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11/19/2001 Entry: "US Gov't asks libraries to destroy some gov docs."

Rising Fears That What We Do Know Can Hurt Us

WASHINGTON -- The document seemed innocuous enough: a survey of government data on reservoirs and dams on CD-ROM. But then came last month's federal directive to U.S. libraries: "Destroy the report."


So a Syracuse University library clerk broke the disc into pieces, saving a single shard to prove that the deed was done.


The unusual order from the Government Printing Office reflects one of the hidden casualties of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: the public's shrinking access to information that many once took for granted.