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- Title
FREEDOM ON INFORMATION, PRIVACY, AND INFORMATION CONTROL: A CONTEMPORARY ADMINISTRATIVE DILEMMA.
- Authors
O'Brien, David M.
- Abstract
Open government and individual privacy are complex and occasionally conflicting ideals with wide symbolic appeal. In recent years, increasing public concern over syndromes of bureaucratic secrecy and threats to personal privacy has produced litigation and prompted the United States Congress to pass the Privacy Act in 1974 and to amend in the same year the Freedom of Information Act of 1966. These Acts apparently reflect congressional effort to attain "a point of equilibrium in the field of information practices," but their crosscutting nature makes administrative compliance difficult. Information control within the federal bureaucracy is highly complex and somewhat paradoxical; legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to permit access to executive branch records, while recent legislation like the Privacy Act requires agencies to maintain the confidentiality of personal information. According to the author of this article, establishment of a federal privacy board would provide an institutional mechanism for resolving the inconsistencies between the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act; still, it would not ensure the development of a more integrated federal information policy.
- Subjects
UNITED States; ADMINISTRATIVE acts; FREEDOM of information; BUREAUCRACY; RIGHT of privacy; INFORMATION policy; PUBLIC record laws; SECRECY; UNITED States. Congress
- Publication
Public Administration Review, 1979, Vol 39, Issue 4, p323
- ISSN
0033-3352
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/976208