Cornyn-Leahy OPEN Government Act improves FOIA access, recognizes bloggers as media sources
Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Leahy (D-VT) have introduced bipartisan legislation that would bolster public access to government information, and for the first time recognize bloggers as legitimate representatives of the media. Called the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2005 (OPEN Government Act), the bill is designed to promote openness in government.
The bill is being praised on both sides of aisle (supporting excerpts below) as much-needed legislation to update open records access to bring agencies into compliance with the statutory 20-day response times and broaden legitimate media access requests to include internet journalists, or bloggers. It also seeks to establish a hotline and internet tracking ability of the status of such requests.
Continued below.
Sen. Leahy's floor remarks are
here:
excerpt:
The OPEN Government Act reaffirms the fundamental premise of FOIA: government information belongs to all Americans and should be subject to a presumption in favor of disclosure. James Madison said that "a popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both." His caution rings just as true today. The public's right to know what its government is doing promotes accountability, imbues trust and contributes to our system of checks and balances.
Below are the highlights of the bill, from Sen. Cornyn's site:
The OPEN Government Act contains more than a dozen substantive provisions, designed to achieve the following four objectives:
1. Strengthen FOIA and close loopholes
2. Help FOIA requestors obtain timely responses to their requests
3. Ensure that agencies have strong incentives to act on FOIA requests in a timely manner
4. Provide FOIA officials with all of the tools they need to ensure that our government remains open and accessible
STRENGTHEN FOIA AND CLOSE LOOPHOLES
- Ensure that FOIA applies when agency recordkeeping functions are outsourced
- Establish a new open government impact statement, by requiring that any future Congressional attempt to create a new FOIA exemption be expressly stated within the text of the legislation
- Impose annual reporting requirement on usage of the DHS disclosure exemption for critical infrastructure information
- Protect access to FOIA fee waivers for legitimate journalists, regardless of institutional association including bloggers and other Internet-based journalists
- Provide reliable reporting of FOIA performance, by requiring agencies to distinguish between first person requests for personal information and other kinds of requests
HELP FOIA REQUESTORS OBTAIN TIMELY RESPONSES
- Establish FOIA hotline services, either by telephone or on the Internet, to enable requestors to track the status of their requests
- Create a new FOIA ombudsman, located at the Administrative Conference of the United States, to review agency FOIA compliance and provide alternatives to litigation
- Authorize reasonable recovery of attorney fees when litigation is inevitable
ENSURE THAT AGENCIES HAVE STRONG INCENTIVES TO ACT ON FOIA REQUESTS IN TIMELY FASHION
- Restore meaningful deadlines for agency action by ensuring that the 20-day statutory clock runs immediately upon the receipt of the request
- Impose real consequences on federal agencies for missing statutory deadlines
- Enhance authority of the Office of Special Counsel to take disciplinary action against government officials who arbitrarily and capriciously deny disclosure
- Strengthen reporting requirements on FOIA compliance to identify agencies plagued by excessive delay, and to identify excessive delays in fee status determinations
PROVIDE FOIA OFFICIALS WITH THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO ENSURE THAT OUR GOVERNMENT REMAINS OPEN AND ACCESSIBLE
- Improve personnel policies for FOIA officials to enhance agency FOIA performance
- Examine the need for FOIA awareness training for federal employees
- Determine appropriate funding levels needed to ensure agency FOIA compliance
This bill is being praised by organizations on the left and the right:
ACLU Lauds Introduction of Cornyn-Leahy 'OPEN Government Act,' Much-Needed Measure Would Increase Transparency, Access to Records
"Senator Cornyn and the ACLU do not often agree, but, as his bill shows, a commitment to open government transcends political ideologies," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Office. "This much-needed bill will help buck the growing trend of hiding the actions of the government from public scrutiny. Secrecy, not openness, all too often seems to be the dominant trend of agencies in recent times."
American Library Association: Endorsement letter
The American Library Association has long supported open access to government information as a key component of informed public participation in decision-making. We commend your commitment to amending the Freedom of Information Act in order to strengthen that access. We look forward to working with you to ensure passage of this legislation.
Heritage Foundation: Commentary
Before his 2002 election as the junior senator from Texas, Cornyn, a conservative Republican, compiled an enviable reputation as a friend of the people's right to know what their government is up to while serving as the Lone Star State's attorney general. Now Cornyn hopes to bring a new gust of the same fresh air to Washington via his proposed Open Government Act of 2005.
His reforms are badly needed. A 2003 survey by the National Security Archive found a system "in extreme disarray." It concluded that "agency contact information on the Web was often inaccurate; response times largely failed to meet the statutory standard; only a few agencies performed thorough searches, including e-mail and meeting notes; and the lack of central accountability at the agencies resulted in lost requests and inability to track progress."
Full list of supportive or endorsing organizations, including EPIC, Center for Democracy and Technology, Federation of American Scientists/Project on Government Secrecy and others, is here.