The groups oppose Section 7 of S. 297, the Federal Acknowledgment Process Reform Act of 2003, which would exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) certain actions by the Interior Department's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The exemption would specifically allow Interior to hide its actions on any Indian group's petitions for acknowledgment, until the petition has been "fully documented" and the assistant secretary publishes a notice of its receipt in the Federal Register. This exemption would not apply to U.S. law enforcement formal or informal requests, or subpoenas.
The bill asserts that Section 7 aims "to increase the transparency, consistency, and integrity of the [tribal] acknowledgment process." The letter argues that this approach is fundamentally flawed and actually "makes the acknowledgment process more obscure." Instead, the groups believe that using online dockets to display the information, as mandated by E-FOIA, would generate greater efficiency and cost-savings.
The signatories on the letter include journalists and federal and state organizations.