World>Terrorism & Security
posted March 17, 2005, updated 12:00 p.m.

Has 'security' become an excuse for govn't secrecy?

Senate considers legislation to force govn't to reply faster to FOIA requests.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

In an effort to stop both the government and private companies from using Homeland Security laws to "inappropriately" shield records from the public, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont and Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas, introduced a bill Tuesday that "would protect records only if they are critical to national security."

'These have been tough times for the public's right to know and for the Congress' duty to know what the government is doing,' said Leahy, who will discuss his bill – the 'Restoration of Freedom of Information Act' – at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee today [Tuesday]. "Government secrecy is being ratcheted up to levels unseen in recent times."

The introduction of the bill is meant to help mark Sunshine Week, a campaign organized by media groups like the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and other organizations like the American Library Association, to "remind people that the rights claimed by a free press also belong to the public we serve."


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The Copley News Service reports Leahy says that private companies 'like big polluters" can mask errors or mistakes by just stamping "critical infrastructure" on the top of any document. Sen. Leahy said the new legislation would mean that reports or documents could only be labeled in this way if they actually did pertain to the "vulnerability of and threats to critical infrastructure."

The Brattleboro Reformer, a daily from the state of Vermont, argues that even recent local stories, such as the "discrepancy in a reading at Vermont Yankee [nuclear plant]" show the importance of Leahy's and Sen. Cornyn's efforts.

There's always the risk of terrorists using publicly available information on facilities such as these. But to shut out the public, too, appears to compromise our ability to ensure and monitor our domestic security. When the public wishes to summon information on its government and the agencies that control private sector companies, the fear grows that private corporations and the Department of Homeland Security can use the cloak of 'homeland security' to avoid potentially embarassing, incriminating or litigious information from going public. Presumably, even our members of Congress would have difficulty using the Freedom of Information Act to make informed decisions in the name of 'homeland security.'

Last week, Leahy and Cornyn also introduced a bill that "would create a 16-member 'Open Government Commission' to suggest ways to reduce delays in getting information under the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act]."

In a special report to mark Sunshine Week, the Associated Press finds that for the past seven years, "many federal departments have been reducing the amount of information they release to the public �� even as the government fields and answers more requests for information than ever."

In an opinion piece carried by The Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette earlier this week, Paul McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va. pointed out that the number of documents that the government has classified as "secret" has grown from 3.6 million a year in 1995, to 14 million a year - "a four-fold increase in a decade." Mr. McMasters goes on to argue that " government secrecy makes America less safe."

The more secretive a government, the more distant it becomes from its citizens and their wisdom, experience, enterprise, ingenuity and support. Further, when Americans are kept in the dark about the nation's vulnerabilities and what leaders are doing to address them, public pressure for quick, effective action fails to develop.
In a breathtakingly short time, one of democracy's core principles, the 'right to know' for the public, has devolved into a 'need to know' for certain individuals and now threatens to become a 'right to control' for government officials only.

Meanwhile, former Associated Press executive editor and political reporter Walter Mears told the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Leahy and Cornyn are members, that too much secrecy in government means "the better the chance something important will leak out."

"Too often, security becomes an excuse for shielding embarrassing information and secrecy can conceal mismanagement or wrongdoing," Mears, former AP executive editor and vice president, told the panel.
"Overdone secrecy raises, rather than reduces, the risk that really vital secrets will be breached," Mears added. "If everything is classified, then my colleagues are going to go after everything."

Thomas M. Susman, a lawyer specializing in FOIA cases, also told the committee that a system that would "make appeals for the release of information more fair and less expensive" would more than pay for itself in " diverting cases from the courts."