Presentation on AUTHENTICATION OF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT INFORMATION: WHY DOES IT MATTER? found on pages 119 to 133 of FALL FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY COUNCIL MEETING AND CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS, ARLINGTON, VA | OCTOBER 18 - 20, 2010

Presentation on AUTHENTICATION OF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT INFORMATION: WHY DOES IT MATTER? found on pages 119 to 133 of
FALL FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY COUNCIL MEETING AND CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS, ARLINGTON, VA | OCTOBER 18 - 20, 2010
http://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/outreach/events/depository-library-council-dlc-meetings/meeting-minutes-and-transcripts/1796-transcripts-from-the-fall-2010-dlc-meeting/file

The slides referred to are found here:
Authentication of Digital Government Information--Why Does it Matter? by Stuart Basefsky
http://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/outreach/events/depository-library-council-dlc-meetings/2010-meeting-proceedings/fall-dlc-meeting-arlington-va-1/1775-authentication-of-digital-government-information-why-does-it-matter?path=outreach/events/depository-library-council-dlc-meetings/2010-meeting-proceedings/fall-dlc-meeting-arlington-va-1

Note: other comments and discussions by Stuart Basefsky are found throughout this conference document.

Excerpt (transcribed from a recording)

….Now, we'll move onto Stuart who will show different uses in other disciplines outside of law where authenticated information takes place in research.

MR. BASEFSKY: Okay. Actually, I was a little bit surprised that this topic was on the agenda here because back in 2001 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- at that time called the General Accounting Office, did a study on information management and electronic dissemination of government publications and it was largely settled policy that the government is obligated to authenticate. See--http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01428.pdf
 But people keep questioning the need for authentication so that's why I'm here, I suppose. I'm giving you the perspective from the social sciences. As you can see from my title, I'm the Senior Reference Librarian at the School of Industrial & Labor Relations. I'm also a lecturer and I'm also the Director of an Internet news service on workplace issues.

I talk fast, and if you have trouble following me, remember that you're listening too slowly. Note that there are all sorts of psychological studies that indicate that if one talks fast and that person wears glasses people think that they are intelligent. So, I hope I don't disappoint.

Okay. In any event, this is the perspective of the social sciences. Why invite me? I'm at a library, the Catherwood Library that is known as the world's largest university collection on workplace issues. We deal with all of the social sciences through the lens of the workplace. So, we deal with labor law, employment law, arbitration, labor economics, human resources, psychology and sociology of work. It goes on and on and on. Any of the social sciences, you name it. As long as it's related to the workplace in any way or another, we focus on that social science through that lens.

Now, as I make my presentation today, be aware that this is from my perspective a very, very serious issue. I'm going to define what I'm talking about. I'm going to give some specific examples and I'm going to relate the significance. Like I say, this is a serious matter. How serious is it? Well, one of the things that we forget about is the U.S. Government issues currency. That is a government document. Don't forget it. And it's insured if it's deposited in a federally insured bank by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. Now, that is the print version of the dollar. When it goes into your bank you have the digital version of the dollar. It doesn't look like the print version but the value is retained. The content essentially is retained. All the things that it was intended to have are there. When you go there you don't want to come out of the bank with bogus $100 bills. And you don't want to be sending stuff with your credit card realizing that it's really not working because it's not accepted. You'll notice that there is a U.S. code provision here, regulations governing insured depository institutions that actually requires the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government to be behind that particular publication.

The Government Printing Office actually produces what I call the intellectual currency of the government. Yes, the intellectual currency. And deposits should be backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. Now there may not be a specific law requiring that but I'm going to go through a demonstration process here indicating for all intents and purposes the U.S. Government intends for the Government Printing Office to authenticate and why. And before I get into that, I have two quotes at the bottom of this particular slide that I think resonate with all of us. One is attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan speaking in terms of the U.S and free speech. “We're always told, you are entitled to your opinion. We're hearing lots of opinions today in politics. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” So, how do we determine what is a fact? And if we can determine through authentication that it is, in fact, the fact, what do we do with that? Well, then you have Mark Twain who takes a kind of humorous perspective on this and says “you first get the facts, you can distort them later.”

So, if we look at the National Archives right now you can see that there is a provision in there for the electronic records management guidance on methodology for determining agency unique requirements. And I give you a link to that particular publication on the net and as you go down a few paragraphs you're going to come upon what they give as the definition that they take from the International Council on Archives, the Guide For Managing Electronic Records From An Archival Perspective. But what we're concerned about here is the reliability of a record and its ability to serve as reliable evidence.

Authenticity refers to the persistence over time of the original characteristics of the record with respect to the context, structure and content. An authentic record is one that retains its original reliability. Now, after hearing this, you're going to say the federal depository system should put all the federal depository documents in with manuscripts and archives. Manuscripts and archives now in the electronic world have to be current. We don't wait 100 years for something to show up there. You wait maybe 100 days. Because in the electronic environment, everything is disposable and removed on quick notice. And an aside [for librarians] you'll get more respect because of if you work with the manuscripts department, you will get all the money in the world.

