Hole in the Head Press

Government to take Air Nav Info Private

The disturbing trend continues.

In previous posts I've lamented the loss of the PIRS, the closing of the GPO stores across the nation, and the fact that military manuals will no longer be available through inter-library loan.  Now, the government wants to remove public access to air navigation information that has been publicly available since the 1940's.

Bethesda, Md, Dec 3, 2004 -- The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) announced November 18, 2004, it is considering withdrawing its Flight Information Publications (FLIP), Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File (DAFIF), and Navigation Planning Charts from public sale and distribution.  NGA has proposed to implement the changes on October 1, 2005. Today, NGA invites public comment on the proposed action through June 30, 2005.

Comments may be returned to: aero.ocr@nga.mil
or mailed to:

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Mail Stop D-111, Attn: Public Release of Aeronautical Products
4600 Sangamore Road Bethesda, MD 20816-5003

DoD Flight Information Publications have been distributed to the public since the 1940's. A huge number of applications and computer navigation devices rely on DAFIF for up-to-date source data. It is the only public domain, global aviation database.

The Agency is considering this action principally because increased numbers of foreign source providers are claiming intellectual property rights or are forewarning NGA that they intend to copyright their source. NGA relies on foreign data obtained through bi-lateral geospatial information sharing agreements and through direct purchase from private foreign companies. This foreign produced source is merged and integrated with NGA produced data to create and maintain the aeronautical data and products in question.

If adopted, FLIP, DAFIF, and navigation planning charts will be available only through the Department of Defense (DOD) distribution system. U.S. Federal and State government agencies and authorized government contractors will not be affected by this action.

Terrorist threats are not mentioned in the NGA press statement.

Military Manuals No Longer Available from Your Library

As of 1 January 2004 technical manuals will not be available through the Inter-library loan system, unless it is an official request.    Request for technical manuals will now be available as a copy fee service.   Please submit all inquiry through our website at www.carlisle.army.mil   

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.   

Thank You
Melinda Torres
ILL Tech/MHI

This is the latest example of the disturbing trend by the government of making it more difficult and expensive to get information what was formerly readily available and, in many cases, free.

For example, all of the Government Printing Office bookstores in the United States have been closed, the Corps of Engineers has taken the PIRS database off the internet, information that was formerly free is now only available in barely legible copies at ridiculous prices from the NTIS, and now the public cannot obtain information from the Military Heritage Institute through their local library. 

Suppressing information is not the direction that we need to be going in a free and open democracy

 

GPO Closes Stores Across the Nation

Another source of information gone.

On September 1, 2003, the United States Government Printing Office closed their book stores across the nation.

The GPO says, " The closures result from an overall decline in sales due to the the dramatic increase in access to government information on the internet and the shift from walk-in traffic at bookstores to purchases from the U.S. Government Online Bookstore."

So much for the vision of the Federal government helping the small rural farmer with material on planting, and soil management. No more inexpensive pamphlets on how to put up those peach's and preserves.

Overall, about 31% of Americans don't use computers. Many Americans in rural areas don't have a way to connect to the internet even if they have a computer.

A study by the Pew Charitable Trust gives some idea of who won't be buying books from the GPO any more.

It's very sad.

 

PIRS Information Gone

This National Security stuff is causing us to lose access to valuable information on the web.

Recently, I noticed that the Corps of Engineers Project Information Retrieval System (PIRS) is gone. The somewhat obscure PIRS provided valuable  information concerning 9,300 formerly used military sites (FUDS), including Cold War Era Nike missile sites that were evaluated under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP), or - DERP-FUDS.

Before the Corps took PIRS down you could print out the entire Inventory Project Report prepared under the DERP-FUDS Program for thousands of old military sites. It was a great source of historical information.

One military history researcher was told by a Corps of Engineers Public Information Officer that this information could help the terrorists. While there may have been truly sensitive information available through PIRS, removing the DERP-FUDS Reports which are largely about  former military sites that haven’t been used for a half century, makes it difficult to understand the threat created by making this information public.

The Inventory Project Report is a formatted report that contains information about the site name, location, site history, site deactivation and current use, site visits, environmental design section, category of hazard, project description, available studies and reports, findings of fact, an appendix containing photographs and diagrams, and maps, and a Risk Assessment Procedures for Ordnance and Explosives (RAC). Each project is assigned a project number.

The RAC is one of the most important documents in the report.  It consists of a check-off list of all kinds of ordnance and toxic material likely to be found at a former military site.  Each type of material is assigned a number with the most dangerous stuff getting the higher numbers.  The site investigator checks off the various things that have either been found at the site or would have been present at the site based upon inventories, documents, and interviews conducted during the study of the site’s history. The site is then assigned a risk category which determines the site’s priority for clean up.

The Corps replaced all of this with a one page summary on a system that is not very well designed.  There is no way to find a site by the project number, I couldn't find a way to link to a specific page of information, and navigating around the map is very slow.  There’s very little history and no access to the RAC. For example, the current one page summary for the Bodega Head Gunnery Range replaced a twenty-eight page report .

The report for Bodega Head, which is a California State Park states, "This property is known or suspected to contain military and explosives of concern (e.g. unexploded ordnance) and therefore may present an explosive hazard."  Since we no longer can see the Risk Assessment documents, we can't know what "explosives of concern" may be out there.

There are hundreds of other parks and other public lands that were former military sites. And now, it’s no longer possible for you to discover if any ammunition, bombs, grenades, land mines, rockets, detonators, blasting caps, fuzes, boosters, bursters or toxic chemicals may lying around in your neighborhood park or undeveloped land because, apparently, the Corps of Engineers doesn't’t believe you should be trusted with this kind of information.