Administration Sued Over Withholding of Federal Employee Names

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Breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816, the Bush administration is now withholding the names and work locations of about 900,000 of its civilian workers, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, said in a lawsuit. Since 1989, TRAC has posted a database with the name, work location, salary and job category of all 2.7 million federal civilian workers except those in some law enforcement agencies. The data are often used by reporters and government watchdog groups to monitor policies and detect waste or abuse. (12/7/05)