An Inquiry on CDEC
From tanakayufu@ma.0038.net Fri Jan 21 20:02:37 2005
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 13:00:39 +0900
From: Tanaka Yufu <tanakayufu@ma.0038.net
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: an inquiry on CDEC
Dear list,
I want to know CDEC collection, especially about the time range of the original documents (not the time range of documents collected, 1966-1972), and the relation to "Vietnam documents and research notes series". Could anyone tell me about these?
Thank you in advance.
Tanaka Yufu
From mchale@gwu.edu Sun Jan 23 19:52:30 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 01:51:26 -0200
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: CDEC files
In response to Tanaka Yufu's query on CDEC files, I'll throw in my observations based on limited use of the CDEC files. The vast majority of documents are from the mid-1960s onwards, but there could be, hypothetically, books etc from before 1966 that were captured. But I doubt there is all that much. It's really a jumble of materials. Some is badly filmed; some of the documents are all by unreadable. But there are also some treasures.
Given the lack of a comprehensive index, one has to slog through the files by date (the microfilm is arranged in the order of when documents arrived to be exploited, which could be days or even longer). This is a gold mine of captured documents: gold mine, that is, if one is willing to do a lot of prospecting first before finding the nuggets.
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
From Edward.G.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU Mon Jan 24 03:30:20 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 06:29:13 -0500
From: Ed Miller <Edward.G.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: CDEC files
All of Shawn's comments jive with my own (very limited) experience with CDEC materials. It should be noted, however, that the situation seems set to improve over the next few years. The Vietnam Center at Texas Tech recently announced that it plans to digitize the entire filmed collection. It will be a massive job, and its not clear whether or how they will deal with some of the problems that Shawn cites--maybe they will have to reshoot some of the original documents held at NARA? Such issues aside, the folks at TT have shown remarkable determination in their other efforts to make war-related materials available in digital form, so I am sure that this important collection will be much easier to use as a result of this project.
For the blurb announcing the project, click here http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA492912?display=InfoTechNews&industr y=InfoTech&industryid=1988&verticalid=151 , or paste the following link into your browser:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA492912?display=InfoTechNews&industry =InfoTech&industryid=1988&verticalid=151
Ed Miller
Department of History, Dartmouth College
From dduffy@email.unc.edu Mon Jan 24 05:28:23 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 08:27:01 -0500
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC files
William Turley wrote a memo years ago that sizes up the usefulness of the CDEC documents for the history of the Viet Nam war.
Many others, including, after Turley, Judith Henchy while at the William Joiner Center, and and the National Archives administrator for captured documents, and before Turley, the RVNAF intelligence colonel who criticized the original program, and the US Army intelligence colonel who de-classified them, have written similar analyses. The deepest consideration of the meaning of it all is a novel by Nha Trang Penziger and her husband.
I think of CDEC as the Holy Grail of war scholarship, a vison that leads the most able and idealistic off on seaprate quests. I tell the story of all these efforts to use CDEC, and give citations in my 1999 M.A. thesis at the University of North Carolina, "The Combined Documents Exploitation Center:
Anthroplogy of the Archive." Hilariously, all of my electronic copies of the thesis are no longer readable, because of changes in technology such as plague CDEC itself. But you can get a hard copy from UNC.
But the simple thing to do is to ask Turley for his memo. Another simple thing to do is to ask David Elliott, who worked in the original archive, about the resource.
Dan Dufy
From judithh@u.washington.edu Mon Jan 24 10:13:34 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:10:05 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC files
Just a quick note on CDEC, which I worked with for 2 years at the Joiner Center. I think that the relationship between CDEC and the CIA's Research Documents series is tenuous, since CDEC was run by the DIA and military intelligence, and its purposes more tactical than political. I'm sure that some of the intelligence gathered by CDEC was shared with the CIA, but the documents are the raw unrefined data.
We have had discussions of this collection before on the list; please see the archived discussion at: http://www.lib.washington.edu/SouthEastAsia/vsg/guides/cdec.html
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From wturley@siu.edu Mon Jan 24 10:19:44 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:16:25 -0600
From: William Turley <wturley@siu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC files
I would be happy to send you a copy of my memo on the CDEC docs, Tanaka Yufu, if you are seriously interested and will give me your address.
As regards your question about Vietnam Documents and Research Notes, this is collection of about 120 items was produced by JUSPAO (Joint US Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy, Saigon) for distribution to the press and public until 1973. The original documents and sometimes the translations came from CDEC, the Combined Documents Exploitation Center. Each "Note" consisted of an introduction, usually written by William Gaussman, the "Notes'" editor, and one or more documents translated into English. The series contains some of the most important communist party policy documents captured during the war, and although their authenticity was sometimes questioned I never found reason to believe any of them had been fabricated. Complete sets of VN Docs and Research Notes are available at a number of university libraries.
Cordially,
Bill Turley
From DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu Mon Jan 24 10:46:38 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 13:43:17 -0500
From: "Wilson, Dean" <DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: CDEC files
Dan, Judith, Bill, et al,
Do the CDEC documents have declassified internal reports on psychological operations and media like television and film that were co-ordinated between JUSPAO, MACV, CIA, USIA and private local companies?
If so, how would they be identified?
Dean
Dean Wilson
French PhD Program
City University of New York
Graduate Center
New York, NY 10017
(212) 817-8365
(212) 741-1312
From wturley@siu.edu Mon Jan 24 11:06:36 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 13:02:33 -0600
From: William Turley <wturley@siu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC files
I recall very vaguely that the CDEC collection contained a few MACV reports that might be considered "secondary" material, but it is important to understand that this is a collection of CAPTURED documents. It's the dump where US and ARVN combat units turned in the material they captured from communists sources in the course of operations. This is primary material, over half a million documents running to almost three million pages, not pages that MACV generated but which the NLF/PAVN/LDP generated. MACV exploited this material for tactical information that would be useful in combat, and in MACV's view it had a very short period of usefulness. I doubt very much that it contains the kind of reports you mention.
Cheers,
Bill Turley
From DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu Mon Jan 24 11:40:36 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 14:34:53 -0500
From: "Wilson, Dean" <DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: CDEC files
Bill,
Thanks for that clarification.
Does anyone know if the JUSPAO-generated internal documents have been declassified and where they might be found. Media-related materails, like field reports and planning memos would be appreciable. After several days of searching I found only public access records like releases, some in-house newsletters, and diplomatic correspondance at College Park. Prior to 1965 there are numerous USIE and related agency field reports. Given the scale of that operation it was surprising, especially since the 1965 JUSPAO guidance itself boasts the largest war media program in the world. Were those documents destroyed? The Douglas Pike records seem to have a few related items. Some Vietnamese sources have relatively detailed information, but it seems daunting to verify stateside.
Dean
Dean Wilson
French PhD Program
City University of New York
Graduate Center
New York, NY 10017
(212) 817-8365
(212) 741-1312
From judithh@u.washington.edu Mon Jan 24 12:48:29 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:45:27 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC files
Dean,
I don't see why at least some of the JUSPAO documents would not have been declassified under mandatory declass by now. If you found nothing, it does make me wonder if they were ever repatriated after the war, although I'm surprised that there would not have been duplicates in files in the US.
However, with local arrangements with film makers, its possible that they were only in Saigon. I know from my own inquiries about AID records that much went missing (or is claimed to be missing.) There are AID records in the Saigon Archives Center II; the same may be true for other US agency records. At the time that I was looking into this, there were rumors that agency files made it to Hawaii, but no further. The fact that Douglas Pike ended up with so much in his personal archive makes you wonder about agency record-keeping operations in the field in the first place.
You know that the many of films themselves are at Library of Congress?
There was also a collection at the Institute of SEA Studies in Singapore.
They received the films from the US Embassy in Singapore.
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From tanakayufu@ma.0038.net Mon Jan 24 20:56:47 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:52:57 +0900
From: Tanaka Yufu <tanakayufu@ma.0038.net
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC files: Thank you very much
Dear all,
Thank you for giving me very useful information. I have seen the former disscusion at VSG website, but now there are much more information, and I could get much clearer image of the vast
collection.
Sincerely,
Yufu
From judithh@u.washington.edu Tue Jan 25 10:57:05 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:54:51 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: More in CDEC scanning project
Dear List,
I am forwarding this message from the Texas Tech Archivist regarding their scanning project.
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
----- Original Message -----
From: <anonymous@lib.washington.edu
To: <judithh@u.washington.edu
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 9:17 PM
Subject: Mail from Library Webserver
anonymous@lib.washington.edu wrote:
Hello:
Patricia Pelley forwarded a message to me that was recently posted to the VSG list regarding The Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech and our work with the CDEC microfilm collection. First, let me corroborate the comments made about some of the problems with the film. Yes, some of the images are of very poor quality and are unreadable. With that said, there is a remarkable amount of material that will be of use to many researchers who are interested in this collection.
We started scanning the film in mid-September of last year. To date, we have scanned 848 reels and more than 2.35 million pages of materials. We are adding those documents to the Virtual Vietnam Archive but the process of turning the scanned images into complete documents is a bit more time-consuming. To date, we have only added approximately 1,200 documents but we will be adding significantly more very soon. If anyone is interested in using what is available now, you can access CDEC materials by doing the following:
Visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu
Select the Virtual Vietnam Archive Link (top right gray link)
Select "Search the Virtual Archive" (top center text or bottom button left menu)
Enter "CDEC" in the Document Title field (minus quotes)
Enter "Vietnam" in the Collection Title field (minus quotes)
Click on Start Search (top button left menu)
It should return 1,199 items.
Click on Display Search Results (second button left menu)
The next screen has links to the documents online.
You can also choose to refine your search on the main search page by entering additional keywords, dates, etc.. and then click on "Update Hits" (first button left menu).
For those members of VSG who do not know, The Virtual Vietnam Archive already contains more than 2 million pages of material. This includes all manner of primary source documents, photographs, audio recordings, oral history interviews, video recordings, a complete set of 1: 50,000 scale maps of Vietnam as well as many from Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, and many other materials. We add approximately 10,000 pages of new material online each week so researchers should be sure to check back at least several times monthly to see if new materials have been added regarding their research topics.
I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.
Sincerely yours,
Stephen Maxner
Archivist, Associate Director
The Vietnam Archive
Special Collections Library Room 108
Lubbock, TX 79409-1041
Phone: 806-742-9010
Fax: 806-742-0496
Email: steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Website: www.vietnam.ttu.edu
From judithh@u.washington.edu Tue Jan 25 12:10:11 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:05:53 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: More on CDEC
Dear List
With regard to the previous message, I would like to add my own comment. I have to say that I am quite surprised that the scanning project is going ahead. Making the materials publicly available on the web seems a mistake to me, given the privacy issues involved, and the sensitive nature of many of the documents in the collection, including chieu hoi interrogation reports.
When we hosted the Deputy Director General of the National Archives of Viet Nam here over the summer, she expressed her concern over this aspect of the project. It is interesting to note that the collection was "declassified" in 1970 as the result of a legal case involving the IBM system that the rudimentary searching mechanism for the film utilized. At the time no due attention seemed to have been given to archival access and disclosure practices, which would normally respect personal privacy and the interests of other sovereign states.
While I can see the value of making the collection available, both as a research tool, and a resource for information about MIA on all sides, I still have to wonder if it is not too soon to disseminate the entire range of documents. While my Vietnamese colleagues in the archival world agree that the government itself is probably beyond political reprisal based on the personal information contained in the collection (indeed, the government has had a copy of the microfilm collection since the normalization negotiations, and appears to hold it in such little regard that it is lost), there is much information in this collection that could re-kindle personal and community strife. Perhaps these questions are worth discussing, or perhaps they are being addressed by the Texas Tech project?
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From mchale@gwu.edu Tue Jan 25 13:59:11 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:53:55 -0500
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Privacy/ CDEC
Dear list,
I heartily concurt with Judith Henchy. There *are* privacy issues at stake. I also brought this up with the Deputy Vietnamese archivist when she was in Washington, DC. She seemed to think, if I remember, that this was an important issue. I have come across a report by a guy who was tried by the NLF because he was in the Chieu Hoi program, and sentenced to prison. There was a variety of "supporting" evidence in his NLF dossier. Some was gossip/ hearsay. Do we really want this kind of material on the web so that some appartchik can, theoretically, google it or just find it online? Absolutely not.
This issue came up for me some time ago when I contacted a POW/ MIA site that had a variety of sighting reports from US documents posted on the web. I suggested that if the organization did not want to do any harm to any Vietnamese who might have helped Americans at a sensitive time, then it should take down such reports. I never heard back.
It does bother me when Vietnamese are not offered the same privacy rights as Americans, particularly since the possible consequences of violating such rights are much more significant. At the very least, Texas Tech should figure out how to restrict access to these documents. That should be simple enough: at a minimum, have those who apply to look at these documents request a password.
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
From wturley@siu.edu Tue Jan 25 14:17:02 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:14:55 -0600
From: William Turley <wturley@siu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
I expressed exactly these reservations when DOD was considering giving a copy of the CDEC film to Hanoi some years ago. (Many of the documents are personal...letters, memoirs, ID papers, etc.). However, DOD gave the copy anyway (as reciprocity for cooperation in the MIA/POW business), so in a sense the concern is now irrelevant.....the cat is out of the bag. One could also argue that 30 years have passed and the likelihood of negative consequences for individuals is nil. But I would be interested to hear what historians and archivists would consider a reasonable time limit on the privacy rights in such cases.
Bill Turley
From judithh@u.washington.edu Tue Jan 25 15:02:56 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 14:58:30 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
Bill, and others,
Can you please try to copy Steve Maxner at Texas Tech on this conversation, since he is not on the list and he may have a response for us regarding provisions that they may have in mind for protecting privacy.
In response to Bill's question, my understanding is that privacy (and I thought foreign government generated information, but there seems to be a question about that) are justification for exception from the normal Mandatory Declassification Review provisions. I have not been able to find the MDR wording but for FOIA the law allows exemption from disclosure of materials such as medical records or personnel files.
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Tue Jan 25 15:30:06 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:32:15 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
To: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: VSG list
Dear Judith:
Thank you very much - please go ahead and add me to the list. I will try to address your and some of the other comments being raised regarding the project by the weekend. I have meetings all day tomorrow and other projects that require my full attention at the moment. But I will respond when I have a reprieve.
Sincerely,
Steve
From wturley@siu.edu Tue Jan 25 15:42:40 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:39:30 -0600
From: William Turley <wturley@siu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
Judith--For what it's worth, CDEC includes medical records from
PAVN/PLASVN field hospitals.
Bill
I have not been able to find the MDR wording but for FOIA the law allows exemption from disclosure of materials such as medical records or personnel files.
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu Tue Jan 25 15:42:46 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:41:33 -0500
From: "Wilson, Dean" <DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: FW: Privacy/ CDEC
Bill and VSG,
Do the CDEC microfilm records include personal documents of people who were undercover NLF working in the Saigon administration during the 1970's?
Dean
Dean Wilson
PhD French Program
City University of New York
Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York NY 10017
(212) 817-8365
(212) 741-1312
From judithh@u.washington.edu Tue Jan 25 15:57:03 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:55:13 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
I seem to recall materials on urban covert operations - work with trade unions for instance. I do not recall specific instances of operations in the government.
judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From judithh@u.washington.edu Tue Jan 25 16:09:44 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:08:03 -0800
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
Bill,
Yes, the medical records are actually fascinating, including statistics of the proportions of those who died of wounds v. malaria for instance. They also have interesting information on improvised drug substitutes and use of traditional medicines.
judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to
the Director of University Libraries for International Programs
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From mchale@gwu.edu Tue Jan 25 16:48:29 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 22:46:42 -0200
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
Bill et al.,
The problem, as I see it, is not that CDEC files get into governmental hands. It is that by scanning these documents, they become far more accessible and (one assumes) searchable.
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
From tanakayufu@ma.0038.net Tue Jan 25 22:06:12 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:01:49 +0900
From: Tanaka Yufu <tanakayufu@ma.0038.net
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
I think Shawn's view is reasonable in some senses. Privacy is not only problems of nations (governments), but also problems of individuals. If it doesn't become a big political problem between nations in the future, there might be some people feeling bad because of it.
But the project is very helpful for people studying the war far away from US like me in Japan. And also the collection is already open to the public, I mean, the microfilm is declassified and can be seen in some libraries in US. I think one step required to see the collection (or the Vietnam Virtual Archive) can be some help to avoid too accessible and searchable situation. For example, people who wants to reach the documents should register as a user of Vietnam Archive, get user ID and password, and then, they log-in the Archive. It is the similar procedure to get into libraries in US.
Sincerely,
Tanaka Yufu
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Wed Jan 26 07:52:33 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 09:52:41 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Hello everyone:
I have read all of the messages about the CDEC Collection and privacy issues and find this of tremendous interest. I will respond to your thoughtful comments as quickly as I can.
First, I would like to provide a brief response to the idea of creating a system of user ID's and passwords in order for researchers to access our online collections.