 Okay. Now, in talking about this you have to know that you're dealing here with the general concept of a chain of reliability. Now, here comes the specific example. In the Census when you look at how Census publications are produced, they actually refer you to the Office of Management and Budget. And in the Office of Management and Budget there is a thing called the Standards and Guidelines for Statistical Surveys. The link is there. The first paragraph states: "Statistics collected and published by the Federal Government constitutes a significant portion of the available information about the United States economy, population, natural resources, environment, public and private institutions." These data are used by the Federal Government and others as a basis for actions that affect people's lives and wellbeing. It is essential that they be collected, processed and published in a manner that guarantees and inspires confidence in their reliability. Now, when we look at that chain, there's a lot that goes on. If you read into this document, how do you collect? Well, you collect in a lot of different ways. In my school, one of the things you're concerned about is the BLS Handbook of Methods. Statisticians, academics go to a great deal of trouble to make certain that the right processes are gone through. They collect the data based on those processes, then they process the data. What's comparable, what's not comparable, what are the variables? Then it has to be published. And if the publication is not authentic, that chain of reliability is broken. You do not want to be in the position of offering a document where you've broken the chain of reliability.

Now, that chain of reliability follows on to the government, and particularly GPO's very concerned about it. But academic libraries should be concerned about the documents that their scholars are looking at. Even in the print world, we have trouble. A lot of us rely on third party publishers like CIS, Congressional Information Service. I worked with them for years. I admire their work. I've actually helped them develop some of their publications and projects. However, I've told them on many occasions as a government documents librarian, which I was a number of years ago, we used to receive corrections to hearings, to committee prints, to statistical publications. They don't put any of those corrections in there. The academy is relying on those publications. It's just too expensive to fit into their workflow to add in the corrections. So, some people are doing their scholarly work based on information that may not actually be correct. So, that's a problem in the print world. Can you imagine what that problem is now in the electronic world? Anyway, we do not want to break that chain of reliability.

Now, one of the things that concerned me because of where I work I actually collect government documents and we put them into our institutional repository and we don't use institutional repository in a standard way. We have the IR at our particular school. It's separate from Cornell's. We have over 13,000 materials in there, more than all of Cornell University together in our separate little school repository. We have 70 percent compliance with our faculty in doing it. But we also do a lot of other things. We work with the Department of Labor. We collect collective bargaining agreements that cover a thousand workers or more from the Department of Labor. They rely on us to put that out there. These things re not authenticated. I wish they were. We're doing the best we can. We're collecting what is available. The reliability of these things are in question to some extent. And when you're dealing with union busters out there, they would love to change what some clauses might have been or should have been or whatever in various kinds of collective bargaining agreements. I also collect key workplace documents, anything dealing with the workplace. I'm upset that I collect Congressional Research Service materials from third parties because I can't get it from the original government office. Has it been modified since I collected it? A question that academic librarians should be asking is where are you getting your documents on the Internet? Are you getting it from the original source? Are you getting it through a third parties? I mean if you're not documenting that, what is it that you're handing to your faculty and to the world out there? We know that Google does a sloppy job. What version are they providing? All those things are really key.

Now, I do another thing. I run an Internet news service where I actually distribute links. I don't ever distribute documents. But links to the official authentic publications of the U.S. Government. But my audience is largely Europe. The institutions I serve are relying on this service. The International Labour Organization, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions use the material for comparative public policy purposes and data to do research and study and make certain that what we say that we're doing in the United States is reliable information. The U.S. Government doesn't distribute the information. There's a lot of political reasons for that. I don't have time to go into it. But I distribute it on their behalf. And I would like to know that these things are authenticated. Very often they are not. And people are relying on it and it makes me nervous. 

Now, when you talk about the scholarly method, what is the scholarship?  It's the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as valid and as trustworthy as possible and to make them known to the scholarly public. Citation is a very important part of that. The purpose is to identify, distinguish and locate documentation material relied upon in producing studies. This is done so that others may validate the findings and methods used. Original source documentation is preferred, often produced by the government. Don't forget that GPO is original source documentation. It is more valued than the general collections. Academic librarians, public librarians, they need to know that the government documents are original source documentation. They are as valued as your rare books and your manuscripts and they should be given the same deference. Important elements of a citation in online environment. Well, we know that we have a problem with citation. Everybody in the world of scholars, we talked about scholarship and we talked about scholarship light. The cut and paste scholars. Oh, I found this on the Internet. URL. This goes in my paper. Anybody checking it, you go to their working papers, oh, that disappeared. Where is it? Oh, I got to go look for the title for someone. Did I find it from the source that you found it from? I don't know. Where did you find this doggone thing? The title may be the same. The content may be different. Who knows. But the purpose, again, of a citation is to verify the specific authentic reliable sources used so that others may replicate the findings.

In the world of the Internet without that authentication, it's a mess. So, what we have are issues of governance, trust, reliance, confidence. In brief, the role of government is at stake as well as the reputations of scholars and scholarship itself. Now, there are different perspectives that you can take on this. Another one would be, most of the States of the United States have rules against tampering with government records. Have you ever heard of the legal notion of an attractive nuisance like a swimming pool without a fence around it so kids can go in there and drown? Well, if you have laws on the books that make it illegal to tamper with government records, I mean, you create government records that are easily tampered with, you're created an attractive nuisance and we are drowning in that instability. So, anyway, that's enough. Okay.