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Government Information Quarterly

Volume 12, Number 4, 1995

DISCUSSION FORUM

The Efficacy of International Regulation of Transborder Data Flows:
The Case for the Clipper Chip
Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba .......................................................................... 353

ARTICLES

"A Leap Not Supported by History": The Continuing Story
of Cameras in the Federal Courts
Jane E. Kirtley .......................................................................................... 367

Public Records--Access, Privacy, and Public Policy: A Discussion Paper
Robert Gellman .......................................................................................... 391

Reinventing (Open) Government: State and Federal Trends
Jeremy R.T. Lewis and Fritz H. Grupe ............................................................ 427

SYMPOSIUM:
GPO Access and the Model Gateway Experience
Edited by lack Sulzer

Introduction
Jack Sulzer .................................................................................................. 457

Expanding Public Use of GPO Access: The Government Printing Office
Perspective on the "Model Gateway Libraries" Program
Gil Baldwin .............................................................................................. 461

Implementing a Model Gateway to GPO Access
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Derek Rodriguez ....................................................................................... 473

GPO Access Gateway at Case Western Reserve University
George Barnum .......................................................................................... 479

A Lesson in Communication: The GPO Access Model
Gateway Program at UIC
Maurie Caitlin Kelly .................................................................................. 483

Seeds of Destruction: Penn State's Participation
in the GPO Access Model Gateway Program
Debora Cheney ....................................................................................... 487

About the Authors .............................................................................................. 495

REVIEWS
Edited by John A. Shuler

Guide to Govemment Information Available on the Internet
By Joe Ryan
Reviewed by Diane Bradley .......................................................................... 497

National Trade Data Bank (NTDB)
From the U.S. Department of Commerce
Reviewed by Ellen M. Dodsworth .................................................................. 498

Review of Public Information in the National Information Infrastructure:
A Report
By Henry H. Perritt, Jr.
Reviewed by Evan McKenzie ............................................................... 499

Washington Online: How to Access the Government's
Electronic Bulletin Boards
By Bruce Maxwell
Reviewed by Steve McKinzie ....................................................................... 500

Watergate in American Memory. How We Remember,
Forget and Reconstruct the Past
By Michael Schudson
Reviewed by James F. Igoe .......................................................................... 501

Index/Volume 12 .......................................................................................... 505

The Efficacy of International Regulation
of Transborder Data Flows:
The Case for the Clipper Chip

Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba

This article discusses the origins of Transborder Data Flows (TDFs) as an international problem in the early 1970s and the relations among all concerned, that country-by-country control of such TDFs was likely to be problematic. The article shows how further technological development in telecommunications and networks in the intervening years has made regulation more complex but also more urgent. Part of this urgency emanates from increased danger of computer crimes such as copyright infringement, breach of personal privacy, and electronic sabotage. The problems being experienced by the U.S. government in responding, unilaterally, to this danger through the Key Escrowed Encryption System (KEES), popularly known as the clipper chip, illustrate the need for an international response. Such a response, is feasible in the 1990s due to the growth of multilateralism and the changing nature of national sovereignty. The article recommends the internationalization of the KEES and development of broad international TDF regulations and enforcement mechanisms.

Jane E. Kirtley

Cameras are now permitted in the courts of 47 of the 50 states, but the Federal court system remains resolutely shuttered against them. After years of opposition, the retirement of Chief Justice Warren Burger opened the door to the first tentative efforts of the electronic news media to storm the Federal courts. But despite a successful three-year experiment that allowed electronic coverage of civil proceedings in selected Federal district and appellate courts, the Judicial Conference of the United States voted to terminate the experiment in September 1994. As the conference prepares to consider whether to reinstate access, high-profile trial coverage in the states continues to enliven the ongoing debate about whether the presence of cameras adversely affects the administration of justice.

Robert Gellman

Editor's Note: In April 1995, the Center for Democracy and Technology held a consultation on access and confidentiality issues for public records. The Center is a Washington, D.C, civil liberties organization that attempts to find solutions to complex policy problems involving computer networks, telecommunications, access to information, and privacy. A discussion paper was commissioned to describe the legal and policy background in a neutral manner but not to offer conclusions or recommendations. The paper is reprinted here as a useful description of a complex public policy issue.

There is a wealth of personal information in government files, and there are sharp conflicts between privacy advocates and information users over the availability of this public record information. The Supreme Court has found a qualified First Amendment right of access to criminal trials and to records related to criminal trials. However, there is no clear First Amendment right of access to other government records. The Supreme Court has implied that a constitutional right of informational privacy exists. In interpreting the Freedom of Information Act, the Court has come down strongly in favor of protecting privacy. Other Federal and state statutes governing the disclosure of public records reach a wide variety of results. Use restrictions may offer a middle ground between openness and confidentiality. Some laws permit limited access to public records or restrict use of the records by the recipients. Restrictions on publication of information placed in the public domain may be unconstitutional, but other types of restrictions on access or use have been upheld. The legality of use restrictions for public record information is unclear.

Jeremy R.T. Lewis

Federal open records laws, executive orders on national security classification, and similar policy instruments in the states require that most records at government agencies be available to the public upon request--subject to exemptions which may entail review. Traditionally, this review has been accomplished by redaction (purging) of hardcopy. Resource limitations and increases in the number of requests demand a rethinking of the process. Offices are experimenting with optical scanning, onscreen purging, and online dissemination. Statutory and common law trends may soon require disclosure of database reports in electronic form, when so requested, rather than printouts. The dissemination of manipulable data of commercial value requires a rationale broader than the "citizenship rights" that justified the Freedom of Information Act. Online publication of agency-controlled records also demands careful planning of information systems and public networks. The issues discussed in this article are central to the establishment of an adequate policy for electronic freedom of information.

Gil Baldwin is the Chief of the Library Division at the Library Programs Service (LPS) of the U.S. Government Printing Office, where he began as a cataloger in 1974. Since that time, he has held a variety of staff and management positions involving the Federal Depository Library Program and the Cataloging and Indexing Program. A native Virginian, he received his B.A. in American History from the College of William and Mary and his M.L.S. from Florida State University. He managed the GPO team that expanded free public use of the GPO Access online services through depository libraries and, more recently, has worked on the design team for GPO's World Wide Web application.

George Barnum is Head of Government Documents in the University Library of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. A graduate of Kent State University, he is past president of the Government Documents Roundtable of Ohio; has contributed a regular column on rare and valuable government documents to the GODORT/Ohio newsletter; and was a co-editor, with Barbara Hulyt and Jim Walsh, of the RBMS/ GODORT/ MAGERT resource packet on rare and valuable government documents.

Deborah Cheney has been head of Documents/ Maps Section, Pattee Library, The Pennsylvania State Universitiy, since 1991. Previously, she was a Reference Librarian and Microcomputer Support Coordinator at Bucknell University. Her work has focused largely on the use of technology and government publications. She is the author of the chapter "Technology in Documents Collection" in Management of Govemment Information Resources in Libraries (1993); developed a style manual for citing electronic formats of government information that appeared in Citing Government Resources (1993); and has written widely on electronic formats and computer-based methods.

Robert Gellman is a Washington, D.C.-based privacy and information policy consultant. He served as counsel to the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation and Agriculture from 1977-1994.

Maurie Caitlin Kelly is an Assistant Documents Librarian/ Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her areas of expertise are state and local government information and electronic information resources.

Jane E. Kirtley is Executive Director for The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a voluntary association of reporters and editors dedicated to protecting the First Amendment interests of the news media. A lawyer and former reporter, Ms. Kirtley writes and speaks frequently on press freedom issues. She also edits the Reporters Committee's quarterly magazine, The News Media & The Law. Ms. Kirtley received her J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law and her M.S.J. and B.S.J. degrees from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Jeremy R.T. Lewis received his B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. He wrote his dissertation on the passage and implementation of the U.S. Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and has written about the Act in Access Reports and for academic and practitioners' joumals, has been a training consultant to Federal FOI staff, and is developing computer-based training software about the Act and case law. He teaches organization theory at the University of Northern Iowa.

Sondlo Leonard Mhlaba, a native of Zimbabwe, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. An alumnus of the Loeb Fellows Program at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, he is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Law, Policy and Society at Northeastern University, Boston. He is the former Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences at Wentworth Institute of Technology, where he now serves as director of the Learning Center and Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics and Sciences.

Derek Rodriguez is a Systems Librarian at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He graduated with a Master of Science in Library Science from UNC Chapel Hill in December 1993.

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