The government's role in American scientific and technical information

Abstract

The information policy of Western democracies is characterized by free exchange of information, by the commodity character of information, and by the government's right of interference in information matters. These three basic principles are often contradictory to each other. In the United States during two consecutive terms of Republican governments, the concepts adopted were free trade of information and a marginal role of government concentrated in maintaining some special information services and in financing information science research. However, new contradictions were provoked by the directives introduced in 1980 which restricted the free exchange of so-called "sensitive information", in addition to that of classified information. These directives created by the Pentagon have received hard critics from both the research side and the information market side, without any substantial result. However, an optimistic outlook can be offered by the fact that information restriction and its commodity character counteracts the problem of environmental control becoming a global issue. The relevant information concerning these aspects can force governments to restructure their attitudes to information policy.