[In this archive, only the 1-4 version is present, as elec_rights_ala.papers. -mech@eff.org] CITIZEN RIGHTS and ACCESS to ELECTRONIC INFORMATION A Collection of Background Essays Prepared for the 1991 LITA President's Program Dennis J. Reynolds, Editor Production costs for this information packet were underwritten by Innovative Interfaces, Inc. Library and Information Technology Association Chicago, Illinois 1991 This "information packet" is being distributed only at the 1991 ALA Annual Conference in Atlanta. -------------------------------------------------------------- LITA plans to publish these papers plus those from the President's Program itself in Fall 1991. This monograph will also be titled "Citizen Rights and Access to Electronic Information" edited by Dennis J. Reynolds. If you wish to receive an announcement and ordering information for the monograph, please send your name and address to: Citizen Rights Monograph LITA Office 50 E. Huron Street Chicago, IL 60611 fax: 312/280-3257 -------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright by the Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association, 1991. Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . ii OVERVIEW PAPER The Bill of Rights and Beyond: Citizen Entitlement and Information Access in an Electronic Age, by Dennis J. Reynolds THE ISSUES Techno-Fallacies of the Information Age, by Gary T. Marx Freedom and Privacy in Electronic Libraries, by Steve Cisler Electronic Intellectual Freedom, by Gordon M. Conable . The Public's Right to Know and Electronic Government Information, by Nancy Kranich THE IMPACT "Powershift" and Scholarly Communication, by Sharon J. Rogers A Bill of Rights for an Electronic Society: A Public Library Perspective, by Susan Harrison Information for All People: The Role of Local and State Libraries in Overcoming Geographical Barriers to Information, by Howard F. McGinn Information Access and an Electronic Bill of Rights: A School Perspective, by Stephen L. Matthews Electronic Records and Intellectual Freedom in Schools of Library and Information Science: A Historical Essay, by Frederick J. Stielow LEGISLATIVE UPDATE Electronic Privacy and Data Protection Legislation in the 102nd Congress, by Frederick D. King POSITION PAPERS Principles of Public Information, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Information Technology & Libraries: Federal Roles, Library and Information Technology Association A Short List of Really Good Readings ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This Packet has been made possible through the dedicated efforts of many people. Mary Alice Ball has done a superb job in planning the 1991 LITA President's Program by recruiting a group of speakers with considerable stature in the world of information technology policy and implementation. Production of this Packet was graciously funded by Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and our thanks to Jerry Kline and the folks at III for their support and assistance. In preparing the Packet, there were a number of people who I relied on for advice, feedback, and help of all different kinds. I must first and foremost thank Jo-Ann Michalak, this year's LITA President, for offering me the opportunity to take on this exciting project and for supplying me with a steady stream of ideas and articles and other documents relevant to the topic of this year's Program. LITA Executive Director Linda Knutson was indispensible not only in working with me through all the logistics but also in sharing ideas for the Packet. And on more than one occasion, Carolyn Gray, Chair of the LITA Technology and Access Committee, served as a sounding board and invariably came up with suggestions that made the project go much more smoothly. Also, there were several other people whose advice I sought on one aspect or another, particularly Lois Kershner, Janet Bruman, and Carol Henderson. Thanks also to the CAPCON staff for their patience during the home stretch, and to Terrie and Lori for their help. A very special thanks to Tahi and Dennell. Most of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the authors who have contributed to this Packet. Each responded promptly and enthusiastically, and gave generously of their time. It was an "all volunteer effort"; a labor of love, or perhaps a love of labor, for all who contributed. There are some people in our field and certainly many outside it who say that we should not be so generous with our time, that we should measure the success of each of our tasks by the amount of the check we receive as compensation. They are probably right. But for many of us, we simply cannot resist the reward of an interesting challenge and the opportunity to contribute something we hope will make a difference in the way things are done and how they are thought about. My thanks to these authors who have made a contribution and a difference. D.J.R. Introduction Last year, Carol Parkhurst put together a packet of background readings and other material into what became known as the LITA President's Program Packet. LITA distributed approximately 2,000 copies of the Packet at the ALA Annual Conference. The venture was extremely successful, and after the Conference, the contents of the Packet along with the papers presented at the LITA President's Program were published more formally as Library Perspectives on the NREN. The current collection of essays, Citizen Rights and Access to Electronic Information is the 1991 LITA President's Program Packet. The title of this year's President's Program is A Bill of Rights for an Electronic Society. This is a multi-faceted topic. The speakers who are on the Program will focus on the citizen rights and technology primarily in terms of existing and emerging telecommunications networks. As the speakers will no doubt illustrate, it is crucial that we no longer think of telecommunications networks as purely technical phenomena, but also recognize their important political, economic, and social implications. The essays in this Packet are presented in part as background papers in support of the focus of the presentations that will be made at the President's Program, but they also explore additional dimensions of the theme of interaction between citizen rights and information technology, and the role of libraries in that relationship. The Packet opens with a paper in which I present an overview of some of the general issues in the interaction between citizen rights and electronic information. Many of the issues brought out there are treated in the specific context of libraries in subsequent essays in the Packet. The next several papers are divided into two sections: The Issues and The Impact. This division of focus is not, of course, absolute, and you will find impact being discussed in some of the papers in The Issues section and vice-versa. The Issues section opens with a brief essay by sociologist Gary T. Marx, who enumerates some of the common -- and, he asserts, fallacious -- assumptions we make about technology. Steve Cisler then addresses several privacy, data protection, and electronic monitoring issues as they pertain both to society in general and to libraries. Gordon M. Conable, Chair of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, then examines several of the challenges that modern information technology presents to the library in its role as protector and purveyor of intellectual freedom. Nancy Kranich`s paper focuses on a dimension of access to electronic information that is vital to our democracy: the right to be informed about our government and by our government. In The Impact section of the Packet, Sharon J. Rogers examines the current tranformation of scholarly communication in terms of trends identified by Alvin Toffler in his recent book, Powershift. Susan Harrison then looks at several aspects of the role of the public library in the electronic age in ensuring citizen rights of access to information and in ensuring the right to privacy in pursuing information needs. Howard F. McGinn examines the role of local and state libraries in providing information particularly in light of the evolving reliance on telecommunications networks and the types of information that can be carried over those networks. Stephen L. Matthews looks at some of the issues regarding opportunities for access to electronic information in the context of preparing today's students for the challenges that will lie ahead of them. If librarianship as a profession is going to view technology in terms of the ethical implications of its use, it is important that this become a part of our professional education curriculum, and Frederick J. Stielow examines this relationship in the last paper in The Impact section of the Packet. The remaining four items in the Packet include a legislative update, two position statements, and a list of suggested further readings. In the first of these, Frederick D. King traces the bills that have been introduced during the current session of Congress having a bearing on privacy and related issues in a technological environment. The two position papers are the statement on Principles of Public Information issued last year by the National Commission on Library and Information Science, and LITA's recent position paper on Information Technology & Libraries: Federal Roles. The last item in the Packet is a selected list of readings on some of the themes explored in the papers in the Packet. As editor, I hope that the materials included here will help introduce readers to some of the current issues related to a very important dimension of the interaction between technology, society, and libraries. Dennis J. Reynolds Washington, D.C. "A quiet but crucial debate now under way in Congress, in corporate boardrooms, and in universities has the potential to shape American life in the 21st Century and beyond. The outcome may determine where you live, how well your children are educated, who will blossom and who will wither in a society in which national competitiveness and personal prosperity will likely depend on access to information." Roger Karraker, "Highways of the Mind" Whole Earth Review, Spring, 1991. "[in Britain]...a family living on what we euphemistically call 'the national average' would see half their weekly income flicker away in less than 30 minutes of current connect-time charges to a remote database, assuming that there was ever to be one that gave them something relevant to their needs." Trevor Haywood, "Electronic Information: The Withering of Public Access" New Horizons for the Information Profession "Emerging technologies promise to provide individuals with opportunities to increase their personal autonomy, enhance their sense of connection to others and, in general, enable greater accomplishments and self-fulfillment. These same technologies, however, could produce the opposite outcomes, contributing to personal isolation, increased dependency, and loss of privacy. How new technologies will affect individuals will depend in part on the rules that Congress adopts to govern access to information and the new communication technologies." U.S. Office of Technology Assessment. Critical Connections: Communications for the Future. THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND BEYOND: CITIZEN ENTITLEMENT AND INFORMATION ACCESS IN AN ELECTRONIC AGE Dennis J. Reynolds CAPCON Library Network Washington, D.C. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Though having roots in British law, these provisions as a collective were unique and really quite extraordinary. They delineated not the obligations of the citizenry to the state, or the rights of the state in the exercise of control over the individual, but the other way around: these first ten amendments to the Constitution stipulated the obligation of the state to the citizenry and delineated the rights of its citizens in protection against interference from the state. Implied and sometimes stated in our legislative documents and judicial decisions are rights regarding the way we as individuals and as a society create, use, and disseminate information. For the first few decades of the new nation, the technology of moving things from one place to another -- whether material goods or ideas and information -- remained fairly stable. But since about the 1830s, our history has been a stage upon which new transportation and communication technologies have been tested, refined, and eventually incorporated into everyday life. The railroads, the telegraph, the telephone, the airplane, radio, television, satellites, computers -- depending on the definitions of revolution and evolution one might care to adopt, this list could probably go on for quite some length just detailing the truly significant innovations over the past 150 years that have changed the way we gather and use information and the way we communicate it with one another. This latest stage of this long progression has been our entry into "the information age." Information is being created today in a quantity that is not only unprecedented, but remarkably so. Trevor Haywood in Britain was right, though, when he observed that the term we like to use, "information explosion", is actually a misnomer in describing the phenomenon we are experiencing with regard to the amount of information entering our lives today. An explosion is a sudden, violent eruption that then rather quickly subsides. What we call the information explosion was not really all that sudden -- we have been talking about it in the present tense for many years now -- and it certainly does not look like it is going to subside quickly or otherwise. Information proliferation has become a permanent part of our landscape. Our challenge is not to figure out how we can keep apace until things become stable again, but rather how we can incorporate flexibility and adaptability as constants into our approach to handling an ever-increasing amount of information and the speed with which it can be disseminated. In an essay on the electronic frontier and the bill of rights, attorney Harvey Silvergate has pointed out that the First Amendment in particular has been challenged by every major technological development that has occurred in our history as a nation. Computers and telecommunications are no exception. Some activities like the storage of increasingly vast quantities of personal data in government and corporate computers have been occurring now over a period of decades, but have only recently begun to receive the amount of attention they have probably deserved all along. Our belated consciousness about these problems that have been longer in the making is, at least, helping us ask to some of the right questions about important developments of more recent vintage and even some that are still unfolding, like the evolution of a formal National Research and Education Network (NREN). Many of the questions we are asking now about our information technologies are probably not so different than those our forebearers were asking about other things 200 years ago as they were grappling with what would become the Bill of Rights. They are questions having to do with defining the obligations the state has to its citizenry with regard to protection of individual freedoms. Many of the questions that are being asked have to do with "traditional" rights such as freedom of expression, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and implied rights to privacy as they apply in an electronic age. But in looking at these, there are further dimensions of the questions that may be fundamentally different than the framers of the Bill of Rights were concerned with. While these issues are of enough concern with respect to the government's use of technology, some of the greatest threats to our individual freedoms today reside in companies using information technology in ways that, if used by the government, would probably be considered gross violations of our constitutional rights. The first ten amendments to the Constitution say much about the protection of the citizenry against the state, but very little about protection from incursions by social and economic institutions outside of government -- what we now call the "private sector". In examining not just an existing specific set of ten amendments, but more generally a bill of rights regarding the use of information technology, we must address protection against potential excesses not only from our public institutions, but from our private ones as well. The examination of individual rights in a context of technology is very much tied to the uses and abuses of information. Discussions centering around our conventional freedoms of expression, protection from search and seizure, and privacy as they apply in a technological context are concerned not with the technology in itself, but rather with how it is employed in the gathering, processing, storage, distribution, and use of information. Given the heightened degree of interest in the issues involved, we perhaps now have a unique window of opportunity to broaden the discussion of the connection between citizen rights and information beyond the conventional Bill of Rights to include the right for individuals to have adequate opportunity of access to information regardless of socioeconomic status and other traditionally limiting factors. In writing about the need for an "Information Bill of Rights," Richard Rowe was right in asserting that we must examine not only issues like privacy, but also rights of access. We live in a place and at a time where the limits within which each of our citizens can exercise options regarding "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" will be determined in part by the limits of his or her ability and opportunity to maneuver through the electronic mazes of information that lie before them. And in a global economy where our competitiveness as a nation will depend on how well large numbers of our citizens can access and use information and the technology with which it is now interwoven, opportunity of access must no longer be just philosophical wishfulness, but a concrete right for our citizens. The remainder of this paper will examine several issues having to do with the interaction between technology, individual freedoms, and access to electronic information. Some of these are discussed in the context of communications networking, some relate more to electronically stored databases of information, and still others touch upon the convergence of the two. The common thread is that each topic is relevant to a Bill of Rights for a society in which information technology is becoming a large part of people's work, study, and recreation. The topics discussed are grouped into three broad categories: First and Fourth Amendment rights; data collection, dissemination, and protection; and the right of access. FIRST AND FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS The First Amendment to the Constitution is quite explicit about protection of an individual's right to freedom of expression, including speech, assembly, religion, and the press. The Fourth Amendment is likewise clear about protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The Constitution does not mention a "right of privacy" per se, but legislation especially at state levels, and in the courts at all levels, have established strong precedence that the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments all have a bearing on the issue and collectively imply a right of privacy. There are four points about these rights that are particularly salient to our discussion here. First, there are some ambiguities and very interesting twists to protection of these rights when viewed in the context specifically of electronic information. Secondly, the guarantees are not absolute. Thirdly, various rights may at some times be in conflict with one another. Finally, and extremely importantly, these constitutional guarantees apply principally to protection from government activities; they are less applicable to private sector activities. Electronic Communication and the First Amendment One of the most prominent examples of ambiguity about protection of rights with respect to information technology is the ongoing debate about whether textual and other information transmitted over data communications networks should be treated more like print media or broadcast media. The answer to this question is crucial for purposes of defining the extent to which First Amendment rights will be protected over such networks. There traditionally have been qualitatively different principles applied to the two, with broadcast media like radio and television always having been held to stricter controls than print media. And the picture may very well get cloudier before it becomes clearer; as David Lyon has described, As voice, text, numerical data, images, and other forms of communication are increasingly merged, using electronic means, so previous distinctions between print, common carrier (such as the telephone), and broadcast models become blurred. Given this obscuring of distinctions, it is possible that the standard against which freedom of expression is measured in evolving communications networks like the NREN will be something unto its own, neither exactly those applied to print nor precisely those applied to broadcast media or conventional communications media. In general, however, citizen rights advocates are urging adherence to the print model with minimal restraint on full freedom of expression. Even with latitude, the rights and protections guaranteed under the first ten amendments have never been absolute. There have always been limits. With regard to First Amendment rights, for example, the restrictions revolve primarily around national security interests, compliance with statutory law, and preventions of unwarranted invasion of privacy. With respect to unreasonable search and seizure, there have been many rulings extending protection to the electronic environment, but law enforcement has not always acted entirely prudently in adhering to the spirit of these. Just in the past couple of years, there have been several major incidents in which law enforcement agencies have appeared to be overzealous. In 1989, for example, the U.S. Secret Service confiscated microcomputer equipment of the publisher of the online journal PHRACK for reportedly publishing a BellSouth document outlining some of the technical details of how their 911 service worked. The next year, the Secret Service confiscated the equipment of a developer of role-playing games in Austin, Texas, claiming that the person had compiled and was publishing what amounted to a "how-to" book of computer crime. Later in 1990, several online bulletin boards were shut down by the Secret Service and more than 40 computers and 23,000 floppy disks were seized in Operation Sundevil, a nationwide effort supposedly aimed at cracking down on credit card and telephone access fraud. In the first of these cases, the PHRACK editor's computers were returned; in the case in Austin, the "computer crime handbook" turned out to be a rule book for one of the developer's role-playing game, and after four months, his equipment was returned. As of the Spring of 1991, indictments were reportedly in the works in relation to Operation Sundevil, though the investigation seemed shrouded in secrecy. In all three of these cases, an issue of great concern for electronic rights advocates was whether due process was observed in the confiscations, and most advocates feel it was not. First Amendment Restrictions: The Example of Aggregate Sensitivity Another growing concern, one with major implications, is the perceived expansion of the umbrella of "national security" as a justification by government authorities to restrict freedom of speech. A particularly ominous development has been the emergence of the concept of aggregate sensitivity, sometimes also referred to as the mosaic theory of information. This concept is built on the premise that, when taken in aggregate, a collection of individually unclassified and non-sensitive documents can result in a product that is sensitive and does constitute classified information. If the origin of the concept of aggregate sensitivity can be traced to a single incident, it is the famous article that appeared in the magazine The Progressive in 1979 providing instructions on how to create an atomic bomb. While an explanation of how to build an atomic bomb is classified information and is obviously a vital national security concern, the instructions appearing in The Progressive had been compiled using information appearing entirely in unclassified documents. Thus, while the individual documents themselves did not contain classified information, it was felt that as an aggregate they did. In the early and mid-1980s, restriction of First Amendment rights on grounds of aggregate sensitivity received further attention when the Pentagon used it to justify barring several U.S. scientists from presenting papers at international conferences in 1982 and again in 1985. Aggregate sensitivity with respect to electronic information has received the close attention of some government security agencies. NTIS and other scientific and technical databases have been the primary targets