Kerry supports bill giving BLOGGERS new and stronger powers to pursue FOIA

[blm]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 16, 2007
Kerry Announces Support for Strengthened Freedom of Information Act

In Speech to New England Newspaper Association, Kerry Endorses Bill Giving Bloggers New Powers to Pursue FOIA

WASHINGTON, DC - Senator John Kerry today announced his support for a legislative initiative designed to assist the freedom of the press. The bill would make the federal Freedom of Information Act more powerful, primarily by making it harder for the Administration to deny or delay the release of information. It does that by requiring that an agency respond to FOIA requests within 20 business days and establishes a publicly available tracking system for requests. In addition, the legislation would help bloggers, because it would prevent agencies from denying them a waiver on fees just because they are independent or not affiliated with any institutional news organization. In the past, the need to pay fees for FOIA requests discouraged many bloggers or independent journalists from pursuing FOIA requests.

"There is no greater or more important watchdog today than our free press and we should all do everything we can to strengthen the ability of dedicated reporters to do their job," Kerry said today. "Recent news reports on Walter Reed, the Big Dig, or even the US Attorney firings have reminded us just how important the press's oversight is to our system of governance. In cases like those, exposure meant the difference between life and death. I am proud to sponsor this bill and look forward to voting on it when it comes before the full Senate."

[sutz12]

1. K & R

This is right up there with net neutrality as an issue for the 21st Century.

:kick:

[Kurovski]

2. Nice. K&R.(nt)

[TayTay]

3. Great idea.

It's encouraging to see that this has Republican support as well. (Yeah, believe it or not John Cornyn of Texas is a co-sponsor and actually this was his bill in the last Congress. He is re-filing it with Sen. Leahy. The text of S.849 should be available here sometime in the next week: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c110bills.html

FOIA is of no use to anyone if it costs too much to use. Most bloggers are going to start to have trouble if they have to comply with these costs:

What is the cost for getting records under the FOIA?

The FOIA permits agencies to charge fees to FOIA requesters. For noncommercial requesters, an agency may charge only for the actual cost of searching for records and the cost of making copies. Search fees usually range from about $15 to $40 per hour, depending upon the salary levels of the personnel needed for the search. The charge for copying documents can be as little as 10 cents per page at some agencies, but may be considerably more at other agencies.

For noncommercial requests, agencies will not charge for the first two hours of search time or for the first 100 pages of document copying. Agencies also will not charge if the total cost is minimal. An agency should notify you before proceeding with a request that will involve large fees, unless your request letter already states your willingness to pay fees as large as that amount. If fees are charged, you may request a waiver of those fees if you can show that the records, when disclosed to you, will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of the operations or activities of the government.

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/fed_prog/foia/foia.htm#cost

This could add up to a lot of money. That is one effective way to limit the sunshine laws, and making them too expensive to use is awful.

[blm]

5. Y'know, if Kerry had bloggers helping him during IranContra and BCCI, Bush1 and his cronies

would have been in jail by 1992, not running for re-election.

[TayTay]

9. Think about Halliburton for a second and read this

criticism from 11/19/02 by Sen. Kerry of the Homeland Security Act provisons:

One of the most troubling provisions in this legislation deals with protecting critical infrastructure information that is voluntarily submitted to the Department, a worthy goal and one that I strongly support. After all, companies will be unwilling to turn over information about possible vulnerabilities if doing so would make them subject to public disclosure or regulatory actions. To encourage companies to provide this valuable information to the Department, the legislation would exempt the information from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The reason for my concern, is that the definition of information is so broad that it could include any information that a company turns over to Department of Homeland Security. What this means is that information that is currently available to the public would be barred from release if it is labeled by the company as critical infrastructure. One can easily imagine a company turning over incriminating documents to the Government so that it would not be accessible by anyone else. I am discouraged by inclusion of this provision, because earlier in this debate we developed a compromise that more narrowly defined what information could be exempt from FOIA, one that protected critical infrastructure information without opening up a loophole for companies to avoid Government regulation and public disclosure.

The was one of the last pieces of legislation enacted in 2002 and there was no time to amend this bill before the even more Republicans 108th Congress took over. Someone has to watch the Republicans all the time, lest they slip stuff like this, or the right to fire US Attorneys and replace them without Senate confirmation, into must-pass bills. Sigh!

[Democrafty]

10. Good eye, Tay! n/t

[terip64]

4. Good for Kerry. Forward thinking. What a concept! n/t

[AnnInLa]

6. Wow.....this is hugh!!11

Just imagine what TPM could do with FOIA access! TPM had a great write-up in the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blogs17mar17,0,2952916.story?page=1&coll=la-home-nation

Blogs can top the presses
By Terry McDermott, Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2007



New York — IN a third-floor Flower District walkup with bare wooden floors, plain white walls and an excitable toy poodle named Simon, six guys dressed mainly in T-shirts and jeans sit all day in front of computer screens at desks arranged around the oblong room's perimeter, pecking away at their keyboards and, bit by bit, at the media establishment.

snip

n December, Josh Marshall, who owns and runs TPM , posted a short item linking to a news report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the firing of the U.S. attorney for that state. Marshall later followed up, adding that several U.S. attorneys were apparently being replaced and asked his 100,000 or so daily readers to write in if they knew anything about U.S. attorneys being fired in their areas.

For the two months that followed, Talking Points Memo and one of its sister sites, TPM Muckraker, accumulated evidence from around the country on who the axed prosecutors were, and why politics might be behind the firings. The cause was taken up among Democrats in Congress. One senior Justice Department official has resigned, and Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales is now in the media crosshairs.

This isn't the first time Marshall and Talking Points have led coverage on national issues. In 2002, the site was the first to devote more than just passing mention to then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's claim that the country would have been better off had the segregationist 1948 presidential campaign of Sen. Strom Thurmond succeeded. The subsequent furor cost Lott his leadership position.

Similarly, the TPM sites were leaders in chronicling the various scandals associated with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

more at link above

[MLFerrell]

7. It just struck me...

Measures such as this are the BEST way to bring down the MSM, especially Faux. Bloggers have consistently demonstrated that THEY, not the MSM are the ones with the ambition, fortitude, and journalistic integrity to serve as the guardians of public interest. If they have equal access to FOIA requests and the documents so attained, expect the MSM to crumble within ten years, fifteen tops.

[bonito]

8. YES!

:kick: