Pacific Progressive

FOIA Eyes Only: How Buried Statutes Are Keeping Information Secret

by Jennifer LaFleur ProPublica

Anyone can request information from U.S. officials under the Freedom of Information Act, a law designed to allow people to know what their government is up to.

When a government agency withholds information from a requester, it typically must invoke one of nine FOIA exemptions that cover everything from national security to personal privacy [1]. But among that list is an exemption—known as b(3) for its section in the FOI Act—that allows an agency to apply other statutes when denying information requests.

Some of those statutes allow exemptions that seem quite reasonable, for example to protect medical or financial information. Many others are more puzzling.

Citing the Watermelon Research and Promotion Act [2], for example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has withheld lists of watermelon growers.

Under another law, information about the location of “significant” caves has been withheld [3] by USDA and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Until now, no one has known just how extensively these other laws were used across the federal government. New data compiled by the Sunshine in Government Initiative [14], a coalition of journalism and transparency groups, shows that agencies have applied more than 240 other laws in withholding information over the last decade.

And you can see them for yourself: We’ve created an interactive database [7] of all the exemptions used in 2008-2009 and how they were used.

“FOIA is supposed to be a disclosure act, and these b(3)s make it more of a withholding act,” said Patrice McDermott, director of another transparency group, openthegovernment.org [15]. “They can have a detrimental effect to know what government’s doing and hold it accountable.”

For years such provisions could be easily slipped into legislation without notice. But changes to FOIA that went into effect in 2009 require that proposed legislation must specifically say that it will create a new b(3) exemption. As part of their annual FOIA reports, agencies are now required to disclose not only which exemptions they used but also how many times each was invoked.

Financial reforms passed last year by Congress included an exemption [16] to withhold from the public information concerning “surveillance, risk assessments or other regulator and oversight activities.”

The exemption became law, but it was later rescinded after it came under fire by transparency groups.

Our analysis also found that the most-often-invoked exemption is a law protecting information on tax returns filed with the IRS. From 2008 to 2009, federal agencies applied this statute nearly 3,000 times in FOIA denials.

The agency that invoked the most b(3) exemptions was the Department of Veteran Affairs [17], which from 2008 to 2009 received nearly 170,000 FOIA requests and invoked b(3)s more than 8,000 times—almost always for information relating to Veteran medical benefits or records.

The b(3) exemption used most widely—20 agencies applied it—was a law protecting losing contract bids [2].

Federal agencies are required to file annual reports about their FOIA [18] activities, such as the number of requests they received, how many they denied and why they denied them. Agencies also must list which b(3) exemptions it used over the past year. Since 2008, reports must include the number of times each exemption was invoked.

“These should be debated and subject to scrutiny,” said McDermott, whose organization, openthegovernment.org, pushed for the disclosure requirement.

There may be legitimate reasons to withhold certain information, she said. “But blowing holes in the Freedom of Information Act is not the way to deal with it.”

View our interactive database [7] of all the exemptions used in 2008-2009 and how they were used.

The Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act: A Year Later, the False Attacks Continue

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Tony Carrk

Download this issue brief (pdf)

Conservatives often push myths and misconceptions of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 as a way to increase opposition. During the debate in Congress in the run-up to passage of the new health reform law, conservatives pushed wild accusations that the law would be a “government takeover” and establish “death panels,” claims that were labeled “the lie of the year.” Now, a year after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, inaccurate claims and mistruths against the law continue.

Conservatives continue to make false claims against the law as a way to repeal it, undermine consumer protections, and put insurance companies back in charge of our health system. The reason these false statements endure is clear: There are those who would rather take us back to the way our health system was before when insurance companies were in charge rather than move forward and protect our care.

This issue brief is a response to recent false attacks conservatives have made against the law. As we will demonstrate, the Affordable Care Act will create jobs, lower health care costs for families, help small businesses provide health insurance to their employees while maintaining the private sector’s key role in health insurance, and ensure we provide quality health care to all Americans at a lower cost to them and American taxpayers.

Infrastructure Matters: New Bill Invests in Our Safety and Our Economy

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Donna Cooper 

It may be unseemly to start gleaning lessons from Japan’s tragedy. But the American political elite has a short attention span. The faster we focus on what we can learn from the tragedy, the more likely it is that elected officials will act. The resilience of this extraordinary island nation in the face of three simultaneous catastrophes—an epic earthquake, massive tidal wave, and the prospect of a nuclear meltdown—is admirable. But we should also note their wisdom in ensuring they have infrastructure capable of resisting horrific natural disasters.