of this concern. It is held that while citations and abstracts included in a CD-ROM or online bibliographic database might not individually be security-sensitive, the totality could reveal trends and areas of emphases in sensitive American scientific and technical research, especially when computers are used to assist in carrying out techniques like trend analysis, cross-correlation of authors and subjects, and statistical plottings of publication data. While most would allow that matters of vital national security are legitimate as grounds for restricting freedoms under certain circumstances, on a specific case-by-case basis, what many First Amendment advocates are finding alarming in the current environment is the breadth of the government's interpretation of what might constitute a "threat" to national security and the inclination to apply that interpretation to such a wide variety of events, activities, and products. Privacy and the Freedom of Information Act National security is one example of the intersection where constitutional freedoms and interests of confidentiality can come into conflict. Another interesting area where those two concepts are sometimes at cross purposes is in the application of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Citizen rights advocates generally are extremely supportive of a strong FOIA. This Act, originally passed in 1966 and strengthened in 1974, helps ensure that citizens have a right to inspect the information that government is gathering both about its own activities and about the activities of its citizens and the groups they belong to. The difficulty sometimes is in drawing the line between the right to be informed and the privacy rights of those about whom information is subject to inspection. An excellent example of this dilemma was a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 regarding the release of FBI records. A decade before, a CBS news reporter and an advocacy group called the Reporters Committee filed requests with the FBI for release of criminal history records of four members of the Medico family, suspected of having ties to organized crime but who owned and operated a legitimate business enterprise that had been awarded defense contracts. The FBI dawdled, eventually releasing records on three of the Medicos -- after each had died. The disposition of the FOIA request on the fourth Medico made its way through the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the public has no right to see FBI criminal records. This example and the issues it entails is a thorny one. The Reporters Committee has voiced an unequivocal opinion that such records should be available to the public under FOIA, especially when those records consist as mostly a compilation of publicly available state and local records. Privacy groups of a moderate bent might question this; advocates of more extreme persuasion would maintain that the wrong question was being asked in the first place: the debate should not be focusing on whether such records maintained by the FBI should be available, but rather whether they should exist as a compilation in a central file in the first place. Computer technology has presented some interesting questions in the applicability of the FOIA to government records held in electronic form. A strict reading of the Act would imply that requesters are not guaranteed access to records maintained in any format other than paper. However, case law and the published fee guidelines applying to FOIA have established that information in other media are accessible under FOIA. A grayer area, however, has to do with the definition of what is considered an "existing" record versus a "new" record in the storage of electronic data. Under FOIA guidelines, a government agency is not required to create a new record in order to respond to a FOIA request. Performance of any special programming to extract computer-stored information, some agencies have argued, would by definition constitute "creation" of a new record and therefore would not be required under FOIA. The courts have sometimes ruled in favor of this interpretation, but at the same time urging Congress to examine FOIA and amend the Act to address specifically issues related to electronic information. Constitutional Rights and the Private Sector The FOIA and nearly all other federal legislation relating in any way to information access, privacy, and search and seizure issues are concerned with the practices of governmental agencies. By and large, they do not apply to the private sector, apart from government contractors in some cases. There are, of course, federal regulations prohibiting discrimination in certain areas on the basis of race, religion, gender, or nationality. But in regard to freedom of expression and invasion of privacy in particular, federal legislation protecting citizens in contexts other than their relationship to government has been slow in coming. The result is that a very uncertain terrain exists in the relationship between individuals and non-government organizations. Some of the consequences of this lack of regulation will be discussed in greater detail in the following section of this paper, as many have to do with the collection and dissemination of personal data. There are two examples that are appropriate here, however, since they are concerned with very basic freedom of expression and search and seizure/privacy issues. The first deals with freedom of speech in communications networks, and an illustration is taken from a recent incident involving a privately owned and operated electronic service. For several years, Sears and IBM have been collaboratively offering Prodigy, an online network offering home shopping, news and weather, recreational games, conferencing capabilities, electronic mail, and a variety of other services aimed at the home personal computer market. When initially introduced, Prodigy was priced at a fixed monthly fee for which a subscriber had unlimited access for any purpose. A change in this policy was then announced, targeted specifically at the electronic mail component of the service, which had by that time become quite heavily used by subscribers. Under the new pricing structure, a certain number of e-mail messages would be included in the basic monthly rate, but any beyond that number would incur an additional per-message charge. Some Prodigy subscribers, upset over the new policy, used the electronic bulletin board capability of the system itself to launch a protest. Prodigy responded by removing the messages, and even canceled the subscriptions of some of the more vehement protestors. The Prodigy incident is an example of how one privately owned electronic service reacted to objections to its policies, but the incident illustrates some of the broad implications of privately controlled networks. In discussions of the NREN, for example, one of the structural solutions that has been proposed is to put development and management of the network into the hands of the private sector. As the Prodigy case exemplifies, though, an important concern is the extent to which the technical manager or owner of the network also acts as policy-maker about the content of what is being sent over the network. Electronic rights proponents generally are unfavorably disposed toward the idea of a for-profit private company owning and operating NREN, and in a more general sense, are adamant that even in privately owned communications networks to which the general public is allowed to subscribe, the content of what flows through the network must be protected by broader principles like the First Amendment rather than left up to the discretion of the owner. Another concern related to lack of constitutional applicability in the private sector focuses on personal privacy issues and protection against unreasonable "search and seizure" in the workplace. Methods of surveillance are being carried out in workplaces in the private sector that our government would never legally be allowed to get away with. Modern information technologies have made undetected monitoring of people's actions in the workplace far easier and more sophisticated than ever before. Positions involving use of technology -- like data entry clerks and airline ticket reservation agents -- are particularly vulnerable to electronic monitoring of performance. We have all seen the warm and fuzzy TV commercial where a single airline reservations agent books flights home in a single call for what one assumes must be practically the entire enlisted personnel of a military base. The agent's supervisor strolls by later in the day and asks if the agent had answered any calls today, to which the agent good-naturedly points out that she had only one. In reality, the scenario in such an office could probably have just as easily shown the supervisor going into a back room, entering a special authorization code on a terminal, and finding out exactly how many calls the agent had handled, the number of reservations made and the total volume of sales, and the number of minutes and seconds that elapsed between each booking. Much more efficient and precise, but it probably would not have made quite as nice a TV commercial. Electronic surveillance techniques are a seductive possibility to employers and managers feeling pressures to increase productivity, quality, and profits. What the relatively little evidence that exists shows in many cases, though, is that electronic surveillance often achieves exactly the opposite of the desired results. As Marx and Sherizen have pointed out, employees can be ingenious in finding ways to beat the system, and electronic monitoring can further lead to sacrificing quantity for quality. Reservations agents, for example, might be tempted to disconnect calls if a request is appearing to become too time-consuming, or to withhold information in an effort to shorten the length of a call. Electronic surveillance can also lead to a general atmosphere of mistrust and poor morale, resulting in lower productivity, higher turnover, and other problems that may be precisely what the employer had hoped to avoid. While these are crucial issues in terms of human resources management, the aspect that concerns us most here are that intrusive measures like these pose serious questions about certain fundamental freedoms that individuals should have a right to expect of their employers just as they do of their government. Some forms of electronic monitoring in the workplace verge on what can be called nothing short of employer espionage, unreasonable "search", and presumption of guilt before a "crime" is even committed. Government has historically been reluctant to interfere in employer/employee relations until forced to do so by conflict of near-crisis proportion. To date, the workforce most subject to surveillance tends to also be the least politically empowered, and there simply is not much evidence that government is ready to address this aspect of citizen rights in truly meaningfully proportion. DATA COLLECTION, DISSEMINATION, AND PROTECTION Aided by computer and telecommunication technologies, an enormous amount of data is gathered, stored, and disseminated about Americans each year. Even by the early 1980s, it was estimated that the federal government had 4 billion separate records about U.S. citizens -- an average of about 17 for every man, woman, and child in the country. This was several years ago, and the number is no doubt much higher by now. While the government is a fervent collector of data about us, its efforts are rivaled by the private sector. Several years ago David Burnham gave the example of a single database in California to which more than 10,000 merchants across the U.S. had access to information about 86 million American households. This figure corresponds closely with the number of American households for which demographic and some personal data was included in a more recently announced (and then canceled) product called Lotus Marketplace: Households. Who is collecting all this data about us and where are they getting it? What is it being used for, and what rights do citizens have regarding its collection, dissemination, and use? The Who and What of Personal Data Collection Nearly every agency of the U.S. government collects data about individuals. It is not a grand covert operation; to the contrary, we willingly, or at least knowingly, supply most of this data ourselves. The Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of the Census are two of the larger collectors of data that Americans supply about themselves. The Social Security Administration has very complete earnings records about every legally employed individual in America, and even about some who have never worked a day in their life. (We supposedly do not have a "national identification card" in this country, yet my 22-month old daughter already has her social security card; she received it a few weeks after her birth for some reason that no one has explained to me.) Those who have ever been in the military, registered with the Selective Service, received welfare payments, or applied for an FHA loan also have records on file with the appropriate federal agencies. Law enforcement agencies have voluminous files containing information about those who have committed crimes, and probably about some who haven't. No doubt the list of government agencies -federal, state, and local -- could go on for some length. We as citizens also give out a great deal of information about ourselves to a wide range of organizations and companies outside government. From the time a child begins pre-school, our educational system collects records not only about the student but usually about his or her family as well; and then when the student eventually graduates into "the real world", employers take over where the educational system left off. When we start to earn a living, we find ourselves filling out applications for credit cards from department stores and for mortgage loans from banks, and as we begin to acquire appliances and other material gadgets, we protect our investments by filling out product warranty cards and sending them to the manufacturer. We tell insurance companies about our medical history or our driving records or the contents of our homes. We join organizations, we subscribe to magazines, we contribute money to worthy causes. This is all pretty routine stuff, activities that few people stop to ponder as to the consequences beyond the immediate purpose for which they are supplying the information. But in this age of the computer and advanced communications technology, nearly every piece of data we supply to an organization or bank or company is probably being added to a database and transmitted from one place to another at some point in time. One aspect of personal information gathering activities in our society today is the transactional nature of much of the data -- the recording of a specific event at a specific place at a specific time. With instant credit card verification services, for example, an electronic record is established that shows exactly where a person was at an exact moment in time. On some highways in Britain, cameras mounted on bridges scan license plates of cars passing under and record them along with the exact time of day. Probably the most prolific collectors of transactional data are telephone companies. Their records can show who we talk to, when, from where, and for how long. This has been brought home in court proceedings and other investigations, one of the more widely known involving President Carter's brother Billy in his dealings with the Libyan government during the late 1970s. Among other details, a Senate committee's report documented the time and place of sixteen telephone calls made by Billy Carter to the Libyan embassy from at least ten different telephones in three different states during a two week period in 1979. The Billy Carter incident illustrates another aspect of much of the transactional data being gathered: while the event documented is very temporally discrete, the record itself often becomes permanent -- it is not erased once the transaction has been completed, but rather, becomes part of someone's growing record of specific examples of our behavior. Most of the types of data gathering activities described above have what many would agree are legitimate purposes. We have inherited from our forebearers what seems an almost instinctual mistrust of government, so we are leery when it gathers personal data about us, even if begrudgingly admitting that the rationale sometimes might actually be reasonable. Much more insidious, perhaps, are data gathering activities in the private sector. Of course it makes sense that a bank would want a pretty detailed picture of our financial record before lending us tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a home or start a business; a manufacturer asking that we establish the date upon which we bought a particular appliance seems pretty reasonable unless the gadget is guaranteed to work forever or not guaranteed at all; and instant credit card verification probably has cut down on the incidence of fraud and forfeiture resulting in losses which the credit card companies have to recover by increasing annual fees or interest rates to the rest of us who are conscientious, paying consumers. Watchwords for Data Protection While much of the data being collected, whether by government agencies or corporations, seems to fill a reasonable need, there are four characteristics about data gathering activities of which we must be particularly watchful. The first is permanence. Granted, my long distance carrier may want to keep records of my telephone calls for a while after I have paid for them in the event of a belated complaint on my part, and as a business it needs to keep the records for a certain time as required by standard accounting principles and maybe even to satisfy the requirements of certain federal agencies. But how long is long enough? The second watchword is relevance. It may be reasonable for a credit card company to ask how much money I earn and how long I have been employed in my present and maybe even in my immediate prior position, but why do they need to know the highest educational degree I have? For purposes of qualifying for a credit card, if I make a quarter million dollars a year, does it really matter whether I have a PhD or never even completed the sixth grade? A third concern and a logical extension of the relevance issue is the purpose for which the data collected is used. The reason that my educational level might be useful to the credit card company is that they might be able to sell that information to someone who is interested in my educational level, like a magazine subscription house or anyone else whose clientele tends to fit a certain profile. There are almost no legal restrictions in the United States on the sale of personal information within the private sector. In fact, the sale of personal data for purposes other than that for which it was collected in the first place has grown into a major industry in itself. Credit reporting agencies are leading the way in this lucrative market. To illustrate the magnitude with which it occurs, an author writing on this phenomenon several years ago requested a copy of his file maintained by one of the leading credit reporting bureaus and a list of those to whom it had been released. The results were revealing: in the previous seven months, information in his file had been released to him once, in response to his current request; once to his credit union in connection with a small loan he had applied for; and nineteen times to other organizations and companies with which he had no relationship nor necessarily wanted to establish one. A more recent event that brought the sale of personal data into the limelight was the Lotus Development Corporation's announcement of Lotus Marketplace: Households, a database that contained a variety of information on virtually tens of millions of American households, and which was targeted for sale on CD-ROM to mail order and other direct marketing organizations. The Lotus product caused quite a stir and was canceled, but it was a poignant demonstration of how information about our income, shopping habits, and other personal behaviors has become a very salable -- and very available -- market commodity. In light of the critical decisions about peoples' lives that are made on the basis of personal information on record either with the government or elsewhere, a fourth major area of concern is accountability and quality control. This is particularly important with regard to private sector uses given the current paucity of regulations governing commercial use and distribution of personal records. On rare occasion, the lack of quality control in a computer environment -- or perhaps more accurately the lack of applying common sense -- can have humorous results. In the mid-1980s, for example, a Louisiana bank sent pre-approved credit cards to several of the banks customers who happened at the time to be inmates at a state prison. According to programmed selection criteria, they were considered employed and did not show bad credit ratings, and hence were considered good risks. Unfortunately, most reported run-arounds with computer-stored personal information are not so harmless. One celebrated case -- it went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court -- involved a construction contractor who, through a clerical error by a Dun & Bradstreet employee, had erroneously been identified as having filed for bankruptcy. The report was distributed to several banks with whom the contractor was negotiating for loans, and his business suffered severe setbacks as a result. The contractor sued Dun & Bradstreet and was awarded $350,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, but Dun & Bradstreet appealed all the way to the Supreme Court on the basis that credit reports are a form of free speech protected under the First Amendment. The Information Industry Association filed testimony on behalf of the company that credit reporting agencies should be immune from liability for false reports unless actual malice could be proved. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision in favor of the contractor. In the example above, the contractor at least had discovered that an error had been made, and had the perseverance and resources to pursue restitution. One can only wonder how many citizens have been refused credit or worse on the basis of erroneous information but have not had the knowledge, resources, or patience to uncover the error and get it corrected. And the private sector is certainly not the only place where accountability and accuracy are concerns; as the example below will show, the government has certainly been known to be on the initiating side of some inaccuracies as well. As the numbers cited at the beginning of this section demonstrate -- billions of federal records containing personal data, and electronic records with personal information about tens of millions of American households being maintained by the private sector -- there are probably not very many Americans who can claim electronic anonymity. Practices in the private sector have gone basically unchecked, resulting in personal records being commercially exchanged so many times among so many parties, and probably over such a patchwork of communication networks, that once we do find out where some pieces of information about us resides, there is little likelihood that we would be able to determine its original source or who else has that same information. Imagine the absolute horror, then, upon finding out that someone, somewhere, sometime made a data entry error or read a report the wrong way or received only partial information about a business transaction. By the time the error is discovered, the fallacious information likely will have already been redistributed many times over. The prospect of such a nightmare is not the sole province of the private sector by any means. There are virtually thousands of federal databases that contain information about individual citizens. And in 1982, the Privacy Act of 1974 was amended to allow federal agencies to exchange personal data with one another -- perhaps simply a legislative acknowledgment of what was already going on anyway -- thereby opening the floodgate for the possible widespread dissemination of erroneous information about an individual. There is little quantitative data about the error rate of information held by private credit bureaus, other commercial sector data gatherers, or public sector institutions and agencies. A decade ago, though, Kenneth Laudon, working on a study for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment(OTA), was asked by OTA to check a small sample of FBI arrest warrants for accuracy. What Laudon found was that for about 11% of the sample, the warrants had already been cleared or vacated at the local level, and in another 4% of the cases, there was no record at all of an arrest warrant at the local agency. If the 400 records were representative of the entire FBI warrant file, this meant that on the day the records were pulled for the study, there were about 17,000 U.S citizens open to false arrest by the FBI on the basis of inaccurate or outdated information in the Bureau's database. Regulating the Use of Personal Data Most European countries have formal Data Protection Commissions who are charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that individual rights relating to the collection, dissemination, and use of personal data are not trampled at the whim of the state or in the interests of the marketplace. Indeed, the purview of the Commissions as well as data protection laws throughout Europe generally apply both to government and to private sector activities. While what seems to be a fairly effective model for European nations would not automatically be assured of success here, there is no question that data protection laws in the U.S. leave much to be desired where they exist at all. Michael Rogers Rubin provided an excellent overview of existing federal and state legislation in an article two years ago in Library Hi Tech, and Rein Turn provided a comprehensive and still timely overview in ARIST a few years before. In 1974, the U.S. Congress passed what is known as The Privacy Act of 1974. The Act addresses certain practices and limitations regarding use of federal databases, including those related to income tax, social security, census, federal employment, and a variety of other types of records. The Act has always been seen as pretty weak. It has no provisions regarding what types of data may be collected, or any restrictions on how it can be collected. There are only nominal restrictions limiting use of records for purposes other than that for which they were originally collected. There is enough ambiguity in the provisions to make them fairly open to interpretation by agencies, there are relatively broad exemptions, and there is not a strong direct enforcement mechanism. What it comes down to is that the Act does fairly unambiguously grant individuals the right to see records that the government is keeping on them, and to correct the records if warranted. Of course, it is up to the individual to initiate an inquiry to find out whether or not any records are being kept, and a separate inquiry must be filed for each database maintained by the government, which number by now somewhere over 7,000. If a requestor does find what he or she detects to be an error, it is up to that individual to provide proof of the error, including shouldering any legal fees should the person feel it necessary to get the assistance of counsel. As Rubin and Turn both point out, there are other federal laws and internal agency directives -- such as one adopted in 1973 by what was then Health, Education and Welfare -- that grant more protection and privacy than does the Privacy Act itself. The Privacy Act of 1974 and many other federal statutes apply only to federal databases. Its provisions regarding employee protections are a bit broader, in that they must be adhered to by private government contractors as well. But applicable to the private sector as a whole, there is really a dearth of legislation addressing data collection, use, and privacy protection. Even the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which prohibits creditors from inquiring as to race, religion, gender, or national origin, does not apply to credit reporting bureaus themselves, and these are probably the most comprehensive data collectors and disseminators in the private sector. Both as it applies to government and commercial enterprise, federal legislation in the United States is just plain inadequate when it comes to providing citizens with protection against misuse of electronically stored or communicated information. The states do somewhat better, but still fall short of what most citizen rights advocates feel is needed to ensure even minimal protections. To overcome some of the problems that have been described above, there are three fundamental approaches that could be taken on a national level. The first would be to take the tact that virtually any and all gathering, distribution, and storage of personal data in electronic form (or in any form for that matter) is a violation of basic rights of privacy to which we are entitled. This solution may be equivalent to simply trying to wish the problem away. Too many purposes of data collection and use are probably too legitimate, and the practices too entrenched, to make this a realistic option. Barring a reaction of unforeseen magnitude, the collection and use of personal data is going to continue to grow and to become even more tied to computerization and communication over data networks than it is now. Some of the greatest concerns about use of personal data have to do with accountability, identification of the exact sources of various pieces of information that are circulating about us, the diffusiveness of its whereabouts both in the private sector and among government agencies, and the lack of regulation over its dissemination. An approach that would serve to bring under control all of these problems would be treat personal data as a national resource and establish one single authoritative database into which, and out of which, all personal information gathered by anyone would be mandated to flow. Tabs could better be kept on where data originated and then to whom it was redistributed; correction of erroneous data could be easier and a centralized mechanism for distributing corrected data could be put into place; and a central authority could be empowered to benevolently administer the database, ensure reasonable confidentiality of the information contained therein, and protect the citizenry against misuse of data. This solution could bring under tow much of the mayhem that exists today, is probably technologically quite feasible and administratively possible -- and it stands absolutely no chance of happening, at least not in any overt manifestation. The thought of a single, centralized, state owned and operated database of personal information offends just about everything Americans hold sacred. It simply runs counter to our national psyche. However much the current environment seems to foster conditions that make personal data vulnerable to misuse, at least it is largely disorganized and uncoordinated misuse, the result of clerical errors and financial greed, not political espionage. This does not mean that the problems should be ignored, nor left for self-regulation. The third approach we can take is to strengthen our data protection laws. We as a nation must decide where to draw the line between what constitutes reasonable data collection and use by the public sector and the private sector, and where that crosses the line into unnecessary and potentially threatening intrusion into our lives. Congress has not yet made data protection a high priority. It is unlikely to do so until the citizenry expresses a concern with sufficient voice to make these issues grist for the campaign mill rather than simply pet projects of a few concerned legislators. It is when we see the awareness among our citizens rise that we will see the awareness among our lawmakers rise, and when that happens, we will begin to protect personal information as an individual freedom and a right rather than as a state resource and a marketplace commodity. THE RIGHT OF ACCESS Citizen rights like freedom of expression and protection against search and seizure are constitutionally guaranteed. The right to know how to read those rights for oneself, however, is not. Nor does the Constitution guarantee that the government or anyone else has to exert effort, quantitative or qualitative, in teaching citizens about what those rights mean or how to apply them. While public law has something to say about access to governmentally produced information, it is less clear about the obligation of the government to produce that information in the first place, and while freedoms of speech and the press by implication guarantee the right of individuals to have access to certain information created outside government, there is nothing said about the conditions under which that access is assured. In a year in which the themes of literacy, democracy, and productivity will highlight the Second White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services, it is important that we begin to look at access to information more as a right than a privilege. If we are to tackle the full complexities of literacy, and to hold forth the tenet that democracy requires an informed citizenry, and to compete more effectively in a global economy by capitalizing on productivity, then we must be prepared to view not just information, but access to information, as a national resource upon which no price tag can be placed. In terms of the implications for a society heavily dependent on technology as the conduit through which information flows, it is important that we examine three aspects of access to electronic information: electronic literacy, government information, and universality of opportunity of access. Electronic Literacy When A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, the report of the U.S. Commission on Excellence in Education confirmed what had long been suspected: the educational system was in serious trouble, and among the problems was deficiency in the basic ability to read. The exact proportion of the American population that is illiterate depends on definitions and on whose figures one chooses to cite, but the dimensions are serious by anyone's count. The issue of literacy in America is further complicated when examined in light of our increasing reliance on electronic media from which we retrieve information and through which we communicate it. In the process of acquiring print literacy, the learner is relatively free to focus on the substance, i.e. the printed page or card or whatever; the means of getting to the object of learning is fairly straightforward with the chief requirement being manual dexterity. With information in electronic form, however, two different kinds of skill are required, and we thus encounter two different types of illiteracy. The first is exemplified by the person who can neither read nor operate the means, i.e. the technology, that is required to retrieve or communicate the content. A second form of electronic illiteracy -- and the emphasis here is indeed on "electronic" -- exists among persons who know how to read the printed word, but are untrained in the technical skills required to access and use information in electronic form. These people may have only remedial reading skills and minimal education, or they may be an accomplished scholar with advanced degrees. A person with the latter qualifications is more likely to be able to readily master the technological aspect of electronic literacy than is an individual with the former, but at least at the outset, they are at the same level with regard to information in electronic form -- they are illiterate. A third level could, arguably, be added to this typology of electronic literacy/illiteracy, a level that might best be described as technologically "marginally literate." To persons in this category might apply the axiom that sometimes a little knowledge is almost worse than none. These are the people who can read and who can use the technology well enough to retrieve or use or communicate information, though not necessarily very effectively. The most potentially counter-productive aspect of this level of literacy is that sometimes the individuals think they have a mastery of the technology, when in fact they have only very rudimentary skills in employing it. And the difficulty with this category, of course, is the subjectivity with which it is defined. Complete reading illiteracy can be pretty unambiguously identified, as can the second type of electronic literacy where an individual knows how to read but does not know how to use the technology. But the definition of this "minimal effectiveness" category is far more subjective. Each of us could probably be more skillful in the information technologies we employ; but where is the line between effectiveness and ineffectiveness, and whose value judgment is it? We have certain standards by which we measure print literacy and reading levels, but to my knowledge we have no real equivalent by which to measure levels of electronic information literacy. The irony is that, while this minimal effectiveness category is the most difficult to define, it may be the one most in need of recognition and attention if we are going to truly increase the citizenry's collective productivity and enhance individual opportunity. We can identify those among the adult population who cannot read and those who cannot use even the most basic information retrieval system, and we can teach them how to gain some basic skills in each of these areas. Our schools, our libraries, our communities increasingly have programs for accomplishing this. But what happens once an individual attains the basic level of skill for which the program was designed, and what happens to those whose skills are already slightly higher than the focus of the programs? A premise of most of our programs, whether teaching print literacy or computer literacy, seems to be that at some point the individual is turned out to fend for herself or himself in further enhancing their skills. It is exactly at this juncture, though, that an individual may most need continuing support mechanisms through formal programs and "advanced" instruction. This is not at all to say we should abandon our emphasis on basic literacy, both of a print and electronic variety. It is, rather, to say that we must not stop with the provision of rudimentary skills, but that we must continue on in organized fashion, for it is in this transitional phase that the individual may for the first time be able to see the light of real opportunity, and we must develop mechanisms by which to facilitate progress toward that opportunity. Government Information The ongoing saga of the fate of publication and dissemination of information by and about the federal government is covered well by professional associations and in journals, and it will not receive lengthy treatment here. Concerns over government information publishing practices fall primarily into philosophical and economic issues. On the philosophical side, information produced by the government is seen as a precursor to an informed citizenry and therefore a vital ingredient of democracy. From the economic perspective, proponents of strong federal publishing requirements feel that not only should government publish information pertaining to its activities, but that such documents should be available at or near the actual cost of production, based on the premise that the citizenry has already paid for this information through taxes. Another side of the economic aspect of government publishing is that strict marketplace principles of salability should not drive the decision as to whether or not the government publishes an item. There is considered to be a societal good served in publishing information that might appeal only to limited audiences engaged in work that is intrinsically important to society or even small segments thereof. The 1980s were not kind to government publishing, and the 1990s are not starting off much better. The last decade has seen severe cutbacks in publication budgets at a time when the amount of information as a whole being gathered is increasing, and when changes in technology are presenting new challenges and new opportunities for the government information infrastructure. Funds for federal agency publishing activities have been dwindling in the past ten-plus years. Already by 1982, the Department of Education was announcing that it was considering rejecting 40% of the requests to publish findings of education laboratories that were federally sponsored, simply because it did not have the money in its publications budget to do so. Two years later, as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, the publication budgets of most federal agencies was cut by 30% for FY1986. Combined with these cutbacks were constant pressures from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) throughout the 1980s to turn more and more of the publishing of government information over to the private sector. The debate got so heated with respect to the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) that in 1988 Congress felt incumbent to pass legislation stipulating that no NTIS activity could be contracted out unless approved by statute. Nevertheless, many federal agency documents are no longer published by the government, but rather are now published by the private sector at substantially high prices. The Federal Election Commission, for example, has curtailed publication of information pertaining to campaign finances, and this information must now be purchased from the private sector at a cost of several thousand dollars. Budget cuts and debate over privatization have been further complicated by changes in the technology of government printing and distribution. The amount of government information now being published in print form reportedly has actually been on the decline in recent years, while electronic publication has been on the increase. The need for economizing, the sheer amount of data in some of the documents prepared by agencies, and other factors have led to decisions to publish some documents only in electronic form, with no print equivalent. The publication of government information in electronic form has presented some sticky territorial disputes over who should be in charge of distributing what. The Government Printing Office (GPO) and NTIS have been historically bound to paper and microform publishing. The OMB has been quick to interpret any statutes bearing on the question of publication and distribution of alternate formats in a restrictive sense, thereby taking the responsibility out of the hands of GPO in particular and placing it elsewhere -- including in the hands of the private sector. The upheaval in government publication policy and practice, especially with respect to electronic databases, has carried over into other programs such as The Depository Library Program. This program was established to ensure widespread dissemination of, and access by the citizenry to, federal publications. The program has worked well. But as more and more government information is being published in electronic formats, and sometimes only in an electronic format, new challenges appear. The OMB has asserted that electronic publications are not covered under the Federal Depository Library program, and agencies are therefore under no obligation to see that these are distributed to appropriate depository collections. Fortunately, the Joint Committee on Publishing and other Congressional committees have just as strongly felt otherwise. Even when publications in electronic formats are made available to Depository Libraries, however, the government is not clearly under obligation to furnish the hardware software, and other expenses that might be necessary to access the information electronically. The Depository Library Program has become such a crucial vehicle for making government information to the public that the Office of Technology Assessment's Informing the Nation report noted the possible need for additional government funding to address this issue. The production and dissemination of information by the government about its own activities is in a state of uncertainty. There continues to be a widely-held opinion that information created, published, and distributed by the government is a cornerstone of democracy, and that open and free access to it is a right of the citizenry. There are some who don't see it this way, instead viewing government information primarily as an easily repackagable economic commodity whose distribution should be the responsibility of the private sector. While the objections to this line of reasoning by public information advocates are quite often based in philosophical principles about the relationship between the state and its citizens, there are also some very practical concerns, as Carol Moody noted when she suggested that "...relying on the private sector where companies are bought, sold, and dismantled overnight, is not the way to provide the public with critical information." Universal Opportunity of Access There are several aspects pertaining to the question of equal opportunity of access to information, not just by and about the government, but also to information that is publicly accessible through commercial electronic services. The aspect that will be discussed here is the socioeconomics of access to that information by the citizenry. The issue of the socioeconomics of access to information has most often been stated in terms of a fairly simply dichotomy of the information rich versus the information poor. This is convenient, but as with literacy, it is important to recognize more gradations when viewing the problem in the context of electronic information. At one end of the spectrum there are those for whom the cost of access to electronic information is a factor of no particular consequence; these are the information rich, or perhaps more appropriately labelled, the access rich. At the other end of the spectrum are the information poor, or access poor, who cannot afford to pay even nominal fees for access to electronic information. We tend to associate this latter group with an overall socioeconomic class lacking not only in financial resources but also fitting other criteria having to do with level of formal education, employment characteristics, etc. And this is where, in the electronic environment, the simplicity of the dichotomy breaks down. In terms of ability to pay, the access poor includes not just the less educated and the ranks of unskilled labor; it can also include graduate students and professors in academia not lucky enough to be working under a research grant, and it can include highly educated owners of small and even medium-sized businesses. The life options available to people fitting these latter descriptions are a magnitude of order more open than those available to the truly economically disadvantaged, but this middle group should not be overlooked. Trevor Haywood pointed out that, in Britain, access to about thirty minutes of a commercial database would cost the equivalent of about half a week's salary of a family earning the national average income. The proportion might be a bit less dramatic in this country, but the general implications are not: we have a large number of citizens who simply cannot on their own afford to tap into the electronic information structure in America as it exists today. The past two decades have seen ongoing debate in the library profession about the appropriateness of charging fees to users in order to recover part or all of the costs associated with user-specific online searches of commercial database services. The arguments presented by both sides in this "fee versus free" controversy have been delivered with equal eloquence and passion. After all the permutations on all the arguments pro and con are examined, the debate is generally reduced to what is desired philosophically versus what is practical economically. The debates with respect to user fees are not quite as prominent at our conferences and in our literature as they once were. A professional accord seems to have been reached, whereby most librarians support the principle of not levying fees for service, but the degree to which that principle can be implemented is recognized to vary widely from one library to the next. While the controversy over fees for online access in libraries has not been at the forefront of "hot issues" within the profession during the past few years, it is merely dormant, not resolved. With developments like the emergence of the National Education and Research Network, interest in the question of who gets access, and how to fund it, is on the rise again. In the specific case of NREN, the consensus in the library profession seems to be that the Network and access to it should be a national resource in much the same way that our interstate highway system is. The NREN will be as crucial a means of "transportation" of information and ideas as the national highway infrastructure was for the transportation of material goods. The library profession is furthermore becoming fairly committed to the concept of the NREN as a resource not just for scholars and research and development firms, but for all citizens. There is also strong sentiment in favor of federal subsidy for access and use of the NREN, in much the same way our interstate highway systems are constructed and maintained through public monies. But even if the model that has the NREN serving as a national resource with open and even subsidized access becomes the reality, this in no way solves the question of "fee versus free" access to electronic information -- it may, in fact, merely exacerbate it. Communication across the telecommunications superhighway might turn out to be free, but there remain the questions of who pays for the local roads leading to it and for what lies at the end of the highway. The NREN is likely to, and in fact is being designed primarily to, facilitate