Pentagon: Why post it online when we can mail it?

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McClatchy reports that a Pentagon analysis of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the invasion found no operational ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. This is of great interest to journalists and citizens, so it’s a good thing the study was publicly released. No doubt your thinking you can go to the Pentagon’s website and download a copy, right? According to the NYT:

[T]he report will not be posted on the Internet, as originally planned, and no one will conduct any briefings on its conclusions. Anyone wanting to read it will have to ask the United States Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., for a copy. Officials promise to send it by mail.

One of the themes in my forthcoming paper on online transparency is that although there are many laws that require government to disclose information to the public, few require that disclosure to be online. Because the internet is the way we disseminate information today, paper disclosure is not meaningful disclosure. The good news is the corollary to that idea, which is that if government doesn’t disclose online, third parties will. So it’s amazing to me that the Pentagon thinks it can stifle interest in a story by refusing to disclose online.

So, grab your copy at ABC News (PDF).

Mar 16, 2008 | 1 Comment | Tags: , ,

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