Consider that the Japanese earthquake was 100 times stronger than the 7.0 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 Haitians in January 2010. Far fewer Japanese citizens will perish from the natural disaster directly, not simply because it hit a rural area. Tens of thousands of lives were spared because the Japanese invest heavily in their nation’s infrastructure.

This contrast between Japan and Haiti serves as a poignant backdrop for a national debate on the merits of Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s (R-TX) BUILD Act. This bill, introduced yesterday, establishes a national infrastructure bank to independently evaluate and issue federal loans and loan guarantees for the most essential large-scale infrastructure projects across the nation.

Drilling Down on Fracking Concerns: The Potential and Peril of Hydraulic Fracturing to Drill for Natural Gas

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Tom Kenworthy and Daniel J. Weiss with Lisbeth Kaufman and Christina C. DiPasquale 

Download this brief (pdf)

A widely used oil-and-gas drilling technique, hydraulic fracturing, is spreading rapidly to develop vast reserves of natural gas trapped in deep underground shale formations. Hydraulic fracking, however, is coming under more rigorous oversight by the press and state and federal agencies because of its contribution to air and water pollution. This attention is welcome, both to ensure that health and safety will be protected if gas is to be more widely used as a cleaner replacement for coal in electric plants and foreign oil as a transportation fuel. We must also more accurately measure carbon dioxide and other pollution from the combustion of gas compared to coal and oil.

This issue brief explores the ecological and economic issues of “fracking,” as it is increasingly coming to be known in the areas of the country where natural gas is tapped due to the technology. Cutting to the chase, our conclusion is this—hydraulic fracturing needs to be done carefully and be well-monitored, with particular attention paid to the full scope of carbon dioxide released into our atmosphere to gauge accurately the consequences of global warming due to the expanded use of natural gas.

What is fracking and what does it do and cause?

Not so long ago, the subject of hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells to stimulate production from deep rock formations was largely the province of petroleum engineers, drilling companies, and a small number of environmental activists.

How the So-Called Guardians of Free Speech Are Silencing the Messenger

by: John Pilger, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

As the United States and Britain look for an excuse to invade another oil-rich Arab country, the hypocrisy is familiar. Colonel Gaddafi is "delusional" and "blood-drenched" while the authors of an invasion that killed a million Iraqis, who have kidnapped and tortured in our name, are entirely sane, never blood-drenched and once again the arbiters of "stability."

But something has changed. Reality is no longer what the powerful say it is. Of all the spectacular revolts across the world, the most exciting is the insurrection of knowledge sparked by WikiLeaks. This is not a new idea. In 1792, the revolutionary Tom Paine warned his readers in England that their government believed that "people must be hoodwinked and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other." Paine's "The Rights of Man" was considered such a threat to elite control that a secret grand jury was ordered to charge him with "a dangerous and treasonable conspiracy." Wisely, he sought refuge in France.

The ordeal and courage of Paine is cited by the Sydney Peace Foundation in its award of Australia's human rights gold medal to Julian Assange. Like Paine, Assange is a maverick who serves no system and is threatened by a secret grand jury, a malicious device long abandoned in England, but not in the United States. If extradited to the US, he is likely to disappear into the Kafkaesque world that produced the Guantanamo Bay nightmare and now accuses Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks' alleged whistleblower, of a capital crime.

'Playing the Granny Card’s Gotta End' - Douglas Holtz-Eakin On Medicare And Politics

By Mary Agnes Carey and Marilyn Werber Serafini

KHN Staff Writers

To Douglas Holtz-Eakin, one thing is clear: Widening deficits mean that sooner or later both parties will have to take on the politically sacrosanct Medicare program for the elderly and disabled.

"We’re all going to cut Medicare," he said in an interview this week with KHN. "Playing the Granny card’s gotta end. The question is how to do it." 

Holtz-Eakin, former senior member of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, adviser to President George W. Bush and director of the Congressional Budget Office, now is building a conservative think tank, the American Action Forum.

He’s also offering guidance to 2012 prospective GOP presidential candidates and attacking the health care law as unsustainable. Here are edited excerpts from the interview:

 

What are your concerns about entitlement programs? 

I understand the traditional political arithmetic that says this is the third rail, you can’t do it. But I think that argument has to be reversed. You can’t afford not to fix it. At the heart of this is a spending problem, and at the heart of the spending is entitlements.

The True Power Behind the Wisconsin Protests

by: David D. Leeper, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Protesters continue their weeks-long stand against an unprecedented attack on workers' rights. (Photo: drwMrk / Flickr)

The protests in Wisconsin have focused on whether the state of Wisconsin will take away the right of government workers to bargain collectively. However, government does not "give" workers the right to strike, nor the right to bargain collectively. That right is inherent in every human being's right to decide what he or she will, or will not, do. No power short of death can take away this inherent right. Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican Legislature may be able to rescind the rules that govern strikes and collective bargaining, but they cannot take away the right to strike or bargain collectively.

