Date: 2002-07-26
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. let me first of all say I think the problem with this amendment is it goes in the wrong direction. We are all strong supporters of FOIA legislation. I served in local government for 15 years. and the Freedom of Information Act applies to local government. Strangely enough. Congress is exempt from any of these. exemptions. This is a very narrowly tailored FOIA exemption that will allow companies out there that have innovative ideas in terms of how to protect our critical infrastructure. it will allow them to disclose it to the government without fear of it being discovered by competitors or terrorists. We have to remind ourselves that we discovered when we went into the caves in Afghanistan that al Qaeda groups had copies of GAO reports and other government information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. While we work to protect our Nations assets in this war against terrorism. we also need to make sure we are not arming terrorists. The previous speaker spoke about how they worked on this in the early 1970s. I would submit the world has changed. There was a challenge from the other side saying there were no instances where information was not shared. Just last year it was discovered that the widely used implementations of the simple network management protocol. a fundamental element of the Internet. contained vulnerabilities that could expose the Internets infrastructure to attack. Many companies were reluctant to give the government information about these vulnerabilities. which were not yet mentioned in the general press. for fear that the vulnerability information would be forced to be disclosed once it was in the governments hands and this could create substantial risk to their customers and to the Internet and the U.S. economy. I might also add the Department of Energy for years has asked that electric utility industries provide it with a list of critical facilities. They have consistently refused because they do not want to create a target list that could be released under the Freedom of Information Act. I suspect there are many. many others. We need to remember that the critical infrastructure of the United States is largely owned and operated by the private sector. 90 percent operated by the private sector. Understanding the vulnerabilities. experiencing the vulnerabilities. finding. if you will. antidotes to these vulnerabilities. is something that the private sector has much more experience in than the public sector. We need that information at the Federal level if we are to protect our critical infrastructure. This very narrowly tailored amendment. I might add. went through the Senate committee on a bipartisan unanimous vote. There were no concerns over there. because it is narrowly tailored. This is essential if we are going to get companies to be able to volunteer to the government solutions that can help us protect our critical infrastructure. There is precedent for this. I heard arguments that this is unprecedented. If you take a look at the successful Y2K Act. Information Readiness Disclosure Act. it provided a limited FOIA exemption and civil litigation protection for shared information. We narrowly tailor these so we do not take away what FOIA offers the general publtc. very important protections. But if we do not allow it in these narrow instances. I am afraid we are not going to have the tools to fight terrorism. This legislation. I think. helps the private sector. including the ISOs. to move forward without fear from the government. It is essential. Mr. Chairman. I oppose this amendment.