[Wg-economics-advisory] Fwd: question re your Open Economics Principles - and national security

Tue Aug 20 15:50:26 UTC 2013

Velichka,

I had to two reactions, one that suggests this is well within the scope of discussion, and one that suggests it is outside. 

First, while it is hard to think of modern circumstances in the United States that would merit suppression of economic data, there is the possible exception of wartime production statistics. After all, during WWII, economic production data and employment data, and so on, could be read by an intelligent eye to infer a great deal about military production. And I suspect that we would all agree -- at least with the benefit of hindsight -- that there was no reason to give Nazi Germany any additional information about the number of tanks about to be shipped across the Atlantic. 

Having said that, I can still recall how the Soviet government would prosecute almost any statistician inside of Russia for bringing almost any data outside of the Soviet Union, even production data about stuff far removed from tank production. They would use the broad excuse of "national state secrets" as club, even when it was transparently ridiculous. 

Which gets me to the tougher issues. Even today many governments manipulate the economic production data given to the United Nations, and use broad excuses to stop any second guessing. In that sense, openness is the bright light that heals.

Second, and more down to earth, consider this story. In my little corner of research national security has reared its head and made a difference to research life. On occasion I have studied the geographic expansion of the Internet around the US, and even today I study the flow of data around the country, and the quality of user experiences related to that. In any event, there are challenges doing this. After Sept 11 many of the maps of the Internet's infrastructure became very hard to find online, and eventually disappeared from the web. Even today it is very difficult to learn where most of the key data exchange points are located. Though engineers have to know quite a bit to keep the Internet working, much of the key information is just kept among the fraternity of people who operate the key infrastructure. 

Anyway, the recent Boston Marathon bombings or the Oklahoma City bombings of the federal building are a good examples as to why that information should not be easy to retrieve. The core infrastructure of the Internet is still remarkably fragile in a few places, and a determined idiot could make quite a bit of destruction by destroying a choice building or two. (To be sure, if you understand how the Internet works, you can still figure out where some vulnerabilities lie. Even though Google Maps does not identify the building in Washington DC with the greatest density of Internet connections, it just takes time and effort and some detective sleuthing.) All the researchers who study Internet infrastructure know about this. The difficulty of locating something will show up in a research discussion, and we will all acknowledge it, figure out we need to know, shrug off the rest, and move on.  In other words, even among those of us who research this topic, we all think it the suppression of some information is reasonable.

Summary. Two examples of the suppression of economic data, one from the era of soviet suppression, and the other from the era of modern terrorism prevention. I would bet nobody wants to see a return of the former, while the latter seems within the category of reasonable. Not sure there is a general principle there.

Cheers, 

Shane

-----Original Message-----
From: wg-economics-advisory-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:wg-economics-advisory-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of 'Christian Zimmermann'
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 9:34 AM
To: Velichka Dimitrova
Cc: wg-economics-advisory at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [Wg-economics-advisory] Fwd: question re your Open Economics Principles - and national security

I am genuinely interested in what circumstances would make publishing economic information a population better off to the point that it is a national security issue.

What I can think of:

- failure to publish poor unemployment data may prevent the population to become "less happy", and thus consumption is sustained.

- failure to publish some data reduces cost to the government and thus taxes. If the data was not that useful to begin with, this may lead to an improvement in well-being in the end.

In both cases I would not call this a national security issue, unless you think releasing data about poor economic performance would lead to riots.

On Tue, 20 Aug 2013, Velichka Dimitrova wrote:

