[Infowarrior] - Proposed Bill Would Exempt Customs And Border Protection From FOIA Compliance

[Richard Forno]

Proposed Bill Would Exempt Customs And Border Protection From FOIA Compliance

To build a wall, you've got to break a few laws. That's the message being sent by a new bill, which helps pave the way for the eventual construction of a border wall by exempting the CBP and US Border Patrol from a large number of federal laws.

H.R. 3548 [PDF] would give the CBP a free pass to ignore all sorts of federal restrictions when engaging in its enforcement activities. All the things citizens can't legally do on federal land, the CBP and Border Patrol would be allowed to. This would keep the federal government from getting in its own way in the event wall construction actually takes place, as well as keep CBP agents from worrying about polluting, killing endangered species, or violating sacred grave sites while pursuing undocumented aliens.

The authority is so broad that CBP and its officers are given exemptions from the requirements of 36 different federal laws, including but not limited to, the National Environment Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Fish and Wildlife Act, the Eagle Protection Act, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, AND "Subchapter 5, and chapter 7 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the 'Administrative Procedure Act')."

The last one listed is why the American Society of News Editors is commenting on the bill. The Administrative Procedure Act covers federal FOIA law. If this goes through unaltered, it could easily be read to exempt the CBP and Border Patrol from responding to open records requests pertaining to their activities... pretty much everything these entities do. The bill covers everything from tactical infrastructure efforts to detainments to patrol efforts.

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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171004/11272438344/proposed-bill-would-exempt-customs-border-protection-foia-compliance.shtml