However, there is no legal reason why financial agencies are required to withhold records under the exemption. Applying the banking exemption requires a harm test that does not broadly sweep all banking records into the exemption, but discloses most records unless there is a foreseeable harm. Discretion is not a two-way street that allows agencies to use their discretion to either disclose or withhold. Based on that premise, it would be foolish to assume that laws explicitly designed to maximize disclosure would give agencies the discretion to withhold information any time they could fit it into an exception. In freedom of information laws, discretion flows in the direction of disclosure, not in the opposite direction.
Agencies make decisions every day of the week.
To assume disclosure of records that reveal something about the decision-making process must be routinely withheld because they fall under an exemption, is nothing short of ridiculous. Where an agency can show that revealing the decision-making process will cause an articulable harm, then the agency may have established an acceptable reason for withholding such information. But to say that disclosure will inhibit candor is only to reiterate the long-abandoned argument that the public should not be able to know about what its government does, and that government should be able to operate in secret. Discretion is an important part of freedom of information laws. Legislatures realized there would be times when records should not be disclosed, even though they could be disclosed.