In short, we did consider creating such a system when we first started this project and, after deliberation, we rejected the idea.
The sole purpose of having a user login system is to provide security by restricting who has access to the system and to track what files and materials individual users access within that system. If a login system does not do this, what is the point of having one? Why would you just have a system where people login just for the sake of having them login?
The logical extension of this reasoning is to ask, "what possible legitimate purpose would such a system serve in a public institution-based archive?"
In the end, we decided that there is no way we would ever deny a person access based on who they are or from what institution they hail. Therefore, no security purpose is fulfilled by forcing researchers to apply for a username and password.
Further, we also decided that there is no way we would ever create "digital dossiers" on the researchers who use our Virtual Vietnam Archive by tracking individual user data and monitoring who sees what in our online archive. So, no data collection purpose would be fulfilled by implementing a user login system.
We concluded that enacting such a system would accomplish one thing – it would create a rather cumbersome login system whereby each time someone just wanted to go online to see a picture of a tank, read a document about Agent Orange, listen to an oral history interview, watch a video of a Huey Cobra on a missile run, or, now, read an intelligence report about the 3rd NVA Division. A user login system would merely act as an impediment to legitimate research.
As a side note - if we did track such information and kept it in a database, the university would be required to produce such data upon court order or subpoena and, probably, even FOIA requests. To my understanding, when you voluntarily enter a public domain such as a web site, there is no expectation of privacy. As a Texas State entity, we are required to adhere to FOIA.
And, perhaps some of you will join me in finding it just a little ironic that a discussion that is critical about placing a public domain collection online because of privacy issues includes calls for, what I would consider, rather substantial violations of privacy for researchers, students, and scholars.
I welcome your additional comments on this particular issue. I promise to address the other privacy issues you have raised later this week.
Sincerely yours,
Steve Maxner
From Edward.G.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU Wed Jan 26 08:25:57 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:23:28 -0500
From: Ed Miller <Edward.G.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Dear Steve (and list):
Your comments about the infeasibility of a password system make sense to me. (As a historian who has a strong vested interest in encouraging Vietnamese authorities to expand access to archival collections in Vietnam, I would oppose any system of regulating access which even appeared to discriminate against users in Vietnam--and in this case, I think a password system would very likely come across in this way, no matter how it was presented.) I'm wondering: what about the old-fashioned practice of redacting names and other personal identifiers from the documents? It would obviously be a very time-consuming process, and one that would definitely have drawbacks for researchers. But insofar as it would make it harder to use the information contained in the collection to the deteriment of the individuals named therein, I think that this would be a trade-off worth considering. I'll be very interested to hear more of what you and your colleagues have to say about this complex and tricky issue.
Ed
From christina.firpo@gmail.com Wed Jan 26 09:22:10 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 09:12:54 -0800
From: Christina Firpo <christina.firpo@gmail.com
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
Dear Steve and List,
I agree with Shawn McHale and others that the protection of individuals and their descendants is more important than any research yet, as you wrote, it is not fair to discriminate based on nationality. Ed Miller's idea sounds best but it will take a lot of meticulous work so as to ensure it is not easy to decrypt like the US government system (many blacked out names or phrases appear on non-secret documents so the researcher can decode by merely cross referencing documents) .
Perhaps the French system would work: documents which contain personal information about a person of any nationality should be remain classified for a period of time, say 75-100 years to ensure the subject has passed away and their descendants are somewhat protected. The French offer a procedure to apply for permission to see the documents (demande de derrogation) in which the researcher states how central the document is to the current research and the government, or in this case archives staff, reassesses the nature of the document. The archives center then has the liberty to be as strict as they'd like. This way no one is discriminated against by basis of nationality or government position and at the same time other documents which do not pose a threat to individuals can be seen. Or perhaps the archives should not even offer the ability to ask for special permission to see the documents at all.
Best,
Christina Firpo
Christina Firpo
Doctoral Candidate
Southeast Asian History
University of California at Los Angeles
From mchale@gwu.edu Wed Jan 26 09:38:31 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:35:32 -0200
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Steve et al.,
Agreed: that figuring out a way of restricting access poses all sorts of problems.
I also think that, since Texas Tech has invested so much time in scanning etc., it is understandable that you want to defend your decisions.
It is dispiriting, however, that your comments focus on difficulties for your institution, for researchers, etc., when the main point of the criticisms is *protection* of research subjects which, I assume, are theoretically covered by Federal laws to protect research subjects. I say "theoretically," because the laws on protection of research subjects never were written with historians in mind, but they seem to apply to some historical work. At my university, we have had heated discussions over these laws. (They are a pain in the neck. They apply to "data sets" that have been collected in the past).
Now, it could be correct that my concerns are overblown, that the chances of harm to research subjects are minimal, and so forth.
There is a logic to not creating "digital dossiers" on researchers. Personally, I think that for highly sensitive sub groups of documents, they probably *should* be created. But I could be convinced of the error of my ways.
I also doubt that creating such a registration system would be that cumbersome. When I go online to read the Washington Post, I had to once provide a password, but my computer now automatically enters it onto a login form. That's cumbersome? Hardly. Impediment to research? Believe me, the Texas Tech archive is so interesting that no half-serious researcher would care about the minor delay.
Finally, as to this comment:
And, perhaps some of you will join me in finding it just a little ironic that a discussion that is critical about placing a public domain collection online because of privacy issues includes calls for, what I would consider, rather substantial violations of privacy for researchers, students, and scholars.
I suggest you tone down your rhetoric. All I am suggesting is a balance between researcher access to documents and possible protections to research subjects. To call this a "violation" of researcher privacy is excessive. I a strong believer in civil liberties, but I also think that rights have to be exercised responsibly. I can be convinced that the potential harm to Vietnamese would be minimal. But if, for example, you intend to index contents of files, and thus to be able to scan large masses of files, perhaps you should reconsider in the short term.
