear has blown over the people will want this stuff back.
    Just wait.
  • So now terrorists won't be able to get access to the information that was freely available years prior to this.
    Oh.
    Ok.
    I feel so safe now, knowing that the people in charge of so-called homeland security are a bunch of idiots.

    It reminds me of the whole "STOP DECSS" thing.

    I take offense to this not because these documents are being lost to the memory tubes, but that the administration is showing their incompetence / ignorance.
  • Is there legislation, either new, or changes to existing ones like Freedom of Information, to back these "ordered destructions" up?

    Are they actually classifying the data now formally (eg, slapping a Secret or Top Secret designation)?

    If not, I don't know how it could be justified. What happens if someone doesn't comply fully (eg, secretly burns a copy of the CD?
  • Which libraries are using the government demands as lists of materials to move to overseas public Internet archives? Those CD-ROMS they break, keeping a shard as evidence of their distruction, they burn a few copies first, somewhere, right?? (Oops, "burn" in the "lase" sense.) As Ashcroft goes increasingly over the line, who will organize his impeachment?
  • I am currently working on a homeland security project involving military forces. Yes, there are very good reasons why some of this info is being pulled. No, it is not a good thing to pull this info, but as I said there are reasons for this.

    As for you Orwell, F451 folks, no one I've dealt with (up to the General level) has any interest in censorship or any of that nonsense. These people are extremely pissed off and want to go kick someone ass, but since they're techies they need to stay in the US and do some tasks here.

    As for the top politicos in Washington, I have no first hand knowledge, but 3rd or 4th hand knowledge tends to support the belief that they are concerned with securing our country, not a bunch of Mr. Burns' holding their hands saying "Excellent!" while contemplating implementing censorship.

    I wish I could go into more detail, but I can't. Of course, all of you now think I'm a lackey of the establishment anyway. Oh well, I tried.
  • Well, it started out innocently enough. I popped up Slashdot and read the top story. Something about censorship. Clicked the news article and got taken to some LATimes article. Was reading it and then noticed "Anarchist's Cookbook."

    I'd heard of it before, but never actually read it. My curiosity was piqued and I fed in the info to Google. Luckily enough, they have a section devoted solely to this compiliation. I managed to find it after the second or third link.

    After agreeing not to use the information improperly, I found it laying before me... the Anarchist's Cookbook, in its entirety, along with an added bonus of the Terrorist's Cookbook.

    I soon found myself thinking rather nasty thoughts and reading up on interesting sections in the Anarchist's Cookbook.

    By chance, I happened to look outside my window and noticed three police cars, lights flashing, less than 50 yards from my house.

    They weren't there for me, but the effect was chilling enough. I swear I have never ALT-F4'd, deleted my History, and cleared my browser location bar so quickly in my life.

    Whew.
  • "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin

    All this crap being done under the name of "homeland security", just wait till it doesn't go away after the war is over. If they ever declare the war over.

  • Awwwkkkkk FSCK!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Sunday November 18, 2001 @09:09PM (#2582603) Homepage Journal
    Now with all this crap going around, gnutella will not only have porn, mp3 and DiVX-encoded movies and warez going around... it'll be jammed with blueprints and engineering stuff...

    I'm sure it's all a big plot to clug the bandwidth so people stop leeching warez and vids and go buy them for all the trouble it'll take to get them for free...

    ...brilliant...

    heh

  • What about.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by base2op ( 226729 )
    What about people who have some of this information memorized. Should they be destroyed as well?

    It kind of makes me want get the information and put it up on web server located in switzerland.
  • It's book burning time. Well, we don't have flame resistant houses, but I'm sure the fire departments will gladly assist in the destruction of so called "sensitive documents." While there at it, lets destroy all books too because they only make people unhappy.

    It's ok for certain things to be classified, because for something to be classified, it must be registered and must be deemed worthy to classify by two government officials. There are checks and balances to make sure that things aren't just classified for no apparent reason.

    Just deciding that something is sensitive and then making all these rules about giving access to it is just ridiculus. Anyone can access classified information too, they just have to be able to demonstrate a Need-To-Know and have received appriorate security clearance.

