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Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator

President Bush waited till the waning moments of 2007, on New Year's Eve, to sign the Open Government Act of 2007. The changes won't go into effect for a year, but that hasn't stopped media outlets across the country from hailing the act as a significant improvement to the 1966 Freedom of Information Act.

After nearly eight years of a secretive Bush administration, and the federal government's near-paranoid quest to control the flow of information, we believe the amendment to the Freedom of Information Act is an important step toward recognizing that the public's business is best done in public.

In the Senate, the bill was pushed by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, who worked with House members to iron out differences in competing proposals, and then to secure the president's signature. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who negotiated some adjustments in the original bill, also lent his influence to the effort.

The newly signed law sets a 20-day deadline for federal agencies to respond to requests for government records. If the agency involved fails to comply, it could be required to pay the search and copying costs associated with the request. It also creates a system for tracking the status of requests, and an ombudsman to take and mediate complaints when disputes arise.

The law broadens the definition of a legitimate "media requester," who would be exempt from fees, and makes it easier to get access to documents of government contractors. For the first time, the act requires agencies to explain the reason for redactions when portions of documents released by agencies have been edited.

Critics, including the Federation of American Scientists, have pointed out that the Open Government Act of 2007 includes no source of cash to fund the new requirements and that it leaves intact the federal government's ability to withhold information in cases it says involve national security or proprietary information regarding a business or individual.

It also does nothing to reverse an October 2001 directive from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft instructing federal agencies to withhold information in cases where there is even a potential security interest at stake.

In a statement to the Senate last year, Kyl described the proposed Open Government Act as a synthesis of consultations with various federal agencies and others, including the media, and said the bill "strikes the right balance with regard to FOIA — a bill that will make FOIA work more smoothly and efficiently."

Kyl initially objected to langauge in the bill describing who would be considered a member of the media. We, along with many others interested in press freedoms, criticized his efforts to narrow the language because proposed alterations ignored changes in how news and information are disseminated.

The legislation now includes online and free-print publications as well as freelance journalists in the definition of a media requester, an important broadening of the fee- exemption provisions of the original act.

"This language should guarantee news-media status for new electronic formats and for anyone who would logically be considered a journalist, even when that journalist's method of news distribution takes on new means and forms," Kyl told the U.S. Senate. He was unavailable for comment this week.

But in exchange for his support, Kyl also insisted on weakening or removing provisions that would have imposed stiffer sanctions on agencies that did not comply with the deadline.

Kyl told his colleagues that the provisions would have put federal agencies in the position of releasing information even when there are legitimate reasons for it to be withheld.

We believe the act includes important and necessary improvements, but only time will tell if the federal government, and the politicians and bureaucrats who run it, are truly committed to public disclosure.

We believe the federal government and its employees should never forget that they are answerable to the public, and to the extent that those aims are accomplished in this updating of the Freedom of Information act, we also welcome this new legislation.