of the information classified as trade secrets, including many pesticide formulas, is common knowledge within the industry. The only group not familiar with it is the public.

3. Specificity: Here you have a real "Catch 22" situation. We were at one time trying to get information about the safety data with regard to certain household pesticides for which we had serious concern because of accident data that we obtained. Each time that we made the request, we were told that it was not specific enough. Now, what it eventually came down to was that we were expected to state the actual file number of the specific data in the pesticide registration files that we were seeking. Now, the only way to get the file number is to have access to the indices which list the file numbers. When we requested the index we were told that that was also classified information and we were denied it.

4. The whole game of search fees. Here is a game that is played every day with a growing degree of outrageousness by many agencies but particularly by the Pesticide Regulation Division. In the incident just described, we were told ultimately that the information might be made available to us, but because it was so nonspecific-and as I said, it was nonspecific because we were not allowed to get access to the file index-the agency stated that it would cost $91,840 and take 1.6 years to prepare its registration files for public view.

We have had other similar experiences with other agencies. I think I might mention here how much they charge for xeroxing such information as well. The charges range any where from a dime to 25 cents to $1.00.

Let me give you an example of how the discussions sometimes proceed when one is seeking information in the Department of Agriculture. This is a record of a conversation had between one of our staff members and a USDA official last year. The staff member was asking, do you have any records of nonagricultural pesticide use? We were looking into the problem of home pesticides, the problems of accidents, and the warnings on the labels of these pesticides.

The USDA official answered, no, such information is contained only in the jackets; that is, the folders on individual pesticides in their files. Then he said, why do you want to know all this? What do you want to do with it?

Our staff member replied, I want to know by what safety criteria certain pesticides have been registered.

The USDA official replied, well, why do you want to know?

Here again, the assertion that a need to know, that you have to show some probable cause to get information under the Freedom of Information Act. As I said earlier, there is no language whatsoever in the law that suggests that this burden must be met.

Our staff member then replied, because I am interested and the information is supposed to be public. I would like to see the jackets for certain pesticides. The USDA official: You do not seem to understand. Certain public information is really confidential.

The Staff Member: But I thought confidential information was kept in sealed envelopes in the jackets.

The Staff Member: Well, if we cannot see the jackets, who can?

The USDA official: The envelopes are not sealed.

The USDA official: Representatives of the manufactures and anyone else whom the Director approves.

The Staff Member: Whom does the Director approve?

The USDA official: That is up to him.

We have challenged these denials in Federal Court on numerous occasions. In the case of Wellford v. Hardin, Judge June Green of

the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, found that the Department of Agriculture had circumvented the Freedom of Information Act in making secrecy the rule rather than the exception and held:

1. It is a violation of the act to withhold from the public the means for requesting specific records (i.e., the indexes to the registration and enforcement files) when lack of specificity is given as the reason for refusing to grant an information request;

2. It is a violation of the act to withhold documents on the grounds that parts are exempt and parts are nonexempt. This ruling curbs USDA's use of the "contamination" tactic that I mentioned earlier.

On December 19, 1969, the Nader Task Force sued under the Freedom of Information Act to force the Consumer and Marketing Service to release data which would inform the public about consumer protection programs in USDA. The suit* took place nearly 7 months after the initial request for information. You do not sue casually under the Freedom of Information Act; you have to plan to spend a long time at it. And we generally do not bring a suit unless we have exhausted every other possible means of getting the information.

The suit asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to order the Consumer and Marketing Service to release the following data:

1. The results of USDA analyses of hotdog ingredients by brand name. At that time, we were interested in the fat content of hotdogs and the chemical content, and so forth.

2. We also asked for the letters of warning sent by the department to intrastate meat and poultry processors suspected of sending nonfederally inspected meat across state lines.

3. The name of each meat and/or poultry slaughterer or processor who had meat detained by C&MS since January 1, 1965, the reason for the detention, and the ultimate disposition of the product.

4. The minutes of the National Food Inspection Advisory Committee.

5. Copies of the biweekly reports of the Director of the Slaughter Inspection Division to the Administrator of the Consumer and Marketing Service.

USDA conceded the first point and made public its quarterly analyses of brand name sausage products, one of the few times the Federal Government has given the consumer access to data from its testing of consumer products. On June 26, 1970, just about a year after our first request for this information, Judge Northrop of the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, gave USDA's policy of secrecy a stunning defeat on its other denials. He ordered that the letters of warning and information on the detention of meat and poultry products be made available to the Nader group. The decision marked the first time the Department has been forced by a Federal court to disclose such information to the public. Disclosure of the letters of warning will reveal how much non-federally inspected meat is cross

The suit was filed under the Federal Freedom of Information Act by James J. Hanks, Jr., a Baltimore attorney representing the Nader group.

ing state lines, which states it is coming from and which companies are shipping it.

Senator MATHIAS. If I could interrupt you there just a second, I assume the case you are describing decided by Judge Northrop in Baltimore is the inspiration for the statement which you made earlier that it matters little whether the agency is concealing the latest move in Southeast Asia or the fat content of hotdog.

Mr. WELLFORD. That is right.

Senator MATHIAS. In the broadest sense, I would agree with that statement. But there is a lot of ground between military activities in Southeast Asia and the fat content of hotdogs.

Let me say, of course, that you are exactly right that the agencies should not withhold it. This question came up when we had several former Secretaries of State before this committee last week and the point was made that it is not enough just for various agencies of Government to exchange information. I think I pointed out at one point that it is all very well for the Congress to have access to information, but the Congress and the public in this instance are not also synonymous.

Mr. WELLFORD. That is right.

Senator MATHIAS. And that the Congress in pursuing its need for the information, that it needs for legislative purposes, should also be pursuing information as the advocate of the public and the public's right to know, which are really parallel but not necessary identical.