    So now, you can be deined access if your background is shady and to be able to view this material, you must present a need to know.

    Gee, sounds to me like there is a new level of classification that is bi-passing the safeguards of classification.

    If it can be reasonably assumed, that the undisclosed release of this information is likely to cause damage to national security, then it should be classified and be treated with all the same safe guards as anything else that is confidential.

    What this is, is a loop-hole. And it probably is illegal.
  • Whatcha goota do is to get rid of cars. Automotive accidents cause 6 yimes as many deaths each year as did the disaster of sept 11. Further, you gotta think how much crime this would stop in general. Are you gonna rob a bank and do a getaway on a skateboard? And terrorists, if you can't have cars, you can't have air travel cuz you can't get to the airport. Whatcha gonna do? Crash a scooter into the pentagon. As usual, the silly government goes for the easy target...
  • Remove all the information after its published, cached, archived, and probably already been read by anyone planning to use it soon should be most effective. The next step is to try and outlaw the information itself, because we know that if its illegal to possess the information, the terists will just hand over what they have and miraculously forget what they already read, just like if we outlaw strong encryption.

    Maybe we should just get to the heart of the matter and outlaw terrorism. Oh, wait...
  • What sucks is that the information is already out there. Those that are interested in this sort of thing already have it and have mirrors too.

    Wonder if cryptome has any of this laying around?
  • I think its time for people to take $50 and make archives of their favorite books, databanks or documents that the government wants banned using that wonderful piece of technology by Xerox.

    The Xerox Machine has been used for decades by people who wanted to read a reference or other unborrowable book on their own time, now it will be a handy tool for keeping certain pieces of content available.

    Sure, its an inelegant solution, but if enough people do it and make multiple off-site backups in the public domain, the appointed censors that keep passing stupid edicts like this will have to do something REALLY stupid and REALLY public.

  • Ironically, the story mentions another bit of government suppression of information:

    In the past, it has taken a tragedy to buck the trend toward more and greater public access. That's what happened in California in 1989 after actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot to death at her Los Angeles home by an obsessed fan who used publicly available motor vehicle records to find out where she lived. The state quickly cut off public access to such records.

    So the same government that has been invading our privacy and publishing the data now says that "some things shouldn't be made public." The same government that says we shouldn't be allowed to hide things that might be used against us has decided to hide things that might be used against us. I wonder if this new-found interest in information security will also be applied to our personal information. (Now taking bets.)

  • Looks like the Gubmint is stealing another page from the old Soviet Union playbook. Begining with Stalin's regime (or possibly even Lenin's), an important part of the USSR's defense against invaders was that accurate maps were considered state secrets. All published maps were intentionally made inaccurate—by changing the locations of roads, towns, landmarks, etc., or adding new ones where none actually existed.

    Time for me to go dig up that old 'Ask Slashdot' article about which country now most deserves the title "Land of the Free."

  • Why is anybody surprised about this? The US government is simply trying to protect citizens. They're using the time-tested and mature method of security through obscurity. If the terrorists have trouble getting information about something, how can they blow it up? Its the same method that made Microsoft products so damn bullet-proof, and it will definatly make the US a safer place to live!
  • Govt printing office access site [gpo.gov]

    Find your local Federal Depository [gpo.gov] - the 1,350 libraries that they are asking (telling? ordering?) to destroy documents.

    Go talk to the librarians, ask their opinions, voice your opinion, read some documents, see how or if they are actually disposing of them, etc.
    I wonder how long it is before we can no longer access this list.

  • If there was ever a reason to use Freenet [sourceforge.net], this is it.

  • Orwell said it best (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CleverNickName ( 129189 ) <wil@wil[ ]aton.net ['whe' in gap]> on Sunday November 18, 2001 @10:52PM (#2582896) Homepage Journal
    Ignorance Is Strength

    It's true that our American way of life is under attack...at least Bush, Ashcroft and the rest of them got that one right.
  • ...then only outlaws will have knowledge.

  • God help this country (Score:4, Insightful)

    by i1984 ( 530580 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @12:14AM (#2583121)
    Of any story I can remember reading on Slashdot, this one is the most frustrating and depressing.

