Sunday, February 6, 1972 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Rage Seven Sunday, February 6, 1972 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Seven HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE The cloak of federal secrecy My decisions are confidential, often top secret, Made in the interest of the nation's security. I shall never breathe a word of the government's way of working For what the public doesn't know can never hurt me! Anonymous Federal Bureaucrat WASHINGTON OP)-The In- ternal Revenue Service, over- seer of President Nixon's wage- price-rent controls, refuses to disclose the names of landlords and businesses which violate those controls. The names of the violators become public only if legal action is filed against them, and to date the govern- ment has filed only a few such legal challenges. A New York labor union has challenged this information blackout in court, contending that an individual who has been illegally overcharged has no way of knowing a refund is due him unless the violator chooses to tell him so. This is just one example of bureaucratic secrecy found in a study of how much of the feder- al government's business is con- ducted behind closed doors and classified top secret. While IRS has indicated it might change its policy on nam- ing wage-price control violators, there are plenty of other exam- ples: -When the Supreme Court renders a decision, the work- ing papers of individual jus- tices are carefully kept secret, although the papers could pro- vide an insight into how the court reaches decisions that af- fect millions of people: --Congress passed the Free- dom of Information Act in 1966 to give the public greater ac- cess to information. But the act is limited to the executive branch. Congress itself is totally excused; -The Senate and the House conduct at least one third of their hearings behind locked doors. Of 504 hearings held dur- ing one month last year, 167 were in executive session; -Although the House Bank- ing Committee has made pub- lic evidence of corruption in the appraisal of homes sold under a Federal Housing Administration program, the Department of Housing and Urban Development refuses to divulge the names of its appraisers; and -The Department of Health, Education and Welfare fre- quently uses advisory boards of outside specialists to help for- 4 mulate policy, yet the trans- cripts of- board meetings are strictly confidential. Last year, for example, HEW set up an ad- visory board to help write air pollution regulations. The de- partment refused to release transcripts of- board meetings, and even declined to identify board members. The issue of secrecy in gov- ernment, a recurring one, sur- faced last year in the debate over publication of the Penta- gon Papers, and again this year when columnist Jack Anderson published excerpts of minutes from National Security Council meetings on the India-Paki- stan war. While there are reasons for secrecy on such matters as na- tional security or delicate inter- national negotiations, the gov- ernment is frequently accused of suffering from a secrecy syn- drome that results in unneces- sarily covering up decisions and actions that the American voter has a right to know about. The feeling that the bureau- cracy will" opt for secrecy is * fueled by such incidents as that involding the Air Force chief of staff who sent a memo to his subordinates ordering them to U of M Students, Faculty and Staff WINTER: LOVE IT or LEAVE IT BAHAMAS- Freeport 8 DAYS 7 NIGHTS March 5 to 12 $159.00 HAWAII- Waikiki Beach 8 DAYS 7 NIGHTS March 4 to 1 1 $269.00 ALL TRIPS INCLUDE: " Round trip non-stop jet transportation O "ncn hnr nni mar,1 quit stamping so many docu- ments "top secret." Someone along the line put a "top sec- ret" stamp on the memo. An Air Force officer has es- timated that the Pentagon spends $50 million a year just guarding classified papers, 992 per cent of which don't even warrant a "confidential" stamp. "Stamping a document 'top secret' to them is just like put- ting a period after a sen- tence," he said. Former White House Press Secretary James C. Hagerty has estimated that th Defense De- partment is still holding, on a classified basis, 160 million pages of documents from World War II and 75 million pages from the Korean War. While that means they are not available for public scrutiny, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are secret in any real sense. According to Pentagon figures, 687,834 persons hold top-secret security clearances, including some employes of private busi- nesses doing defense work. The Pentagon made the fig- ures public after the White House called for all govern- ment agencies to submit the names of persons holding top secret security clearances. That White House order, by the way. was stamped "administratively confidential." In an attempt to ease nublic access to government informa- tion, Congress passed the Free- dom of Information Act (FO) in '1966. The law was designed to shift to the federal eovernment the burden of proof for classifica- tion of information rathr than placing the hurden of arumnt for de-classification on the pri- vate sector. But creating a law and mak- in, it work ar two differnt things. A combination of nub- lic apatvh and burucuratic r- sistanc^ hs knt al but a rea- tive handful of secrets locked in aovernmrnt fi~s. From the 0v the et beenm law probern er'nnprd iPn. W'Qch federal .aency issujd its own set of remllations riultin in a to- tal lack of uniformity overning the release of information. There also i no uniformity