Sincerely,
Shawn McHale
Wed 1/26/2005 10:41 AM
Judith Henchy
Re: Privacy/ CDEC
Dear Steve et al,
I have to support Shawn in his views. As I stated in my opening question, I do not think that the Vietnamese government has an interest in pursuing these questions of long-past loyalties, but I also know from my research in the 1930s that for families of those who were betrayed, and for the families of those who betrayed under torture, these issues are even now deep and bitter. You only have to have to host an event in Seattle involving a visiting Vietnamese artist or scholar to realize how enduring the bitterness still is from that more recent conflict. Reprisals would not have to be overt or even obvious; an apparatchik with power to demote, prevent a child's education, a false accusation of corruption. Perhaps I underestimate the bureaucratic powers of the state to protect its citizens.
I also have to take exception to the moral equivalence suggested between the researcher, or information seeker, who engages willing and knowingly in an information nexus which she/he understands has the capability, and now the legal empowerment, to track her research, and those unfortunate victims of war whose personal possessions, memoirs and secrets were forcibly appropriated from their defenseless, or lifeless, bodies.
We in the library world are also well aware of our responsibilities towards patron privacy, and have in place systems to routinely destroy all patron information. While the fact that a researcher has a log-on would be permanent information, all other traces of their research should and much be destroyed, in order to protect against the very instruments of subpoena that Steve mentions.
I like Christina's idea of instituting some sort of "derrogation," but who will be the arbiter of such access? In France it is the National Archives, in consultation with the generating agency, as would be the case here with FOIA. Should Texas Tech have that power? In our discussions with the National Archivist of VN on this question, she did suggest that for the Vietnamese side there should be some sort of gate-keeping that would involve the Archives. If the documents can help Vietnamese families learn the fate of their missing, of course they should have access. Families should also have access to letters and diaries from their lost loved-ones. To my mind, this is a service that the Vietnamese National Archives could provide and manage. To the extent that the TTU scanning can facilitate this research, which would be carried out by trained professionals, it would be a great service. The US Embassy could even support such a service financially, as a gesture of good will.
On the US side, NARA has already failed in its responsibility to observe its own privacy provisions. I still believe someone has to monitor who has access to this sensie information.
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section and Special Assistant to the Director of University Libraries for International Programs University of Washington Libraries Box 352900 Seattle WA 98195-2900
From DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu Wed Jan 26 10:28:21 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:26:12 -0500
From: "Wilson, Dean" <DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Dear VSG,
Isn't it possible that funding the international public access to CDEC files is at least partly a consequence of US policy?
Dean
Dean Wilson
French PhD Program
City University of New York
Graduate Center
New York, NY 10017
(212) 817-8365
(212) 741-1312
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Wed Jan 26 10:38:47 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:36:18 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Privacy/ CDEC and Human Research Subjects
Hello Everyone:
Regarding the issue of the Protection of Human Subjects, I offer the following:
CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS TITLE 45 PUBLIC WELFARE
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
OFFICE FOR PROTECTION FROM RESEARCH RISKS
PART 46
PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS
* * *
Revised November 13, 2001
Effective December 13, 2001
* * *
Subpart A Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (Basic
DHHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects)
Sec. 46.101 To what does this policy apply?
(b) Unless otherwise required by Department or Agency heads, research activities in which the only involvement of human subjects will be in one or more of the following categories are exempt from this policy:
(4) Research involving the collection or study of existing data, documents, records, pathological specimens, or diagnostic specimens, if these sources are publicly available or if the information is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that subjects cannot be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects.
Since they are publicly available, the CDEC Collection falls within this exemption policy of NIH Regulations and Ethical Guidelines for the Protection of Human Research Subjects.
The above is available online here: http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/45cfr46.html#L46101
My intent in taking the time to answer the concerns raised by VSG members is not merely to defend or justify our decisions but is to show you that we too have thought about and researched these issues and did not embark upon this project without due consideration of these important matters.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Wed Jan 26 10:53:08 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:51:02 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC v. Researcher Privacy
Hello:
I made no comment regarding moral equivalency but, as I rather specifically stated, merely drew attention to the "irony" that one proposed solution to the perceived privacy issues and CDEC (namely the creation of user logins) creates yet one more privacy issue (namely that of researcher privacy. At no time did I intimate that these privacy issues were of moral equivalence.
Respectfully yours,
Steve
From hhtai@fas.harvard.edu Wed Jan 26 11:41:15 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:08:26 -0500
From: Tam Tai <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC
When I was doing research for my dissertation, I was frustrated by the French policy regarding declassifying documents. I thought that after 30 years, there should not be a need for secrecy. I know better now.
In 1995, I attended a "conference" (really a series of reports rather than an exchange of ideas) on "Re-evaluating the Nguyen Dynasty" at the HCMC University. The idea of re-evaluating that much-maligned dynasty was sufficiently controversial that the supposed organizers of the conference thought it best to absent themselves on the day it was held. It did not prevent them from being vilified in the press by critics who called their patriotism and that of their relatives in question and accused them of counter-revolutionary sympathies, using what they or their relatives were supposed to have done during the war as evidence.
Five years later, I'm in Hanoi. Up till then, I've kept my own family history very quiet, trying to avoid controversy. Then, a document surfaces: a letter signed by prominent intellectuals urging Bao Dai to resign. One of the signatories was my father. Suddenly, I'm introduced by acquaintances not as a Harvard prof, but as my father's daughter. His name opens doors; all sorts of people are willing to recall meeting my father in 1945.
