FOIA update from Washington
Update from Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, from Pete Weitzel
The good news: A reporter-source shield bill was introduced May 2. See more complete information on the SPJ Federal Shield Law page.
The Senate Judiciary Committee issued its report on the OPEN
Government Act, a FOIA-reform bill
(S 867) that cleared committee by voice vote despite a critical Justice
Department report and seven hostile amendment attempts. A similar bill (HR 1309
has cleared the House. There differences in the penalty provisions in the two
bills and the House version overturns the Ashcroft memo.
The Defense
Department is again pushing for broad authority to withhold any information it
deems related to weapons of mass
destruction. The provision, inserted in the Senate (S 567) and House
(HR 1585) Defense Authorization Bills, covers anything Defense thinks might be a
weapon and anything it thinks might be a target. That gives the Pentagon
sweeping new authority over control of domestic information. The Department
backed off similar language last year when criticisms were raised. (The Senate
provision, with an additional withholding measure, is
attached.)
One other negative development. The
Emergency Iraq/Hurricane Supplemental Appropriations bills that passed both
Senate and House contain language that makes chemical plant security plans
“sensitive security information”
and thus exempt from disclosure under FOIA. The net effect is
slight, since legislation last year declared that the plans should be considered
classified information. But this serves to further expand what was once a
modest FOIA exemption that applied only to data gathered on airline passengers
in an effort to thwart hijackings. It now allows the government to seal any
security related information dealing with aviation, maritime operations, rail
and transit – and now chemical plants.