[Infowarrior] - OpEd: Going after the Freedom of Information Act is a slippery slope

[Richard Forno]

Bob Richter: Going after the Freedom of Information Act is a slippery slope

Web Posted: 07/09/2006 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA070906.03B.richter.ceff8d
.html

The Express-News reported Friday that St. Mary's University's Center for
Terrorism Law has received a $1 million Defense Department grant "to limit
the scope of the Freedom of Information Act."

Journalists get slippery-slope worries when we hear the Pentagon wants to
alter a law that allows the sun to shine on what politicians and government
officials do behind closed doors.

As a federal judge in Michigan (Damon J. Keith) said a couple years ago:
"Democracies die behind closed doors."

I compare the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, with closing the Chicken
Ranch ("The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"). Once it was proposed, who
could vote against it?

But, truth be known, the law was under attack from Day 1. President Lyndon
B. Johnson, who signed it on July 4, 1966, worried then that FOIA opened the
door too wide, the Associated Press reported last week, citing new
information.

Forty years and another Texas president later, advocates for a free and
free-wielding press worry about tinkering with open government, even in the
name of national security.

The Bush administration has had a schizophrenic relationship with the media.
While President Bush is well-liked for the most part by the people who
follow him and write or talk about him daily, White House media strategy has
varied wildly:

>From staying on message, but not answering specific questions (as a
colleague analogizes, "You ask them the score of the Astros game; they give
you the weather report"); to Bush having private, off-the-record visits with
small groups of journalists to curry favor; to the Bush's attorney general
threatening to prosecute journalists for treason.

So when St. Mary's is asked by the Pentagon ‹ headed by Don Rumsfeld, who
gets rotten press ‹ to tighten FOIA, thoughtful people get suspicious, even
if they're not journalists or don't fully appreciate the importance of press
freedom.

Randy Sanders, the retired editor of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and
president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, criticized the
St. Mary's project.

"It seems like we're losing all our freedoms in the name of homeland
security," he said. "I just wonder where the real threat is. We're not going
to keep terrorists from finding out about power plants and water supplies by
tightening the Freedom of Information Act."

Jeffrey Andicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law, is an expert in
national security and human rights law, a former legal adviser to the Green
Berets, and advises the federal government on the Navy prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.

He told me the grant requires his team to study the various state freedom of
information laws, federal and states, with a goal of developing a model
statute by Aug. 1, 2007, that can be presented to federal and state
governments. He said the research will be "strictly from a legal
perspective, not political."

"The mission is to balance the need for security with civil liberties,"
Andicott said, explaining the research will be open, that a "bench book"
will be compiled, and that there will be a conference to discuss the
findings.

"We'd love to invite the media to participate," he added.

Journalists here and elsewhere should hold his feet to the fire on that
promise.

At the end, whatever the center recommends will be subject to legislative
approval.

The FOIA was passed for good reason. After two years of working for a state
politician, I know firsthand that the pols hate it because it gives
reporters and constituents a slim ray of sunshine to see how politicians
operate behind closed doors.

In the current "attack the media" climate in Washington, many pols and many
Americans are saying, "To hell with the press." It's a popular refrain, but
here's a better one, from a better thinker than anyone in Washington today,
Thomas Jefferson, who was often crucified in the press:

"If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers
without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."

Bob Richter is Express-News public editor. His opinions are his own. Contact
him at (210) 250-3264 or brichter at express-news.net or visit his blog at
MySA.com, keyword: publiceditor.