Workers have used strikes, walkouts, boycotts and even sabotage successfully to exert this inherent power. Our social contract is based on the consent of the governed and it does not take many to deny either an employer or the government that consent. The collective bargaining rules of the last century were developed by the government as a way to control, regulate and mitigate the power of organized working people. The rules have served us well and Wisconsin has benefited by avoiding crippling public and private strikes.

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Governor Walker destroys these collective bargaining rules at his peril, and, unfortunately, at ours. He may destroy decades of hard-earned rules, but he cannot take away the power of each individual to decide whether he or she will show up for work. North Africa has shown us even the most oppressive and brutal regimes can not take away the inherent power of individuals to take collective action that can easily paralyze any society. Social chaos will be result if Governor Walker fails to understand the lessons of the past.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States Licens

 

Why the EPA Is Important for Latino Families: Agency Regulates Harmful Pollution that Threatens Them

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Jorge Madrid, Valeri Vasquez 

Léalo en español

Download this issue brief (pdf)

All air is not equal in the United States. Low-income and minority Americans tend to live and work in areas where they are disproportionately exposed to pollution that harms their health. Latinos are a particularly vulnerable population: Two-thirds of Latino families reside in areas that do not meet the federal government’s air quality standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been a “thin green line” of defense between big polluters and public health since 1970. But that line is in danger of being erased. Conservative politicians are ignoring the desires of their home districts, and leading efforts to attack, defund, and in some cases even abolish the EPA.

GOP representatives are using the budget deficit as an excuse to go after the EPA. In a fiscal climate that forces government to cut spending they are choosing to keep subsidies for the fossil fuel industry and tax breaks for the rich, but slash measures that protect their constituents from polluted air and water.

The Last Hurdle for Corporate Capitalism: Deunionizing America

by: Basel Saleh, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

(Photo: Fibonacci Blue / Flickr)

The campaign to control private-sector union membership has been mostly successful as corporate US capitalism shifted its attention to the last hurdle to a union-free country: public-sector unions. Critical examination of the connection between money and politics is helpful to understand the explosive and sudden attacks on public-sector unions, especially teachers' unions. Public-sector workers and their unions put to shame private-sector compensation and benefits. They represent the last hurdle for the free rein of corporate capitalism over US politics. Workers in the public sector (both federal and state workers) are five times more likely to be unionized than private-sector workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about one-third of public-sector workers are represented by unions (36.2 percent). The collective bargaining agreements in the public sector are not a threat per se to the private sector, but they are a threat to the power of corporate lobbying money. What is at stake is the total control by the corporate sector over the US legislative process, especially in the general election of 2012 and afterward. Labor groups are a major funding source in federal and state elections that offset the power of corporate lobbying money. Labor campaign contributions raise the cost of doing business for corporate lobby groups since they need to overbid labor groups' donations. Therefore, if collective bargaining rights, and with that over a 100 years of socioeconomic progress by the labor movement is undone, then the US capitol will be firmly in the pockets of corporate America. The money-politics nexus explains why politicians are in a rush to rein in public-sector unions.

Up Against the Open Shop - the Hidden Story of Silicon Valley's High-Tech Workers

by: David Bacon, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

Workers at Versatronex, a factory that assembles circuit boards for large electronics companies, went on strike over sweatshop conditions and the firing of a fellow worker, in the first strike by production workers in the history of Silicon Valley. (Photos: David Bacon)

Introduction

On January 29, 1993, workers at the Versatronex plant in Sunnyvale, California, filed out of its doors for the last time. Seventeen years have passed since, but there are still electronics workers in Silicon Valley who remember the company's name. It was the first Valley plant struck by production employees and the first where a strike won recognition of their union.

Congressional Democrats Introduce Bill to Repeal Defense of Marriage Act

by: James Russell, t r u t h o u t | Report

Congressional Democrats introduced on Wednesday, March 16, legislation that repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law that bars the government from allowing same-sex couples to receive the same rights and benefits as a married man and woman.

"The time for dumping DOMA is long overdue, and rather than prolonging litigation in the courts, Congress should act to repeal this ugly law," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York), chief sponsor of the bill.

The legislation, the Respect for Marriage Act, is co-sponsored by Reps. Nadler, John Conyers (D-Michigan) and out representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island), Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and Jared Polis (D-Colorado) in the House, as well as by Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-California), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) in the Senate. The bill is seen as an acknowledgement of both the mainstreaming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights and the work of activists who are demanding full federal equality under the law. But the bill also comes on the heels of a partisan war over the law, as House Republicans prepare to hire a legal team to defend it and GOP candidates spar over the role the legislation plays in American society.