    Information is the lifeblood of a free society governed by the consent of the governed. If information is destroyed (or even made inaccessible to all but the most determined individuals armed with subpoenas), the practical effect is that the governed don't know what we're consenting to. Policies that prevent open disclosure of information are ripe for exploitation as tools to conceal embarrassing information. Public outrage is a powerful motivator in an open society, but how can the public express outrage when the information that would prompt such outrage may be cloistered away by embarrassed bureaucrats who can simply claim the information could be dangerous in the wrong hands?

    I have news for everyone: almost any information can be dangerous in certain circumstances. What our illustrious and infallible (ok, only 89% infallible) administration has apparently decided is that information no longer need be imminently dangerous to fall subject to the censors. Unfortunately potentially dangerous covers a lot of vague territory (or perhaps fortunately if that information contains something personally embarrasing to you).

    Now if the chemical plant down the street is poisoning your water, you just have to hope that the regulators responsible for letting the water become contaminated don't decide that the chemicals aren't too scary to talk about. If you live downstream from a dam, don't bother asking why/if the security team failed their last test. Just trust that everything will be Ok; you don't need to know about it!

    This isn't about not trusting government. I don't distrust government, rather I doubt that everyone in government will always necessarily do the right things. Individually government consists of people with emotions, agendas, visions, and goals that I may not share. I can't trust that without meaningful oversight and clearly defined standards for making information secret, that everyone who governs will always do the right thing. You see, open information means I don't have to trust those in government.

    Unfortunately, it is in times of crisis that open government is most important, because it is easiest to precipitate abuse when there is 89% approval and everyone is looking the other way. In fact, it is considered unpatriotic to even suggest that times of crisis are times of opportunity for abuse.

    We know that with attention diverted, this would be the perfect time to make politically unpopular decisions: give vast tax breaks to huge companies, strip away environmental regulations, invalidate laws in states that legalize doctor assisted suicide, etc... Why can we rest assured that no lower level bureaucrat might take advantage of the situation to obfuscate potentially embarrasing or dangerous agency screw-ups?

    Our military has many legitimate secrets, but as the agency given the greatest freedom to keep its activities secret, it has not done an excellent job of obeying the spirit of the law. Now with civilian agencies also keeping secrets (that I believe everyone agrees are less threatening than military secrets) isn't the potential for abuse proportionally greater?

    If there is necessity to obscure information -- and sometimes that's hard to say because we don't know what information is being blocked -- then there should be extremely clear guidelines on exactly what should be controlled. Information that does not pose an imminent security danger should still be made available, but perhaps with some authentication of those requesting it, i.e., require written request and valid ID. Finally, the clearly defined regulations limiting access should automatically expire after five years unless Congress decides that there are ongoing security risks that require an extension of the controls. Of course it goes without saying that the information should not be destroyed.

    Doubtless some of you may take the view that we need to surrender some of our typical openness to secure the safety our our nation. To this I would respond that: a) by surrendering openness we're simultaneously surrendering security -- we just don't know how much; b) if something must be surrendered we should consider very carefully what should be surrendered and how we should do so; and c) we must keep in mind that information is a double edged sword and our society is based upon the assumption that openness is our guarantee of freedom. This country would look very different without freedom of information; please consider very carefully where to draw that line.

    There are consequences to viewing open information as our enemy. I can only hope that more rational minds soon prevail; rights surrendered in times of crisis are rarely returned.

    Of course, all this is an aside to the question of the efficacy of blocking the information...

    It would be much easier to avoid the allusions to Orwellian horrors if our own government didn't insist on Orwellian policies labeled with positively Orwellian names.

    Of course, Farenheit 451 also hasn't been more relevant anytime in recent memory than now. I hope everyone reads it.

    God help this country.

  • Bin Ladin has Aleady won (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19, 2001 @12:52AM (#2583206)
    http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/01facts/99mortali ty.htm
    in 1999:
    44,536 deaths from Alzheimer's
    28,874 persons died from firearm.
    19,102 persons died of drug-induced causes.
    19,171 persons died in 1999 from alcohol-induced causes.

    In 2001:
    ~5000 ppl died in 2001 due to terrorist.
    ~5 ppl have a died from a local terrorist group with anthrax.

