Security concerns drive rise in secrecy

During the darkest days of World War II, Americans were warned that "loose lips might sink ships." Information carelessly shared with wartime adversaries could quite literally cost lives and maybe even lead to military defeat.

Today's "war on terrorism" has its equivalent forms of government secrecy and censorship - controversial, but apparently accepted (so far, at least) by most Americans. The federal Government Printing Office has ordered public libraries to pull sensitive items from their shelves. Websites have been scrubbed of certain information and, in some cases, shut down entirely.

The Pentagon has urged defense contractors to use discretion in publicizing "even seemingly innocuous industrial information" normally touted in press releases. The federal Freedom of Information Act has been curtailed. Calls have surfaced to censor environmental groups that reveal toxic polluters in the name of public health and safety.

President Bush alluded to this trend last week at a conference of US attorneys. "We're an open society, but we're at war," he said. "Foreign terrorists and agents must never again be allowed to use our freedoms against us."

While most open-government advocates are worried about this mounting clampdown, some acknowledge the need (for example) to pull the shade on information about nuclear power plants that has been available to the public. The Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based group that fights what it believes to be the government's over-classification of information, has removed about 200 pages related to intelligence and nuclear weapons from its own website.

Another private watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, urged the US Department of Energy (which runs the federal government's nuclear-weapons program) to remove from its website "highly sensitive information that could be useful to terrorists."

The prospect of secret military tribunals for captured terrorists, as well as Justice Department secrecy about those arrested or detained for questioning in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks, have been cause for growing debate.

"A common thread in the recent Justice Department actions is the secrecy and lack of congressional consultation," Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. "By considering these actions in secret before adopting them, the administration prevented any public debate about their effectiveness."

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