EFF Responds to Jamie Love's article in the COOK Report -- Cook reply to

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 10:24:55 -0400
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 10:24:55 -0400
To: com-priv () psi com
From: ssteele () eff org (Shari Steele)
Subject: EFF Responds to Jamie Love's article in the COOK Report


In the September 1993 issue of the COOK Report, an article on government
information authored by Jamie Love of the Taxpayer Assets Project is
included. It appears as an objective report, rather than an opinion piece,
on where different interests come out on various policy proposals on
government information dissemination. EFF's position and that of OMB Watch
are characterized as supportive of the "vendor" over the "user" position. 
For example, Jamie Love writes:


[...]
> EFF and OMB Watch support the vendor position. The vendors have also
> been able to work closely with Jerry Berman of EFF and Gary Bass from
> OMB Watch, both of whom have good relationships with Gellman.  Both
> EFF and OMB Watch have favored the legislative approach found in the
> Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), over the Owens bill approach.  This
> has given the Vendors a much stronger political base, since they can
> argue that the PRA is a "consensus" approach, endorsed by "public
> interest" groups.
[...]


EFF responds:


To set the record straight, EFF actively supports public access to and
government dissemination of public information. Unlike Jamie Love, we
believe that the free flow of information is best served through a
diversity of both government and private information sources.  We do not
encourage or support policies that would, or could, foster either
government or private sector monopolization of public information
dissemination sources. 


We believe this policy is best articulated in the information dissemination
amendments of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) drafted by Senators Glenn
and Bingaman and Representatives Conyers and Wise, which would have been
enacted into law two years ago but for opposition to other provisions of
the bill by supporters of business interests.  EFF, along with OMB Watch
and the ACLU, continues to support this version of the PRA over the Owens
bill. The PRA bill has also been supported by Public Citizen, another Nader
organization (like Jamie Love's Taxpayers Assets Project), and has not been
opposed by several library associations.


Jamie Love is a strong advocate of government being the principal, if not
sole, disseminator of government information and is hardly in a position to
write an objective news article.  He has a clear position, to which he is
certainly entitled.  But he should not pretend to write a journalist piece
that objectively characterizes other groups' positions.  Anyone who
disagrees with Jamie Love is characterized by him as not only incorrect,
but obviously corrupt.  EFF, which has different views than Jamie Love, is
often the target of his ire. This occurs again in the September 1993 COOK
Report.


Ironically, the language that Jamie Love criticizes in the PRA as being
"vendor oriented" is the very same language contained in the recently
revised OMB Circular A-130, which Jamie Love praises. We also support the
recent A-130 revisions regarding the dissemination of government
information. In fact, EFF, along with OMB Watch officials, is proud to have
had a role in crafting the language in both the PRA bill and the final
A-130 circular.  This language that Jamie Love finds unsupportable has
previously been endorsed by by both houses of Congress and several other
public interest groups.


The COOK Report article written by Jamie Love is not an objective statement
of information policy, for Jamie Love is not objective on this matter and
uses ad hominum arguments to discredit those he disagrees with. For
example, he accuses EFF of taking money from the Information Industry
Association.  This happens not to be true.  But even if it were, EFF has
demonstrated time and again that we take positions on the merits of the
issue and not simply to please any one of our many individual, member,
corporate and foundation funding sources.  Gordon Cook's choice to print
this article without some sort of explanation that this was an opinion
piece reflects poorly on the journalistic standards of the COOK Report.