BC-FOI-SECRECY-COMMENTARY:MCT — op-ed, xtop (840 words)
Secrecy won’t make us safe
FOCUS ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
(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.
The Department of Homeland Security has led by bad example. As Senator Robert Byrd pointed out in 2003, authorizing legislation gave the agency "carte blanche to operate in secret."
Even the proceedings of the Department's Citizen Advisory Council, which is packed with leaders of companies which stand to gain handsomely from contracts with the agency, is protected from public scrutiny bypost-Sept. 11 revisions to the Federal Advisory Committees Act.
Absent public scrutiny, how can we be certain that these self-interested homeland security "advisors" will not put their private financial interests ahead of public safety?
Earlier this year the Department of Homeland Security issued a new policy that threatens employees and contractors with civil and criminal prosecution for sharing information with the public, even if that information would be available under the government's Freedom of Information Act. This new policy places a cloak of secrecy over the entire agency and all of its operations.
This type of overreaching secrecy has the effect of undermining our confidence in security policies. The government and the industries it regulates often fail to upgrade security to meet the new terrorist threats. (Remember those notorious shipping containers and their largely unmonitored cargoes.) Secrecy conveniently hides these failings from the journalists, concerned citizens and nonprofit watchdogs whose primary function in a democracy is to strengthen public policy by holding government accountable. Without sunshine and public debate, our homeland security vulnerabilities fester behind closed doors.
According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the number of whistleblowers coming forward has increased by 50 percent annually since the 2001 attacks, in large part because of their concerns about homeland security weaknesses. Yet, new secrecy policies give the government even more power to silence homeland security whistleblowers when they tell the media, the public or their bosses about their concerns.
The paucity of publicly accessible information in the current climate can shield these official errors indefinitely. As a result, serious lapses, misconduct, or security failures may go uncorrected.
My own organization, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), has faced such chilling attempts when raising concerns about nuclear power plant security. After POGO published a letter revealing how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was failing to adequately test security at the plants, the Commission threatened us with civil and criminal prosecution. There was nothing in the letter that was classified or even sensitive and, in the end, the NRC was forced to back down. Of course, this was only after we had to secure an attorney to defend us from the government. POGO's nuclear security concerns are now beginning to receive scrutiny, giving us hope that the problems we highlighted will finally be addressed.
Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Bogdan Dzakovic's story provides another illustrative example. Dzakovic's Red Team, which conducted undercover airport security tests, breached security with ridiculous ease up to 90 percent of the time before Sept. 11. Yet, higher-ups ordered him not to write up their findings or to retest airports with particularly egregious vulnerabilities. Dzakovic blew the whistle on this shortly after the terrorist attacks. Testifying before the Sept. 11 Commission, he noted that if he had blown the whistle under the Department's new secrecy rules: "I could have been fired and be sitting in jail, instead of being vindicated and testifying today."
Ironically, the Sept. 11 Commission warned last year that excessive secrecy was a primary problem that contributed to the terrorist attacks. The Commission urged the government to end its Cold War culture of secrecy. Yet since the Commission issued its report, new stratagems to keep information from the public continue to proliferate. Congress and the White House need to heed the Commission's advice: pointless secrecy could once again expose us to unimaginable dangers.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Danielle Brian is Executive Director of the Project On Government Oversight (www.pogo.org), a government-watchdog group that promotes open and accountable government. Readers may write to her at: Project On Government Oversight, 666 11th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20001; Web site: http://www.pogo.org.
This essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.
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© 2005, Project on Government Oversight
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