Who Needs to Know? The State of Public Access to Federal Government Information will help readers begin to assess the impact of the various trends and forces on the ability of the public to find, obtain, and use federal government information.
In recent years, there has been a lot of debate about the suppression of federal government information on the basis of national or homeland security. While this book will look at those concerns and attempt to present some of the recent history of withdrawn access, it will also draw a wider picture and look at the controls that have been imposed on public access in a variety of arenas.
Additionally, this book will explore the tension between the efforts of government officials to provide meaningful public access in non-security related areas and the concerns of the private sector about the impact of such efforts.
This publication will also provide an analysis of the current state of public access to federal government information from the perspective of the person who wants to understand what his or her government is doing; how to interact with it; how to engage with public policy decision-making; and how to hold government, and those who act on its behalf or under its regulation, accountable.
Written by Patrice McDermott, Ph.D., Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, this presents the history and the current state of the public's right to know from someone who has been at the forefront of the fight to make federal government information accessible to "we, the people."
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