Starting last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is operating a massive new database of personal information: names, birthdates, photographs, biometrics, and more. The information comes from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terrorist Screening Database, the accuracy of which has been widely criticized. Scary stuff, since being listed in the database can mean nearly-endless hassles any time you try to board a flight or cross a border.

But if you want to know if you're in the database, you'll be out of luck. A proposed rule by DHS would keep the database secret by exempting it from nearly every provision of the Privacy Act. Because the proposal challenges the fundamental tenets of government accountability and transparency, OMB Watch joined comments opposing the proposed rule, which were filed today by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and other groups.

Congress passed the Privacy Act in 1974 to give effect to some of the most important principles of transparency. Under the law, you have the right to know what information the government has about you, to know how they've used the information, and to correct the information if it's wrong. Those principles are essential to keeping government accountable, and they should be preserved.

The Privacy Act does allow agencies to create certain exemptions: in particular, for information about law enforcement investigations. The law enforcement exemptions are intended to ensure the integrity of investigations while they are ongoing. But in its proposed rule, DHS not only claims those exemptions, it takes them to the extreme. Under the pretense of preventing interference in investigations, DHS claims a blanket exemption from the Privacy Act rights for all the information in the database, forever.

DHS' approach twists the purpose of the Privacy Act exemptions almost beyond recognition. Exemptions should be limited to the time when they're needed, and no longer. But the proposed exemptions would never expire, even if the subjects in the database aren't under active investigation. This isn't necessary to protect the integrity of investigations, and it invites abuses. As our comment to DHS notes, "the notion of an investigation that is ongoing in perpetuity and without completion would be absurd."

The proposal does state that DHS would be able to waive the exemptions "on a case by case basis." While this may sound like a reasonable approach, it would radically undermine the right to know. In fact, it would turn the right on its head. DHS' proposal would create a strong presumption that you don't have a right to know, and give DHS the sole discretion to decide

In our comments to DHS, we suggest a more targeted approach that would better respect the presumption of openness by limiting exemptions to the situations where they're actually necessary:

Rather than claiming blanket exemptions, the DHS could promulgate rules that would require notification only after an active investigation had been concluded, or with sensitive information, such as the identity of confidential informants, redacted prior to release.

We strongly believe that the government should take prudent actions to prevent and prosecute terrorism. But we also believe that the government can, and should, respect our rights in doing so. DHS should revise its proposed rule to restore the transparency that Americans deserve.

The Obama administration agreed to drop its controversial Espionage Act case against former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Thomas Drake, according to reports yesterday. Instead, Drake will plead guilty to exceeding authorized use of a computer, a misdemeanor. The deal calls for no jail time or fine, with up to one year of probation.

Drake, whose case was profiled last month in the New Yorker, had been accused of taking classified documents detailing NSA waste and privacy concerns. Drake maintained that he had never released any classified information, and that he raised his concerns through official channels before communicating with a reporter after they were ignored. For his actions, Drake received the 2011 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.

In the OMB Watch report Assessing Progress Toward a 21st Century Right to Know, released in March, we called the Obama administration's "aggressive prosecution of leakers … antithetical to the openness policies embodied in our recommendations."

The administration's use of the dangerous Espionage Act of 1917 in this case was especially appalling. Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, which represented Drake on whistleblower issues, commented:

Whistleblowers are not spies. The Espionage Act is a particularly heinous tool that should never be used to cover up government wrongdoing and punish whistleblowers that expose it. This sends a message to the Justice Department to abandon its perverted strategy of prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act.

Congressional leaders have agreed to extend key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act until June 2015, according to reports today. The extension will not include reforms.

Three controversial provisions of the law are set to expire on May 27 which authorize the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to grant warrants to federal investigators for "roving wiretaps" of an individual; for surveillance of a foreign citizen, even without showing that the person is a terrorist or foreign agent; and for "business records," including library records.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced a proposal to extend the expiring provisions through 2014 without reforms, signaling the Senate majority position. The House Judiciary Committee previously advanced a bill to extend the roving wiretap and business records provisions through 2017 and make the "lone wolf" provision permanent, also without reforms. The Intelligence Committee discharged the bill yesterday, readying it for the House floor.

Reid today filed cloture on the extension through 2015, with a cloture vote scheduled for Monday afternoon. The House also is expected to vote before the May 27 expiration.

Reform advocates had pinned their hopes to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)'s S. 193, which renews the Patriot Act authorities but adds requirements, including transparency and oversight provisions. Leahy hopes to offer amendments to the bill the Senate will consider next week.

The Hill, apparently without irony, called Reid's bill a middle ground:

Reid's bill could ultimately be seen as a compromise: one that satisfies Democrats by providing a shorter extension than what Republicans are seeking, but one that also satisfies Republicans by not including new oversight language.

Civil libertarians, from the right-wing Campaign for Liberty to the left-wing Demand Progress, are pushing to let the provisions expire. Leahy's bill is a compromise from that position, renewing the provisions but adding scrutiny. The new "compromise" bill is even weaker. Four more years of government surveillance without oversight is hardly a compromise.

Meanwhile, do Republicans really want to be known as the party of no oversight? Apparently Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) does: during the House Judiciary Committee's markup, he argued that "we've got more than enough oversight" of the Patriot Act already.

Remember the House Republicans' pre-election Pledge to America?

Every American must ask: what has Congress done to ensure opportunity and to safeguard my liberty and the freedoms guaranteed to me in the Constitution? ...

[W]e will serve as a check and a balance against any schemes that are inconsistent with the priorities and rights of the American people:

We will fight to ensure transparency and accountability in Congress and throughout government. ...

What happened to that?

As transparency advocates, we often advocate for government to make more information available to the public. However, sometimes the problem comes when government does make information available – and the information is wrong, confusing, misleading, or manipulative.

In that spirit, let us bid good riddance to the Homeland Security Advisory System, the color-coded terror alerts that purported to warn us of the risk of terrorist attack since its introduction in March 2002. No more: the alerts will be replaced by the new National Terrorism Advisory System, beginning April 26.

The old system was widely criticized, most prominently for failing to actually inform. As security expert Bruce Schneier wrote, "Because they are so vague and so frequent, and because they don't recommend any useful actions that people can take, terror threat warnings don't prevent terrorist attacks."

Then what was the old system good for? Well, scaring us, for one thing. The warnings were widely distributed in the media, in government buildings, and above all, in airports. They never expired, and the threat level never went down. "Because it signaled some ambiguous sense of 'threat' without providing a scintilla of information the public could use," wrote the Cato Institute's Jim Harper, "it merely kept Americans ignorant and addled."

Of course, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If the government has credible information about a threat – information that could save lives – it should tell the public, as quickly and as accurately as possible.

Thankfully, the new system seems designed to be more specific and more actionable. According to a statement by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, future alerts would include:

a clear statement that there is an imminent threat or elevated threat, a summary of the potential threat, actions being taken to ensure public safety, and steps that individuals and communities can take to protect themselves and help prevent, mitigate or respond to the threat. These alerts will also have a specified end date.

While much will depend on how the system is operated, the new system looks to be much more useful and less unnecessarily frightening. "Fear does not encourage preparedness," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security. "Today's announcement marks an end to the era of color-coded scare tactics."