Looking at governmental information, how do we decide on what information is made available online to the citizens of that nation, when you have an entire world that is able to access said information via new technologies. Can a governments of free nations provide information to its people in way that allows that them to use it to its fullest intent and also protects against certain types of information that may be a security risk? Unsworth further states, " In national security information policy, information is also organized with the goal of retrieval but is only accessible to those with a certain security-level clearance."(Unsworth, 2009). Taking that into consideration, does that stifle a democratic/free nations ability to provide information to its citizens because of fear of it getting into the wrong hands. Could this lead to more repressive measures on information in the name of national security? Many questions need to be asked and many different approaches will need to be explored until we can find a balance in these areas.
Fred W. Weingarten believes in terms of libraries, "Although information and communication policies are important to libraries, they have seldom been overly burdensome distractions to the community in the past." (Weingarten, 1996). Where libraries were once the beckon of free distribution of information, the Interent is having an affect as well on what libraries should be making available via their own websites. Weingarten further states, ". . .to the dismay of many, Congress and the courts have been considering what, if anything should or could be done to control speech on the Internet."(Weingarten,1996). We must be careful to not limit our ability to share information freely in the name of security. There is a slippery slope there and once we tread down the path, it will become easier to justify banning anything one might find offensive or a security threat.
This issue will be one fought over and picked apart extensively, but hopefully there will be a happy median where the sharing of information and securing of certain information can be done. Until then, Libraries and Information centers will have to move forward with a trial and error approach to see what works best.
Andrew Juan Cano
Sources;
Swanson, D. R. (1980). Evolution, libraries, and national information policy. The Library Quarterly, 50(1), 76-93. Retrieved fromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4307184
Unsworth, K. (2009). Ethical Concerns of Information Policy and Organization in National Security, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. 47:7, 642-656. Accessed from Wayne State Univeristy on 28, March 2012.
Weingarten, F. W. (1996). Technological change and the evolution of information policy. American Libraries, 27(11), 45-77. Retrieved fromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/25634248
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteYou raise many questions and I am not even sure how to approach some of them. When considering sharing information and national security -it is a slippery slope. With regards to your quote by Unsworth about needing security-level clearance to access/retrieve specific information, I am unsure how to address that and will be mulling over it.
However, in a traditional library setting, it is helpful to look to the ALA code of ethics to provide guidance in how to handle providing information with regards to the national security issue. "We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources." (ALA 2006) and "We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted." (ALA 2006) These are the two principles that come to mind. In other words, we allow users access to information they request without censorship while also maintaining their privacy.
Michelle John
References
American Library Association. (2006). Code of Ethics of the American Library Association. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/proethics/codeofethics/codeethics
Michelle - I think this will be a heavily debated issue in the coming years, especially if as Andrew says, the government is considering censoring the internet. The library faces this issue already. Some libraries receive funding for computers from sources that, as a requirement of the funding, require that children's internet access be filtered. So these libraries face the problem of not having enough computer access for patrons vs. filtering some information from the youth population. As librarians, the answer would be clear to us - no filters. However, as an administrator and a librarian, the answer becomes cloudy.
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