Carolyn, most of the Federal agencies are required by law to give public access in one way or another to most of the stuff they hold in public trust. Thus you may have to pay a small fee to visit a National Historic Site, but you don't have to prove anything to go.
Social Security is available only to those who have paid into the system. The same is true of Medicare. The Bureau of Indian Affairs programs administers treaties between the US government and various treaty nations. GRIN is a publicly owned collection, as are many of the things that NASA generates, lots of the graphics from old US postage stamps and a ton more. For that matter, so are most of the documents generated by the government - that's why Freedom of Information.
I suspect that the folks that are administering GRIN at the minute are not being co-operative not because they have any legal basis to deny anyone access but simply because nobody has ever pushed the issue.
It is a really good thing if you and Craig liberated a bunch of stuff. They have a bunch of other stuff, though, and access should not be limited to commercial researchers, academics and those with the "correct" credentials.
/just on old, pig-headed ex-government employee that does not like bureaucratic garbage
