BC-FOI-BARDA-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (840 words)

New anti-disease agency would be exempt from FOIA

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Members of Congress are moving rapidly to create a new federal agency designed to manage the government's anti-bio-terrorism research and encourage private companies to bring more drugs and vaccines to market quicker.

Sounds good. But there's a catch.

The proposed Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA), intended to be part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, would be exempt from the federal Freedom of Information Act. It also would be exempt from rules designed to ensure efficiency and protect against waste and fraud.

In other words, BARDA would escape public and judicial oversight, even though it would have billions of tax dollars to spend, with much of it likely going to favored drug industry firms.

BC-FOI-KATRINA-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (840 words)

Bush should use FOIA to keep Katrina recovery honest

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Hurricane Katrina was America's worst natural disaster, and it may also generate the biggest federal boondoggle ever - unless President Bush moves now to apply the FOIA to every tax dollar spent rebuilding.

Bush and Congress wasted no time authorizing more than $60 billion in federal spending on Katrina recovery, and hardly anybody doubts the final bill from Uncle Sam will be less than $200 billion. Private charities and state and local agencies will spend hundreds of millions more, as the Gulf region is flooded with relief money from all sources.

This will be a target-rich environment for the unscrupulous and the slothful in and out of government at all levels. Even if Bush appoints a Katrina Recovery Inspector General to audit how the federal money is spent, it will be too late because by the time government auditors review the books, the money already will have been wasted. Something else is needed now to make sure every dollar meant to help victims of Katrina actually gets to them.

BC-FOI-KATRINA-ENVIRONMENT-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (930 words)

Government must do better job of getting environmental information to the public

MCT FORUM

By Perry Beeman

(MCT)

 Hurricane Katrina presented not only a human tragedy but also one of the biggest environmental stories of the new millennium. Even after days of criticism that the federal government didn't do enough to help hurricane victims, federal agencies compounded the problem by failing to respond adequately to journalists' environmental questions.

The event gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a chance to show that it had learned lessons from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when the agency was broadly criticized for withholding information and downplaying risks. Instead, EPA appears to have taken the same tight-lipped approach in responding to Katrina, denying the public crucial information collected with taxpayers' money on behalf of taxpayers in the first place.

BC-FOI-ROBERTS-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (570 words)

Judge Roberts and presidential records

(ARCHIVE PHOTOS)

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Lawrence Repeta

(MCT)

The selection of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court shines a light on one of the Bush administration's most deliberate and indefensible attacks on accountability in government. 

In response to President Nixon's ceaseless efforts to hide White House audiotapes and other records from the public, in 1978 Congress passed the Presidential Records Act.  That law unambiguously provides that the records of retired presidents are the property of the American people.  Under its terms, retired presidents retain limited authority to block the release of certain materials for a period of 12 years after the end of their administrations.  After the 12 years, retired presidents lose this privilege.     

BC-FOI-FOIA-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (870 words)

The right move on Freedom of Information

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

David Keene is chairman of the American Conservative Union, one of the oldest and largest advocacy groups on the Right. A Reagan campaign stalwart, he remains a keeper of the conservative faith as one of the movement's wise men.

Keene is also one of eight major leaders on the Right who are encouraging Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in his effort to reform the federal Freedom of Information Act by, among other things, giving it some real teeth.

BC-FOI-LABOR-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (840 words)

Transparency: Bad news for Big Labor?

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

If AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney considers the defection of the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union a "grievous insult," he'd better hold on. Even bigger news may be coming, thanks to revised federal rules requiring unions to be far more specific about how they spend their members' dues.

BC-FOI-FOIA-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed, world (680 words)

Needed: A FOIA watchdog

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Alasdair Roberts

(MCT)

The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in July 1966, will turn 40 next year — but its midlife crisis is already well under way. The law hasn't achieved its goal of overturning the culture of secrecy in the federal bureaucracy.   Requests for information are too often met with interminable delays, followed by broad denials.

In fact, it was always unrealistic to expect that one law would overturn a long-entrenched bureaucratic culture.  One of the FOIA's critical defects is its failure to anticipate chronic resistance to the law, by establishing an independent watchdog to monitor compliance and referee complaints about the denial of information.

BC-FOI-FOIA-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (840 words)

FOIA: More on right get it right

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is a rising star among conservatives in Congress, so it's especially significant that he has just won passage of the most significant open government reform in years.

The Senate approved June 24 by unanimous consent a Cornyn-backed measure that requires all bills being considered by Congress to make explicit any proposed exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act.

BC-FOI-FOIA-COMMENTARY:MCT op-ed (840 words)

Is Justice Department trying to put FOIA beyond appeal?

(MCT)

Reporters in the nation's capital missed it, but a couple of paragraphs buried in a Justice Department official's testimony before an obscure congressional panel reveals what could be a dark cloud on the horizon for government accountability.