in the cost to the public of obtain- me' information. Some aneie. eharee search fees. Others charge nhotoconyne'fe-s ran:- me' from 5 rents to V a naire. despite a Fhdrral Power Coni- mission study chowin that the fees won't cover the cost of bl - Ino' the customers. There are no accurate figures on the number of POI renuests made to the novernment or the number the eovernment has re- fused to fill. althouoh the House Government Information sub- committee chaired by Rep. John E. Moss (D-Calif.) is doing such a survey. However, the success of court fiahts over freedom of information can be measured. The Justice Department main- tains a Freedom of Information committee to advise all federal agencies on FOI requests, par- ticularly those which might re- sult in court action. In addition, most agencies are defended by Justice Department lawyers when FOI cases do wind up in court. Jeffrey F. Axelrad, a depart- ment lawyer who has supervised most FOI court cases, estimates there have been about 200 since' 1967 and that decisions have fa- vored the government "some- what more than 50 per cent of the time." James Kronfeld, a special as- sistant on the House Govern- ment Information subcommittee agrees. Of 24 cases he picked at random, private interests won nine total victories and two par- tial victories while the gov- ernment won 13. "If you've exhausted all other appeals and have no choice but to go. to court, assuming you can afford the cost of a legal battle, the public's chances are still less than 50-50," Kronfeld said. A special problem has cropped up in suits over information classified for national security reasons. Some judges are refus- ing to rule on the ground that they are not qualified to decide national security questions. That was the ruling recently when Rep. Moss sued the DefenseDe- partment in federal district court for four volumes of the Pentagon Papers being withheld on national security grounds. Robert L. Saloschin, chairman of the Justice Department's FOI committee, agrees with the judge in principle. "With all due respect to the public's right to know, and the public does have a right to know, the people have 'elected a President and a Congress to protect the national security and judges should, in my opinion, exercise great i'estraint in rul- ing on questions of defense and foreign policy," Saloschin said. "Our usual position," said Axelrad, "is that once a docu- ment is shown to be classified, the case is over." Both agreed that this posi- tion could, and probably has, led to abuses. "If something is deliberately misclassified it is reprehensible," Saloschin said. "But a lawsuit is not the proper forum for a vast overhaul of our system of classification." While all available odds seem to favor the government, the public can take heart in one Moss subcommittee finding. The subcommittee sent question- naires to all federal agencies seeking statistics on requests made under the FOI law. The Central Intelligence Ag- ency, a super secret organiza tion which won't even identify itself on the telephone, respond- ed surprisingly that it had re- cnived two FOI r-quests and answered one of them. Ac eollegeprofessor wanted a copy of a study on an obscure Philippine dialect. The CIA gave it to him. W 3 I. p I I4 Add a special touch to Valentine's Day Send your Valentine a message in the Daily"Valentine Greetigs column VALENTINE GREETING: REDUCED Classified Rates Lines . _ .. WORDS NO. OF DAYS DESIRED PRICE 3 4 5 6 7 9 Rates $1.00 1.25 1.50 1.65 1.80 2.00 2.15 2.25 4 i NAME _ ADDRESS PHONE checks payable to: THE MICHIGAN DAILY 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, Mich. 48104 * Each groupof characters counts as one word 0 5 words per line # Hyphenated words over 5 characters count as two words (this includes telephone numbers), 0 All ads will be printed ONLY in regular classified, 6 pt. type 10 * Greetings will appear in Sunday; Feb. 13 paper, since the Daily does not publish on Mondays * Deadline: Friday, Feb. 11 " All messages must be prepaid " Sorry, no phone calls accepted WABX and U. of D. presents Er 4 * 'T: ?lt S -.4 4, 5 14 Owl, Al- a .4 A a.< .1 y, 4, 14 e S4 I 6l 1I ROUND TRIP JET FROM DETROIT Round Trip Jets by Caledonia-BUA, North Central and Universal Airlines SPECIAL ADDED ATTRACTION . 5 MAN. ELECTRICAL. BAND SAT., FEB. 19, 8:30 P.M.--U. of D. Memorial Bid9. TICKETS: $3.50 (in advance) $4.50 Day of Show. Available at U. of D. 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NO. 005 593 515 517 555 523 525 527 553 511 613 539 503 545 529 531 729 519 521 627 ROUTING DET-NAS-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET NY-LON-NY NY-LON-NY DET-ATHENS-DET DET-LON-DET NY-LON-NY DET-AMS-LON-DET DET-PARIS-LON-DET NY-PARIS-LON-NY DET-AMS-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DET-LON-DET DEPART/RETURN 3 '3-3/10 3/6-3/13 5 2-6/2 5/3-6/24 5 22-6/27 5/16-8/15 5/31-8/16 6/8-8/8 6/10-8/10 6/17-9/3 6/19-8/25 6/26-8/29 S6/27-8/31 6/28-9/3 7/2-8/30 17 /2-9/1 7/5-7/25 7/11-8/11 7 /31-9/ 1 8 28-9/15 COST CHG. 150 150 150 150 180 170 170 300 210 180 190 225 185' 190' 210 190 190 190 180 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 26 15 15 19 15 15 19 19 19 19 10 19 TOTAL 159+1 169 169 169 169 199 189 189 326 225 195 209 240 200 209 229 209 209 209 199 For All Flights, The Following DAILY Connecting Flights Are Available: LONDON/PARIS $13 LON/AMSTERDAM $15 LON /COPENHAGEN $25 LONDON/ROME $35 Other Destinations Available LONDON/GENEVA LONDON /ATHENS $22 $53 *NASSAU FLIGHTS INCLUDE .. 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