communication of research and high-end computing services, but it will no doubt also be used as a vehicle to access many of the commercially available electronic database services that now exist, along with a host of new services whose founding will be spawned by the growth of the Network. Access, in the sense merely of telecommunications, to some of the conventional online services and to the new ones that grow up may become easier and less expensive than it is now, but this does not mean that the information itself that resides at the end of the road somewhere will in any sense be "free." And once we envision this scenario, we are back to where we started in terms of the question of who pays. Whether an individual travels across the NREN from a home, an office, or a computer terminal in the library, this is a vital question. And it is not one simply for libraries to grapple with in their provision of access to information; it is one that society as a whole must confront. In the "fee versus free" debates of yesteryear, emotions reached such a pitch sometimes where an author or a committee would issue a statement to the effect that all people should have a right to access all information, and on occasion the statements were left this open-ended. Obviously, it is impractical and not really a good idea to imply that people should be able to access internal memos of every corporation in America, each others bank accounts, etc. But what was important then, and what is still important now, is the issue of opportunity of access to commercial databases and other electronic information to which availability is public as long as the user follows the rules set forth by the provider -- the most standard of which is the ability to pay the established price. And this is where not just library policy, but broad social policy, must come into play. Libraries have too long tried to shoulder by themselves the burden of subsidizing costs for access to electronic information by those unable to afford to pay. If our literacy, our democracy, our productivity, and our general health as a nation depends in such large part on our ability to access and use information in the most effective and efficient ways possible, then is it not a responsibility of society as a whole to ensure that the citizenry has the opportunity of access to the full range of information that is available for public consumption? And this concept in no way denies the right of the private sector to sell access or to make a profit. Public schools cost money to operate and public roads cost money to build, and in the process, manufacturers of school desks and construction contractors charge for their services and make a profit. The antagonism between libraries and commercial vendors that sometimes was an undercurrent in discussions about the cost of information services has perhaps always been misplaced. Our real focus should perhaps be on public policy surrounding the support of access to information, rather than on whether or not someone has a right to benefit financially from providing that information. While libraries will have to deal with the hard decisions of providing access to often expensive electronic information in the foreseeable future, we might also be wise to urge our elected officials to begin making some hard decisions about how to ensure the citizenry's right to be informed, not just by and about the government, but with access to all publicly available information that would help them to perform their jobs better, be more knowledgeable and more productive, and in the process ensure a stronger democracy and a more vital economy. In a recent report on options for national communications policy, the Office of Technology Assessment described three primary models for development: communication as a market commodity, communication as a springboard to economic growth, and communication as social infrastructure. The latter of these, it was noted, carries with it an emphasis on equity of access. The report also noted that, as of 1990, the "communication as social infrastructure" viewpoint was not very powerful within the current communication policy community. But the report then went on to observe that proponents of communications as a vehicle through which to accomplish societal goals have historically grown in strength as technologies have developed, this being the case with telegraphy, telephony, radio, and television. As we blend the goals of the social model with efforts to enhance the position of U.S. competitiveness in a global economy, and infuse our strong traditional values regarding individual freedoms and rights, we have reason to be optimistic that more sound policies regarding the use of information technology will evolve, and that those policies will assert our freedoms and our protections, and will perhaps even view access to information as a right of the citzenry rather than as a privilege. * * * * * * * * Dennis Reynolds may be reached at 202/745-7722 (voice) or 202/797-7719 (fax) or on Bitnet at dreynol@auvm.-- TECHNO-FALLACIES OF THE INFORMATION AGE Gary T. Marx Department of Sociology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts New information technologies are breaking the boundaries of time and space, and are bringing with them far-reaching changes in the way information is gathered, accessed, and disseminated. While holding much promise, it is also important to be aware of the background assumptions that often accompany the advocacy and introduction of new technologies. In particular, it is critical to examine the broader cultural climate, the rationales for action, and the empirical and value assumptions surrounding the introduction and widespread adoption of a technology. Academic analysts try to offer theories, concepts, methods, and data, and also, hopefully, wisdom. A part of the wisdom arises in being able to identify and question the web of tacit assumptions that undergirds action. As an ethnographer, I watch and listen. When it comes to technology, I sometimes hear things that seem empirically, logically, or normatively wrong, much as a musician knows that certain notes are off key: "Turn the technology loose and let the benefits flow"..."Do away with the human interface"..."When you choose to make a phone call, you are consenting to have your telephone number released"..."Only the computer sees it"..."Those of us who are involved in consumer marketing are the best agents for protecting the consumer's privacy"..."That's never happened"..."The public interest is whatever the public is interested in watching"..."There is no law against this"..."The technology is neutral." There are a number of assumptions underlying assertions like these. If we are to use emergent technology to best serve human needs in a democratic society, it is important we be on guard against what can be called "tarnished silver-bullet techno-fallacies". Following are a number of these information-age leaps in logic of which we must be aware, and against which we must guard. 1. The fallacy of assuming that only the guilty have to fear the development of intrusive technology (or, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide). 2. The fallacy of the free lunch or "painless dentistry" in which it is assumed that information technology offers cost-free solutions. 3. The legalistic fallacy of assuming that the only criterion that ought to guide the use of technology is whether or not the law permits it. 4. The fallacy of assuming that pragmatism and/or efficiency should automatically overrule other values such as fairness, equity, external costs imposed on third parties, and symbolic meaning. 5. The fallacy of lowest common denominator morality, in assuming that if the competition or others push moral limits, you are justified in doing the same. 6. The fallacy of assuming that personal information on customers, clients, and cases possessed by an organization is a kind of property, to be bought and sold just like office furniture or raw materials. 7. The fallacy of assuming that because our privacy expectations are historically determined and relative, they must necessarily become weaker as technology becomes more powerful. 8. The fallacy of technical neutrality. (George Orwell's response to the assertion that technology was neutral--"so is the jungle"--is applicable here). 9. The fallacy of implied consent and free choice (For example, some phone company officials claim that if you choose to make a call you have consented to have your phone number released. You thus are encouraged to protect your privacy by not using the phone. But that's like saying if you breathe polluted air or drink contaminated water, you consent to these). 10. The fallacy of believing that because it is possible to successfully skate on thin ice it is acceptable to do so. We should not have to wait for a disaster to occur before concluding that some uses of information technology are simply too risky to be adopted. 11. The fallacy of assuming that the means will never determine the end. There is a danger of starting with the technology and asking what can it be used for, rather than starting with goals and asking how can they best be achieved. 12. The fallacy of perfect containment (or, technology will always remain the solution rather than become the problem). 13. The fallacy of assuming that if a critic questions the means, he or she must also be against the ends. With respect to information gathering technology, we are now in the twilight that Justice William O. Douglas wrote about when he argued that the protection of our basic values is not self-executing, and that "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." One could as well argue that we are in a sunrise zone and that we must be aware of change in the air in order to insure that we all profit from the sunshine. But for this to happen, the technology must be bounded by increased public awareness, responsible corporate and government behavior, and new laws and policies framed to ensure individual freedoms and protect individual rights. * * * * * * * * This essay is based in part on the author's article "Technology and Privacy" that appeared in The World and I, September, 1990 issue, pp. 523-541. Other recent publications by the author touching these and related themes include "The Case of the Omniscient Organization", Harvard Business Review, 90(March/April, 1990): 12-30; Undercover: Police Surveillance in America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988; and "Monitoring on the Job" (with S. Sherizen), Technology Review, 89(November/December, 1986): 62-72.  FREEDOM AND PRIVACY IN ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES Steve Cisler Apple Computer Library Cuppertino, California When you ask people what they like about the libraries they use, the range of answers will include praise for the staff, the various resources, and the attractiveness of the physical facilities. Almost everyone has a sense of place about a particular library or libraries in general. For some, the library is a place to retreat and relax; for others it is an important institution that binds their community together; and for some it is an efficient center for the dissemination of information and knowledge that meets the deadlines of busy users. Whether you ask a librarian or library user, most of these concepts are tied to a physical place. However, many people are spending an increasing amount of time working, studying, and relaxing in the realm of electronic communications. When you begin exploring this area (and many librarians are doing just that), it is hard to see the edges of this virtual terrain. It includes our telephones, televisions, radios, the networks that connect our computers, pagers, and facsimile machines, and ATM and credit card machines. This realm has been called Cyberspace, The Electronic Frontier, and The Homeland of the Information Age. The library is a part of this emerging landscape. What are the qualities of our present libraries that will be valued in the time when many more people will connect electronically to our services rather than walk in to talk with a reference librarian and browse through the books and magazines and CD's? What will set the library apart from other institutions that successfully take root in the electronic arena? One of the most important distinguishing characteristics may prove to be a perception by electronic library users that the staff is really trying to help guide them through the intricacies of the information age. If we can project the sense of service we now have, support for the electronic librarian will grow. While delivery of the requested information might continue to be our primary indication that we have succeeded, we might do well to remember that many people do not associate human beings with satisfactory electronic transactions. How many of us think warmly of the staff that fills the ATM machines with money every day, or of the systems person that tweaks the program that keeps your account straight? Librarians will remain intermediaries, but how prominent will we be to the average user? Another quality of what I'll call the library experience is the trust that people place in the staff and the institution. The importance of privacy issues and society's increasing awareness of them will make this a very important factor to consider in operating the electronic library. In March 1991, I attended the First Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy in Burlingame, California. Drawn together was a strange assembly of computer hackers, libertarians, librarians, law enforcement officials, network administrators, computer consultants, writers, lawyers, public policy analysts, and employees of the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and the Secret Service. It was a time to meet, to discuss crucial issues, and to begin face-to-face discussion in confronting a variety of problems. Some of the discussion at the CFP Conference and in other fora have explored social implications of technology that are likely to reach new levels of relevance for libraries, too, as they become tied into increasingly complex multi-purpose communications networks. Some of the more important of these include: 1. First amendment rights; 2. The practice of gathering, using, and selling personal information; 3. Monitoring of employees in the electronic workplace; 4. Monitoring of citizens in Cyberspace; 5. Security of personal information on networks. FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS In Freedom, Technology, and the First Amendment, Jonathan Emord traces the history of the government's stricter curtailment of First Amendment protection for radio, television, and cable broadcasters when compared with the more sacrosanct print media. From early in the 20th Century, when the U.S. Navy sought to put the entire wireless telegraphy industry under complete government supervision, to Supreme Court decisions in 1940 that justified federal controls over the broadcast media on the basis of spectrum scarcity, these industries have not been afforded the same degree of freedom as have print publishers. The early regulations of the Federal Radio Commission and the more powerful Federal Communications Commission came about partly from broadcasters asking the government to limit the number of licenses, and partly from legislators and government officials trying to legislate what constituted "public interest". As Emord describes it: The restrictions tempered the willingness of licensees to engage in controversy, coerced them into offering certain kinds of bureaucratically 'preferred' programming, and caused them to become tools for the use of incumbent politicians and special interest groups who desired to influence the nature of public debate. Even though libraries continually face one kind of censorship battle or another, the restrictions placed on traditional print media--and hence on traditional library services--have not been as tight as they have been with respect to the radio, television, and cable industries. For libraries, what are the implications of these disparities in the treatment of different media? Libraries will be hooked into a national network of electronic information sources which eventually may even include entertainment on demand provided by radio and television broadcasting companies. As various kinds of media are publicly accessible through a single end-user source, it may become more difficult for libraries to continue to enjoy as much freedom as they historically have as handlers of print media. The libraries without walls will open up their collections, and what we provide access to generally, to scrutiny by even more interest groups than we have known in the past. We must be prepared to confront the challenges of being part of a media-rich information delivery network on which there may be more content restrictions than we have been accustomed to. What librarians do, and what advocacy roles we assume, may help to define the extent to which our users continue to view us as upholders of first amendment rights. GATHERING, USING AND SELLING PERSONAL INFORMATION Recently, I served on a panel at a conference at Stanford University hosted by the First Amendment Congress. Most of the people in attendance were from Stanford or from the radio, television, and newspaper industries. I was discussing the privacy of library circulation records, and many in the audience had not even considered the potential threats involved in not protecting that information. However, in light of the case involving the disclosure of Judge Bork's videotape rental records, most everyone there realized that personal reading and viewing habits are tenuously protected in the age of the computer. It was gratifying to be able to claim that librarians were already on top of this issue and had been for some time. At the CFP conference John Baker of Equifax, the company that supplied Lotus with data for its direct mail product, Lotus Marketplace, discussed attitudes toward privacy by the American people of whom 25% can be called Privacy Fundamentalists, 58% Privacy Pragmatists, and 17% of whom don't care about the issues. The Privacy Fundamentalists are the ones with unlisted numbers; they use personal name variations to track the re-use of magazine subscription information; they don't give out their Social Security number to anyone but the IRS and their banks. It is this group that will probably help shape the way businesses, government agencies, and even non-profits treat personal information gathered on individuals. The Bureau of the Census encounters a great deal of resistance from libertarians, minority groups, and other segments of America who distrust parts (or all) of the federal government. Various three-letter government agencies (IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD) have mission statements that allow them to spend huge sums on automated systems to store, link, and search for patterns in vast files of personal information about Americans and people living in America. But government agencies are not the only ones collecting large amounts of personal information. In fact, we should probably be even more concerned about the private sector, and especially credit firms such as TRW and Equifax. It is commerce that will always want more information about its customers or potential customers. And it is also in the free market where the existence of such information becomes a prized economic commodity in itself. A lot of the unexpected, often unwanted, mail and telemarketing calls you receive originate in a computerized mailing list bought from someone you sometime did business with. Most niche market direct mail promoters will tell you that the recipients want to get that catalog of biodegradable hiking boots, or the announcements about the latest concerts, or that credit card where part of the fee goes to some worthy cause. Using the profiles of estimated income and lifestyles, merged with the subscription lists of hi-tone periodicals, a direct mailer can target a group with the assurance that the return rate on responses will be much better than the average mailing list. Book and grocery chains are offering membership cards to regular customers. In return for a few benefits, the stores learn about buying patterns of the customers and for the geographical area in which the store is located. Some people, I'm sure, advocate the use of marketing techniques for libraries like those described above, and I'm sure there have been a number of mailing list experts who have worked with friends, groups or movements to support the passage of some library bond measure. In the quest for more funds and more support, there may be a strong temptation to use some of these tools and perhaps even to change the rules on how circulation records are used, in order to seek supporters in the library community. Before taking advantage of such marketing techniques, however, librarians will no doubt need to reflect on the practical implications and on some very basic philosophical issues about using these types of personal data for purposes other than that for which they were originally recorded. Librarians should also be aware of information gathered in the library that could even potentially be collocated with other databases through standard personal identification numbers. Many universities, for example, use the Social Security number (SSN) as a common number for all student activities. Unless it is a conscious decision by the library management, the SSN should not be used for access to the online library system or for checking out books. As a nation we have resisted the call for a national ID card, unlike many countries in Europe. But the use and abuse of the SSN makes it a piece of information that can be used to link disparate databases in commerce and in government. In a CFP conference panel, Evan Hendricks of Privacy Times recounted some abuses by government and industry involving secretive matching of personal information across multiple databases through matching on SSNs by TRW and the Social Security Administration. Investigators found that in two databases of names (150,000 names in one list and one million in the other) about 20% of the SSNs were inaccurate! Depending on one's perspective, this is either extremely frightening or in some perverse way a ray of hope that, despite the apparent simplicity of national scale surveillance, it has not yet reached very efficient proportions. Certainly we can do better than having to settle for either of these. In many automated library systems, there are ways to generate unique ID numbers. Even though it may seem that none of the data collected by libraries about their users will ever become a source for cross-database matching, the use of non-SSN identifiers does provide an extra safeguard. There is a growing controversy over the secondary use of gathered information. Some progressive organizations have a box on registration and membership forms allowing the individual to opt in and allow the personal information to be re-used by the organization or to be re-sold to worthy causes, or to anyone at all. Alan Westin, a privacy expert and consultant for Equifax, predicts that by the year 2000 marketing databases will be consensual and that the participants will be compensated for the use of their information. One positive step that the library world could make is to ask the American Library Association to add an "opt in" box on conference registration forms; this would make it easy to prevent them from re-selling your name to dozens of vendors and exhibitors, whose communications you may not want in your mailbox. At the time of this writing I had to scribble a proviso on my application not to re-sell the information they collected from me. Whether it works, I will know by the time you have this essay. MONITORING OF EMPLOYEES IN THE ELECTRONIC WORKPLACE If you have called 411, booked an airline ticket, ordered a computer program via mail order, had a catalog keyed in by an off-shore data conversion firm, or read a newspaper, you have come into contact with someone who has been or is being electronically monitored by their supervisors. The devices available to eavesdrop, to monitor, and to blatantly mold electronic workers' performance is well developed. Operators are timed to see how fast they get you a requested phone number or book a flight. Data entry people have their keystrokes counted, and some reporters have told horror stories of seeing a warning screen pop up with the words "Your colleague in the next cube is working faster than you." Librarians can envision how, in their places of work, electronic surveillance could be used to monitor the productivity and accuracy of staff performance. At present, there seems to be fairly little discussion of potential abuses of electronic monitoring of employees in the library world, unless perhaps it is at a clerical workers union gathering. MONITORING OF CITIZENS IN CYBERSPACE There exists a large, anarchic computer conferencing/bulletin board system that is known as Usenet. On an average day more than 110,000 articles, totaling over 200 Mbytes, are submitted from 11000 different Usenet sites. Within 24 hours all the computers on the network have received