Senate Moves to Strengthen FOI Act

[maddezmom]

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
29 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - The Senate took steps Friday to ensure that Congress clearly explains future efforts to restrict the public's access to government documents.

Approved by a voice vote, the Senate bill requires that future legislation containing new exemptions to what records are open for public scrutiny under Freedom of Information Act be "stated explicitly within the text of the bill."

The measure was promoted by Sens. Jon Cornyn, R-Texas, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who have sought to protect and strengthen the act, passed in 1966, in a post-9/11 era when security concerns tend to override the public's right to know. The legislation must still be taken up by the House.

~snip~

Leahy said that FOIA contains a number of appropriate exemptions for national security, law enforcement, confidential business information and personal privacy. But he said bills increasingly include statutory exemptions, or ambiguous language that the courts might interpret as exemptions.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050624/ap_on_go_co/congress_foia_1

[mom cat]

1. Score one for the good guys! Will dimson sign it?

[bemildred]

2. There are NO "appropriate" exemptions.

100% of the public's business should be conducted in the full light of day. This "trust us, we know best" crap has to go.

[merwin]

3. There are legitimate national security issues for some of the documents.

[drduffy]

4. fuck national 'security' issues

make every god damned thing open. I am tired of others determining what I can know about the world I have to live in. Secrecy is the one of the ultimate evils that perpetuates the crap in the world.

[tnlefty]

5. And it seems that more and more items of interest fall into the

category of "national security", but are actually more accurately described as what government doesn't want you to know right now.

[Trillo]

6. While government: simultaneously appears to grant to private interests

the legal right to collect unlimited information on citizens, placing that data in vast, insecure databases; grants ownership of that data to a variety private interests; discloses to us that criminals routinely accesses that data in a variety of ways; and provides no compensatory damages to the individuals whose data has been compromised by the negligence of its "new owners."

The government has insured near "complete transparency" of most everything regular folk do, but a government of, by, and for the people should be different and not completely transparent!?

[bemildred]

9. Indeed. Fuck "National Security" and all that it stands for.

:applause::applause:

[merwin]

10. My guess on these national security issues are things like the names of

our undercover operatives, codes for remote denation explosives, etc, etc. There's no reason in hell the public needs to see that info.

[Pirate Smile]

7. Senate Moves to Strengthen FOI Act

WASHINGTON -- The Senate took steps Friday to ensure that Congress clearly explains future efforts to restrict the public's access to government documents.

Approved by a voice vote, the Senate bill requires that future legislation containing new exemptions to what records are open for public scrutiny under Freedom of Information Act be "stated explicitly within the text of the bill."

The measure was promoted by Sens. Jon Cornyn, R-Texas, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who have sought to protect and strengthen the act, passed in 1966, in a post-9/11 era when security concerns tend to override the public's right to know. The legislation must still be taken up by the House.

"If records can be open, they should be open," Cornyn said. "If good reason exists to keep something closed, it is the government that should bear the burden (of proving that), not the other way around."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401230.html

[Independent_Liberal]

8. This is good...

The Act needs to be strengthened.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

11. Geez we don't need to know the Plame Name?

I mean for God's sake, if no one is gonna do the time for Valerie Plame's outing,(plus all her WMD contacts), why should we pretend to protect anyone?

Those who serve our country in non public ways, thank you, and CYA.