Study Says U.S. Should Reopen Some Web Sites

Federal officials should consider reopening public access to about three dozen Web sites withdrawn from the Internet after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a government-financed study says, because the sites pose little or no risk to homeland security.

Rand Corp. said the overwhelming majority of federal Web sites that reveal information about airports, power plants, military bases and other potential terrorist targets need not be censored because similar or better information is easily available elsewhere.

Rand identified four Web pages that might merit the restrictions imposed after the attacks.

"It's a good time to take a closer look at the choices that they made at the time," said John Baker, principal author of the study, which was funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the government's intelligence mapping agency.

Rand's National Defense Research Institute identified 629 Internet-accessible federal databases that contain critical data about specific locations. The study, done between mid-2002 and mid-2003, found no federal sites that contained information a terrorist would need to launch an attack.

It identified four databases where restricting access probably would enhance homeland security. None was available to the public anymore. They included two devoted to pipelines, one to nuclear reactors and one to dams.

Researchers recommended that officials evaluate 66 databases with some useful information, but they did not anticipate restrictions would be needed, because similar or better data probably could be easily obtained elsewhere.

Rand found that 30 federal agencies make public, on paper or online, "geospatial information" about critical or symbolic locations and structures. That kind of data can be as simple as a telephone book or as complex as an Internet database that discloses how many people live near each of the nation's power plants .