Closing the books: open government after 9/11 - information collected from private industry could be kept secret from public under spcial privilege of Department of Homeland Security

Reason, Oct, 2002 by Jeffrey Benner

Another widespread concern is that, despite the fact that infrastructure protection efforts have until now focused on cybercrime, the new department's mission will cover physical assets as well. This would mean the department would be taking in, and hiding, information about facilities--dams, oil refineries, chemical factories, power plants--that pose a potential health hazard to the public.

Sean Molton--an analyst at OMBWatch, a nonprofit government watchdog named after the Office of Management and Budget--worries that too much secrecy about these industries could pose a threat to the public just as serious as the threat from terrorism. Molton is concerned, for example, that risk assessments for hazardous facilities, which are currently open to the public through the Environmental Protection Agency, might no longer be available if they are filed with Homeland Security. A related concern is that industry will abuse the FOIA exemption to hide safety threats by voluntarily reporting potential hazards at their facilities to Homeland Security before regulators discover them.

"There is a security risk for some information, and an evaluation of it is justified," says Molton. "But chemical facilities, power plants, power lines, gas mains, and pipelines represent their own risks in everyday use." Denying access to information about these facilities ignores that risk, he says.

President Bush and his cabinet, who showed a predilection for secrecy even with the nation at peace, have drawn an even tighter curtain around government since the terrorist attack. Since the government is charged with protecting the country from an ongoing threat of unknowable scope, this response appeals to our instincts and is understandable. But that doesn't make it wise, as critics of the "security through secrecy" approach have been quick to point out.

In a July letter to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), chairman of the committee marking up the Senate's homeland security bill, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the committee to reject an amendment adding a FOIA exemption, predicting that it "could have a devastating effect on the public's right to know, muzzle whistleblowers, and undermine national security."

The amendment passed unanimously.

Jeffrey Benner (jeffbenner@earthlink.net) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.