Frankly, I am less concerned with whether the CDEC is operating according to the letter of the law than whether information contained in the documents it puts on its website could be misused. And knowing how important genealogy and history is in Vietnamese politics and academia, I fear this information could indeed be misused.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
From ProschanF@folklife.si.edu Wed Jan 26 11:55:48 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:45:30 -0500
From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Steve and all,
The issue is not one of maintaining or preserving archival documents through digitization or providing access to them under appropriate archival procedures and protections; the issue is that of publishing them online—and publishing is what it's all about, whether one is selling the information or providing it free, and whether or not readers are registered and enter a password or not.
As with Ashcroft's various initiatives and the Defense Department's "Total Information Awareness" program, the problem is not the existence of one or another individual datum buried in a document or on a computer somewhere. Rather, the problem is the amalgamation of data in such a manner that together they mutually inform one another to lead to some suggestion or conclusion larger than the isolated fact--indeed, isn't that what military intelligence is all about?--and the widespread public exposure of such amalgamated (or easily amalgamable) data in such a way that it might expose persons to harm. My birthdate, Social Security Number, and mother's maiden name are all, in isolation, innocuous; put them together and make them easy for the wrong person to find them, and he or she can do all sorts of nefarious deeds. Add a driver's license number, address, and a few other details, and my life is no longer my own. Publish them on the web, and woe is me.
That someone was the subject of a captured "enemy" document does not imply that person waives his or her privacy rights. Internet privacy is a matter of special concern when unverified, unevaluated, unauthenticated and often untruthful information is published there. Can the subject of a captured document sue Texas Tech for publishing libelous information, if for instance a document alleges something that is untrue and damaging to that person's reputation? By what standard would such a libel claim be weighed? If a private person, the injured party need only show the statement is false and damaging; if a public person, the injured party need also show that the publisher showed "actual malice" (i.e., had reason to believe the statement might be false yet failed to verify it). Could anyone knowledgeable about the Captured Enemy Documents Collection honestly claim that they did not know that the documents include a high proportion of falsehoods and untruths? Does not the decision to publish those documents--regardless of the high likelihood they contain damaging falsehoods--constitute a clear case of reckless disregard for the truth? That an injured Vietnamese party is unlikely to have the resources or sophistication to bring a libel action against Texas Tech might be an accurate assessment; does that thereby encourage their university counsel to advise "Go ahead until somebody tries to stop you?"
Truth is, of course, an absolute defense against libel claims, but even truthful statements can bring injury to people. Whether or not one wishes to believe that the Vietnamese "government" has decided not to use the CDEC documents as a basis for retribution, can we not imagine countless scenarios in which a jealous neighbor or petty bureaucrat finds some embarrassing information and uses it to damage someone's reputation? Similar things happened when East German stasi records were declassified after 1989. We should recall an earlier incident of amalgamation-and-publication, when Gerald Hickey's compendia of historical documents about Central Highlands elites were used by SRV officials in the early 1980s as a checklist of people targeted for arrest--an effort that was halted only through the intervention of one of Vietnam's senior ethnographers. Judith rightfully reminds us that even if the Vietnamese state were to prohibit misuse of these documents to injure someone, the power of the state to compel compliance with such a prohibition is quite limited.
Finally, there is a difference between a public record and a published one. If someone wants to take the trouble to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles here in D.C., you can probably find out all sorts of things about me; if the DMV were to publish those private details online it would be a horse of a different color.
Best regards,
Frank Proschan
Project Director
postal mail:
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
Victor Building Suite 4100, MRC 0953
Washington, DC 20013-7012
office location and express services:
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
750 9th Street N.W., Suite 4100
Washington DC 20560-0953
tel: 202-275-1607
fax: 202-275-1119
From sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu Wed Jan 26 12:25:16 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:21:31 -0800
From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Many years ago, in the early 1980s, I worked with the late Ginetta Sagan in researching and writing a report on human rights in Vietnam, focusing on the re-education camps. She did almost all of the interviews, with hundreds of former prisoners, but out of respect for their confidentiality would not reveal the names of any of the interviewees (many of them were concerned about possible repercussions against their relatives still in Vietnam). She subsequently donated her files to the Hoover Institution archive with the stipulation that the files not be made public for a certain number of years. (Hoover rejected some of the files, by the way).
I would agree with Ed Miller's suggestion, about blacking out names and other revealing information where confidentiality might be an issue. I don't think it would accomplish anything positive to require people to register to view the TTU Vietnam Archive website, as anyone could still register and view the materials. The files are available to the public in either case, so you are not protecting anyone's privacy by restricting access on the web. If these files were at the New York Public library rather than Texas Tech in Lubbock, probably many more people could view them in person. Of course, more people can view them on the web, but in any case the privacy of the people who are named in these files are not protected, whether the files are on the web or not. So the only way to protect privacy would be to black out the names, not to take the files off the web.
- Steve Denney
From dtsang@lib.uci.edu Wed Jan 26 13:26:23 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:24:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Dan Tsang <dtsang@lib.uci.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
A note on terminology.
FOIA is the federal Freedom of Information Act. As such, Texas Tech is not subject to FOIA since it is not a federal agency. FOIA applies only to federal records in the possession of federal agencies. However, Texas has a Public Information Act that would apply instead.
It probably has also a law protecting library user's records, but that the USA Privacy Act (provision on business records interpreted as circulation records) would supersede that it would appear.
I agree with Steve that there is no point having a log-in procedure for public records. Frank makes a good point about redacting names but that should have been done when the records were originally released.
dan
Daniel C. Tsang
Bibliographer for Asian American Studies, Economics, Political
Science and Asian Studies (interim).
Social Science Data Librarian
Fulbright Research Scholar in Vietnam, 2003-2004
380 Jack Langson Library, University of California
PO Box 19557, Irvine CA 92623-9557, USA
E-mail: dtsang@uci.edu; Tel: (949) 824-4978; fax: (949) 824-2700
UCI Social Science Data Archives: http://data.lib.uci.edu
Subject Guides: http://www.lib.uci.edu/online/subject/subject.html
Office Hours: Tuesday 3-4 pm and Thursday 1-2 pm and by appointment
From wilcoxww@potsdam.edu Wed Jan 26 14:32:25 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:25:48 -0500 (EST)
From: Wynn William Wilcox <wilcoxww@potsdam.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC
Hello list,
This discussion has me wondering: is the Texas Tech Vietnam Archive's website firewalled in Vietnam? If so, does anyone have any idea how to determine who within the party or government has access over the firewall?
If the fear is that the police or the party, or even people as a whole in Vietnam, will gain access to the site and easily find the documents, wouldn't the reality of slow internet access be a factor? Unless, of course, many more people have good internet access since the last time I was there, which was a couple years ago. Is that the case?
I mean, you can search for a name on the Vietnam Archive (or even potentially on google) and get a list of hits, but in my experience you really have to open the file to get most meaningful content. I have this vision in my head of the people who might misuse this information waiting for two hours to open a pdf file...
Just curious...
Wynn
Wynn Wilcox
Assistant Professor
Department of History and Non-Western Cultures
Western Connecticut State University
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Wed Jan 26 15:34:36 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:35:00 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC/Access in Vietnam
Hello:
To my knowledge, our site is not fire walled in Vietnam and I actually accessed it this past July while I was in Vietnam. Internet speeds vary and again, based on my experience this past June/July, they are best in universities, libraries, and government offices - not slow at all and probably the equivalent of DSL. Street based Internet café's on the other hand ranged from horrible to OK but never above the level of a decent phone modem connection, regardless of advertising for "high-speed" access.
Steve Maxner
From DHAUGHTON@bentley.edu Wed Jan 26 16:24:15 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:21:49 -0500
From: DHAUGHTON@bentley.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC/Access in Vietnam
Greetings! ADSL is becoming available to individuals, with a strong competition between FPT and VDC, and perhaps even some other providers.
Best, Dominique
From markustaussig@mac.com Wed Jan 26 17:54:25 2005
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:53:07 +0700
From: Markus Taussig <markustaussig@mac.com
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Privacy/ CDEC/Access in Vietnam
Unfortunately, though, ADSL as it is called in vietnam -- I believe meaning "almost dsl" -- is usually quite slow, especially during business hours. sometimes it is even slower than dial up. oddly, the speed seems to be a good deal faster in hanoi. i'm guessing this may be due to much higher usage in hanoi.
_______________________________
Markus D. Taussig
Private Sector Development Research
VoIP (Global Access) Tel: (202) 204 0963
Vietnam Mobile: (84) 903 25 8774
markustaussig@mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/markustaussig/
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Wed Jan 26 17:58:57 2005
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:59:34 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: Privacy/ CDEC - Masking Personal Information
Hello:
I appreciate the comments about "blacking out" names on documents that may be perceived as having a privacy component. We do this already for select materials and we use a feature in Adobe Acrobat called "Mask-it". For example, we use this tool to remove Social Security Numbers on US military orders and other official records. We do this not because it is a requirement but because it is part of the agreement we have with individuals who donate their collection materials to us. To my knowledge, the publicly available documents at NARA (certain unit reports for example) still contain such personal information - it has not been removed.
In terms of using this masking tool on CDEC materials - we considered it and rejected it.
First of all, these documents are already in the public domain. We could mask them all we wanted but a researcher could still request unmasked copies and gain access to the masked information via the microfilm at NARA, TTU, or at some other institution. Furthermore, anyone can request to purchase the CDEC collection or even individual reels from NARA as it is available for sale - $70/reel.
In addition, masking documents would be detrimental to legitimate research. For example, JPAC in Hawaii is using these documents for the expressed purpose of making contact with people who might know the locations of American remains. To mask out names would prevent that contact and negatively impact their legitimate work. By extension, and regardless how unlikely, it would negatively impact the ability of the SRV government if they ever decide to use the materials to locate the remains of their own missing.
Lastly (and I can already envision some of the retorts of righteous indignation that will result from this, but...) it would be entirely too expensive to mask the documents. In order for masking to be effective, we would have to hire a team of additional staff who are Vietnamese linguists just to review and mask each Vietnamese document to make sure every name is removed from every page. That is not feasible.
From a project resource standpoint, the choice is not whether we should mask or not mask - it is whether we should scan and place online or should not scan and should not place online.
Obviously, some of you disagree with our decision - as is your prerogative.
Respectfully,
Steve
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Sun Jan 30 07:32:44 2005
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:33:31 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: CDEC on the Virtual Vietnam Archive
Dear VSG list:
As promised, I offer the following so that you can better understand our project and our decisions regarding the placement of the CDEC collection online. I do not offer this as some form of justification or defense of our decision but merely hope that, when combined with my previous comments on your ideas about what you think we should be doing with our project and resources, you will see that we do, in fact, seriously consider issues regarding our project. As I hope occurs with any project that digitizes materials and makes them available through the Internet, our decisions regarding the placement of the CDEC collection online occurred after much thought, discussion, and consideration. We have only two options for this aspect of our project: To scan or not to scan. While we decided to scan, and are providing online access to complete documents, we can only provide keywords and certain data fields in our database and do not include the full text of these documents in a searchable form at this time. That makes it all but impossible to engage in any significant data mining of these materials. All that is possible are basic searches using titles and selective keywords.
In addition, ours is a highly dynamic project that we constantly review and revise as needed. We have only started to compile these millions of pages of materials into complete documents for online access. We have only 1,300 documents online to date. By the time we finish, it will likely be closer to 250,000 documents. That makes what we currently have online approximately 1/2 of 1% of the total collection. As with all of our materials, as we continue to work with this collection, we will continue to examine and evaluate it and we will take appropriate action as needed based on state and federal laws, regulations, and guidelines, established ethical standards in the field, and internal and solicited external reviews and evaluations.