But let me press you a little bit on this. As I say, there is a lot of ground between hotdogs and Vietnam. Have you some other examples?

Mr. WELLFORD. Yes. As a matter of fact, I stated we were asking for a good deal of additional information besides the fat content of hotdogs, as I have listed here.

Senator MATHIAS. On the hotdog case, I am a little bit interested because I know the efforts, for instance, of the poultry industry to break into the hotdog market. The question of fat content is not from which type of meat the basic content is derived but how much moisture and fat and other really surplus elements are in the hotdog, is that right?

Mr. WELLFORD. That is correct, basically.

You see, our point here is that the hotdog case is a symbol, really, of a larger problem. The basic principle, we feel should be that the consumer has a right to know basically what he is consuming in the meat products, and he should not only be able to compare different products on the basis of their fat content but on whether or not they have certain chemicals about which questions are raised, or whether they do not. There are a number of quality factors which we think will promote a healthy competition within the meat industry which does not now take place because we do not know enough about the different ingredients used by different manufacturers.

That was the point.

Senator MATHIAS. You mean the housewife standing in front of the meat counter in the supermarket

Mr. WELLFORD. I think the housewife needs education. But the problem is that here, if there is virtually no indication on the

label of what the relative contents may be some companies may have much more expensive ingredients than others, and as you know, chemicals and other ingredients sometimes are short cuts to quality. If there is no way that the housewife can make a comparison, there is not much point in talking about consumer education, it seems to me. Both of them have to go together.

But the prerequisite for a sensible and knowledgeable choice by the housewife depends on information on the label that allows her to make that choice.

Senator MATHIAS. What about some other examples that bear out this one as a symbol of the recalcitrance of the Department? Mr. WELLFORD. Well, I think that as a general rule, the action taken by the Department in detaining meat suspected of being spoiled or adulterated, for example. The reputable, responsible, careful meat processors who have excellent quality control seem to me to have an interest in having those who are not as responsiblethat is, those companies who have the meat most often detainedmade public. If you follow this carefully, if your wife follows it carefully, she can begin to avoid the companies that most often have the bad marks against them, while there would be a reward in the market place for companies with high standards whose meat is very rarely detained. This would have to be done not on a few isolated cases, it would have to be done on a regular basis, to make the comparison every year.

Now, we think if you looked at the patterns of meat detention over the years, you would get some idea of relative quality control in various meat packinghouses.

Senator MATHIAS. It might be important, both out of the broadest possible education of the public and some protection for the business against some totally uncontrollable aberration that had occurred to them, such as a power failure in a refrigerator or something of that sort, that it be done on a long-range basis, would it not?

Mr. WELLFORD. Yes, exactly. That is precisely what we have been asking.

Senator MATHIAS. The most recent case which comes to mind is Bon Vivant in the vichyssoise. Was it one can once that was fatal or was this in fact a problem which had plagued this company over a period of time.

Mr. WELLFORD. Exactly.

Senator MATHIAS. And frankly, I am a little unsure in my own mind as to which it was. I wonder. And the extinction of the company for one can, even though that can was a fatal can, which was the ultimate case, but the extinction of the company for one can is, I think, one aspect where a longer record of sloppy production and unsanitary conditions is certainly something else again which the consuming public certainly ought to know.

Mr. WELLFORD. Right.

I really will not go through the rest of my description of the case except to say that the decision by Judge Northrop was upheld in the Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. At the present time, the Justice Department is considering appealing the case to the

Supreme Court, and I think they have another 30 days to make up their mind on that.

But let me conclude by discussing a few remedies that I think would be a small first step toward making free information the rule when citizens try to learn more about their Government.

Senator MATHIAS. I do not like to interrupt you, but let me just, because there may be another roll call any moment, let me pursue this a moment.

Mr. WELLFORD. Surely.

Senator MATHIAS. Can you give the committee information about other agencies beyond the Department of Agriculture that have been the beneficiaries of this policy of drawing a veil over their own activities? Of course, if you go to the limit of your earlier statement and talk about Vietnam, then presumably, the Department of Defense and the State Department have some profit from withholding in some of the areas. But beyond those two, what about, for instance, Transportation, Commerce or Labor in connection with industrial processes?

Mr. WELLFORD. Well, let me give you an example from the FDA that is immediately in my mind.

Yesterday, it was revealed that the Food and Drug Administration, in its sampling of fish from rivers in Alabama, had discovered that several species of fish were heavily contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, which is a chemical that is considered to be very dangerous and for which there is no tolerance set by the Food and Drug Administration. This sample was taken a year ago. After a period of time, the results were made available to the Alabama Health Department. Neither the Alabama Health Department nor the FDA, despite, apparently, requests from other officials and groups in Alabama, have made this information public.

Now, there are various reasons I suppose one could think of for withholding this information, but they are not apparent to me at the moment. This is a case where, in several species of fish, the PCB content was up to 36 on parts per million, which is an extremely high content. The acceptable level, the interim acceptable level set by the FDA for poultry, as you know, is 5 parts per million. This is many times above that.

Now, there are many cases in which we have been involved where information about contamination of products, the release of that information, is delayed to the public. There are various excuses given. One excuse is that they want to give the industry time to make some preparations before the onslaught of the public inquiry. Another explanation is that they need to take more tests. and these are just preliminary results.

The problem is at some point you must decide that the consumer ought to have choice to avoid suspected products while all this investigation goes on.

Senator MATHIAS. In the course of these examples, do you know of any cases where there has been serious illness or, as in the case of Bon Vivant, a case of death during the time between discovery of the contamination and release of the information to the public? Mr. WELLFORD. Well, in the situation with polychlorinated bi