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Tag Archives: FOIA
Keynote Speech from National FOI Day Conference
The First Amendment Center posted the full-text of the 2008 National FOI Day Conference's keynote speech, "A New Balancing Test: How Excessive Classification Undermines National Security" by J. William Leonard, former chief of the Information Security Oversight Office. Leonard quipped that his remarks on government secrecy would be his most candid, "a sort of ‘Leonard Unplugged’ if you will for those of you into the MTV scene". He discussed instances of excessive secrecy that produced serious consequences, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, stating, "Secrecy comes at a price - sometimes a deadly price - often through its impact upon the decision-making process". He also proposed a new way for government officials to determine whether information needs to be classified in the interest of national security; what he calls the "New Balancing Test": "We are long familiar with what many regard as the “traditional” balancing test of national security versus openness – of secrecy versus transparency. Instead, the balancing test of which I talk is more along the lines of national security versus national security; i.e. what will cause greater damage to national security, the disclosing or withholding of specific information". Continue reading
“OPEN FOIA” Bill Introduced as Sunshine Week Nears
The Sunshine Week blog announced that Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator John Cornyn introduced the OPEN FOIA Act, which would add new transparency and accountability standards when Congress considers adding new FOIA exemptions to the law. According to Leahy's press release, "The exemptions to FOIA addressed in the OPEN FOIA Act, known as (b)(3) statutory exemptions, are typically buried in complex and lengthy legislative proposals, making it difficult for requestors to determine whether access to information is subject to FOIA. The OPEN FOIA Act would provide more transparency when Congress includes such exemptions in legislation". This new act follows the passage of the Leahy-Cornyn OPEN Government Act, which the President signed into law in December 2007. Continue reading
Local FOIA and Open Government
The San Francisco Bay Guardian has a special issue on open government and freedom of information.
- Freedom of Information: Sunshine in the digital age How technology can vastly improve public access to government, San Francisco Bay Guardian (March 12, 2008)
It begins this way:
"On one front, the advocates of secrecy are pushing hard to keep electronic data under strict controls. The state Legislature is considering a bill that would prohibit the release of electronic data embedded in a public record. The county of Santa Clara tried to set a $100,000 price on access to a public database. But on the other hand, sunshine advocates are pushing for ways to use the same technology to make government more open.
The special issue includes articles on "A citizen's guide to fighting secret government"; "Virtual meetings"; a "Sunshine experiment in Palo Alto" (Posting e-mails from council members on the city's Web site); and more. Of particular interest are these two:
- More sunshine -- easily and at no cost, Technology can allow the city to take a huge step forward in public access -- right now. By Kimo Crossman, San Francisco Bay Guardian (March 12, 2008)
- Battleship metadata, Legislation on mapping software would create an expensive new category of public records. By Sarah Phelan, San Francisco Bay Guardian (March 12, 2008)
Crossman notes:
...video recordings of city meetings can't be downloaded -- the only way to review it or post a clip to YouTube is to order a $10 DVD, which arrives a week after you send a check (and no, they don't take PayPal). And while many other city meetings make audio recordings, you have to pay $1 for an audio tape and pick it up during business hours or pay more for postage. They all should be available as free podcasts. ...In fact, we all know storage continues to get cheaper and smaller -- so San Francisco should abolish any retention timeframes for electronic records and keep them all into the foreseeable future. The world-famous Internet Archive is right here in the Presidio: I suspect that group would love to archive all the city information, and keep it online, free and forever.Continue reading
Breaking: Total Information Awareness (TIA) still with us
Today, Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal reported that the National Security Agency has assembled what some intelligence officials admit is a driftnet for domestic and foreign communications. According to Gorman: into the NSA's massive database goes data collected by the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury. This information includes data about email (recipient and sender address, subject, time sent), internet searches (sites visited and searches conducted), phone calls (incoming and outgoing numbers, length of call, location), financial information (wire transfers, credit-card use, information about bank accounts), and information from the DHS about airline passengers. The only problem is, the Total Information Awareness Program (TIA) was supposed to have been killed by Congress in 2003. The ACLU responded to the report and said it would be filing a FOIA request to get more information.
The American Civil Liberties Union responded today to a stunning new report that the NSA has effectively revived the Orwellian ""Total Information Awareness"" domestic-spying program that was banned by Congress in 2003. In response, the ACLU said that it was filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for more information about the spying. And, the group announced that it was moving its "Surveillance Clock" one minute closer to midnight. "Congress shut down TIA because it represented a massive and unjustified governmental intrusion into the personal lives of Americans,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU. “Now we find out that the security agencies are pushing ahead with the program anyway, despite that clear congressional prohibition. The program described by current and former intelligence officials in Monday's Wall Street Journal could be modeled on Orwell’s Big Brother." The ACLU said the new report confirmed its past warnings that the NSA was engaging in extremely broad-based data mining that was violating the privacy of vast numbers of Americans.Continue reading
Army Reopens Digital Library to Public
I wasn't even aware they had closed it, but the Army reopened their Reimer Digital Library to the public a month after it decided to close it behind a firewall. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) filed a FOIA request for all of the library's contents and then posted these documents to the FAS website! The FAS Secrecy News blog documented the experience on the following blog posts: Army Blocks Public Access to Digital Library Army Says It Will Restore Public Access to Online Library Army Will Restore Access to Online Library Within 2 Weeks The Reimer Digital Library is Back Thank goodness for organizations like the FAS who are keeping tabs on and taking a stand on disturbing occurrences like this. Be sure to check out the FAS Project on Government Secrecy website and blog. It gives me the chills to think how many other resources are "closed" or simply vanish without our knowledge. I've been working as a Government Documents Librarian for a little over a year and I've only read about restricted access...but I dread the day I have to actually experience it. At least I feel more prepared after reading about the FOIA request filing procedures and I know where to get support if I have questions (yes, I'm talking about you, my fellow FGI readers!). Continue reading
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