Walsh Report Recalled

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Canberra recalls Walsh Report

23rd February 1999

There has been yet another amazing incident in the seemingly endless saga of the Walsh Report.

On February 10 1999, Ausinfo, the Australian Government Information Service (motto: Government Information for Australians) sent out a recall notice to Australian libraries requesting that all copies of the report Review of Policy relating to encryption technologies (the Walsh Report) be returned to Ausinfo in Canberra, presumably for a book-burning ceremony. They have also requested that "the last person taking off their holdings could you please let National Library know they have to delete this record."

The letter states: "the Attorney-General's Department wants all copies recalled". Despite this, both Ausinfo and the Department were each claiming that the other agency was responsible for the recall.

About 30 copies of the report were despatched to the libraries under the Commonwealth Library Deposit scheme in 1997. This was apparently an error since all copies were supposed to have been returned to the Attorney-General's Department when the public distribution of the report was suppressed at the last minute.

The existence of the library copies came to light when EFA published the uncensored version of the report on its website in January 1999, following discovery of a copy in the State Library of Tasmania by Nick Ellsmore. Prior to this, only a censored version obtained under FOI had been available. The URL for the report is:
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Crypto/Walsh/

A comprehensive coverage of the incident was reported in The Australian on 23rd February 1999. See: Canberra suppresses IT Report

Every attempt by the government to cover up this report seems to focus even more attention on it. Fortunately EFA still has the electronic version to preserve for posterity. They haven't come for that - yet.

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