these messages. Usenet is accessed mostly by Unix-based computers and workstations that reside in an enormous variety of environments, including hobbyists' basements, computer science departments, corporate MIS rooms, and government agencies. Many of the administrators who keep this network running voluntarily have a deep distrust of the intentions of the government, especially of the agencies charged with surveillance of Americans and foreign nationals here and abroad. Some of the more paranoid believe that powerful text processing engines are combing these messages 24 hours a day, flagging those where certain terms are used. Consequently, a number of users like to throw electronic monkey wrenches in this alleged monitoring by including at the bottom of each message sensitive terms like nuclear, terrorist, Bush, Communist, Tri-Lateral Commission, CIA, etc., in an effort to slow down the surveillance mechanism they suspect exists. My own hunch is that it could exist but does not. At present there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which the FBI monitors electronic bulletin board systems. There is evidence that the boards run by or for "phone phreaks" and "computer crackers" receive very close attention from the law enforcement crowd. But incidence of surveillance of more middle of the road boards is more difficult to document. The Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) have filed Freedom of Information Act requests that the FBI has ignored. The CPSR may have to go to court to get relevant records released, much as the library community did with the Library Awareness Program. The integrated online systems in libraries have the potential to monitor the circulation records of users. Through transaction analysis, if combined with user-specific authorization numbers to log on, libraries could even gather personal data about searches in online catalogs. Libraries have a good record in terms of rejecting monitoring of library users. Just as with some of the other concepts discussed here, the future may require more vigilance than ever before as libraries begin to plug into multi-purpose information networks. SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION ON THE NETWORKS One of the more interesting but arcane debates that is spreading around Cyberspace is the need for encrypted information. The general consensus among those who talk about it (and the government generally does not) is that while encryption schemes are necessary, the government has set limits on how powerful an encryption scheme networks can employ. Some in government want to maintain their edge by controlling the use of encryption programs by the public. Librarians should be aware of these developments because with the greater connectivity among future networks will come a greater need for security. Libraries are generally relatively open places, in an intellectual sense. It will take some creative tactics in the virtual library of the future to both maintain that atmosphere, and at the same time to protect personal information from other users, from law enforcement investigators, and from virus outbreaks or the introduction of hostile worm programs. Even the use of computer agents -- software surrogates that travel around the network performing various functions such as searching for material on a subject or sorting electronic mail -- will demand a whole new code of ethics by librarians and network administrators. How much will one agent be able to communicate to another agent, if both are looking for information about a patent or a sensitive research issue? How will the confidentiality of the questioner be preserved? And will this processing overhead slow the network down to unacceptable speeds? Conclusion This has been a rapid survey of several issues that I have been following at conferences and through online sources. Some of this discussion will be found in technical journals, the popular press, and even television. The library community will have to figure where it fits into these complex puzzles. Probably libraries will fit many places, sometimes in opposition to some government agencies, to some businesses, and even to some scholars. I am sure this LITA President's Program will provide a good forum for discussing some of the issues. An organization that is at the forefront of advocacy of privacy rights in the electronic networking environment is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 155 Second Street, Cambridge, MA 02141, (617)864-0665. The EFF has given support to another active group, the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Box 717, Palo Alto, California 94302. Members of these groups participate in Usenet newsgroups such as comp.risks (risks of computers, automation, and reliance on the technology); alt.privacy (an open forum to discuss privacy issues); eff.org.talk (discussion group for the Electronic Frontier Foundation); comp.admin.policy (new group to discuss e-mail privacy, user access to networks, security). You may also contact the author electronically on The WELL: or on the Internet . The WELL offers access to a number of electronic discussion groups on censorship, information policy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and library issues. Phone 415-332-4335 for more information. * * * * * * * * ELECTRONIC INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM Gordon M. Conable Monroe County Library System Monroe, Michigan The principles of intellectual freedom have been codified over the last fifty years for libraries and librarians in "The Library Bill of Rights" and its various interpretations by the American Library Association. These principles are based upon precepts of American constitutional law, particularly the First Amendment. The same principles can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations equivalent of the U.S. Bill of Rights. These documents spell out the right of free expression, including freedom of religion, assembly, association, speech, the press, and the right to petition the government. Both documents speak to the rights of individuals and serve to limit the actions of government which could curtail individual rights. New technologies have profound impact on many aspects of human endeavor, and the electronic age is altering the way humans think, write, gather, store, and disseminate information. In the process, opportunities and problems that were previously unanticipated rear their heads and a temptation exists to assert that because of the technological changes, the underlying legal principles and rights of individuals have somehow been dramatically altered by the technologies. Libraries have often approached new technology with the assumption that old paradigms may no longer apply. To cite two common examples: libraries that would never think of charging users to search print indexes often charge users to access the same information if it resides in an electronic database; and about a third of all public libraries that have videotape in their circulating collections charge a rental fee for those tapes, adopting a model common in the retail sector. Neither of these choices is inevitable. While both appear to be an outgrowth of the new technology, it might be more accurate to describe them as a result of the marketing of the new technology. The database vendors operate on the basis of different economic assumptions than the print publishers. In the case of the print index, marketing has always meant the sale of a physical object -- the set of printed volumes -- which reflected a publication/production cost rather than a per-use charge. In the electronic version, no physical object is sold. What is marketed is access and use rather than a physical object, and access and use can be monitored, metered, and charged accordingly. Hence, an economic model favors user charges. Libraries, quite naturally, have often found it both logical and easy to pass those charges onto users. In the case of video, it first entered the marketplace primarily as a rental item, and many libraries found it convenient to look to the retail model when attempting to determine how to handle tapes. In many ways, libraries are institutions that have been defined by the characteristics of the book. It is clear, however, that the justification for libraries, particularly publicly supported libraries, is based on constitutional principles rather than on the characteristics of any medium. First Amendment principles, together with the right to privacy, are the centerpieces from which librarians must think about and deal with the issues surrounding electronic information. And those principles are broad enough and flexible enough that they should not be determined by the technology involved. The issues that are being confronted anew in the context of electronic media include, among others: copyright and the ownership of intellectual property; the licensing of information or access to it; the relationship between the original creator, the compiler, the distributor, and the user; the question of what is public and what is private. But these issues are fundamentally political rather than constitutional in their nature. They are factors of private market mechanisms as much as they are factors of constitutionally dictated public policy. As such, they are likely to be decided legislatively and economically before they will be treated judicially. Herein lies much of the risk for libraries, librarians, and advocates of the public right to know. The lobbying and economic resources available to the "information industry" in general and its more visible advocates are substantially greater than those which librarians and public interest organizations are able to bring to the table. There is a right to free expression; there is statutory access to at least some, and theoretically most, governmentally generated information. There is a long-established tradition for publicly supported libraries to serve as a means of access to that information. There is a less clear mandate that information should be available without charge or without cost recovery. The issue is not whether libraries should continue to make the information available without charge -- ALA's policy positions, at least, make clear the profession's commitment to do so. Some library funding agencies are less committed to fee-free service than librarians, however. In an era in which "privatization" of governmental services has growing support both from politicians looking for easy means of cutting governmental expenditures and from entrepreneurs who are looking for governmental license to profit from publicly produced information goods, the advocates of free access -- or fee-free library access -- may well be facing an uphill battle. Against this background, it remains to be seen whether information formerly made available to libraries from governmental sources without charge will now be prohibitively priced; whether the economic assumptions under which libraries operate will allow them to acquire government and other information in electronic media at all or at a cost that does not force them to abandon a non-metered approach to service; and whether the "public good" of free library service will survive the economics of electronics. The issue of privacy -- protection of information about oneself from uncontrolled dissemination -- is another concern of major proportion. Much attention has been focussed -- and not with entirely satisfactory resolution -- on the use of governmentally generated data about individuals for purposes other than that for which it was gathered. Libraries have grappled with this issue directly in dealing with patron confidentiality and library records. Despite a general commitment on the part of librarians to confidentiality, it is worth noting that circulation systems are being sold by vendors at least partly on the basis of their capabilities for record keeping which would facilitate practices by librarians that would grossly violate patron privacy. Private sector efforts to combine and market electronic data about individual consumers are receiving increased attention. Current technology accommodates extensive, sophisticated, and potentially intrusive collection and dissemination of such personal data. During the first half of 1991, public attention has focussed on such efforts as: the Lotus Development Corporation's attempt to market a massive database of consumer information; a proposed scheme by Blockbuster Video to market information about video rental preferences of its customers by genre; and a company selling supermarket scanners which compile item purchase data on all shoppers to aid advertising and promotion schemes. Publicity about these efforts has generated significant public backlash, forced the cancellation or at least slowdown of the development of some of these products and services, and may even lead to legislative attempts to limit them. The latter raises interesting and conflicting questions about the constitutional rights of the compilers of such data versus those about whom it is compiled. Governmental restraint on publication of such data may, in fact, implicate First Amendment rights to publish. One issue for librarians implied by this has to do with questions of making databases of this nature available to their users. Many public libraries, for example, have agonized about the ethical issues of making criss-cross directory information available. If the information is available, a choice by the library to withhold it may be a form of censorship and may compromise intellectual freedom principles. How many libraries, however, have attempted to add credit rating databases to their business libraries? Retailers may have on-line access to such data; why not libraries? And supposing this and much greater amounts of similar data were available on compact disc -- should it be purchased and made available? If there is a right to privacy in the Constitution, could the dissemination of certain information by a publicly supported library involve a constitutionally implicated invasion of privacy when private sector dissemination of the same information might not? The questions ahead of us will be knotty and essential. Finally, it is worth noting that among the significant forces confronting these issues are users who are pushing the capabilities of electronic technology to explore just what is really possible in this new information environment. Economic, legal, and technological controls are only enforceable to the level that they are practical. This is a period of rapid technological development and no little ferment. It will take awhile to understand the issues, let alone solve them. Laurence H. Tribe recently addressed these issues in detail in a paper entitled "The Constitution in Cyberspace: Law and Liberty Beyond the Electronic Frontier," delivered as the keynote address to the First Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy on March 26, 1991. Tribe concluded his remarks by proposing a Twenty-seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to read as follows: "This Constitution's protections for the freedoms of speech, press, petition, and assembly, and its protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, shall be construed as fully applicable without regard to the technological method or medium through which information content is generated, stored, altered, transmitted, or controlled." Professor Tribe's underlying construct should equally be applied to the manner in which libraries and librarians approach the myriad of intellectual freedom issues facing them as they develop means of integrating these new technologies into their mission and operations.  THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW AND ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT INFORMATION Nancy Kranich New York University Libraries New York, New York James Madison once wrote that "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and that people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both." As information professionals, librarians hail the words of James Madison and recognize the importance of his message every day. Whether or not the nation's forefathers explicitly recognized the importance of information to a democratic society and the public's right to know through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, librarians believe in that right and make every attempt to reinforce it. But they have also come to realize that, more and more, those rights, particularly First Amendment rights, must be carefully protected, defended and strengthened. Over the past decade the public's right to information by and about the United States government has eroded. The government has whittled away at information access under the guise of the Paperwork Reduction Act, national security, export controls, budget cuts, automation and even privacy. Eliminated were one quarter of the documents previously published, including many of the items formerly distributed through the depository library system. A longstanding partnership between libraries and the federal government has assured the nation's citizens ready and equal access to government information. Through the Depository Library Program which was launched in the 19th century, nearly 1400 libraries located in every Congressional district have served as host institutions for distributing government information. In return for receiving nearly 20 million free copies of some 40,000 government publications annually, depository libraries house, organize and assist with no-fee use of the government's information resources. At least 167,000 citizens make use of these depositories each week. More than 7,500 electronic databases are disseminated each year by civilian agencies of the federal government. As agencies make increasing use of electronic formats, the public can benefit if government databases are disseminated through libraries, particularly depository libraries. A project to test the feasibility of depository library distribution of five electronic databases on such topics as the environment, energy, census, trade, and economics was launched in late 1988. While depositories are the likely loci for this essential information, a forthcoming evaluation of the project should shed more light on the actual benefits of this mode of dissemination. Access to electronic government information should promise all that came with print products and more, and will present new opportunities along with new challenges. No one recognizes these challenges better than librarians. Public access is fragile, diminished by any one of many factors that prevent the utilization of important information. At the very least in this age of electronic databases and networks, government information must be: þ developed in consultation with the general public to determine the most appropriate informationand format for dissemination; þ published regularly, on a continuous basis; þ standardized so that coordination efforts can be facilitated government-wide, encouragingcompatibility, lowering overall costs, and reducing user confusion; þ protected from censorship, with integrity, reliability, accuracy, and validity ensured; þ cumulated, archived and preserved by agencies charged with the long-term retention of records. Beyond these basic production and maintenance requirements are additional principles that should underlie the distribution of government information. Chief among these are that government information must be: þ disseminated in whatever format is most appropriate, most cost effective, most timely, and mostuseful for government agencies, libraries, and the general public; þ distributed widely through broad-based government sales programs and no-fee access throughdepository libraries located in every Congressional district; þ priced for sale at no more than the marginal cost of dissemination; þ redistributed without limitation, as long as equal, ready and equitable access is guaranteed; þ accessible even if market potential is very limited. While users may be few, importance is oftenconsiderable. And finally, if the public is to utilize this valuable data effectively, government information must be: þ enhanced by the availability of menus, indexes, and documentation so that users can retrieve,process and comprehend essential government information products and services; þ controlled bibliographically through centralized national databases and networks. If citizens areto use information in electronic format, they must be able to identify it through widelydisseminated, standardized, comprehensive, up-to-date bibliographic tools; þ safeguarded so that privacy rights of individuals requesting, using, or listed ingovernment records are guaranteed; þ interpreted and/or explained for users on request by expert agency personnel and/or otherwell-informed specialists; þ protected by no copyright restrictions so that materials can remain in the public domainand available for repackaging by a diversity of sources. Government information is of inestimable value to the American public. Assuring the public's right to this information requires a democratic caretaker no smaller than the government itself. No other entity can assume the primary responsibility for collecting, organizing, and disseminating the public's information assets, nor guarantee the public's equal rights to use and repackage it. The marketplace is simply too erratic and whimsical to fulfill this obligation. Without the government playing a primary role, the gap between information haves and have nots will only widen. To preserve a just and democratic society in an information age, the government must affirm its obligation to ensure the flow of information, regardless of format, to the public. Neither national security, budget constraints, automation, political expediency, or reduction of paperwork burden are an excuse for the government to abrogate its responsibility to inform the citizens of its activities. An open government is essential and vital to a democracy. Librarians and libraries have a unique role to play in assuring equal and ready public access to government information. They are in almost every community. Most are non-profit. They have a wide array of supporting materials in all kinds of formats. As professionals, librarians are trained to utilize this information and are equipped to provide access to a variety of formats. All of these factors position libraries and librarians favorably. But unless librarians make the right to know happen by actively advocating the rights of users, it simply will never be a reality. No other group has such a broad understanding of and commitment to public access as librarians. Without the vigilance and leadership of librarians working together with other organizations interested in promoting the public's right to know, access to government information will deteriorate even further. At risk is far more than a record of the government's activities and an enlightened electorate. At risk is the very survival of the democratic system that safeguards our cherished freedoms and rights, so carefully protected by James Madison and others who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. * * * * * * * *  "POWERSHIFT" AND SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION Sharon J. Rogers George Washington University Washington, D.C. Since computers and electronic databases were first introduced into libraries more than a quarter century ago, questions about who should have access and how that access should be financed have been debated extensively. As we enter an era in which more and more individuals will work and communicate electronically, we must continue to revisit these questions and to focus on additional issues pertaining to intellectual property, privacy, and freedom of expression in the electronic environment. In order to examine issues like these as they apply specifically to the conduct of scholarly research in the 1990s, it will be important to appreciate the rapidly changing context in which that work is being carried out and disseminated. This paper examines some of the characteristics of that changing context. In Powershift, Alvin Toffler gallops through the barrage of daily information to emerge with a model of power that, he argues, is transforming the very nature of power. For librarians and academics, scholarly communication is the arena for our experience of "powershift." Scholarly communication patterns are beginning to display a rich array of print and electronic experimentation. We are beginning to decipher the forces and patterns that are shaping a transformational breakup of the world of scholarly communication as we have known it. Best of all, we can imagine the shape of new sets of relationships that will characterize the scholarly communication world of the 21st century. One version of "How Scholarly Communication Should Work in the 21st Century," posits a centralized, non-profit network on which scholars would "publish" articles: Scholars in all disciplines could "publish" their articles on the Scholarly Communication System, an electronic network on which they could also read other publications. As a scholar completed an article or paper, it would be sent electronically