Yes, for government employees, our employers are the public. You put
very well what I rambled on about for a couple of paragraphs under
"archivists' views."
Excellent point about contractors. Another thing I worry about is the
fact that contractors work under task orders administered by
Contracting Officer's Technical Representatives. They are paid to do
narrow tasks, period, with no further obligations. Their loyalty is to
fulfilling the contract, not to the public at large. In some
assignments, this approach works very well and saves the government
money. There certainly is a place for "outsourcing" with some
functions that are not "inherently governmental."
But declassification sometimes requires balancing tests Depending on
the topic of the document, the reviewer may balance the potential
benefits of disclosure against the perceived need for secrecy. NARA is
not hiring these contractors, rather it is the Air Force contracting
with Raytheon, etc. So Air Force would be setting the metrics, I
assume.
Are contractors really equipped to apply balancing tests the same way
NARA's civil servants are? And what about ethical issues? If
contractors realize a project has gone seriously off track, they have
fewer obligations and places to turn than civil servants do. There is
no agency Inspector General or agency counsel to turn to, no reporting
chain that is interested in saving the public institution from
embarrassment. On the other side, government employees -- permanent
civil servants -- receive ethics training and sometimes save their
agencies from terrible problems by courageously speaking out,
internally, about emerging issues.
Maarja
-----Original Message-----
From: WALLIS Dwight D <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 10:31:45 -0700
Subject: Re: nara and reclassification
Arel Lucas wrote:
>I think we are acutely aware that we are expected to represent the
interests of our employers, whether they be academic, religious,
corporate, or governmental.
I don't mean to be facetious or belittle what you wrote, Arel, but it is
worth remembering that in the last category, at least, our employers are
the public.
With that in mind, one element that has not been commented on has been
the outsourcing of the reclassification review to a major military
defense contractor. Does it bother anyone that public access policy
determinations are being contracted out? I wonder what the metrics, or
performance measures, of such a contract would be. Is there anything in
place to counterbalance the obvious interests of a defense contractor,
and the ex-intelligence agents apparently being recruited to conduct the
review?
Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records Administrator
Multnomah County Fleet, Records, Electronics, Distribution & Stores
(FREDS)
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Portland OR 97233
phone: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
[log in to unmask]
A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the
Society
of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
For the terms of participation, please refer to
http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
*or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
*or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>