> Dear Advisory Panel members,
>
> We had an email from a legal officer at the Open Society Foundation 
> which suggested a discussion on when data and information can be 
> withheld by governments on national security grounds (please see below for her input).
>
> This may be out of the scope that we want to cover with the Open 
> Economics Principles or we may want to include a footnote to "national 
> security" to reference the Principles on National Security and the Right to Information.
> Let us know whether you have ideas or input.
>
> Thank you!
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Velichka Dimitrova <velichka.dimitrova at okfn.org>
> Date: 20 August 2013 15:16
> Subject: Re: question re your Open Economics Principles - and national 
> security
> To: Sandra Coliver <sandra.coliver at opensocietyfoundations.org>, "
> open-economics at lists.okfn.org" <open-economics at lists.okfn.org>
> Cc: "economics at okfn.org" <economics at okfn.org>
>
>
> Dear Sandra,
>
> Thank you very much for writing to us. I am cc-ing here our Economics 
> mailing list as I think it would be useful to have other people's 
> input as well. I would also share your thoughts with our Advisory 
> Panel<http://openeconomics.net/about/advisory-panel/>who have actively 
> participated in drafting the Open Economics Principles.
>
>
> We were considering the "national security" as one of the reasons for 
> which economics researchers may not be able to make their data openly 
> available as many may work with data which is subject to 
> non-disclosure agreements, with firms, governments or other 
> institutions. Basically, these restrictions are not in the 
> decision-making power of the researchers themselves, as often 
> economists use data published by others. These Principles are 
> addressed towards researchers, research institutions and funders of 
> researchers rather than towards the primary publishers of data which economists use.
>
> We did not take into account that national security may indeed include 
> protection of the country's own economy and we were considering this 
> more in the context of military and intelligence. Do you think this 
> should be clarified explicitly or this is probably out of the scope as 
> our statement doesn't cover the reasons for governments to without 
> information on national security grounds?
>
> Best wishes
>
>
> *
>
> Velichka Dimitrova
>
> Open Economics Project Coordinator |
> @vndimitrova<http://twitter.com/vndimitrova>
>
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>
> Empowering through Open Knowledge
> http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn <http://twitter.com/OKFN>  |  OKF on 
> Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/OKFNetwork> | Blog 
> <http://blog.okfn.org/>  |  
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> *
>
> Have you endorsed the Open Economics
> Principles<http://openeconomics.net/principles/>yet?
> *Open Economics | http://openeconomics.net/ | 
> @okfnecon<http://twitter.com/okfnecon>|best practice for open economic 
> data
> *
>
>
>
>
> On 16 August 2013 20:07, Sandra Coliver < 
> sandra.coliver at opensocietyfoundations.org> wrote:
>
>>  Dear OKFN:****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I was very pleased to read about your Open Economics Principles.  
>> ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I have facilitated development of a set of Principles on National 
>> Security and the Right to Information, called the Tshwane Principles 
>> after the province in South Africa where they were finalized, drafted 
>> by 22 CSOs and academic centres, and endorsed by the Parliamentary 
>> Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Legal Affairs Committee and others. See
>> http://www.right2info.org/exceptions-to-access/national-security         *
>> ***
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> One of the vexing issues that we side-stepped is whether governments 
>> may legitimately withhold information on national security grounds if 
>> its disclosure could negatively impact a state's economic 
>> well-being.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> A note following Princ 3 states: "*The fact that disclosure could 
>> cause harm to a country's economy would be relevant in*
>>
>> *determining whether information should be withheld on that ground, 
>> but not on national security grounds."*
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Some experts urged that in many European and other countries, 
>> economic well-being is considered a core element of national security 
>> and accordingly that some info re a nation's economy could 
>> legitimately be classified on national security grounds.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Our concern re that assertion is that classification on national 
>> security grounds results, in most countries, in increased secrecy and 
>> increased penalties for disclosure, even where the public interest in 
>> the information exceeds any harm from disclosure.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I note that your Principles accept that economic info may be 
>> restricted on grounds of national security among others. ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I wonder, have you given thought to identifying the categories of 
>> info that could legitimately be limited on national security 
>> grounds?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> And the info of especially high public importance that should be 
>> proactively published? ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> For instance, You will also see that Principle 10 lists categories of 
>> info of high public importance, including info about military 
>> contracts.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Principle 9 lists categories of info that may legitimately be 
>> withheld on national security. We wanted to include a provision re 
>> economic info, but given failure of consensus, we added a catch-all 
>> paragraph at the end. That compromise didn't make us happy but we 
>> agreed that some ambiguity was better than either a) making the list 
>> unrealistically narrow, or b) including a broad exemption of info 
>> whose disclosure could negatively impact the economic well-being of a 
>> state.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Do you have any thoughts to contribute to this discussion?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Do you have one or more papers to which we could link on our 
>> webpage?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> We will include a link to your Principles.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Thanks much for your thoughts,****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Sandra****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Sandra Coliver****
>>
>> Senior Legal Officer, Freedom of Information & Expression****
>>
>> Open Society Justice Initiative****
>>
>> Open Society Foundations****
>>
>> 224 West 57th Street****
>>
>> New York, NY 10019 USA****
>>
>> +1 212 548 0384****
>>
>> Sandra.Coliver at OpenSocietyFoundations.org****
>>
>> www.justiceinitiative.org****
>>
>> www.right2info.org****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>

Christian Zimmermann                          FIGUGEGL!
Economic Research
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
P.O. Box 442
St. Louis MO 63166-0442 USA
http://ideas.repec.org/zimm/