The cloud is Justice's enthusiasm for a Supreme Court decision that effectively says only rich people can challenge a federal bureaucrat's decision to keep secret government documents that ought to be public.

BC-FOI-EDITORIAL:OS — op-ed (290 words)

End unnecessary secrecy: It's critical for Congress to end the trend of hiding more and more records

(MCT)

Beware all you parents, firefighters, scientists, librarians and others who care about public health, safety and information: Last year the federal government classified information as secret more times than ever before.

In 2004, Washington bureaucrats kept secrets a record 15.6 million times, 10 percent more times than in 2003, and nearly twice as many as in 2001, according to National Archives data released April 5.

BC-FOI-FEC-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (850 words)

FEC attempt to regulate Internet political speech shows next step for FOIA reformers

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub says the FEC has no interest in regulating political speech on the Internet. She opened a recent hearing by saying no one at the FEC has sought to manipulate it "as a vehicle for shutting down the right of any individual to use his electronic soapbox to voice his political views."

The FEC "does not tell private citizens what they can or cannot say on the Internet or elsewhere," Weintraub added. During the same March 24 hearing, Weintraub's fellow Democrat on the panel, Danny McDonald, mocked as "much ado about nothing" claims by Internet critics that the FEC was considering regulating political speech on the Internet.

BC-FOI-FOIA-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (780 words)

Now is the time to strengthen commitment to openness

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Sens. John Cornyn and Patrick Leahy

(MCT)

This week, America observes the first-ever national Sunshine Week — a celebration of our nation's founding principles and commitment to freedom of information and openness in government. With these ideals fresh in mind, earlier this week we convened a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine the need for reforms to strengthen our commitment to those fundamental principles.

Our founders firmly believed that a free society cannot exist without an informed citizenry and an open and accessible government. As James Madison, the father of our Constitution, once famously wrote, "a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

Secrecy won’t make us safe

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Danielle Brian

(MCT)

Since, the September 11th terrorist attacks, Congress and the Bush Administration have expanded the kinds of information that are withheld from the public. Clearly, a more careful approach to handling sensitive information was needed after the attacks, given the new terrorist threats against the American people.

However, in the intervening years, government agencies have issued nearly 50 sets of rules for keeping even non-classified information secret. These hastily-conceived rules represent a veritable Wild West of government secrecy — there are no standards and no protections against abuse. The result is that government agencies can easily conceal corruption, errors and, even, security failures.

BC-FOI-FOIA-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (840 words)

Legislative Rx for FOIA

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

It won't get much play in a national media obsessed with the war in Iraq, Social Security reform and the Michael Jackson trial, but Sen. John Cornyn is proposing a package of much-needed reforms in the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Before his 2002 election as the junior senator from Texas, Cornyn, a conservative Republican, compiled an enviable reputation as a friend of the people's right to know what their government is up to while serving as the Lone Star State's attorney general. Now Cornyn hopes to bring a new gust of the same fresh air to Washington via his proposed Open Government Act of 2005.

BC-FOI-ILLEGAL-ALIENS-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (870 words)

Uncle Sam hiding data on convicted illegal aliens

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

WARNING: This column will make you very angry!

By law, illegal aliens convicted of heinous crimes — rape, murder, child molestation — are to be deported once they've served their jail terms. But lately, thousands of them have simply been let go. And Justice Department officials have refused to release a government database that could help journalists and private citizens find these aliens.

No one knows exactly how many of these criminals there are nationwide, but Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau journalists Eliot Jaspin and Julia Malone examined Georgia state prison records in 2002 and found numerous cases like convicted pedophile Miguel Angel Gordoba. He served a four-year sentence for molesting a 2-year-old girl in Alma, Ga., then disappeared following his release.

BC-FOI-CIA-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (900 words)

Restoring CIA credibility and preserving the right to know

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Martin E. Halstuk

(MCT)

After weeks of deadlock, the 108th Congress in its final days passed an intelligence-reform bill to repair what the bipartisan 911 Commission found to be a dysfunctional Central Intelligence Agency. The bill's purpose: to  prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Now that the nation's intelligence services are being overhauled, the new 109th Congress should take the next logical step: to restore the CIA's credibility with the American people.

The credibility of the nation's lead spy agency has been in decline for years. When George J. Tenet was named CIA director in 1996 he became the agency's fifth director in six years. The agency's cracked credibility was finally shattered with revelations of CIA failures in connection with the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and the CIA's unfounded assessments of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

BC-FOI-PRESS-COMMENTARY:MCT -- op-ed (1010 words)

What lessons does Watergate offer for today's beleaguered media?

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Charles Lewis

(MCT)

WASHINGTON -- The tension between power and the press, between spinning and searching for truth, between disinformation and information, is of course endemic to the human condition itself. And in trying times like these, when reporters at major news organizations are facing jail time for refusing to disclose confidential source information and it looks as if things are going to hell, it is strangely consoling to recall that others before us have also traveled on what must have seemed to be the road to perdition.