In terms of interacting with Vietnam, we also hosted Dr. Vu Thi Minh Huong, the Deputy General Director of the State Records and Archives Department of Vietnam in May of 2004. We then had follow-up meetings with her and the General Director of SRAD-VN in Saigon in June and then met with her again, as well as with other staff members of SRAD-VN, in Hanoi in July. Dr. Minh Huong also expressed to us some concern over privacy issues and making this collection available online and we appreciate her position. She is sincere, intelligent, and professional and we enjoy and appreciate our relationship with her and SRAD-VN.
At the same time, as Judith pointed out, the US government did give a copy of this microfilm collection to the government of Vietnam as a gift as we normalized relations with that country. President Clinton also gave Hanoi a complete set of USMC Records from the Vietnam War on more than 100 CDROMs (12,000 documents/1 million pages). Our understanding is that they have not lost the CDEC microfilm but that it is currently located in the secured and restricted archives of the People's Army of Vietnam in Hanoi. Clearly, for the past ten years, the SRV has had the opportunity to exploit whatever information is contained in this collection. More than likely, the People's Army Archive is also the resting place for the USMC Records on CDROM. So, in all probability, the government of Vietnam has unfettered access to these materials but they do not provide any researchers in their country with access.
These conflicting stories about the status of these materials are significant. First, they provides evidence that Vietnam is still a very guarded society. Like most governments, the SRV sees information as power and they seek to control it. That also makes it quite improbable that these materials have merely been "lost" as if they place little to no value on them. In fact, the SRV places a high premium on preserving historical materials and their archival facilities, which we toured in July, show that the SRV invests heavily in the processing and storage of their historical documents and records. Based on this, I find it highly unlikely that they would find copies of U.S. Government collections provided in high level official exchanges between the two countries of such little value as to effectively throw them away.
It is a fundamental principle of our country that the citizens of our nation have a right to access significant portions of our government's records which, since we are a democracy, are considered the people's records. We enjoy a level of freedom to access our government's records found in few (if any) other countries. The CDEC collection is a part of the official record of US military operations in Vietnam. When the US military processed these materials for intelligence purposes - translating them and developing intelligence reports using them - they became part of the official record of US military operations in Vietnam and are legitimate research materials.
Concerning applying contemporary archival access and disclosure practices to this material. - I do not see how that would be even remotely appropriate. Yes, when we conduct an oral history interview today, we explain to the narrator that, with their signed, informed consent, the interview will be made available to researchers who visit our facility and also will be made available to the public online through the Virtual Vietnam Archive. Based on this information, they can choose to interview or not. By comparison, these captured documents, intelligence reports, and interrogation reports all resulted from military operations during wartime. Vietnam War-time participants in interrogations could not possibly have expected that the information they provided would be held confidential. After all, the purpose of interrogations is to collect actionable intelligence. That is why we train our military personnel to stall and delay in providing information in the event they are captured since most information they might be forced to provide an enemy has a fairly finite shelf-life.
Any information disclosed in interrogations would have to be shared and would be included in a documentary record that would be shared so there can be no expectation of privacy or confidentiality. If there was no expectation of privacy or confidentiality at the time of document creation, we believe it is inappropriate to broadly apply a self-imposed confidentiality agreement on those same historical documents today. That is especially the case since those documents are already in the public domain and are already available in a published format to anyone who wishes access to them.
In terms of selective release of documents from the CDEC collection: At this time, we do not think it would be appropriate that we act as censors in restricting access to what is a publicly available collection. Neither do we think it appropriate that a foreign government be asked to act in that regard.
In terms of placing a time restriction on access - how? These materials are already publicly available in a published and purchasable format. They are available at the US National Archives, other institutions in the US, and is even (most likely) available for the Vietnamese government in the archives of the People's Army of Vietnam in Hanoi. And, again, any private citizen or corporation can today place an order with the US National Archives and obtain a copy of the CDEC microfilm collection, if they so desire.
Since we concluded that this is a collection of published, public domain, official US military records available to anyone who wishes to use or acquire it., and that these materials will be a remarkable resource for legitimate researchers with legitimate interests in studying them as a part of the history of the Vietnam War, we decided to scan them and increase their availability. As we continue to do so, we will continue to evaluate them in keeping with the principles outlined above.
I appreciate that some of you might disagree with this decision.
While I do look forward to your responses and comments, please do not expect very much more from me in terms of any further detailed interaction on this topic.
Good luck with your work and your projects. If you decide that you wish to continue using the Virtual Vietnam Archive or any of our other resources for your research, please let me know if I may ever be of assistance.
Sincerely yours,
Steve Maxner
_______________________
Stephen Maxner
Archivist, Associate Director
The Vietnam Archive
Special Collections Library Room 108
Lubbock, TX 79409-1041
Phone: 806-742-9010
Fax: 806-742-0496
Email: steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Website: www.vietnam.ttu.edu
From dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au Mon Jan 31 14:53:17 2005
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 09:49:41 +1100
From: David Marr <dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: CDEC on the Virtual Vietnam Archive
I've been out of action for several weeks, only now having a chance to peruse the lively and important exchange over access to the CDEC collection.
Clearly the microfilms have long been in the public domain. However, digitization raises new and more serious issues. From Steve Maxner's 30 January detailed message, we learn that less than 1% of documents have been placed online to date. I suggest that those responsible for the project consider placing a 10 year moratorium on any online access. Scanning could proceed and the question reopened in 2015.
David Marr
From steve.maxner@ttu.edu Mon Jan 31 15:13:25 2005
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:11:56 -0600
From: "Maxner, Steve" <steve.maxner@ttu.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: RE: CDEC on the Virtual Vietnam Archive
Dear David:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this issue.
Sincerely yours,
Steve