SAN DIEGO — Knowing what government is doing is key to holding it accountable. To get this knowledge, you need access to government publications and documents. But recent trends threaten that access and may jeopardize the promise of "e-government."
The Office of Management and Budget is encouraging federal agencies to bypass the Government Printing Office and let private companies bid for their jobs. This way, public money can be saved.
Although saving taxpayer dollars is commendable, there is little agreement, even within the printing industry, that competition will drop costs below those of the centralized Government Printing Office, with its ability to command large-quantity discounts. But money isn't the real issue here.
The printing office has been pivotal in getting government information into the hands of citizens through the Federal Library Depository Program. When the government prints a federal agency's publication, the Government Printing Office, as required by law, e-mails copies to more than 1,300 depository libraries nationally. The libraries store such publications for citizen use.
The OMB claims Congress can't require the executive branch to do its printing through the Government Printing Office. It concedes that government publications should continue to be made available for the depository program, though it doesn't specify how. But as is well known in Washington, when agencies bypass, wittingly or unwittingly, the Government Printing Office, their publications never reach the depository program.
This is not the first time the Bush administration has veered away from openness and toward secrecy, and not always for national security reasons. Examples are numerous: Environmental information made available under the Clean Air Act, such as how to cope with chemical accidents, was removed from official government Web sites; it's much harder to get government documents using Freedom of Information laws; names of government appointees have been withheld; the mandated publication of historical foreign-policy documents has been delayed, as has the release of presidential papers of previous administrations. Ironically, while it's getting harder to keep tabs on government, government can find out a lot more about you, given the expanded investigatory powers permitted under the USA Patriot Act.