The Pentagon Papers case and the Watergate scandal about Richard Nixon's White House still represent U.S. history's high-water mark in the longstanding struggle between raw political power and democratic values, poignantly affirming the public's right to know about its government.

BC-FOI-DISASTERAID-HERITAGE:MCT -- op-ed (830 words)

Federal disaster aid boondoggles show FOI need

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Hurricane Frances made landfall more than 100 miles north of Miami-Dade County earlier this year. But that didn't stop thousands of residents there from getting nearly $28 million in federal disaster aid.

Top winds reached only 47 mph in Miami-Dade County during the Labor Day weekend storm, so damages were limited to some fallen power lines and uprooted trees, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency and other disaster relief officials.

Yet residents used their relief checks to buy more than 5,000 televisions allegedly destroyed by Frances, as well as 1,440 air conditioners, 1,360 twin beds, 1,311 washers and dryers, and 831 dining sets.

BC-FOI-BIGBUDDY-COMMENTARY:MCT -- op-ed (660 words)

Big Buddy government

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By George Sorvalis and Paul Orum

(MCT)

Brenda Afzal, a registered nurse in Baltimore, tried to find out about dangerous chemicals stored in her area, but the Department of Justice denied her reliable access to this public information. Joseph McCormick of Floyd, Va., wanted to educate neighbors about plans to run a gas pipeline through his community, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied him the information. And Glenda Bowling of Aberdeen, Md., sought maps of water contamination in her neighborhood's drinking water wells, but the Department of Defense withheld them.

These stories illustrate the consequences of government withholding public health and environmental information. Denied such information, concerned citizens must rely on government to identify and address problems of public exposure to toxic pollution or hazardous materials, with no recourse if the problems are not solved.

BC-FOI-SECRECY-COMMENTARY:MCT -- op-ed (830 words)

Government secrecy oaths endanger public

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Nick Schwellenbach and Peter Brand

(MCT)

America now has an Unofficial Secrets Act.

In an unprecedented and unwise expansion of government secrecy, the Department of Homeland Security has begun swearing its employees to silence, criminalizing the disclosure of information to the public -- even if it is not classified. Such an expansion harms security, rather than improves it, and -- this is nothing to sneeze at -- strikes at our democracy and constitutional rights.

By forcing employees to sign mundanely-titled "non-disclosure agreements," the department makes this message clear: "Shut up or you'll suffer."

BC-FOI-FOIA-COMMENTARY:MCT -- op-ed (860 words)

Freedom of information won veto battle 30 years ago

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Thomas S. Blanton

(MCT)

Thanksgiving week marked the 30th anniversary of a bitter Washington battle that produced a landmark open government law -- the modern Freedom of Information Act -- over a presidential veto. It also warns of new threats to that law and rising government secrecy as the leading losers in 1974 now dominate the vice presidency, the Pentagon and the Supreme Court.

 The current poster-child court case concerns Vice President Dick Cheney's preventing public release of the minutes and participants from his task force on energy policy. When ABC's Cokie Roberts asked the vice president why he turned what would have been a one-day news story about meeting with oil industry buddies into a four-year front-page saga to the Supreme Court and back, at first Cheney answered that "the lawyers decided" to draw the line. But then he reached back to 1974 and denounced the "unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 or 35 years" . . . "where it's demanded that the president cough up (information)."

BC-FOI-WHISTLEBLOWERS-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (790 words)

Intelligence reform needs whistleblowers

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Nick Schwellenbach and Lauren Robinson

(MCT)

With the elections over, Congress gets back to business with intelligence reform legislation at the top of its agenda.  However, under the radar, the equally imperative reform of whistleblower protections might be killed, despite support by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Intelligence reform was sparked in part by whistleblower Coleen Rowley, the 2002 Time Magazine co-person of the year who exposed the FBI's failure to heed evidence of terrorist plots before 9/11.  Yet, patriotic government truth-tellers like Rowley are quashed time and time again by their own embarrassment-averse and tin-eared agencies for doing what is right — addressing glaring vulnerabilities that threaten the public. 

BC-FOI-PRINCIPLES-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (880 words)

Let's live up to America's principles

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Daniel Alcorn

(MCT)

Findings of the 9/11 Commission demonstrate that our government's long-standing secrecy-oriented national security system failed us leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Here's a proposal to remedy that problem by returning to the principle of disclosure to the public of government information on which our democracy was founded.

This openness principle was enacted into law as the Freedom of Information Act, and is also reflected in many of our customary democratic practices such as judicial proceedings that are open to the public, and a free press closely covering the activities of government officials.

BC-FOI-INTERNET-HERITAGE:MCT — op-ed (820 words)

Internet revolution is forcing government, media transparency

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Debates about "red states" and "blue states" aside, the 2004 presidential campaign made one thing clear: The Internet is rapidly establishing real-time transparency in government and the media as the sine qua non of American public policy.

That's good news for the American voter, because for the most part government and the major media remain for now much as they have been for the past half-century — too remote, restrictive and elitist.

Revolutions aren't won in a day and sometimes progress is slow, so friends of openness in government can take heart knowing they're on the winning side. Here are three reasons why their victory is inevitable:

BC-FOI-SECRECY-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (780 words)

Secrecy proposal would harm government's ability to fight terrorism

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Nick Schwellenbach

(MCT)

In 1997, former FBI Director Louis Freeh called the FBI "potentially the most dangerous agency in the country" if it is "not scrutinized carefully." Freeh also called for more congressional oversight. 

His warning is prescient. The jury is still out on how post-9/11 developments such as the Patriot Act and secret detentions of American citizens have affected civil liberties and the government's ability to fight terrorism. However, decades of experience have already shown that abuses and incompetence fester under a blanket of excessive government secrecy.

BC-FOI-FREEPRESS-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed, xln (890 words)

Big government's threat to free press

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

"They better hope we don't win."

That's the blunt warning political operative Chad Clanton recently delivered to the journalists at Sinclair Broadcasting. Clanton's boss is John Kerry, the subject of a highly critical documentary Sinclair plans to air later this month.

But it isn't just Sinclair journalists who should worry about this threat. What Clanton has in mind for Sinclair would severely damage the free press guaranteed by the First Amendment and the public accountability and transparency of government assured by laws such as the Freedom of Information Act. One need not like Sinclair or the political views of its owners to recognize Clanton's thuggish remark for the threat it is. (Kerry, incidentally, has yet to repudiate his aide's remark.)

BC-FOI-MEDIA-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (880 words)

A big lesson for big media

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Mark Tapscott

The Heritage Foundation

(MCT)

Rob Walters, Sean Adkins, Sharon Smith and Michelle Starr are not household names like broadcast stars Tim Russert or Peter Jennings. But these four ink-stained wretches in Pennsylvania are way ahead of the big guys when it comes to digging out information that otherwise might never see the light of day.

They work for The York Daily Record, and they've set a standard for using the federal Freedom of Information Act that the Big Media stars would be wise to imitate. The YDR crew routinely uses more than 250 FOIA requests annually to break important stories for their newspaper's readers, including:

BC-FOI-SECRECY-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (800 words)

Too much secrecy going on in government

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Nick Schwellenbach

(MCT)

There is too much secrecy.  That's what a new report by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., takes the Bush administration to task on.  Yet this report should not be construed as a narrow partisan attack but rather as the latest salvo in a debate where advocates of open government span the ideological spectrum.  And there's a good reason.  Inordinate secrecy hampers the non-partisan values of both national security and democracy.

BC-FOI-SECRECY-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (720 words)

High secrecy comes at a high price in dollars and democracy

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Rick Blum

(MCT)

Last year our government spent $6.5 billion — or $22 for every woman, man and child in the United States — to classify and secure its millions of accumulated secrets. That is 60 percent more than it spent just two years before, and the most it has spent on secrecy for at least the past decade — not even counting the cost of keeping the CIA's extensive records secret. Sorry, the CIA keeps that figure classified.

BC-FOI-CHENEY-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (1030 words)

Cheney v. U.S. District Court: Are we missing the point?

(ARCHIVE CARICATURE)

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Joan A. Lukey

(MCT)

In the slew of cases announced by the Supreme Court just before the summer break, one of particular import slipped under the radar. Sandwiched in the midst of the enemy combatant decisions, the court's opinion in Cheney v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was glossed over by most analysts as preliminary and procedural.

Unfortunately for those of us who are interested in open government, that is not quite accurate.

BC-FOI-CONTRACTORS-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (790 words)

Contractors reap benefits of government secrecy

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Scott Amey

(MCT)

The recent news that Halliburton could not account for $1.8 billion on a military support contract has left the public scratching its head. Where did the money go? What goods or services did the public receive? Unfortunately, answering those and many more questions proves difficult for the American taxpayer.

Contractors have, in recent years, launched a multi-pronged assault on the public's right to know about government check writing to large corporations.  This assault has been fueled by campaign contributions, a spawning industry of lobbyists plying their political influence, and growing coziness with federal officials.

BC-FOI-SCIENCE-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed (810 words)

Public access to publicly funded science

FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

By Peter Suber

(MCT)

This fall, Congress will have the chance to accelerate medical research and give taxpayers more value for their money.  But the prospect is opposed by an industry that likes things just the way they are.

At issue is whether the results of publicly funded medical research should be made available free, online, to the public, or whether these results should only be available to paying customers of expensive private publications.