From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: CENSORED: FOIA IS AN OXYMORON
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 09:15:10 GMT

FOIA IS AN OXYMORON

In theory at least, the 25 year old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
bucks the bureaucratic impulse for secrecy.  In reality, however, the
executive branch and federal courts are stretching the law's
exemptions to give that impulse freer rein.  As a result, this precious
piece of legislation is fading into obsolescence.

Paul McMasters, a USA Today editor who heads a committee on freedom of
information for the Society of Professional Journalists, sees this bleak
future if the law isn't fixed:  "more adverse court decisions, more
erosion of access rights, more ignoring of FOIA."

The erosion of FOIA over the past ten years coincides with a new and
particularly hostile attitude towards the public's right to know which
was ushered in with the Reagan-Bush administration.  The new administra-
tion expansively redefined "national security" to cover virtually all
aspects of international activity.  A 1982 executive order told govern-
ment officials to classify documents whenever in doubt, and even
reclassified material already released under FOIA.  The new strategy
became:  Fight every possible case, even if the only defense against
disclosure was a technicality.

Justice Department official Mary Lawton, addressing an FOIA conference
sponsored by the American Bar Association summed up the Reagan- Bush
approach:  "Some of us who have been plagued by this act for 25 years
aren't real enthusiastic about this anniversary.''

FOIA is supposed to work this way:  You make your request and the
government has 10 days to fill the request or explain why it won't do
so.  But in most agencies roadblocks are endemic.  So are delays,
despite the 10-day deadline.  The FDA often takes two years to fill
requests, the State Department often takes a year.  Last year the FBI
calculated that its average response time was more than 300 days.  A
Navy FOIA officer suggested to one reporter that he'd be better off
finding someone to leak the document he wanted.  "If you have to make a
request," one media lawyer says, "that means you've failed.  "

A major source of the problem lies with the Office of Management and
Budget for insuring that FOIA offices remain under-funded and under-
staffed.  The Navy's central FOIA office has a staff of two and no fax
machine.  Emil Moschella, then FOIA director for the FBI, testified last
year that his 1991 request for new staff was cut in half by Justice and
then "zeroed out" by OMB.

To make matters worse the D.C.  Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles
most FOIA cases, and the Supreme Court have moved aggressively to
expand the government's power to withhold.  One would think that the
press would find such a vital access issue to be of importance, yet
finding significant coverage is as difficult as obtaining it through a
FOIA request.

(SSU CENSORED RESEARCHER:  ANNE BRITTON)

SOURCE:COMMON CAUSE 2030 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036

DATE:July/August 1991

TlTLE:  "The Fight To Know"

AUTHORS:Peter Montgomery and Peter Overby

COMMENTS:  The authors note that freedom of information is a subject
that journalists talk a lot about -- among themselves.  "The discussions
typically focus on individual cases and immediate problems.  We found
very little written about the issue in general-circulation publications;
for example, they barely glanced at the NASA cover-up attempt described
in our lead.  But while reporters were griping to each other, the Reagan
and Bush administrations not only expanded but institutionalized loop-
holes in the Freedom of Information Act.  Common Cause Magazine, a fre-
quent FOIA user, decided it was time to try bringing the subject into
public debate."

The benefit of more public discussion of the threat to FOIA boils down
to two basic truths according to the authors.  "First, democracy depends
on citizens' access to government information.  Second, given the
choice, governments will always operate in secrecy.  If the public, and
the press as its representative, don't continually demand access,
information will be available only to the government and its friends.
As events from Watergate to Iran-Contra show, the nation suffers when
that happens.  If citizens have a better understanding of FOIA's
importance, they may more actively defend it.  Exposure of FOIA abuses
may encourage efforts to strengthen the law or to hold accountable
those who flout it."

On the other hand, the authors add, "A lack of coverage makes life
easier for any government officials who prefer less oversight to more.
It allows enemies of free access to information to continue to
undermine the public's right to know.  It also serves many in the media
who don't want to make waves.  Using FOIA is never quick, often provokes
a battle and usually produces stories that upset lots of people -- e.g.,
the realization that the Challenger explosion was an avoidable
catastrophe.  The 1980s saw a strong and continuing shift away from that
style of investigative journalism."

Although the article was circulated to newspapers around the country,
just one reprinted it while several others wrote editorials based on it.
While there has been some action in the Senate, Senator Pat Leahy
(D-Vt.) introduced FOIA reform bills, and in the courts, the authors
report that there has been no reversal of the trend they reported.

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive