Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks.
No one is tracking the amount of unclassified information that is no longer accessible.
For years, a citizen who wanted to know the name and phone number of a Pentagon official could buy a copy of the Defense Department directory at a government printing office. But since 2001, the directory has been stamped ''For Official Use Only," meaning the public may not have access to such basic information about the vast military bureaucracy.
After a 1984 chemical plant accident killed 20,000 people in Bhopal, India, Congress in 1986 passed the Emergency Planning & Community Right to Know Act, giving Americans the right to know if they lived downwind from dangerous chemicals. Until 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency posted on its website each plant's plans for dealing with a disaster, leading to public pressure on the chemical industry to maintain safer conditions. The database has been removed from the website for security reasons.
For decades, the Defense Department's map office has made its topographic charts available to the public. Biologists use them to map species distribution, and airlines use them to create flight charts. But the administration has proposed removing the maps from public use this fall, in part to keep them away from ''those intending harm" to the United States.
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