Freedom of Information

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Kentucky Reconsiders Homeland Security Exemption for Open Records Law

After unsuccessfully pushing a bill to create a homeland security exemption to Kentucky's Open Records Act, Democratic Representative Mike Weaver intends to re-propose the bill after the state's homeland security director requested such a provision.

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Bill to Extend Patriot Act Is Quietly Introduced

Secrecy News reported the next salvo in the debate about the Patriot Act: On May 21, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) [and others] introduced a bill to make the Patriot Act permanent. S. 2476 would repeal sunset provisions of the most controversial sections of the Patriot Act, which are set to expire in 2005. Speaking of Secrecy News, its editor, Steve Aftergood, was recently awarded a prize from the Playboy Foundation and the Creative Coalition for defending the first amendment with his unrelenting and undernoticed efforts to combat government secrecy.

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Critical Infrastructure Information Rule Needs Additional Improvements

OMB Watch filed additional comments to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recommending additional improvements in the interim final rule for Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) program. The interim final CII rule still requires significant revisions to create an efficient program that ensures the protection of citizens and infrastructure, does not interfere with the operations of other agencies, and prevents misuse by corporations.

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One Week Remains for Comments on Critical Infrastructure Information Rule

Only a single week remains to submit comments to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the highly controversial Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) rule. DHS published an interim final rule in the Federal Register Feb. 20 with a 90-day public comment period that ends May 20. Even though the agency continues to accept comments on the CII program, the rule went into effect upon publication. DHS has reported to Congress that it has already received several submissions for the CII program.

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Secret ACLU, NYCLU Lawsuit Tests Constitutionality of Patriot Act

While Congress remains reluctant to extend provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire in 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and New York Civil Liberties Union revealed that they secretly filed a lawsuit last month challenging the constitutionality of a section of the Patriot Act that gives the government the authority to use "National Security Letters" to subpoena business records without judicial oversight.

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As U.S. Embraces Secrecy, Other Countries Embrace Openness

Countries around the world are embracing laws promoting openness in government, according to an updated global survey for freedominfo.org, a web site operated by the National Security Archive and other openness advocates. Over 50 countries have adopted freedom-of-information laws similar to the United States' Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which guarantees the public's right to access documents held by most of the executive branch. More than half of these governments passed these laws within the last decade.

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DHS Receives Few CII Submissions

Only two companies and two associations have submitted information to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will be kept secret under the Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) program, according to an April 21 testimony. At the time of the testimony, DHS had been operating the program for two months.

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Government Web Secrecy Doesn't Provide Security

A recent report by the RAND Corporation reveals that information scrubbed from government websites after the Sept. 11 attacks were unnecessary and unproductive in protecting against terrorism. Many government agencies have removed extensive amounts of information from their websites on the remote chance it could be misused by terrorists. The RAND report establishes that the agencies' approach of viewing information only as a threat and not considering the benefits is erroneous.

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Alabama Considers FOIA Exemption for Security

The Alabama legislature recently introduced Senate Bill 205, which would exempt security information from public disclosure currently mandated under four laws. Alabama State Sen. Steve French (R-Birmingham) sponsored the bill.

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DOJ Explains CII's Impact on FOIA

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released a memo explaining the impacts of a new Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) rule on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) throughout the federal government. The rule DOJ refers to was an interim final rule published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which restricts public disclosure and government action on voluntarily submitted information about infrastructure vulnerabilities and problems.

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