to the system, where it would be assigned a category and cross-referenced to other relevant categories. Given the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of much scholarly work, the capacity to alert readers in one subject area to articles published in other areas could help build important links among disciplines. The National Research and Education Network (NREN) can be expected to create a technological infrastructure that will allow the realization of this vision by harnessing high-performance computers and high speed, high capacity networks. The technology of advanced networking is visible and available. Even in areas such as graphics storage and transmission, where only candidate solutions are available, few observers predict that these difficulties will remain as barriers to eventual implementation and success. NREN is the event around which the forces and patterns of scholarly communication are coalescing as powershifts become apparent. The remainder of this essay will explore some of these powershifts. A marketplace powershift for the primary consumers of scholarly communication is shaped by the scholars themselves. Scholars' behaviors, seeking articles--not the journals they are packaged in--demonstrate that the journal as the vehicle for scholarly communication is becoming obsolete. Scholars' behaviors again--from the cold fusion debacle to recent efforts to convey breakthrough medical information to the active exchange, even archiving of preprints--confirm that the speed of scholarly communication requirements surpasses the current capabilities of the print system. The marketplace powershift is also evident as the "just in time" document delivery becomes an expected service in academia, encouraged by research libraries defeated by repeated annual dramatic serial price increases. A second powershift relating to scholarly communication is philosophical: In Harlan Cleveland's terms, "How Can `Intellectual Property` be `Protected`?. . . it's the wrong verb about the wrong noun." The struggle to apply current copyright law to new electronic technologies--and the failures that result--illustrate the validity of Cleveland's concerns. How can the concept of "fair use" be applied to new technologies? How does one incorporate information in electronic formats into the system of interlibrary loan that has sustained generations of scholars? The U.S. Congress' Office of Technology Assessment has boldly answered these questions by recommending that Congress start from scratch in redefining intellectual property issues. Many visions of the future electronic publishing world suggest that "pay for use" is the only viable alternative in the new environment of digital technologies where there are active incentives for copying. Even the concept of "authorship", a mainstay of copyright law, disappears in a "dynamic digital medium." An institutional powershift for publishers is a third consideration. The publishers' traditional gate-keeping function is bypassed as electronic bulletin boards and other unedited forms of electronic communication burgeon. Rising prices which put books and journals beyond the capacity of research institutions to own are creating challenges to the conventional practice of asking authors of scholarly articles to give up ownership of copyright. The copyright assignment process effectively conveys work created, often at public expense, into private hands. Many publishers use electronic techniques to create printed products but have proved extremely cautious in making the electronic version an end-product. The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) has working groups actively engaged in creating opportunities for scholarly publishing on NREN. Anne Okerson, Association of Research Libraries, suggests five strategies for moving toward a different publishing environment: * Formulate a statement of principles, including a commitment to availability, affordability, directories, and friendly access. * Take an active role in deliberations about privatization and commercialization of the network. * Formulate guidelines on intellectual property and economic issues. * Develop ownership and copyright policies. * Review academic incentives to give needed recognition to electronic publication. An organizational powershift is taking place for librarians as the applications of technology to scholarly communication change the roles that they play. For example, Richard E. Lucier adds a role to the librarian repertoire, calling it "knowledge management." "Knowledge management is a mutual responsibility for scientific and scholarly communication, a responsibility shared by scholars, scientists, and research librarians." Librarians as knowledge managers begin their work with scientists and scholars in the initial point of creation and follow this through with them to the application stage, thereby entering the scholarly communication process much earlier than the more conventional "dissemination and use" stage. From work at Johns Hopkins also comes the concept of a "collaboratory . . . a combination of technology, tools and infrastructure that allows scientists to work with remote facilities and with each other as if they were co-located and effectively interfaced." The prototype work at Johns Hopkins in human genetics and internal medicine has produced new information products, dynamic in the literal sense of growing daily through the collaborative work of all participants in the scholarly communication process. In summary, there is right now a great deal of shifting and reorganizing occurring in the world of scholarly communication. There will be challenges ahead in the form of intellectual property issues, in identifying how we enhance interaction between librarians and scholars, in grappling with questions about equity of access to the processes and systems that define scholarly research and exchange, and in ensuring protection of basic individual freedoms and rights in a networked environment. The transformation has begun, and it is likely that in dealing with such issues over the next several years, we will have to accept the challenge of aiming at a moving target. * * * * * * * *  A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR AN ELECTRONIC SOCIETY: A PUBLIC LIBRARY PERSPECTIVE Susan Harrison The New York Public Library New York, New York When John Jacob Astor bequeathed $400,000 to the City of New York in 1839, his intention was to create a "Public Library for general use, free of expense to persons resorting thereto."1 Only $75,000 of the bequest was to be used for a building and the remaining $325,000 was to be spent on books. This was a remarkable development in the history of libraries and strengthened the concept of the public library as a place where individuals could obtain free access to books and, by extension, to information. University libraries were well established in New York, as were private subscription libraries operated by professional and mercantile groups. Ordinary people who were not associated with a learned or professional organization, however, had limited access to information that would help them with their trades, with basic education, and with opportunities for self improvement. Public libraries such as the Astor Library and other similarly endowed and publicly funded libraries became a major source of information for new immigrants who learned English, for mercantile and industrial workers who used library resources to learn trades, for writers and independent scholars, and for millions of Americans who gained basic literacy skills and who acquired new knowledge after hours by studying in public reading rooms. Public libraries were and continue to be an important source of information on political and social issues and a means to assure an informed voting public. The Astor Library, with its 80,000 volumes, provided information that no individual could afford to collect. Today, the role of public libraries has been extended to include assistance with computer literacy and to provide information regardless of the medium in which it is presented. Libraries provide information in a variety of optical, micrographic, and video formats, in addition to data acquired from online data bases and electronic networks. Many public libraries have also developed their own data bases of community services, government officials, local history, and local indexes, to supplement information from commercial sources. The explosion of information and the profusion of expensive formats, expensive reading devices, and costly telecommunications services are as difficult today for individuals to provide for themselves as books were to library users of the 19th century. The cost and number of modern information services also tax the ability of libraries to fulfill their mandate to provide a broad spectrum of information to their public. Information to be collected includes not only published works, but unpublished papers, data files, research in progress, and online indexes, all in vast quantities and from myriad sources. An increasing quantity of information will be derived exclusively from online data bases and networked sources, and public libraries must be aggressive in their efforts to offer these resources to their users. In an environment where there will be increasing dependence on electronic data and increasing diversification of the sources of data, public libraries are wrestling with issues that will determine their role in a society where information assumes still greater importance and where a growing number of private sector organizations threaten to usurp the public library's place as an information provider. Some key issues facing public libraries in the 1990s and into the 21st century are discussed below. FREEDOM OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION BY ALL POPULATIONS In Powershift,2 Alvin Toffler predicts an age where there is universal access by the population to computers, information technology, and advanced media. The new environment will have a sophisticated telecommunications infrastructure which will become as familiar to people as our present highway and railroad systems. Toffler foresees a new generation where access to information will play an increasing part in people's acquisition of power, income, and success. Elements of the network he describes are in place today and they are now used by limited numbers of people who have access to appropriate equipment and networks through academic institutions, government agencies, and other employers. In a study conducted in 1990 by Louis Harris and Associates, Using the Public Library in the Computer Age,3 the surveyors found that public use of library reference materials had increased 26% over a previous study in 1978 and that people of diverse ages, income levels, education, and ethnic backgrounds have an awareness of current technology and its critical role in meeting their information needs. Two thirds of the people surveyed indicated they would be interested in using home computers to access their public libraries in order to locate information. The study concludes that the public library is in a critical position to empower users in the information age and that libraries are best able to assure access to information expressing all viewpoints by the broadest spectrum of users. Access to information has also traditionally been defined for users of public libraries in terms of the distribution of facilities geographically along with hours of operation. Until now, readers were required to visit the library site or, at best, telephone the facility when information was needed. As systems and networks are introduced, many have been offered as dial-in services for users who have PCs and modems, thus extending hours of service and overall access beyond the traditional patterns. Some forecasters see the evolution of automated library outlets, like automatic teller machines, which will be capable of dispensing on-demand books, media, printouts, and data on terminal screens. Public libraries must play an important role in this environment by providing free access to data for all populations and by working aggressively to assure that this access is protected. Libraries will be under increasing financial pressure to provide a daunting array of information service from a diminished economic base. Since only a few traditional services and print sources will be replaced immediately by the new technology, it will be the challenge of public libraries to develop cost-effective means to access and deliver information and to develop new sources of funding to carry on this critical work. VALUE-ADDED SERVICES AND INTERFACES In providing access to electronic data and networked systems, public libraries must work to make these resources reasonably easy to use. Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classifications and the descriptive arrangement of catalog cards and printed indexes represent the best efforts of generations of librarians to make quantities of information accessible in a logical and consistent manner. It is the role of libraries and librarians, in cooperation with systems vendors, to see that their electronic systems and services offer consistent, natural, and straightforward search strategies and, through the development of telecommunications standards and adoption of standard user interfaces, to assure that instructions and terminal displays are clear and easy to use. This is particularly important in the current network environment where users of the INTERNET can search hundreds of data bases in far flung research installations and academic institutions through hundreds of telecommunications services. Searching conventions, workstation commands, and data arrangement characteristics of these databases vary widely from one to another, making general access difficult for all but the most experienced searcher. This wealth of information will be lost to the general users served by public libraries without professional mediation or improved standard user interfaces. COMPUTER LITERACY TRAINING Among the diverse populations served, public libraries are currently assisting the poorest of the "information poor" who lack basic literacy skills, with tutoring, classes, and specially designed reading materials. It is estimated that there are 23 million people in the U.S. who read below the 5th grade level and 24 million families are classified as living below the poverty level who can also be helped by public libraries. Although some electronic systems and networks are designed so as not to require extensive technical training for general use, people will need to acquire some computer literacy and a familiarity with computer workstations. Education and support for use of online information systems and networks is appropriately offered in public libraries for those who have not acquired these skills elsewhere. In the short term, librarians will need to assist users with equipment, formulation of searches, and overall strategy to a variety of disparate sources. Libraries must also develop programs to assist users who receive too much information, who are overwhelmed with a wealth of data. Part of library training involves tailoring searches and distilling large amounts of data into usable relevant portions. PRIVACY OF PATRON RECORDS In the course of developing automated systems to improve internal operations and online catalog workstation features, libraries have amassed data bases which include detailed personal information about the borrowing habits of large segments of their populations. Circulation files include patron addresses, statistical information, some of which may be personal; usage statistics; and data on current reading. Some public access catalogs also permit users to build and store, for a time, personal bibliographies or reading histories. Most states now have legislation protecting the privacy of library users while retaining the right of libraries to maintain necessary circulation files for the recovery of borrowed materials. It is essential that libraries appreciate their mandate to protect the privacy of their patrons. This can be achieved by collecting minimal patron data and more importantly, by purging all borrowing history when materials have been returned. Staff must be warned that they are not to give out borrower information without a subpoena and libraries should exercise discretion in their production of overdue reminders and other patron notifications so that personal and delinquency information is not visible on data mailers or postcards. Recent experience with the FBI "Library Awareness" program should remind libraries that government and police agencies continue to be interested in people's reading habits and that is the role of public libraries to protect users from unwarranted snooping. These are some of the issues relating to the challenges that lie ahead for public libraries in an electronic age, where information is a valuable resource for personal and public advancement. In a highly automated information-dependent society where universal access to computers and telecommunications networks is envisioned, public libraries, in the tradition of their 19th-century roots, must continue to play an important role in supplying information needs of citizens. Public libraries are the appropriate agency to preserve access to information by all users regardless of their financial resources. Public libraries will need to incorporate increasingly sophisticated electronic means to deliver the broadest array of information, they must participate in efforts to improve user interfaces, and they must also protect the privacy of users whose reading and borrower patterns are so easily monitored and analyzed electronically. Public libraries need to be part of planning for systems and telecommunications initiatives like National Research and Education Network (NREN), and to position themselves as a critical element in a more highly automated information age. * * * * * * * * 1. Dain, Phyllis. The New York Public Library: A History of Its Founding and Early Years. New York: The NewYork Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, 1972, (ISBN 0-87104-136-6), p. 4. 2. Toffler, Alvin. Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century. NewYork: Bantam, 1990, (ISBN: 0-553-05776-6). 3. Westin, Alan F. and Anne L. Finger. Using the Public Library in the Computer Age: Present Patterns,Future Possibilities, A National Public Opinion Survey Report by the Reference Point Foundation,in Cooperation with the American Library Association. Chicago: American Library Association, 1991. INFORMATION FOR ALL PEOPLE: THE ROLE OF LOCAL AND STATELIBRARIES IN OVERCOMING GEOGRAPHICAL BARRIERS TO INFORMATION Howard F. McGinn North Carolina State Library Raleigh, North Carolina Remote, unknown, unexplored lands protected by natural barriers have intrigued humankind since the initial emergence of homo sapiens from the primeval ooze. From the wanderings of prehistoric tribes in search of food, arable land, safety, and rich pastures, to the wanderings of the Spanish conquistadors in search of gold, the fountain of youth and converts for their earthly kingdom of God, to Lewis and Clark, human beings have endured extreme hardship, suffering, and death in their quests for survival, material riches, fame, and spiritual enlightenment. They have traversed high mountain ranges, enormous rivers, and thousands of miles of ocean to reach "promised lands." The wandering continues unabated in the modern age. While some people have climbed the mountains, bridged the major rivers, and completed the tunnel beneath the English Channel, others continue to explore the near space of outer space around the earth. Hollywood has contrived to cast a romantic glow on remoteness. Gene Kelly danced his way through the Scottish mists to happiness in Brigadoon. Ronald Coleman found eternal youth in Shangri-La. Richard Dreyfuss is somewhere in the universe after his Close Encounter of the Third Kind. But while escapism and adventure have been lures to an existence in remote areas, the most dominating reason for the conquest of geographic barriers has been economic. The ultimate prize sought by the early explorers of the Americas was gold and furs, not souls. The primary goals sought by Lewis and Clarke were the expansion of the United States and an audit of the lands of the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. The hoped for result of the tunnel beneath the English Channel is increased trade between Great Britain and the other nations of the European Economic Community. But perhaps the most radical yet far reaching manifestation of this search for the unknown combined the concepts of economic wealth with the creation of a new world order. This philosophy rested in the writings of the 18th Century French philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy, the Compte de Saint Simon. "It was he who wrote 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.'" And as David McCullough writes in The Path Between The Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870 - 1914: "Mainly the good society was to be attained through ennobling, regenerative, work. The world was to be saved -- from poverty, from war -- through the immense public improvements, networks of highways, railroads, and two great ship canals through the Isthmus of Suez and the Isthmus of Panama." The highways were built, the railroads crossed the continents, the canals mated the seas. In their wake came immense power and wealth for a few and extreme poverty for many. In their construction came mass exploitation of native-born and immigrant peoples and the creation of fortunes that would become the cornerstone of American philanthropy. In their completion came the last years of the dominance of the British Empire and its eventual replacement by America. And in the end of this era came the small towns in the prairies that built the railroads and helped create middle class America, and the coal mining towns of Appalachia that fueled the machines of these colossal projects and helped create a permanent "third world" America. Here is where the irony begins, in these prairie towns that are now nearing extinction, in these coal towns that are locked in permanent poverty. The railroads, canals, and highways their citizens built in order to overcome geographic barriers so that products might be delivered from remote areas to urban market places have declined, victims of obsolescence, neglect, and the advance of technology. Yet the towns and their people have the potential for a future not overwhelmed by poverty because of the emergence of a global economy based on the rapid transfer of electronic information over data telecommunications systems that transcend all physical barriers so effortlessly that geographical barriers have become meaningless. And the key outlet in both remote and urban areas for the distribution of these electronic raw materials and products is another ancient institution that is flirting with irrelevancy, the library. What role can the public library, or for that matter, any library play in this new economy? What is the role of state government, especially the state library agency, in assuring that equal access to information is made available to all private and corporate citizens in all geographic areas of a state, especially states with significant geographical barriers? Let me suggest answers to these questions. I'll begin with the role of the local library. LOCAL LIBRARIES: THE INFORMATION PUBLIC UTILITY Many libraries and their directors feel that they are immune to change, that they can defy the Darwinian evolutionary process by closing their eyes tightly, increasing the warm fuzzy feeling that they believe their communities expect of the library, and hoping the world will just go away and leave them alone. Funding, of course, should stay, increase and multiply. This resistance to change by these librarians is usually based on a personal reluctance or inability to compete aggressively in the global, information-based economy and in the belief in the mystique of the book, a mystique that postulates that all knowledge that is important is recorded on paper. They are missing a future that offers unlimited power and influence to the librarian and the institution of the library because they refuse or are unable to grasp the fact that the library, by controlling access to information, can become the community's "information public utility", the source of the raw electronic information that the community will need in order for its businesses and citizens to operate and prosper in the new economy. The role of the local library as the community's information public utility is possible because any size library, in any geographical area of a state can become the information power source for a town. The experience of the State Library of North Carolina's North Carolina Information Network is that rural libraries, in particular, can significantly enhance their image and the investment their communities make in the information assets of the library by becoming the purveyors of the vital electronic information the town requires to function and compete. These libraries continue to circulate books, develop programs for