    So where do we focus our energy and money?
    On stopping dangerous information from going out to US citizens. BTW, more money is now being spent on "homeland defense" than on Research.
    Pretty soon it will be the "fatherland" that must be protected at ALL cost.

    The funny thing is, this information is available in libraries in britain, italy, france, canada. Basically in all free countries. Bush and cronies are stripping us of our rights and liberties and many have not learned from our and others past abuses. This information that bush/ashcroft want hidden is easily gleaned from so many other sources that ony we suffer.
    It is amazing that these idiots who understand the danger of having our gun rights stripped would so quickly strip us of our information rights and liberties.

  • Our government is making us LESS secure (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DreamingReal ( 216288 ) <dreamingreal&yahoo,com> on Monday November 19, 2001 @03:42AM (#2583585) Homepage
    This event seems to be the latest in a string of events our government justifies in the name of "national security". Unfortunately, these actions will make us LESS secure in the long run.

    Destroying information in public libraries, restricting requests through the Freedom of Information Act, Bush's executive order that allows a sitting president to seal presidential records indefinitely - all of these events result in less information for the public to properly judge the actions of our government. This is inexcusable in a republic.

    Without public accountability, our elected leaders will have carte blanche to commit aggregious acts in the name of our country. Any illegal actions that they take, clouded in executive priviledge and secrecy, could very well sow the seeds for future terrorist attacks.

    We need to know exactly what our government is doing, particularly while we are at "war". The only way we will win a "war" against terrorism is to stand the moral high ground, and wage it with justified, measured response. If our government begins to wage it with illegal and extreme methods (in our name and without our knowledge) we are assured to locked in a vicious cycle of retribution and revenge that will only hurt ourselves in the long run.

  • This is part of a scary trend (Score:4, Informative)

    by D. J. Keenan ( 524557 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @06:18AM (#2583881) Homepage
    The actions describe by the LA Times are part of a scary trend. The Economist [economist.com] has a series of stories about how rights are being lost in the name of terrorism fighting. In the US, over 1000 people are being detained incommunicado [economist.com], sometimes subject to mistreatment. Another story (this not free) describes how some terrorism trials will now be conducted in secret and need not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt [economist.com]. In the UK, the Home Secretary has warned judges not to apply the Human Rights Act [economist.com]. And mobile-phone calls are now logged [economist.com], which forces terrorists to use only pre-paid phones (wow).

    Likely the cowed populace will ask for even more disenfranchisements.

  • Is becoming an expert illegal? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by braddock ( 78796 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:00AM (#2584141)
    This country was founded and GOVERNED by self-made experts. If I want to become an expert on bio-terrorism, computer security, US water distribution systems, nuclear weapons, or post-modern cinema, am I going to be told:

    "No, you don't need to and are not allowed, but here's a fine job at McDonalds; we're saving all those uninteresting curiosities for select Harvard graduates with connections since we only trust people who were raised and work in the establishment already."

    I think maybe the reason this so agitates me (and many of you) is that I am a self-educated college-dropout security and technology "expert" with a successful consulting career. Many of America's greatest "expert" figures past and present: Franklin, Gates, Jobs, Wozniak, Ellison, Dell, Edison, Turner, F Scott Fitzgerald, were not college graduates.

    Is denial of information not most importantly an insult to the merits of self-education and curiosity? Isn't that why it rightfully pisses off this community?

    Braddock Gaskill

  • Sigh .. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kd5biv ( 129563 ) on Monday November 19, 2001 @09:28AM (#2584194)
    Who was it that said when all you have is a hammer, it's tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail?

    That's the mentality I see running the show inside the Beltway these days. When we need smarter security, we get dumb ideas like this -- and this one is worse than useless, because it makes people feel safer without actually providing any protection.

    That's the upside of it. The downside is that now anyone worried that someone is going to find evidence of their scam, or screwup, in our Federal Depository Libraries can get that evidence destroyed under the watchful eyes of U.S. Marshals and not only can we not stop it, most of us won't even know when it happens.

    Oh well .. at least I haven't been pulled over for not showing a flag ..

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