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IP: STIMSON CENTER: CENSOR ENVIRO WEB SITES
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 15:31:29 -0500
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:45:16 -0500 To: farber () cis upenn edu From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Subject: from Declan's FC listI was very troubled by the anti-dissent targeting suggested in this article that Declan included in FC, from the FAS Secrecy newsletter. I suppose we can use concerns about arbitrary bogeymen to justify just about any action by our government.[This is from Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News, published by the Federation of American Scientists and available here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html Amy Smithson's bio is here (alas, it lacks an email address for her): http://www.stimson.org/stimson/smithson.htm I invite her or the center to reply. --Declan]STIMSON CENTER: CENSOR ENVIRO WEB SITES In a startling plea for official censorship, Amy E. Smithson of the Henry L. Stimson Center last week urged the government to "close down" web sites run by environmental organizations if they publish information about hazardous materials in local communities around the country since such information could be used by terrorists. "In this day and age, Washington can no longer afford to hand any interested individual a road map to the chemical calamities they could cause with the toxic materials located in communities nationwide," Smithson testified at a House Transportation subcommittee hearing last week on "Right to Know After September 11th." The hearing examined the policies governing public disclosure of chemical hazards at various industrial facilities. In particular, Smithson said, the government must clamp down on those environmental organizations that have published information on hazardous material inventories and accident consequences, including information that has now been withdrawn from government web sites. "Immediately, these interest groups must cease and desist activities that make data on hazardous materials facilities available to widespread public view, removing this data from their websites," she said. "Failing their voluntary cooperation, the US government should take swift steps to close down the pertinent segments of these organizations' websites and take legal steps to prohibit them from distributing this data in the future on the Internet or by other means," Smithson instructed. Dr. Smithson has been widely quoted for her expertise and opinions concerning chemical and biological weapons policy. The Henry L. Stimson Center is a mainstream policy research and advocacy organization whose declared motto is "Practical steps to ideal solutions." But the new censorship proposal hardly fits that description. Smithson's testimony on this point invited disbelief because she blithely made several assumptions that are questionable or simply incorrect, including: (a) there is no countervailing benefit to the independent publication of information about hazardous materials; (b) it is possible for the government to effectively suppress information that has been privately published on the web; and (c) it would be legally and constitutionally permissible to attempt to do so. An opposing view was presented at the hearing by environmentalist Jeremiah Baumann of the advocacy organization US PIRG. "The right to know is a proven tool for increasing public safety," he argued. "Choosing restrictions on the public's right to know about hazards in communities, rather than actually reducing those hazards, can hurt safety rather than help it." Speaking pragmatically, Elaine Stanley of the Environmental Protection Agency outlined the four criteria the EPA has developed for deciding what to publish and what to remove from the Agency's web site. All of the prepared testimony from the November 8 hearing on Right to Know After September 11th may be found here: http://www.house.gov/transportation/water/11-08-01/11-08-01memo.html
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- IP: STIMSON CENTER: CENSOR ENVIRO WEB SITES David Farber (Nov 13)