Disseminating government information: Appropriate roles for the government and the private sector: A viewpoint

Abstract

The United States information industry in general uses federal information to create products that meet the endlessly varied needs of the American people and that contribute to human welfare around the globe. Information publishing is one of a diminishing number of technology-intensive industries in which the United States enjoys an unrivaled primacy. One key to American strength in this area is our open system of government and the ready access to government information that so strikingly distinguishes the United States from many other societies. Americans’ access to government information is protected by the Freedom of Information Act and by the unqualified statement in U.S. copyright law that “Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government” [ 11. Further, these protections secure the basic conditions for access through a diversity of sources, both public and proprietary. A long tradition of a vigorous free press has provided the United States with the legal and cultural foundations for the development in this century of a flourishing information industry. This diversified group of enterprises includes the print and broadcast news media, book and periodical publishers, film/video production and distribution companies, electronic database publishers, information retrieval firms, and many others. The preponderance of information essential for the defense of freedom, for specific and technological advances, for economic progress, and for making choices about society’s future either originates with or is processed and distributed by the information industry. In this country, information that enables citizens to conduct their daily national life is placed in public circulation largely by means of private distribution. In all too many other countries, the legal sources and distributors of information are almost exclusively governmental. In those countries one almost always finds that the credibility of government-distributed information is low. Moreover, under such conditions, alternative information distribution systems generally spring up surreptitiously to satisfy the demand for information that people value and in which they can place their trust. In the United States, public dialogue is basically what it seems to be. Issues are addressed in a relatively straightforward manner. When they are controversial, the public is generally exposed to a variety of fully articulated viewpoints in various media. There may be conflicting information in circulation, but the competing claims for truth are made and