Study: Majority of Consumers Obtain News From Online Sources

by: Nadia Prupis, t r u t h o u t | Report

 

For the first time, 21st century consumers are reading the news online more than in print, according to the "State of the News Media 2011" report by the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism. Only television remains the most-used resource for news among American adults, but the gap is closing.

In fact, most sectors of the American news industry began to recover in 2010 after two difficult years - but technological advances present old and new media alike with increasingly complex challenges.

For the online news media, the question is economic sustainability. While advertising profits on the Internet surpassed spending on print ads, especially since the emergence of the iPad and other tablets, the report shows that "by far the largest share of that online ad revenue goes to non-news sources, particularly aggregators" such as Google or AOL.

"The biggest issue ahead may not be the lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments. It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own destiny," wrote the report's co-authors Tom Rosenstiel and Amy Mitchell.

NPR: The Saga Continues

by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

There’s no more scrupulous or versatile broadcast journalist than NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling. He is one of those reporters who keeps his eye on the sparrow – that is, on small details from individual lives that add up to significant issues of public policy. As he described in a special report this week how the United States Army is clarifying guidelines "that should make it easier for soldiers with traumatic brain injuries from explosions to receive the Purple Heart," it was mind-boggling to think that right wingers in Congress were at that very moment voting to eliminate the modest federal funds that make such essential and authoritative reporting available to anyone in America who cares to tune in.

 
Zwerdling’s collaborator on this report was ProPublica (the non-profit and equally independent newsroom that won the Pulitzer Prize last year for a harrowing account of deadly choices made by a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina). As a result of their reporting, the Army now intends to give special priority to reexamining the cases of soldiers who suffered battlefield concussions but who mistakenly may have been turned down for the Purple Heart, which historically has been awarded to soldiers injured by enemy action.
 
You may not think this such a big deal, but the symbolism of the announcement is potent. And it’s part of a larger, ongoing investigation conducted by Zwerdling and ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller into the military’s widespread failure to diagnose and treat traumatic brain injuries, the "signature injury" among troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as they fall to roadside bombs and other explosives.

Villages Testify to Disparity in Benefits Alaska Native Corporations Provide

by Jennifer LaFleur and Michael Grabell
ProPublica

Reporting from Chenega Bay, Napaskiak and Akiak, Alaska. When Darrell Totemoff’s dog needed an operation to fix its injured back, money was not a problem. Totemoff, an Alaska native who lives in the remote village of Chenega Bay, chartered a flight to see a specialist in Anchorage and paid $4,000 for the surgery.

Totemoff is only 45, but he’s well-off enough to have retired. He owns a Ford Explorer, two off-road vehicles and an 18-foot sports boat. He can afford it all thanks to about $65,000 a year in dividends he has received from shares in Alaska Native Corporations—native-owned businesses that by law have special access to no-bid federal contracts.

Five hundred miles away on the other side of Alaska, villagers in Napaskiak also own shares in native corporations. But dividends of only a few hundred dollars a year hardly cover the basics. The family of 76-year-old David Maxie, who is disabled, struggled for months to get social services so he can remain at home instead of in a nursing facility in far-off Anchorage.

Congress created the system of Alaska Native Corporations [1] with the promise of bringing prosperity to a scattered indigenous population long stuck in poverty. Natives were granted shares in the corporations, which eventually gained special contracting privileges from Congress. But decades later, the villages of Chenega Bay and Napaskiak testify to the broad gap in benefits that ANCs provide.

In Defense of NPR

by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Come on now: let's take a breath and put this National Public Radio (NPR) fracas into perspective.

Just as public radio struggles against yet another assault from its longtime nemesis - the right-wing machine that would thrill if our sole sources of information were Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and ads paid for by the Koch Brothers - it walks into a trap perpetrated by one of the sleaziest operatives ever to climb out of a sewer.

First, in the interest of full disclosure: While not presently committing journalism on public television, the two of us have been colleagues on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for almost 40 years (although never for NPR). We've lived through every one of the fierce and often unscrupulous efforts by the right to shut down both public television and radio. Our work has sometimes been the explicit bull's eye on the dartboard as conservative ideologues sought to extinguish the independent reporting and analysis they find so threatening to their phobic worldview.

We have come to believe, as so many others have, that only the creation of a substantial trust fund for public media will free it from the whims and biases of the politicians, including Democratic politicians (yes, after one of our documentaries tracking President Clinton's scandalous fundraising in the mid-1990's, the knives were sharpened on the other side of the aisle).