[Infowarrior] - Army blocks public access to ATDL

[Richard Forno]

(c/o Secrecy News)


ARMY BLOCKS PUBLIC ACCESS TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

Public access to the Reimer Digital Library, which is the largest online
collection of U.S. Army doctrinal publications, has been blocked by the
Army, which last week moved the collection behind a password-protected
firewall.

http://www.train.army.mil/
But today the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of
Information Act request asking the Army to provide a copy of the entire
unclassified Library so that it could be posted on the FAS web site.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2008/02/reimer.pdf
The Army move on February 6 marks the latest step in an ongoing withdrawal
of government records from the public domain.

"It was a policy decision to put it behind the AKO [Army Knowledge Online]
firewall and to restrict public access," said Don Gough of the system
development division at the Army Training Support Center at Fort Eustis,
Virginia, which operates the Reimer Digital Library.

The move came as a surprise since only unclassified and non-sensitive
records had ever been made available at the Library site.

Isn't it true, Secrecy News asked, that the only documents that had been
accessible to the public were those that had been specifically... "'Approved
for public release,' yes," said Mr. Gough, completing our sentence. "I
understand your concern," he added.

The FAS Freedom of Information Act request is intended to reverse the Army
action.

"We hope to restore public access to the Reimer Digital Library by obtaining
all of its publicly releasable contents and posting that material on our own
website," the FAS request explained. "Furthermore, in order to preserve the
status quo, we expect to file regular FOIA requests for updates to the RDL
two or three times a month, so that we may add them to our mirror site."

"Alternatively, if the Army were to restore the prior level of public access
to the RDL, that would fulfill this request and make future requests
unnecessary," the FAS request stated.

Among the many thousands of documents that were formerly available to the
public on the Reimer Digital Library, two of the latest additions are these.

"The Modular Force," Field Manual Interim FMI 3-0.1, January 2008:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-0-1.pdf
"Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High Yield Explosives
Operational Headquarters," Field Manual Interim FMI 3-90.10, January 2008:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-90-10.pdf