FOIA Officers Meet Over News of Secrecy - July 14, 2003 Vol. 4 No. 14

July 14, 2003 Vol. 4 No. 14:

Published: 07/14/2003

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FOIA Officers Meet Over News of Secrecy

The principal administrative Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officers gathered on June 25th for a conference on the relationship between homeland security matters and FOIA. Homeland security matters have been among the leading rationales used for recent broad restrictions in public access to government information.

Among the topics covered at the conference were the all of the major new secrecy policies that first amendment and good government advocates are complaining about. The subjects included; Ashcroft’s FOIA Memorandum, Andrew Card’s web-scrubbing Memorandum, the new FOIA exemption for critical infrastructure information (CII), and the Homeland Security Act’s provisions for safeguarding “sensitive homeland security information” which includes “sensitive but unclassified” (SBU) information.

The focus of the conference seems to have been to remind FOIA officers of the numerous new reason information should not be given out. In other words, the conference signaled FOIA officers that the administration wants even more caution and restriction used when responding to FOIA requests. The Ashcroft memo in particular, pushes for an overly broad approach when responding to FOIA requests. It is still unclear what final rules for SBU will look like, but they could massively limit the amount of information available to the public, including information about everyday risks people face in their communities and workplaces. Information access not only forces more accountability in government, but information about vulnerabilities and risk allows the public to insist that the problems in their communities be fixed.