children and young adults, and do all of the things that have come to be regarded as traditional. What they have also done is evolve into an essential component of the community's economic development program by helping people and companies make money and create jobs through the delivery of electronic information. They have become relevant once again. STATE LIBRARY AGENCIES: THE CATALYST FOR CHANGE In order for this metamorphosis to take place in the local library, the aggressive cooperation of the state library is essential. In most states only the state library has the positional or political placement in government to develop services that will serve all areas of the state. A borrowed phrase from John Le Carre defines the role of the state library very poetically: the state library must become "the cool-headed broker between the necessity and the far vision." In order to develop the information networks needed by communities in all parts of the state, three roles are most important for the state library to play: coordinator, product developer, enforcer. Coordinator The role of coordinator is crucial because contractual arrangements with commercial information vendors and federal, state and local government agencies are needed to serve vast geographic areas. The key element in creating universal service is access to an up-to-date, high speed data telecommunications network that reaches all areas of the state. As the National Research and Education Network (NREN) develops, this access will become even more crucial since the state level network will probably function as the local network component of the NREN. The data telecommunications networks in the states are most often operated by a state telecommunications agency or by the state's public university system. Some states may even have more than one system. The state library, in its role as coordinator, must make contractual agreements with the operators of these networks if the entire state is to be served. In North Carolina, for example, the State Library signed an interagency agreement with the University of North Carolina Educational Computing Service to provide access to the University's X.25 packet network to public and private academic libraries across a state that includes barrier islands in the Gulf Stream and the highest mountains east of the Mississippi River. The University had already constructed a packet network that had established nodes in each of its sixteen campuses, each of the state's fifty-eight community colleges, the State Library, regional health science libraries, and several private academic institutions such as Duke University and Davidson College. The State Library has provided the funding to install the equipment at thirty of these nodes that permits a local library to dial a local telephone number to access the University's packet network. Because of the geographic distribution of the institutions and their packet nodes, even the most remote mountain community has inexpensive local access to the statewide network and eventually to NREN. Product Developer The role of product developer combines the role of coordinator with the functions of a publisher. Electronically stored information proliferates in state capitals. State libraries must gain access to these public data files and make them available over the state's network in a form that is usable by local librarians and citizens. The North Carolina Information Network distributes, for example, in database format, listings of all contracts for goods and services and all highway and non-highway construction projects being put out for bid by state government. For the first time businesses in towns across the state can bid on 99% of the state contracts. Business and tax revenue now flow into remote, poor counties. This program was developed by the State Library and the state's Office of Purchase and Contract. A similar cooperative program with the Department of Administration and the state's Personnel Office lists, electronically, all job openings in state government once a week. The effects of geography disappear. Enforcer The role of enforcer is more difficult to define and more laden with political problems, yet it is essential if the electronic information infrastructure is to succeed. State library policies must be designed to force local libraries to participate in these networks and offer electronic information programs to their communities. Using North Carolina once again as an example, all libraries in the state will be required to use OCLC for interlibrary loan by December 31, 1991. The State Library had offered a toll free telephone ILL and reference service for over twenty years, but the success of the Information Network's OCLC group access program made the ILL function of the traditional service obsolete. The toll free service has been converted into a comprehensive statewide reference service. Geographical barriers are no longer an excuse for the existence of material poverty or poverty of the mind. Libraries, if they are willing, can help lift their communities out of the third world. If they are not willing, they run the risk of extinction because they will become irrelevant and die from lack of funding. Cost cannot be used as a reason for non-participation by a library. The notion that access to and use of electronic information systems is expensive is a myth. The technical and equipment investment in the development of these networks, though, is expensive. But if the state library can develop cooperative programs with state agencies that have already invested in electronic delivery systems, then the public's investment in these systems can be leveraged to serve all the people of the state. Shangri-La and Brigadoon are possible to reach if the librarian, like the explorer and dreamer, is willing to take risks, explore, and dream. * * * * * * * * INFORMATION ACCESS AND AN ELECTRONIC BILL OF RIGHTS: A SCHOOL PERSPECTIVE Stephen L. Matthews Audrey Bruce Currier Library Foxcroft School Middleburg, Virginia Electronic media is not new to the school environment, with visual and audio formats having played an important role in basic education since the late 1950's. School librarians became school library media specialists, not to irritate the rest of the profession, but to better describe the expanded role of non-print in the library/information program of schools. Electronic formats have not only been incorporated into the collections of school libraries, but have facilitated the production and design of instructional programming and the storing of this in-house information for the school and local community as a whole. With the publication of Information Power in 1988, the library media profession produced a proactive blueprint for a three-prong professional role encompassing traditional storage and retrieval tasks, teaching, and instructional design/production responsibilities. Our schools are public tools. They socialize and prepare students for life in American society, while they grapple with values and teach skills. Few students are finished and ready for the workplace when they graduate from high school. As Americans, we continue to delude ourselves that graduation from high school provides closure to basic learning and readiness for an increasingly technical and global society. One could argue that even the recipients of graduate professional degrees are merely prepared to apply their theory and lab work in the "school of actual endeavor." The primary responsibility of schools is to dispose students toward an openness to inquiry and provide them with the wherewithal to take responsibility for their own learning. Within this context, the ability to know what information is needed and how and where to find it should be one of the most basic goals of elementary and secondary education. Yet, what determines the character of information that students receive in the process of their formal education? Do students as minors need to be protected from the world and from themselves? If so, when should they be protected and by whom? What unifies and helps to link schools with a lifelong learning process? Information and the ability to access it is what will provide the connection needed by high school graduates to move successfully into higher education or society at large. One of the major changes for schools brought forth by electronic information has been the ability to generate and share information quickly and widely. Schools can create entire curricula available through online networks. It is in this area where choice and oversight is crucial. What should students have access to? What is necessary in its own right as information, and what is used as an instructional tool to provide a learning prototype of information systems to foster the critical thinking/searching skills necessary to use electronic media effectively? Why would schools need an "Electronic Bill of Rights?" Would the purpose be to address the specific nature of electronic information or, if protection of access and encouragement of use of information are the goals, to recommit ourselves to the constitutional guarantees and statements of professional values and ethics that we already strive to live by? Change is an ever-present force in the way we structure and present information. Our dedication to protecting access and free flow must transcend the container it comes in and the paths through which it is disseminated. The "Library Bill of Rights" and the "Freedom to Read Statement" both reflect constitutional concerns for individual freedoms and provide language and a focus to defend and advance access to information. However, in the school environment where censorship is quite common, these values are constantly under siege. With the staggering possibilities of computer-generated multi-media, it is inevitable that challenges will take place. It is important to emphasize the continuum of commitment to access and the negative impact of denying a new generation the right to know. It would be counterproductive to set electronic media apart. Instead, we need to accelerate our mastery of the technology which drives it while we increase public awareness of the importance of protecting this evolving, sometimes dizzying, set of formats. The daunting task for schools, and more specifically for media centers, is to develop a set of common professional rationales for protection of information integrity and user access in the electronic environment. Whether this is done through a new initiative such as an "Electronic Bill of Rights" or as a logical outgrowth of already existing documents, several points must be considered. 1. We need to reiterate the values and applications of the 1st Amendment concerning information dissemination. It is imperative that we repeatedly remind our communities and our schools that free access and free inquiry are traditional values as well as the foundation of innovation and progress. The irony of electronic advances in information transfer is that they vastly increase the potential for broadened access, yet offer new more efficient ways to violate 1st Amendment rights. 2. Basic access means convenient and free access to certain types of information. Fees are routinely charged for many electronic services and these for-fee services are often severely limited in hours of access. Basic service will increasingly entail electronic access and manipulation of information. We need to define what "access to basic information sources" entails and offer it without charge and conveniently. Once an institution or government becomes accustomed to a "revenue source," it is a painful if not impossible task to discontinue it. 3. The nature of electronic information requires an intermediary support structure. Those who are able to afford computers, modems, etc. have a decided advantage in today's information environment. If librarians serving the needs of a free society don't provide a portal to the electronic world, there will be virtually no opportunity for some citizens to overcome an already decided disadvantage. 4. As we participate in the shaping of the technology and its application, we need to educate our students and our communities. Schools have a primary responsibility to incorporate technology into the curriculum and to provide basic knowledge about the production, distribution, and availability of information. 5. Availability of access and commercial profit are often in conflict. What is good for vendors is not necessarily good for the information needs of students who need to learn how to cope in an electronic world. While vendors are important, even crucial players and often allies, our actions are motivated by different and sometimes conflicting purposes. 6. Librarians and library media specialists will be even more necessary to provide the human connection and the philosophical framework necessary to shepherd a free society and basic education through the labyrinth of electronic twists and turns.  ELECTRONIC RECORDS AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IN SCHOOLS OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE: A HISTORICAL ESSAY Frederick J. Stielow School of Library and Information Science Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. An Electronic Bill of Rights is an apt topic for inclusion in instruction in schools of library and information science. In addition to the normal focus on applied theory and tool skills, students ideally engage philosophical principles with demonstrable consequences for their profession and the world at large, and learn about proactive practitioners and associations lobbying on the national and international scene. Students are exposed to the true power and complexity of information policies, including such electronically heightened factors as government surveillance/controls and the conflicting rights between intellectual freedom and privacy. Yet, the historian in me also urges caution. Myths often outweigh the truths on intellectual freedom and librarianship. One way to add to the reader's understanding of these current issues and perhaps learn from the lessons of the past is through a historical analysis of the teaching on intellectual freedom and automation in our professional schools. Professional education began at the bachelor's level in the mid-1880s without anything approaching our present consciousness on intellectual freedom. In keeping with the best of their times, the founding fathers and their Progressive disciples were filled with an almost missionary zeal to elevate society through the scientific provision of properly edifying materials. American librarianship in essence began from a model of social control and implied censorship. It is doubtful, however, that this was formally taught for philosophical debate in the library schools. Indeed, as the famed Williamson report supports, library education quickly eschewed moral dilemmas altogether, preferring to preoccupy itself with narrower technical matters. The oxymoron of censorship within an agency espousing democratic values was not systematically confronted by the profession until the 1920s and 1930s. ALA's first decisive statement favoring open access to materials on all sides of an issue did not appear until 1939 with "The Library Bill of Rights." This is particularly significant since librarianship, perhaps more than any other field, takes its educational lead from its national professional association. But while exceptions existed, overall there seems to have been little room in highly technical curricula for student edification in matters of intellectual rights and the like even in the years immediately following ALA's adoption of "The Library Bill of Rights". The change awaited the rise of graduate education and the MLS following World War II--a war that strengthened belief in the library as an "arsenal for democracy." A new trend could be seen in the emergence of basic "foundations courses," which appeared following ALA's first graduate school guidelines in 1951 -- developments which transpired during one of librarianship's finest hours in the fight against McCarthyism. Mary Lee Bundy, however, has argued that even at that time educators continued to concentrate on technique and did little to explore the power of information in its societal context. Professional principles and ethics were imparted more as formulas than as calls to action. The real breakthrough in incorporating an issues orientation to intellectual freedom in library education awaited the tumultuous 1960s, when library school students took to the fore and such new players as the Office of Intellectual Freedom and Freedom to Read Foundation appeared. Students and liberal allies brought intellectual freedom doctrines to bear on the new issue of patron privacy rights, as well as such seemingly non-library problems as civil rights, poverty, and war. The updating of ALA's accreditation guidelines in 1971 helped affirm a new accommodation. Even with a later retreat in terms of social activism and privacy rights, intellectual freedom had achieved semi-sacred status for both conservatives and liberals--an assumed instructional element for mention in every library school in the United States. Library schools were quick to embrace automation. The efforts of pioneering educators date at least to the 1950s and contagion from a strange European import called information science. By the 1960s, library education as a whole was infected and, by the 1970s, one school after another was adding information science to its title. By the 1990s, the need to deal with the infusion of MARC records, online searching, and newly published works on floppy disks and CD-ROM left automation as an endemic element in library education of far more practical import than ethics. A linkage between ethics and automation was not immediately forthcoming. Following from the communication schema of Claude Shannon, and with the factors of government and military support behind most of its advances, information science generally began by treating data as only a raw commodity without addressing the social import of the message. Given those ingredients, the personalities involved, and the complexities of the technology, it is easy to understand how one could follow a narrow instrumentalist path and fail to find time for information issues. There have been similar practical restraints in extending the examination of issues surrounding technology into ethics, foundations, and collections development courses. Some instructors may feel automation is beyond their competency or find it hard to fit automation within the rubric of book-based instruction. On the other hand, these once usually parallel paths are now intersecting more frequently in schools of library and information science. Catholic University of America, for example, makes certain to integrate the two concepts throughout its core sequence of four classes, as well as advanced topics seminars on "Information Resources Management" and "Online Searching". Its basic "Information and Society" course visits the new threats to information along the historical continuum of librarianship (moreover, students can actually witness and lend support to the policies being made by taking trips to Capitol Hill). The required "Introduction to Automated Systems in Libraries and Information Centers" course reaffirms those experiences within an electronic context for such library dicta as open access and the government's responsibility to provide information to the citizenry. The examination of automated systems also brings up concepts of privacy and security. Fortunately, the FBI's botched Library Awareness Program in the late 1980s has provided much grist for the mill, helping to create a new myth to round out librarians' views for a true Electronic Bill of Rights. Discussions reveal that CUA is not alone. Other schools show a similar understanding and path toward blending ethical principles with automation in the curriculum. Anyone who attempts to keep up with the news cannot ignore the extension of now traditional library issues to automation in the Paperwork Reduction Act, the privatization or questionable security classification of governmental data bases, and a host of legal maneuverings on intellectual freedom and privacy. Dealing with such issues is also demonstrably necessary in order to help distinguish graduate level library computer studies courses from undergraduate course work in automation or computer literacy from other departments--e.g., Introduction to Microcomputers 101. In sum, library education can perhaps be best characterized as in the process of synthesis between automation and ethics. Some continue to be blinded by technological Valhallas and treat the computer as a neutral medium. Others remind librarianship and its education arm to learn from the past and balance between techniques and true mission. In these last regards, classroom discussions on the elements of an Electronic Bill of Rights emerge as definitionally germane to library and information science education. They are part and parcel of current awareness, the development of professionalism, and, perhaps, even an extension of the Jeffersonian vigilance required to maintain a democratic system and recreate our myth structures. * * * * * * * * ELECTRONIC PRIVACY AND DATA PROTECTION LEGISLATION IN THE 102nd CONGRESS Frederick D. King American Library Association Washington, D.C., Office Congress is pondering a variety of topics connected with electronic privacy and data protection. The following is a survey of legislation currently before Congress. It begins with comments regarding NREN legislation, is followed by sections on a variety of privacy and telecommunications issues, and then by sections on telephone and audiotext legislation. The information in this paper was current through May, 1991. NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK The pending legislation to establish a National Research and Education Network (NREN) currently in Congress is not very specific about data security or privacy. The current version of HR 656, which was ordered reported on May 8, requires the National High-Performance Computing Program to address the security requirements, policies, and standards necessary to protect computer networks and information resources accessible through them. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will conduct the research needed to adopt security standards. Senator Gore's NREN bill, S. 272, has a similar requirement, but the responsibility for defining and implementing a security plan is spread among a wide range of federal agencies. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation, and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency are required to adopt a common set of standards and guidelines to provide enhanced security for the network. The Senate version also requires the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to report to Congress on appropriate policies and standards to protect the privacy of users of networks, a requirement that was dropped in the House version. Another NREN bill, S. 343, which was reported on May 23, states that the NREN shall "be designed and operated so as to ensure continued application of laws that provide network and information resources security measures, including those that protect copyright and intellectual property rights, and those that control access to data bases and protect national security." DATA PRIVACY HR 280 "Individual Privacy Protection Act of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Collins (D-IL). Establishes an Individual Privacy Protection Board. The Board shall recommend to the President and the Congress what legislation, administrative action, or voluntary adoption of requirements are necessary to protect the privacy of individuals while meeting the legitimate needs of government and society for information. The Board shall also review federal law, Executive orders, etc., and report on the extent to which they are consistent with the rights of privacy, due process of law, and other guarantees of the Constitution. The Board shall comment on the implications for data protection of proposed federal, state, or local statutes, regulations, or procedures. The Board may examine interstate transfer of information about individuals; data banks and information programs and systems which significantly affect the privacy and other personal and property rights of individuals; the use of social security numbers, license plate numbers, and other symbols to identify individuals in data banks; and the analysis of statistical data with other personal data in a way which results in a violation of the implied or explicitly recognized confidentiality of such information. The Board may determine what specific categories of information should be prohibited by statute from collection by federal agencies. Referred to the Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture on February 19. HR 685 "Data Protection Act of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Wise (D-WV). Establishes a Data Protection Board as an independent agency of the executive branch. The Board shall develop guidelines for use by federal agencies in implementing the Privacy Act of 1974. The Board may investigate compliance with and comment on proposals to amend the Privacy Act; review federal, state, and local laws, Executive orders, regulations, etc., and report whether they are consistent with data protection rights; and propose legislation on data protection. According to Rep. Wise, "In the not too distant future, consumers face the prospect that a computer somewhere will compile a record about everything they purchase, every place they go, and everything they do.... We need to help consumers, businesses, and government develop policies and practices to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate uses of personal data. That would be one of the principal functions of the Data Protection Board." Referred to the Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture and to its Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security on February 20. On April 10, the Subcommittee on Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture held a hearing on data protection issues and public and corporate reactions to privacy. The main focus of the hearing was Equifax's decision to cancel the release of its Lotus MarketPlace: Households CD-ROM database. John Baker, Senior Vice President of Equifax, explained a survey that Equifax had commissioned with Louis Harris & Associates on the subject of privacy. The survey showed that Americans are concerned about the lack of control they have over information about them, but that they also value the benefits they receive from information and technology. Although Lotus MarketPlace had safeguards against abuse, Equifax decided that it would be socially responsible to cancel the product. Another concern raised at the hearing dealt with data protection laws in the European Community. According to Rep. Wise, "if the United States is perceived to have inadequate data protection laws... U.S. companies could lose access to information from Europe and could thereby lose international influence, business opportunities, and jobs." HR 2443 "Privacy Act Amendments of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Wise (D-WV) Makes several changes in the Privacy Act of 1974. One change amends the definition of "record" so that personal information is subject to the act independent of the medium on which the information is maintained. This makes it clear that computerized information is subject to the Privacy Act. Referred to the House Committee on Government Operations on May 22. S. 618 "Violent Crime Control of 1991." Introduced by Sen. Biden (D-DE); 1 cosponsor. A 194-page bill to control and reduce violent crime. Sec. 545 of the bill states "It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law." Referred to the House Judiciary Committee on March 12. Hearings were held on April 18, April 23, May 7 and May 15. WORKPLACE PRIVACY S. 516 "Privacy for Consumers and Workers Act." Introduced by Sen. Simon (D-IL); 1 cosponsor. Requires employers who engage in electronic monitoring to provide affected employees and potential employees with prior written notice describing the type of monitoring to be done. Requires employers to permit employees to have access to all personal data collected by such electronic monitoring. Prohibits employers from electronically collecting data that is not relevant to the employee's work performance. Data collected may not be used as the sole basis for evaluation or production quotas. Employers are prohibited from collecting data obtained by electronic monitoring which describes how an employee exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless such use is expressly authorized. Referred to the Labor and Human Resources Subcommittee on Employment and Productivity on March 7. HR 1218 "Privacy for Consumers and Workers Act." Introduced by Rep. Williams (D-MT); 85 cosponsors. An identical companion bill to S. 516. Referred to the Education and Labor Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations and to its Subcommittee on Employment Opportunities on March 21. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT HR 1423 "Freedom of Information Public Access Improvement Act of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Kleczka (D-WI); 10 Cosponsors. Amends the Freedom of Information Act in various ways, including defining "record" to include electronic information in any storage medium, and "search" to include a "reasonable amount of computer programming necessary to identify records." Referred to the Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Operations, Justice, and Agriculture on March 14. GOVERNMENT COPYRIGHT HR 191 "Technology Transfer Improvements Act of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Morella (R-MD). Allows federal agencies to secure copyright on behalf of the United States as author or proprietor in any computer software prepared by employees of the United States Government in the course of work under a cooperative research and development agreement. Referred to the Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Technology and Competitiveness on February 12, and to the Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration on April 16. TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY HR 277 "Telecommunications Policy Coordination Act of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Collins (D-IL). Establishes an Office of Telecommunications Policy in the Executive Office of the President. The office would prepare national telecommunications policy options, serve as the principal advisor to the President in matters relating to telecommunications issues and policies, and monitor the development of new telecommunications technologies. Referred to the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance on February 11. TELEPHONE CALLER ID S. 652 "Telephone Privacy Act of 1991." Introduced by Sen. Kohl (D-WI). Enables telephone users to block Caller ID. Telephone companies are not required to enable callers to block receipt of identifying information on the emergency assistance line of a police or fire department, or on a 911 emergency line. According to Sen. Kohl, "forced Caller ID violates our fundamental right to privacy because there are a variety of situations where callers need and deserve to keep their phone numbers to themselves.... if a stranger came up to you on the street and asked you for your home phone number, would you give it to him? Of course not.... The answer is to allow consumers to retain their freedom of choice." Sen. Kohl also expressed his concern that Caller ID might be illegal. In 1990, a Pennsylvania court of appeals ruled that Caller ID violated the state's constitution and its wiretap statute, which is almost identical to the Federal version. The case is currently before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Sen. Kohl also said experts have argued that Caller ID may be an illegal "trap and trace device" under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Discharged without action by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on March 21, and referred to the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Technology and the Law on March 25. HR 1449 "Telephone Privacy Act of 1991." Introduced by Rep. Synar (D-OK); 1 cosponsor. Allows telephone callers to block caller ID. Allows customers to sue providers that allow caller ID but do not allow blocking. This bill is a companion to S. 652. Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary on March 14. HR 1305 "Telephone Consumer Privacy Rights Act." Introduced by Rep. Markey (D-MA); 11 cosponsors. Allows telephone callers to block caller ID. Does not apply to private branch exchanges or emergency numbers. Customers would not be charged for blocking calls. When he was introducing this bill, Rep. Markey stated that "the awesome power and pervasiveness of advanced telecommunications may mean that in the future, personal privacy will be threatened in fundamental ways." The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance held a hearing on this bill on April 24. See HR 1304 below for details. TELEPHONE SOLICITATION HR 1304 "Telephone Advertising Consumer Rights Act." Introduced by Rep. Markey (D-MA); 42 cosponsors. Requires the FCC to create a database of people who object to receiving telephone solicitations. Companies that solicit by telephone would be required to purchase copies of the list, and companies would be prohibited from making calls to people on the list. Automatic dialers would not be permitted to call emergency lines, paging or cellular telephone services. All fax advertising transmittals would be required to be identified. When Rep. Markey was introducing this bill, he referred to the telephone as "an insistent masterþwhen it rings, we answer itþand many consumers complain bitterly that, when it rings to deliver unsolicited advertising, it is invading their privacy... This bill...is a bipartisan effort to return a measure of control to consumers over what they hear and read." The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance held a hearing on HR 1304 and 1305 on April 24. The witnesses at the hearing held a broad range of opinions both on Caller ID and on a nationwide database. Mark Rotenberg of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility said that Caller ID was "directly at odds with established legal and ethical standards of privacy protection," and recommended that free per-line blocking be offered to subscribers. He also said that a flat prohibition on unsolicited advertising may have a chilling effect on free speech. Janlori Goldman, Director of the Privacy and Technology Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that ACLU supported the bills, but that they were concerned with the First Amendment issues raised by HR 1305. Richard Brown, Executive Director of the Direct Marketing Association, recommended that self-regulation would be preferable to a federally-mandated nationwide database. HR 1304 was marked up by the Subcommittee and approved for full Committee action on May 9. The bill now limits the database to residential telephone subscribers. The bill also states "The Congress finds that...[i]ndividuals' privacy rights, public safety interests, and commercial freedoms of speech and trade must be balanced in a way that protects the privacy of individuals and permits legitimate telemarketing practices." HR 1431 Introduced by Rep. Boehlert (R-NY). Allows people to file a statement with the FCC that they do not wish to receive unsolicited telephone calls. The FCC is required to maintain the list and make it available to any person on reasonable terms and conditions. Non-profit organizations are exempt. When the FCC believes that a person is violating this law, the FCC may ask the Attorney General to take civil action; civil penalties for violating this law may not exceed $10,000. Referred to the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance on March 25. HR 1589 "Telephone Privacy Act." Introduced by Rep. Unsoeld (D-WA); 2 cosponsors. Outlaws commercial solicitation by computers. Rep. Unsoeld called this bill "a piece of legislation of interest to every American with a telephone and a desire for peace and quiet once they reach the sanctity of their own home." Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce on March 21. AUDIOTEXT HR 328 "Telephone Consumer Assistance Act." Introduced by Rep. Gordon (D-TN); 67 cosponsors. Requires the FCC to establish a system for oversight and regulation of audiotext services. Requires the services to provide an introductory message that describes the service, specifies the cost of the call, and informs the caller of the option to hang up without being charged. The bill also requires that any bypass of the cost disclosure message be disabled when the cost of the service has changed, and prohibits local exchange carriers from disconnecting telephone service because of nonpayment of audiotext charges. Common carriers are required to provide each caller with the option to avoid audiotext charges caused by unauthorized use or misunderstanding of the charges and to offer callers the option of blocking access to all audiotext services. Advertisers are required to state the charges for audiotext services, required to state that minors receive parental consent before placing calls, and are prohibited from carrying advertisements that emit tones that can automatically dial an audiotext number. Common carriers are prohibited from providing service in which children under 18 would be asked to provide their name, address, and other information. The bill requires the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a study of audiotext service providers' use of technology to identify callers' telephone numbers and sell lists of numbers. The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance held a hearing on February 28 to explore the problems of audiotext abuses and to gather information on the need for regulation. All of the witnesses agreed that abuses of the industry should be curbed, but their solutions to the problem differed. One witness, whose children ran up an audiotext bill of over $1000, argued that access to audiotext services should be restricted to persons who have requested the service in writing and have received access codes. Joselle Albracht, Assistant Attorney General of the Consumer Protection Division in Dallas, Texas, supported HR 328, saying that the audiotext industry "has a potential to become the greatest medium for consumer fraud to date." James R. Herold of Pacific Bell explained the safeguards that California has adopted, including price caps for individual calls and notification when charges for a single billing period exceed $75. Thomas Pace of the Information Industry Association said that IIA supports the clear disclosure of audiotext costs, but that the "kill message" (a message stating that the caller could hang up without being charged) requirement would discourage callers who didn't want to wait for the information to be presented. The requirement would also set a troubling First Amendment precedent, sending the signal that the use of new technology would justify more intrusive government control of information content. Bruce J. Fogel, Chairman of Phone Programs Inc., said that he did not deny that abuses existed, but that his company did not see the necessity for federal laws. Further hearings on this bill are planned. On May 8, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it was charging Phone Programs Inc. with deceptive and unfair advertising practices in connection with its "T.J. Funnybunny" promotion. Children were urged to call a 900 number to take part in fun adventures and receive a gift, but when they did, they were given an address to which the children had to send a copy of the bill for the call. A new version of this bill, now called the "Audiotext Industry Obligations and Consumer Rights Act" and incorporating portions of HR 328, will be introduced to Congress shortly. S. 471 "900 Services Consumer Protection Act of 1991." Introduced by Sen. McCain (R-AZ); 4 cosponsors. Requires providers of 900 services to announce, at the beginning of each transaction, the price of the call and a description of the service. Callers would be given the option of hanging up during the beginning announcement without being charged. Consumers would be allowed to block access to 900 numbers at no cost. Advertisements for 900 services directed at children would be required to include a notice that parental permission was required before they called, and radio and television advertisements directed at children would be prohibited from including tones which automatically dial a 900 telephone number. Referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on February 21. * * * * * * * * Principles of Public Information Preamble From the birth of our nation, open and uninhibited access to public information has ensured good government and a free society. Public information helps to educate our people, stimulate our progress and solve our most complex economic, scientific and social problems. With the coming of the Information Age and its many new technologies, however, public information has expanded so quickly that basic principles regarding its creation, use and dissemination are in danger of being neglected and even forgotten. The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, therefore, reaffirms that the information policies of the U.S. government are based on the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, and on the recognition of public information as a national resource to be developed and preserved in the public interest. We define public information as information created, compiled and/or maintained by the Federal Government. We assert that public information is information owned by the people, held in trust by their government, and should be available to the people except where restricted by law. It is in this spirit of public ownership and public trust that we offer the following Principles of Public Information. 1. The public has the right of access to public information. Government agencies should guarantee open, timely and uninhibited access to public information except where restricted by law. People should be able to access public information, regardless of its format, without any special training or expertise. 2. The Federal Government should guarantee the integrity and preservation of public information, regardless of its format. By maintaining public information in the face of changing times and technologies, government agencies assure the government's accountability and the accessibility of the government's business to the public. 3. The Federal Government should guarantee the dissemination, reproduction, and redistribution of public information. Any restriction of dissemination or any other function dealing with public information must be strictly defined by law. 4. The Federal Government should safeguard the privacy of persons who use or request information, as well as persons about whom information exists in government records. 5. The Federal Government should ensure a wide diversity of sources of access, private as well as governmental, to public information. Although sources of access may change over time and because of advances in technology, government agencies have an obligation to the public to encourage diversity. 6. The Federal Government should not allow cost to obstruct the people's access to public information. Costs incurred by creating, collecting and processing information for the government's own purposes should not be passed on to people who wish to utilize public information. 7. The Federal Government should ensure that information about government information is easily available and in a single index accessible in a variety of formats. The government index of public information should be in addition to inventories of information kept within individual government agencies. 8. The Federal Government should guarantee the public's access to public information, regardless of where they live and work, through national networks and programs like the Depository Library Program. Government agencies should periodically review such programs as well as the emerging technology to ensure that access to public information remains inexpensive and convenient to the public. Conclusion The National Commission on Libraries and information Science offers these Principles of Public Information as a foundation for the decisions made throughout the Federal Government and the nation regarding issues of public information. We urge all branches of the Federal Government, state and local government and the private sector to utilize these principles in the development of information policies and in the creation, use, dissemination and preservation of public information. We believe that in so acting, they will serve the best interests of the nation and the people in the Information Age. Adopted by the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science June 29, 1990 A SHORT LIST OF REALLY GOOD READINGS Compiling a bibliography is a purely thankless task. It is analagous in many ways to being a translator of great books from one language into another: it involves a lot of work, and receives very little attention unless you do it really badly. And even if you are exhaustive to a fault, you will undoubtedly overlook some important work or works and offend someone. Probably for these reasons, I was not successful in recruiting anyone to compile an exhaustive bibliography on relatively short notice for this publication. Therefore, what appears here is not a bibliography. Whether according to Webster or not, the word "bibliography" seems to connote a high degree of thoroughness, even to the point of perfection. I make no such claims here. And I apologize in advance to anyone who's seminal articles or books on one of these topics I have omitted, and I'm sure there are a few. Despite these disclaimers, the list that appears below wasn't put together exactly haphazardly, either. It is the result of some online bibliographic searching, some manual bibliographic searching, and the "invisible college" of colleagues who have shared with me. Apart from the latter method of collection -- plus the inclusion of Ithiel de Sola Pool's book -- anything else listed here was published at least in its most recent form in 1988 or later, and most of it is from the library science literature. You will not find this list exhaustive; it's not intended to be. I am confident, though that -- as I have suggested by the title I have chosen for this listing -- readers will find the articles, books, and reports listed here to be well-written, informative, and thought-provoking, a very good starting place for pursuing issues related to the topic of a Bill of Rights for an Electronic Society. .... The Editor * * * * * * * * Bollinger, William A. "Information Access Policies in the 1990s: National and International Concerns" in Proceedings of the National Online Meeting (New York, May 1-3, 1990). Medford, NJ: LearnedInformation, Inc., 1990, pp. 51-55. Burnham, David. "Data Protection" in Computers, Ethics, and Society. M. David Ermann, Mary B. Williams,and Claudio Gutierrez, eds. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 94-106. Connolly, Frank, Steven W. Gilbert, and Peter Lyman. A Bill of Rights for Electronic Citizens. Washington,D.C.: Office of Technology Assessment, 1990. Critical Connections: Communications for the Future. Washington, D.C.: Office of Technology Assessment,1990. Flaherty, David H. "The Emergence of Surveillance Societies in the Western World: Toward the Year 2000 "Government Information Quarterly, 5, no.4(1988): 377-387. Haywood, Trevor. "Electronic Information: The Withering of Public Access" in New Horizons for the Information Profession. Los Angeles and London: Taylor Graham, 1988, pp. 195-206. Informing the Nation: Federal Information Dissemination in an Electronic Age. Washington, D.C.: Office of Technology Assessment, 1988. Karraker, Roger. "Highways of the Mind" Whole Earth Review, no. 70(Spring, 1991): 4-11. Kirtley, Jane E. "Discussion Forum: From File Drawer to Floppy Disk: FOIA Implications of Electronic Data Collection Raised in Two Recent Supreme Court Cases" Government Information Quarterly, 6,no.4(1989): 335-338. Lesser, Barry. "Information Protection Issues in the Information Economy" Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, 14(February/March, 1988): 21-22. Lyon, David. "Information, Democracy, and the State" Chapter 5 in The Information Society: Issues and Illusions. New York and Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, pp. 86-104. Marx, Gary T., and Sanford Sherizen. "Monitoring on the Job" Technology Review, 89 (November/December,1986): 62-72. Nielson, Brian. "Intellectual Freedom in an Electronic Age" Online, 15(May, 1991): 88-90. Pool, Ithiel de Sola. Technologies of Freedom. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1983. Rowe, Richard R. "Democracy and the Marketplace of the Mind" Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, 16(April/May, 1990): pp. 26-28. Rubin, Michael Rogers. "The Computer and Personal Privacy, Part I: The Individual Under Assault" Library Hi Tech, 5 (Spring, 1987): 23-31. Rubin, Michael Rogers. "The Computer and Personal Privacy, Part III: The Regulation of Computer Records in the United States" Library Hi Tech, 7, no.3(1989): 11-21. Schmidt, C. James. "Intellectual Freedom and Technology: Deja Vu?" North Carolina Libraries, 45(Fall,1987): 129-130. Shattuck, John. "The Right to Know: Public Access to Federal Information in the 1980s" Government Information Quarterly, 5, no.4(1988): 369-375. Shill, Harold B. "A Basis for Increasing Public Access to Federal Electronic Information" Government Information Quarterly, 6, no.2(1989): 135-141. Turn, Rein. "Privacy Protection" Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, v.20(1985): 27-50. Williams, Rt. Hon. Shirley. "The Impact of Information Technology on the Wider Society" in New Horizons for the Information Profession. Hilary Dyer and Gwyneth Tseng, eds. Los Angeles and London:Taylor Graham, 1988, pp. 212-225. Wood, Fred B. "Directions in Federal Information Dissemination Policy in 1989" in Library and Book Trade Almanac, 34th ed., 1989-90. New York: