WASHINGTON — June 28, 1999 — Activists, journalists, librarians and researchers have been concerned that the federal government has vast warehouses of information that are unclassified yet not readily available to the public on the Internet. But what are these documents? The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and OMB Watch, two Washington D.C. Advocacy groups, want to find out. They are seeking to identify the 10 most wanted government documents, reports or data sets that should be on the Web - but are missing in action due to the failure of the government to use the Internet fully.

To do so, they plan to post virtual "Wanted!" signs on Internet mailing lists and on the World Wide Web and ask citizens to participate. "We're deputizing the Net community, journalists and researchers," said Ari Schwartz, Policy Analyst at CDT "if your document is chosen as one of the top ten, you will be rewarded with a full force effort to get the documents they are seeking up on the Web."

The Internet has obvious advantages for making government information available to the public at no cost. But the record of federal usage of the Internet is spotty. For example, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) uses taxpayer dollars to produce excellent reports on public policy issues ranging from foreign affairs to agriculture to health care. These reports are posted online, but on an internal system available only to Congressional offices through a password. Citizens can order these reports through their member of Congress, but only by mail, and the general public cannot search through past reports. Some listings of these reports are haphazardly made available, but the onus is left up to the citizen to track them down.

"For years advocates have pointed to specific agencies and courts that do not have Web sites as well as specific documents and court opinions that have not been made available to the public on the Net, " said Rick Blum, Policy Analyst at OMB Watch. "We feel that it is time to point out the most egregious cases."

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