Report Charges Reagan Retreat On Free Exchange of Information

Knowledge and information are important resources in a modern technological society. The management of these resources, especially by government, has far-reaching implications for the quality and character of national life. In the United States the flow of information and ideas is accorded broad protection by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which recognizes that open communication is fundamental to self-government, indispensible to social and economic progress, and essential to scientific inquiry and creative expression. In that spirit, higher education in America is built on a tradition of academic freedom that encourages unfettered inquiry and free exchange of information.

Current trends in the management of information by the federal government merit the attention of all who are concerned with academic discourse and general commerce in ideas. In recent years, federal information policies and practices have tended to limit the availability of certain categories of information to scholars and other members of the public, occasionally restraining private communication and enhancing the likelihood that government officials will exercise unwarranted influence over the content of published information.

Changes in government policy relating to the flow of information in the United States have been shaped by several broad themes at the federal level during the last decades:

. The predominance of national security protection as a government function has generated a series of specific policies limiting public access to certain categories of information.

. Reduced government regulation of economic activity has resulted in the curtailment of government practices of collecting and disseminating information.

. Increased reliance on the private sector for services that the government previously provided has resulted in the growing use of private companies to sell at market rates information collected by federal agencies or reports on government activities.

. Spending reductions have reduced the federal government's capacity for collecting and disseminating information.

. Increasing interest by the executive branch and the Congress in reducing burdens placed on businesses and the general public to supply information to the federal government has led to requirements that all federal information-gathering and publishing activities be evaluated on the basis of necessity and cost-effectiveness.

The following report, a sequel to an earlier study by one of the authors, surveys three overlapping areas of federal information policy in which considerable change has occurred over the last decade. The first involves the collection and dissemination of information by agencies of the federal government. The second concerns the restriction of information deemed by the government to relate to national security interests. The third pertains to governmental influence over the content and communication of certain categories of information. In each area the report treats a representative sampling of relevant policies and their implementation as illustrations of the trend under review; it does not purport to cover the entire field, nor to analyze all aspects of each policy. Nevertheless, several tentative conclusions seem warranted.

Many of the information policies surveyed in this report are undoubtably based on sound management considerations involving fiscal restraint or national security. The cumulative effect of these policy changes, however, is likely to limit the flow of information in our society. The report concludes that in some areas federal information policies have limited public access to the results of publicly funded academic research and other information-gathering activites. In other areas such policies have deprived government officials of the information necessary for making informed decisions about how to carry out their functions and duties. In still other areas policy changes have resulted in the suppression of information transactions among scholars and researchers to which the government attaches security importance. These policy developments are likely to have a restaining effect in varying degrees on academic inquiry, scientific and technological progress, economic activity, and democratic decisionmaking. To the extent that such restraints are now being felt, policy adjustments should be made by the congress and the executive branch before more serious damage is done.

--From the report on the government information policy, prepared by Vice President for Government and Community Affairs John Shattuck and Director of Policy Analysis Muriel Morisey Spence '69.