IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SERVICES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,
CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 17, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-143
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York TOM DAVIS, Virginia
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DAN BURTON, Indiana
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah
DIANE E. WATSON, California JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York DARRELL E. ISSA, California
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Columbia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SALI, Idaho
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JIM JORDAN, Ohio
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
JACKIE SPEIER, California
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
David Marin, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRIS CANNON, Utah
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky BILL SALI, Idaho
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
Tony Haywood, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on September 17, 2008............................... 1
Statement of:
Weinstein, Allen, Archivist of the United States, National
Archives and Records Administration, accompanied by
Adrienne Thomas, Deputy Archivist, National Archives and
Records Administration; Thomas Blanton, Director, National
Security Archive at George Washington University; Patrice
McDermott, Openthegovernment.org; Rick Blum, coordinator,
Sunshine in Government Initiative; and Terry Mutchler,
executive director, Pennsylvania's Office of Open Records.. 7
Blanton, Thomas.......................................... 18
Blum, Rick............................................... 39
McDermott, Patrice....................................... 30
Mutchler, Terry.......................................... 50
Weinstein, Allen......................................... 7
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Blanton, Thomas, Director, National Security Archive at
George Washington University, prepared statement of........ 21
Blum, Rick, coordinator, Sunshine in Government Initiative,
prepared statement of...................................... 41
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Missouri, prepared statement of............... 3
McDermott, Patrice, Openthegovernment.org, prepared statement
of......................................................... 32
Mutchler, Terry, executive director, Pennsylvania's Office of
Open Records, prepared statement of........................ 53
Weinstein, Allen, Archivist of the United States, National
Archives and Records Administration, prepared statement of. 9
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SERVICES
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and
National Archives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Clay and Yarmuth.
Staff present: Darryl Piggee, staff director/counsel; Jean
Gosa, clerk; Alissa Bonner and Michelle Mitchell, professional
staff members; Charisma Williams, staff assistant; Leneal
Scott, information officer; and Charles Phillips, minority
senior counsel.
Mr. Clay. The Information Policy, Census, and National
Archives Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee will come to order.
Yes, we are experiencing some technical difficulty with the
sound system, and we will try to fight through it.
Without objection, the chair and ranking minority member
will have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed by
opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member
who seeks recognition.
Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.
Let me start with the opening statement.
Today the committee will examine the structure and function
of the Office of Government Information Services [OGIS],
established by the Open Government Act of 2007. Congress passed
the Open Government Act to help citizens obtain timely
responses to FOIA requests. OGIS is charged with reviewing FOIA
policies and procedures of administrative agencies to make sure
they are in compliance with the law.
Congress placed OGIS within the National Archives and
Records Administration to serve as an impartial mediator to
resolve disputes between FOIA requestors and administrative
agencies. Prior to the act, when an agency failed to provide
information requested under FOIA, a requester was forced to sue
an agency to get the information. For average citizens who
comply, a significant percentage of the FOIA requestor
community, the cost of litigation is prohibitive.
It has been 9 months since the President signed the Open
Government Act into law, but there has been no movement on
establishing OGIS. Congress has appropriated $1 million to fund
the planning for OGIS; however, the funds will not likely be
available until 2009.
Members are concerned that delays in structuring the office
will increase the backlog on FOIA requests and undermine the
purpose of establishing OGIS.
Today's hearing will provide the U.S. Archivist with an
opportunity to share his strategic plan to implement the law
and establish OGIS. We will also hear from the open government
community about how to structure a highly functional office
that will make FOIA work more effectively.
I thank all of our witnesses for appearing today and look
forward to their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. I now yield to my friend from Kentucky, Mr.
Yarmuth. You may have up to 5 minutes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
holding this hearing. I want to thank all the witnesses for
appearing today.
I have two very personal reasons for my interest in this
hearing. One is, as someone who spent most of the last 25 years
before entering Congress in journalism, I understand how
critical FOIA is to the functioning of a free society and free
democracy, so I am very concerned that what we do here in
Congress to make sure that FOIA functions effectively in the
Federal Government is very important to me.
Second, this is Constitution Day, 221st anniversary of the
Constitution. I wear Article 1 buttons to show my respect for
not just the Constitution but specifically for the
establishment of the Congress and the idea, as expressed in the
Constitution, that the people decide the law of the land
through their representatives in Congress. The Founding Fathers
vested all legislative authority in Congress, and it seems to
me that what we have seen here is possibly another example in
which Congress' authority is being undermined by the executive
branch, not being respected by the executive branch, that the
checks and balances that the Founding Fathers contemplated are
not being respected throughout Government, and therefore I look
forward to the testimony and exploring these questions so that
the American people understand what is at stake when Government
doesn't function as the Constitution anticipated it would.
So thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing. I look forward to the testimony.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Yarmuth.
We will now take testimony from the witnesses. We are
fortunate to have several FOIA experts to offer their insight
on what OGIS should look like and how it can best achieve its
mission.
We welcome the Honorable Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the
National Archives and Records Administration. He is accompanied
by Deputy Archivist Adrienne Thomas. Welcome to you both.
We also have with us Thomas Blanton, director of the
National Security Archive at the George Washington University.
And Patrice McDermott, Director of openthegovernment.org, and
Rick Blum, coordinator for Sunshine in Government Initiative,
as well as Terry Mutchler, executive director of Pennsylvania's
Office of Open Records.
Let me thank all of you for appearing today before the
committee.
It is the policy of this subcommittee to swear in all
witnesses before they testify. Would you all please stand and
raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Clay. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
I would ask that each witness now give a brief summary of
their testimony. Please limit your summary to 5 minutes. Your
complete written statement will be included in the hearing
record.
Mr. Weinstein, we will begin with you.
STATEMENTS OF ALLEN WEINSTEIN, ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED STATES,
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY
ADRIENNE THOMAS, DEPUTY ARCHIVIST, NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND
RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; THOMAS BLANTON, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
SECURITY ARCHIVE AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; PATRICE
McDERMOTT, OPENTHEGOVERNMENT.ORG; RICK BLUM, COORDINATOR,
SUNSHINE IN GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE; AND TERRY MUTCHLER,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PENNSYLVANIA'S OFFICE OF OPEN RECORDS
STATEMENT OF ALLEN WEINSTEIN
Mr. Weinstein. Good afternoon, Chairman Clay. I am Allen
Weinstein, Archivist of the United States. I am accompanied by
Deputy Archivist Adrienne Thomas.
In preparing the testimony which I am about to deliver to
this congressional committee, I treated with utmost seriousness
my own obligations as a member of this administration to
subordinate any personal views on the matter at hand, to stick
to the facts, and to recognize the deep concerns felt by this
administration regarding the matters at hand.
As you know, in the fiscal year 2009 budget submission to
Congress, the administration requested that Congress transfer
responsibilities for the Office of Government Information
Services [OGIS], from the National Archives to the Justice
Department, the administration's lead agency on FOIA issues.
Both House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees have
indicated their disagreement with locating OGIS in the Justice
Department. We should keep in mind the final fiscal year 2009
Appropriations Act resolving the issue has not yet become law
and the issue remains unsettled.
The Archives' position on the matter can be stated simply
we have not sought ownership of the tasks involved. Indeed, we
are not far from Lincoln's famous comment, Mr. Chairman, of the
gentleman being run out of office on a rail who told an
onlooker, ``Were it not for the honor of the thing, he would
just as well have walked.''
Can we do the job if assigned it? There is little question
that we can. Should we do so remains a more complicated manner
and, candidly, without adequate funding, a downright impossible
one.
Make no mistake: should NARA be funded by Congress for the
OGIS and that agreement signed into budgetary law by the
President, we will respond to the challenge and the intent of
both Congress and the administration in shaping an Office of
Government Information Services devoted to maintaining the
dialog and working closely with the Justice Department, as well
as with every agency of the Government to improve public access
to Government information. I cannot imagine that the President
and Vice President, agency heads, and bipartisan commission
leaders would expect any less of us.
The world of Freedom of Information requests is a complex
one. I know from personal experience on both sides of the
fence, Mr. Chairman. I was one of the first Americans to file
with success a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit following
passage of the 1974 amendments, and today I oversee an agency
that receives over 1 million requests a year from the public
for information. Not all are Freedom of Information requests,
but they often require that the public's right to information
be balanced with the need to protect certain kinds of
information.
The Freedom of Information Act recognizes this balancing
act by providing nine exemptions for withholding information.
It is a testament to the quality of that legislation that these
exemptions still serve us well today. In the intervening years
since the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, both the
public awareness of this right of access and the bureaucracy
necessary to service that right have grown significantly. Many
of the issues addressed by your bill, Mr. Chairman, and by
public law 110-175 are a direct result of that growth.
My pledge to you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, is that if called upon I will set up the Office of
Government Information Services as a fair and independent voice
in the continuing push and pull between maximum public access,
on the one hand, and the necessity on the other to withhold
information under the FOIA exemptions.
I thank the committee for listening to this brief
statement, and I will try to respond to any questions you might
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weinstein follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Mr. Weinstein.
Mr. Blanton, we will proceed with you.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS BLANTON
Mr. Blanton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Yarmuth.
This hearing is an essential part of the process. There is
nothing like a hearing to clarify the mind or get the executive
branch to give us some answers. Frankly, I was shocked to see
the written testimony that came to this subcommittee just
yesterday because that is not what we have been hearing and it
is completely unrealistic as an approach to setting up a
successful Office of Government Information Services. To shuck
and jive and run still from the task, which is what the
administration is doing, by still saying this belongs at the
Justice Department is just wrong. The fate of a statute, the
intent of Congress, the unanimous opinion of the requester
community, and the unanimous approval of the Congress actually
hangs in the balance here.
I can tell you this function does not belong at the
Department of Justice. There is an inherent conflict of
interest there that was recognized by the requester community
and by this committee and by this Congress that said no. Those
are the folks that defend agencies against requesters. They
can't mediate. And in fact, they don't mediate. Contrary to the
prepared testimony presented by the Government, the Office of
Information Policy at the Justice Department does not mediate.
Just last year we approached them and said CIA is breaking the
law on fees on the Freedom of Information Act and we are going
to have to go to court unless you step in and tell them.
Justice Department said, well, we think you are right. They are
breaking the law. There is established case law. But no, we
can't really step in. We had to go to court.
The CIA has just sent an apology letter to our General
Counsel saying, we were wrong. Sorry about that. We take it
back. But meanwhile hundreds of hours of our time, our pro bono
lawyers' time, and taxpayers' time was taken up by a dispute
that should never have gone so far. The Office of Information
Policy is not doing this job, won't do this job, can't do this
job, and shouldn't do this job. That is why this legislation,
this statute, set up the Office of Government Information
Services precisely at an independent agency, respected agency.
I must say that, on behalf of most of the requester
community, we were hoping that agency would run out and embrace
it and take it and take that vote of confidence and go do great
things with it, because that is what I really hoped to see
during this hearing today, Mr. Chairman, was a discussion of
some of the practical steps that we all need to participate in,
the stakeholders, the Congress, the National Archives, and the
rest of the executive branch, frankly, to make this new
function work.
The United States is falling behind. It used to be a leader
on the Freedom of Information Act. Now the backlogs are
mounting. Now the restrictions are mounting. The secrecy stamps
are flying at record pace. Around the world, other countries
are doing this kind of function--mediation function, ombudsman
function--very successfully. There are great lessons also at
the State level. We are going to hear one of those later in the
prepared testimony here. There are lessons we should take from
all those to make this work. There are a bunch of practical
steps that we need to focus on.
I think you will see in the statements a lot of consensus
among the stakeholders on the need for leadership, the need for
a commitment to open Government, the fact that the decision
about who is going to be the director of this office is maybe
the most important single one, and we had better get ready for
that because that person and that person's commitment to open
government is what is going to make this work.
There is consensus, I think, among your witnesses here
about the necessity for transparency in the office's functions,
the way in which the Web and the Internet can help build a body
of advice and opinion and guidance that is good for agencies,
good for the efficiency of Government, and good for requesters
to figure out how to make their own requests better and bring
less of a burden on the agencies.
I think there is consensus about the necessity to get
started now. I do hope that after this hearing the National
Archives will continue the process that it has started. I must
give the credit to you, Mr. Chairman, and to this subcommittee
for setting a date for a hearing, because that tends to drive
some dialog that might not otherwise take place. I hope to see
that dialog continue, because we all have to be ready. This is
going to be a mandate. There will be an office in March 2009.
National Archives is going to have to carry it out, we need to
have a job description already written. We need to have some
ideas about the guidance and the regulations that office is
going to put out. We need to have some very practical steps
that you are going to hear from Pennsylvania and Illinois'
experience about what that office can do to make things work.
We need to be ready to go, because already just the
realities, having a director in place some time the spring of
2009, staffing up the other five or six people that budget will
support maybe by the end of the summer, some guidance and
regulations by the end of the year. We are talking 2 years
after Congress put this function into law before we are going
to see real benefit to the public, to the requester.
Finally, I just want to say my No. 1 recommendation for
making this office work is that if it becomes just a complaint
bureau it will fail. The experience in Great Britain when they
established an Information Commission, it would be this kind of
appeal and mediation office, he set up essentially a first in/
first out complaint line. Right now he has a 2,000 case backlog
because it just built up.
The only way, when you are talking about 21.8 million
Freedom of Information requests every year to the Government,
when you are talking about a minimum of 8,000 administrative
appeals into the Federal Government, you are talking about a
potential caseload level that could overwhelm this office. It
has to be proactive. It has to take preventive measures. It has
to use the Government Accountability Office provision that is
in the law, do those audits of agencies, find the problem
agencies, define them, figure out how to fix them, use those
other resources.
Then once you have an idea of how to fix it, and that is
what OGIS should produce, use the Freedom of Information Act
public liaison officers who were originally in President Bush's
Executive order, adopted into statute, have statutory role in
assisting in mediating disputes. Those folks should be your
front-line people for the office to empower. Every one of those
people should have a job description that says you are going to
carry out the advisory opinions of the office. That is what is
going to make it work.
I really thank you for your attention to this, Mr.
Chairman, because without that attention I don't even think we
would have the progress that we do have to date.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blanton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Professor Blanton.
We will go to Ms. McDermott. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF PATRICE McDERMOTT
Ms. McDermott. That is a hard act to follow.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Yarmuth, for the
opportunity to speak today on the implementation of the new
Office of Government Information Services created by the Open
Government Act.
I am speaking today on behalf of a coalition of more than
70 organizations--of which National Security Archive is one--
that believe that a transparent and open Government is
essential to holding Government accountable and earning the
trust of the American public. Members of the coalition worked
very hard to ensure the passage of the Open Government Act, and
the new OGIS was considered a key component of that
legislation. We are pleased that you are conducting this
hearing and appropriate the opportunity to share our thoughts.
First let me concur with Mr. Blanton's statement. I
absolutely agree with everything in it.
I am focusing my comments today on the responsibility of
OGIS to review agencies' FOIA policies and procedures, their
compliance with the act, and to recommend policy changes to
Congress and the President. Ensuring compliance with FOIA has
not until now been any entity's clear responsibility or focus,
with well-documented results or lack thereof.
The 1974 amendments to the FOIA require the Attorney
General to include in its annual report a discussion of the
efforts undertaken by department to encourage agency compliance
with FOIA. The Department's report generally identifies
guidance and training. It has adjured any responsibility for
ensuring compliance because it says it does not have
responsibility for doing so.
On December 14, 2005, the President issued an Executive
order on citizen-centered and results-oriented FOIA
administration, but other than reporting back annually for a
couple of years there was no real accountability built into the
order, nor was there any meaningful oversight of the agency's
plans or the implementation thereof. Indeed, the 2007 report to
the President obscured the overall failure of the agencies to
accomplish much of significance. The Department only describes
progress at 25 out of 90 agencies that prepared improvement
plans saying that they had made meaningful progress, but his
graphics showed that only 11 of those 25 agencies met all their
self-generated milestones, and that 3 agencies did not meet a
single target, that nothing has happened.
The current situation then is lack of enforcement
mechanisms, lack of accountability, and lack of compliance with
many aspects of the law. No entity has had clear responsibility
for ensuring compliance, and none does so.
Section 11 in the Open Government Act gives OGIS the
responsibility for reviewing FOIA policies and procedures and
the compliance of administrative agencies in recommending
policy changes. The same Section 11 gives the agency chief FOIA
officers responsibility to monitor FOIA implementation
throughout the agency and keep the head of the agency, its
legal officer, and the Attorney General informed of the
agency's performance, and to recommend to the head of the
agency such adjustments necessary to improve the implementation
of FOIA. Thus, we have two distinct and separate avenues for
review and compliance for FOIA and making recommendations: the
OGIS responsibilities and the chief FOIA officer's reporting to
agency leadership and to the Attorney General.
There may be a simple fix for this, perhaps by requiring
the reports to be publicly available as they are issued,
perhaps by setting up a CFO office headed by the Archivist and
chaired by the head of OGIS. But as it stands now, there is no
required communication with OGIS from the chief FOIA officers
about their findings and recommendations.
Because of this, it is clear, as others have indicated and
will indicate, the head of OGIS must be at a senior level to be
at a comparable level with the chief FOIA officers, and he or
she should report directly to the Archivist.
The statute also gives the Government Accountability
Office, as Mr. Blanton noted, ongoing responsibility to conduct
audits of administrative agencies on the implementation of the
FOIA and to issue reports detailing the results. We think that,
given the at least initial staffing of OGIS, it is appropriate
for GAO to perform these audits in lieu of OGIS doing so, and
we presume these reports will be used by OGIS in fulfilling its
responsibilities.
Simply receiving reports is not sufficient, however.
Ensuring compliance will take more resources than OGIS has
allocated to it at present.
We also believe that it is essential that there be a robust
and transparent mechanism for public input on agency compliance
and needed changes. It is not enough to look at agency reports
and talk with agency personnel, nor should the focus of such
public input be limited to the items in the annual reports that
agencies are required to complete and the recommendations of
the chief FOIA officers. Given the limited resources of this
new office, some hard decisions are going to have to be made
about the use of staff and funding.
The public access community believes strongly in both
ensuring compliance and in the mediation services and advisory
opinions, obligations of OGIS. The balancing of resources
required of the office argue strongly for funding adequate to
both of its missions and for meaningful support within the
National Archives. It will also require the ongoing oversight
of Congress.
Thank you for this opportunity. I will be pleased to answer
any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McDermott follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Ms. McDermott.
And now we will hear from Mr. Blum. Thank you for being
here.
STATEMENT OF RICK BLUM
Mr. Blum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Yarmuth.
I am Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine in Government
Initiative, a coalition of nine major media associations formed
in 2005 to promote open Government policies and practices.
Our coalition strongly supported the creation of the Office
of Government Information Services within the National Archives
when Congress enacted the Open Government Act. Earlier this
year, we first issued recommendations for ramping up OGIS this
spring. These are attached to my written testimony.
Mr. Chairman, we commend you, Chairman Waxman, and the
committee for spearheading passage of FOIA reforms. We also
applaud you for having this oversight hearing on implementing
OGIS specifically. Congressional oversight of this provision is
critical to ensure that OGIS is implemented in the way that
Congress intended and in the way that will make FOIA work
better for average citizens.
Let me remind you that, despite its problems, FOIA is a key
tool to citizens to hold Government accountable; yet, the media
and citizens often run into roadblocks with Government agencies
where there is no recourse except an expensive lawsuit. OGIS
will provide a new, much needed alternative to resolve FOIA
disputes.
Let me give you an example of how this office can help.
Mark Schleifstein, a reporter for the Times Picayune in New
Orleans, covered Hurricane Katrina as it came ashore. In the
first few days after landfall, his readers wanted to know about
specific neighborhoods and whether they were contaminated with
chemicals. Mark checked logs of chemical spill reports
maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency. He knew
enough to know he wasn't seeing a complete picture, so he filed
a FOIA request. Months later, EPA responded to Mark by
referring him to the same logs Mark had examined in preparing
his FOIA request, so he quickly appealed the apparent denial.
An OGIS mediator could have stepped in to get a more
satisfying response from the agency, yet, more than 3 years
have passed since Mark filed his request, and Mark still
doesn't have answers. But he does have a Pulitzer Prize.
Many States already have an ombudsman office to help make
their laws work better. We appreciate Congress creating this at
the Federal level.
Let me note and again reiterate that Congress specifically
placed the ombudsman in the Archives. It chose the Archives to
ensure independence and to separate it from the Government
lawyer who defends agencies in FOIA lawsuits. We also applaud
appropriators in both the House and Senate who rejected the
administration's efforts to transfer OGIS to the Justice
Department and provided $1 million in fiscal year 2009
specifically for the Archives to get OGIS started.
Congress recognized that shifting these ombudsman functions
to the Justice Department would create an inherent conflict of
interest.
We have three recommendations for implementing this office.
First, OGIS should be a high-level office reporting directly to
the Archivist. One strong model already within the Archives is
the Information Security Oversight Office, which works well
managing the classification system. The OGIS should be in a
position within the Senior Executive Service and report
directly, as I said, to the Archivist. OGIS should be
independent of the Archive's own agency FOIA operations and,
therefore, should exist separate from the General Counsel's
office.
Second, leaders of this ombudsman's office should have the
right mix of management, legal, and mediation experience to
imbue this office with the stature, independence, and
reputation for fairness it needs. The OGIS director should have
mediation experience, especially in a Federal environment. The
OGIS leaders will require some legal training, but the director
need not be a lawyer. OGIS leaders will have to balance these
technical skills with a mission to primarily respond to and
help the public.
Third, the office should ramp up its mediation services as
soon as possible. This office should quickly establish criteria
for selecting cases to mediate so it maximizes its impact yet
it is not overwhelmed. This is critically important. The office
should bring its mediation services to main street by using the
Internet to mediate disputes and by posting written advisory
opinions online. These moves cut costs, improve agency
responses through better guidance, resolve disputes faster, and
could help make FOIA work better. Models exist, and OGIS should
build on them.
In conclusion, this office will require support from
Congress through dedicated resources and active oversight and
from the public and those in the open government community,
including our own media coalition, to help ensure that this
office's important mission of making FOIA work more effectively
is achieved.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I
look forward to answering any of the committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blum follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Mr. Blum.
Ms. Mutchler, you will bat cleanup.
STATEMENT OF TERRY MUTCHLER
Ms. Mutchler. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the
opportunity to come and talk to you today about open government
here. Congressman Yarmuth, thank you as well for listening to
this very critical testimony. I also echo each and every thing
that was said here today, but I would be remiss if I just
didn't tell you how much fun I am having, too. I just wanted to
tell you that.
My name is Terry Mutchler. I am the executive director of
the Office of Open Records in Pennsylvania. That office is very
similar to what the law outlines in creating OGIS, and the
reason I am here to talk to you today about this is because I
have dealt directly with the Freedom of Information Act from a
lot of different angles: as a journalist for the Associated
Press in Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, and Alaska; as an
attorney practicing media law in Chicago; and also as an
ombudsman in both the State of Illinois and now in Pennsylvania
to actually create and mediate issues related to the Freedom of
Information Act.
I think we would all agree that secrecy is toxic to good
government. The only way in which you can have open and honest
government is a free flow of information exchange between
citizens and their government, and the tool that we have that
makes that happen is the Freedom of Information Act.
The point of my being here today is to just try to offer
you some examples of a blueprint, if you will, of what worked
for me and what didn't work in both the State of Illinois and
in Pennsylvania.
When we started this in the State of Illinois it was called
a Public Access Counselor, and it was an ombudsman role, and we
didn't have a model to draw on, and so what we simply did was
look at what the problems were with the Freedom of Information
Act and what some basic solutions could be.
What I discovered quickly in Illinois, and I am starting to
quickly discover in Pennsylvania, is that there are two
extremes that exist when you deal with the Freedom of
Information Act, and there are, to be very blunt with you,
there are crazy people on both sides of the open government
equation, and I have met each and every one of them.
On one hand you have some citizens and members of the media
who are convinced that each and every public official is a
criminal and the one document they are not getting is
Watergate. They know this. But on the flip side you have public
officials who treat this information as though it is coming
from their own personal checkbook. Right now under FOIA until
OGIS there was no place for a citizen to go to get help.
When the Attorney General created this Public Access Office
in Illinois she was criticized as pandering to the press. It
was a press-driven issue is what people were told. However, the
key was in the 3,000 cases that I handled in Illinois, 85
percent of them were from citizens. The next largest group of
people that came to us for help in mediation were public
officials. Media brought up the last angle of that.
We had great success in Illinois. For people that think
that open government is just a philosophy, let me just give you
a few brief examples that will demonstrate to you why it is
critical that OGIS be established in a way that can be
effective to enforce the Freedom of Information Act.
A reporter filed a Freedom of Information Act request for
the city of Chicago. What that reporter wanted from the school
district in Chicago was a list that they knew existed of
criminals who were still teaching in the Chicago public school
system, people who were drug dealers, sex offenders, and folks
who had been convicted of attempted murder.
Do you know what the school district said? To release that
would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of the
criminals. So the Office of the Attorney General became
involved, and we mediated the result of having those documents
released. When the Governor and the State of Illinois was
subpoenaed and is under Federal investigation, those subpoenas
were available under the Freedom of Information Act. There was
no legal basis with which to hold those. The Office of the
Attorney General became involved and we mediated and actually
advised that those be released. The Governor's office
disagreed, of course, and we went to court, and the open
government angle of this won and the subpoenas had to be
released.
But time and time again we are not talking about esoteric
documents. We are talking about school district budgets. We are
talking about police reports. We are talking about 9/11
dispatch logs that demonstrate how long it takes for police to
respond into certain communities. This is basic information
that is being sought.
I can tell you that what happens with the Freedom of
Information Act is delay, denial, and dodging. I have had
public officials tell me directly and personally that they use
the Freedom of Information Act as a way to block information.
That is their goal. That is why my recommendation to this
committee and to the National Archives in setting up this OGIS
system is going to be in three angles.
You have to have a director that is independent. If you do
not have a director that is independent, you might as well go
take the million bucks and go do something fun, because it is
not going to work. That director has to be someone that is
committed to the mission of open government. I would encourage
whoever hires this director to not be afraid to hire someone
with a media background or an attorney that has dealt with
this, someone that will push the open government mission.
The next thing that you have to have is a mission, and the
mission should be to err on the side of open government with
this.
And the third component is the structure. As I said to
someone earlier before this testimony, you are going to be
inundated with complaints. You are going to be inundated with
mediation cases. The only way that you are going to be able to
have this work is to establish a structure that works, and that
structure should be one that sets up in advance the intake
process, that has a data base to be able to track these so that
you are able to get a picture after the first year of
statistics to see where the problem agencies are.
To have that person, as someone else said here earlier, be
at a senior level, and I would also tell you that putting this
in the Department of Justice would be a grave error, not
because of this particular administration or any administration
that we may see, but you are going to have inherent conflicts
of interest. You are going to have conflicts of interest that
cannot work.
One of the problems that we faced in Illinois being housed
in the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the
Attorney General represented many State agencies, and we
quickly came to assess that we were basically giving advice to
our clients out of both sides of our mouth. It was kind of an
uncomfortable position for me as an attorney, but we managed to
get through it.
You need someone with the reputation of the National
Archives, someone with that independence, and that is why this
should be driven, because the reality--and my experience leads
me to say this--is that the Freedom of Information Act comes
down to a philosophy. You are either pro open government or you
are not. This law, as with any other law, can be used like
statistics. You can use it to either shed light and to improve
Government or you can use it to shield and block information,
which is what we see repeatedly--at least I have seen
repeatedly in Illinois and Pennsylvania.
I would encourage the committee to also look at the
paradigm set up in Connecticut. The Freedom of Information Act
Commission there has been around for 30 years. I would put them
as the leader in the Nation, followed by Florida and Texas,
hopefully soon to be Pennsylvania but we need a little work on
that.
I would also be happy to answer any questions that you
have, because I genuinely believe that this Government is not
my Government and it is not yours, it is not the
administration's, it belongs to the people sitting behind us.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mutchler follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much, Ms. Mutchler, for your
expertise in this field and your testimony.
I thank all of the witnesses for their testimony.
Now we will begin the questioning period. I will start with
Dr. Weinstein.
The Doctrine of Sunshine in Government Initiative suggested
that OGIS be led by a senior executive that would report
directly to you and that the OGIS staff is experienced in
mediation to avoid the need to resolve disputes with
litigation. As a user of the system and now a manager of the
system, what are your thoughts about these recommendations?
Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Chairman, I believe that in some fashion
or another the OGIS system is going to be reality. We are
looking at that. I believe in that. The question then becomes
what kind of a system and what will be the particular strengths
of it, how will it define its tasks.
If you don't mind, I am going to take a little detour back
into history, because that is my profession. I am not an
archivist by background. I first testified before one or
another of the subcommittees of Congress on these issues back
in 1974 or 1975. I can't quite remember which year it was. That
is a long time in this game, if you want to say, 35 years, one
way or another. I keep meeting people who have been in the
business for a long period of time like that.
One of the things, whatever their particular solutions,
whatever their particular perspectives, one of the things that
they point out all the time is that there was, for a period of
years in the mid-1970's with the passage of the Freedom of
Information Act amendments made possible by the Watergate
events, exposures, the support for open government at the time,
that ushered in a period of relative goodwill. People were
working together. People were looking for what several folks on
this panel called consensus. They were looking for a pathway
that did not result in massive confrontations but agreed
strategies for letting this move forward.
I don't see how the OGIS process can work in the end
without deep and broad scale consensus made possible by the
efforts to consult widespread consultation among all of the
various players in this process.
What does that mean? It means that we cannot return, Mr.
Chairman, at this stage in the game, to a world of FOIA
villains and FOIA heroes. It means we are dealing with a
process, and that process, one of the first things that amazed
many of us involved in it, is how it seemed to be more useful
for business people than it did even for some of the purposes
that others had brought to it.
I would say that we should start by basically looking into
the process of how we are communicating with those on the other
side of the issue.
It goes without saying that the administration prefers that
this process be located in the Justice Department. The Congress
obviously prefers that the process be located in NARA. If we
are mandated to do that, we will do it and will do a good job
of it. But this is something that I hope can happen with the
greatest measure of consultation and dialog, because it is a
spirit we are after, it is an attitude, and that is where the
victory can come.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much for that response.
Mr. Blanton, I realize the restraints that Mr. Weinstein is
under, but I am from Missouri, and let me use the bluntest
terms that I know. We know what this administration thinks
about the rule of law. We know what they think about our
Constitution and particularly what they think about the FOIA
law. As they say in Missouri, they could care less than what
the little bird left on the branch.
So I am going to ask you, the Open Government Act clearly
placed OGIS at the National Archives. Can you tell the
committee why your group advocated for placing OGIS at the
Archives?
Mr. Blanton. Mr. Chairman, as the Congress real clearly
said, there is a conflict of interest that this function is at
Justice. The Congress looked around, and this was bipartisan
authors of this legislation. This was overwhelming approval by
the committees and ultimately unanimously by the Congress.
National Archives is a highly respected institution. All
too often I think National Archives feels like an orphan child.
It gets beat up by the White House, as it did on this very
testimony that was being submitted to your subcommittee at this
hearing today. I don't think that the National Archives that I
have worked with in a collegial fashion for probably two or
three decades now is the voice that you are hearing in this
formal testimony, because the National Archives that I know
tries to serve the public, tries to help the public, sees
itself as providing essential information and essential
evidence to the American people and empowering us.
That is the institution that the Congress picked to make
this function, because requesters could go there, find an
independent voice, find the help they need to mediate disputes,
and there were classic examples of institutions like the
Information Security Oversight Office that other witnesses
pointed to that should be a great model.
Now, it is true that office, the Information Security
Office, has about four times as much money as has been
appropriated for OGIS, probably has five times as many staff as
OGIS will likely be able to come up with, and has a 30-year
history of effectiveness, and largely because of the quality of
the leadership that came to that office and the standing of
those individuals, and--and I would echo what Ms. Mutchler
said--because those individuals understood that secrecy is a
two-edged sword. Too much secrecy is bad for Government's
process, and that the only way you protect the real secrets is
by letting the maximum amount of the other stuff out. If that
is the kind of director we can get for OGIS I think we win. We
all win. Government, too.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much.
Yes, Dr. Weinstein, please respond.
Mr. Weinstein. Thank you.
I have great respect for Mr. Blanton and for his work, but,
by God, I have just as great respect for the work of my
colleagues at the National Archives in, for example, releasing
classified materials and declassifying them and releasing them.
By the count of our Director of ISU, we have released, since I
became Archivist of the United States, over 4.5 million pages
of previously classified material. That doesn't come from
people who have no commitment to the mission.
I know also under my supervision we rejected the notion of
secret agreements, which I found, too, when I became Archivist.
We rejected that notion. We rejected the notion of reclassified
materials.
We have a track record, Mr. Chairman, and I want to defend
that track record, but whatever the issues may be at this
particular moment on this particular bill, there is a broader
record and, by and large, I think we have behaved very
honorably.
Mr. Blanton. I agree, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Clay. I do, too, and I don't think anyone at this
hearing is calling into question the Archives' commitment to
open government or yours, so please don't misinterpret that. No
one is attacking the National Archives here.
Mr. Blanton. In fact, we are praising.
Mr. Clay. That is not what I have heard.
Mr. Blanton. Yes.
Mr. Clay. Let me go to my colleague please from Kentucky,
Mr. Yarmuth.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Once again, I thank all of you for your testimony.
One of the issues here clearly is compliance. That is what
several of you have mentioned, the problem with ensuring
compliance, and the Office of OGIS is not necessarily going to
be able to enforce FOIA laws. So I will pose the question. It
seems to me that you all mentioned the independence. The one
thing that is absolutely essential if OGIS is going to meet any
of its objectives is to maintain absolute credibility, because
unless it is totally credible then its value as an ombudsman is
limited.
There was a report issued. I think, Ms. McDermott, you
mentioned the same report that the Justice Department did on
the compliance and the performance of the various agencies.
There was a report or document issued by the Coalition of
Journalists for Open Government back in July, and it had
actually some pretty critical comments to make about the
Justice Department report, itself. It called it at one point a
rose-colored Justice report, gives credit in some places where
it isn't due, questioned the methodology, and so forth. You are
familiar with that report, obviously?
Ms. McDermott. Yes.
Mr. Yarmuth. First of all, would you agree with the
assessment of the Coalition of Journalists that the report of
the Justice Department was flawed? You can comment on that. And
then I guess the followup is: if that is the case, isn't it
kind of a prima facie case that OGIS should not be operated
within the Department of Justice?
Ms. McDermott. Absolutely. Let me say first that the
Department of Justice does do very good guidance to the
agencies through FOIA posts, does a good training, it
cooperates with nonprofit organizations that do training. So
what they do, they do well. But they don't enforce FOIA. They
don't ensure compliance with FOIA.
Yes, that report was a travesty. The National Security
Archive also did a report about that. Both found that they
mislead, they obscured the facts, they didn't fully report. It
is a very confusing report to read, because there is so little
data and they draw these grand conclusions. But, again, in
fairness to them, the Executive order really did not have any
accountability or compliance built in.
Again, the Justice Department was given responsibility for
issuing guidance and doing this report. The report is terrible.
I agree. And I agree with you that it does argue and OIP's
history argues for this office not being there. They have not
had responsibility, statutorily, for ensuring compliance, and
they have not done so. They will specifically say that is not
their job.
So it needs to be somewhere, and I think OIP has statutory
responsibilities that it does meet and that do serve important
functions, and there are new reporting requirements in the law
that will be theirs and that will aid in the Office of
Government Information Services and will aid Congress and the
President, but they are different obligations and the Office of
Information Privacy and Department of Justice in general have
not taken that responsibility.
As with the backlog for the mediation and all that, I
think, while there is not a basic conflict of interest in that,
it is just not something that they have done or that they have
been willing to do or that they have shown any interest in
doing.
Mr. Yarmuth. Mr. Blum, did you want to comment?
Mr. Blum. Can I jump in here? I think that report that you
mentioned from the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government
is critical. I think it was called an opportunity lost. I think
that is a very accurate assessment. If you look at the FOIA
backlogs, the number of FOIA requests dropped 20 percent over
the 9-year period that it looked at. The staffing was reduced
by 10 percent. At the same time, the backlog tripled and the
cost for process in each request jumped 79 percent. That is
what the CJOG study showed for the agencies that it looked at.
That is a huge opportunity lost.
We need to continue those kinds of analyses and assessment.
The Justice Department at this point has no authority to
provide these kind of mediation services, does not do these
kind of assessments and analyses that we would very much like
to see OGIS do so that we can start targeting the kind of
improvements that agencies can make if they know about it.
Do we know about best practices? Which agencies are doing
it well? Which agencies are doing poorly? That is something
that OGIS could examine. The Archives has the independence, it
has the consistent mission with the presumption of disclosure
that exists within the FOIA statute, and it already has a model
with this Information Security Oversight Office. So it makes a
tremendous amount of sense to start this off within the
Archives and see how it works. In a couple years see what is
working, what is not working. We have specific recommendations
about which cases it can select to be very effective. You might
want to adjust those after a while.
We should be starting this off. I think we are all very
excited among the media group to see this actually get enacted
into statute. We want to see it implemented. At the same time,
it has to be adequately funded.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. We will begin a second round of
questions. I will start with Ms. McDermott.
You state that there is no linkage between the OGIS and
FOIA officers. Why is this necessary for effective
implementation of OGIS? What must the National Archives do to
make this link?
Ms. McDermott. Well, I think that the problem is in the
statute. I think the office was created and given this
responsibility for reviewing the policies and procedures and
compliance, and then the chief FOIA officers that were created
by the Executive order were just sort of incorporated without a
lot of thought, I'm afraid, by us or by the drafters about how
those two work together.
The chief FOIA office, I think I agree with Tom that they
have a key role to play at all levels, in the mediation part,
in the ensuring compliance part. They specifically have that
responsibility. But they don't report to OGIS. The statute has
them reporting on a separate line completely within their
agency and to the Attorney General.
I think that if Congress takes seriously and if NARA takes
seriously the responsibility of OGIS for reviewing and making
recommendations and in that sense ensuring compliance, that we
can't have these two separate tracks.
One of the things that I suggest is the possibility of a
Chief FOIA Officer Council headed up at the Archives to build a
structure for regular communication between and among the
Office of Government Information Services and these agency
personnel. They should continue to report to the Attorney
General, but they also need to have some sort of direct
communication, and the Office of Government Information
Services needs to have a direct responsibility for receiving
that information, and I would argue that down the road they
need to have some direct authority for issuing regulations or
something to help the chief FOIA officers achieve or accomplish
their missions within their agencies.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much.
Mr. Blum, do you envision OGIS acting as the referee or
mediator in disputed FOIA requests to expedite in a timely
manner the requests in order to avoid the backlog such as you
cited a reporter who requested information and they did not
receive it? How could OGIS have impacted that situation?
Mr. Blum. Well, I think that OGIS has two basic
responsibilities: mediate individual cases where it can make a
difference, and to make the agency respond faster. And for a
requester, they are not getting answers, and so they are not
clear if their non-response is because the agency just hasn't
gotten to the request yet.
Some agencies will spend 4 years and then they will call
you up. I had this experience myself with one agency. They
called me up 4 years after my request went in and they said,
are you still interested in this? I said I sure am. I have
changed jobs twice, but I sure am interested. Now, what was my
request and why was there such a delay? I said, are you getting
pushback? Their response was, well, you are just next.
So we don't know are we getting folks behind the curtain
saying we don't want to give this to you so we are going to
kind of twist you around, or is there just problems because the
FOIA process works slowly?
So an independent mediator can help break through some of
the logjams on the individual cases, but at the same time, by
looking at agency FOIA reports and seeing how FOIA is operating
at agencies, seeing which agencies are doing a good job. I have
heard the Defense Department has a very good, at least,
processing system, so you get a response back quickly. You
might not like the response, but you are getting a response
back quickly. So that is going to help you and it is going to
help increase trust in the system, and then it will help
improve over time how agencies are processing their requests.
Hopefully by putting their advisory opinions online they
can then--you know, agencies can then see them and have some
good standards and some good guidance for dealing with their
particular situation. And then you are going to drive good
decisions earlier in the FOIA response process at agencies.
That is ultimately what is going to make OGIS so effective.
Mr. Clay. Let me ask a panel-wide question. We will start
with Ms. Mutchler. In your opinion, is it critical that the
OGIS report directly to the Archivist and be an SES-level
position, and, if so, why?
Ms. Mutchler. I do agree with that, Mr. Chairman. I think
that you need someone at the senior level that is going to have
some punch here with what they are doing, someone that is not
going to be at a low-level position that is not going to be
listened to or is not going to carry their weight that is
necessary.
For me, I believe that the National Archives would be one
appropriate place for this, and it is not so much that it is
the reputation of the Archives and what not as critically just
keeping it out of the Department of Justice. Again, that is
not, per se, geared toward a particular administration, but all
you need to do is to look at the memo that was issued by John
Ashcroft, the Attorney General at the time, saying that when
you receive a FOIA request in essence--I mean, this is a
paraphrase, but the heart of it was find a way to deny it. And
if it is a close call, err on the side of denying it.
That, in and of itself, I think speaks volumes. For me, it
underscores that you need it in a place that has credibility.
Credibility is key here. I believe that the National Archives
seems to be a very appropriate place for that. And it needs to
be at the highest level, reporting directly to the Archivist.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for your response.
Mr. Blum, do you have an opinion?
Mr. Blum. We did make that recommendation exactly, that it
be at a high level and an SES position reporting to the
Archivist, precisely because you want an entity that is going
to be separate from the Archives or any agency's own FOIA
operations so that it has the independence from that processing
so that when it gives a decision that may err on the side of
the agency, the requester knows that it is credible and it has
the independence and the integrity of that.
You also want a high-level position that will have the
reputation and the respect of other agencies so that it can,
when it makes a decision in a mediation, carry weight with the
agency.
So I think it is critically important that it be at a high
level, that it report to the Archivist, that it be independent
from, obviously, the Justice Department, and from within the
Archive's own FOIA operation.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for that response.
Ms. McDermott.
Ms. McDermott. I absolutely agree. You said yourself that
in order for this office to be effective it is going to have to
have credibility, and in order for it to have credibility the
person that has this is going to have to be at least at a level
comparable with the chief FOIA officers in the agencies, and if
it is a person who is buried fairly deeply in the NARA
structure, that is not going to happen.
They also need, I would agree, independence within NARA.
And also just from a purely practical level, if we want to
attract the best possible candidates for this extraordinarily
important office, one that is going to have a real impact on
the future of FOIA and its effectiveness to the average
citizen, it needs to be at a senior enough level that you
really do attract senior level, highly competent individuals to
apply for this position.
Mr. Clay. Very good point. Thank you.
Mr. Blanton.
Mr. Blanton. I totally agree with that, and I think one of
the attractions for this position is that whoever is appointed
to this job come March 2009 is immediately going to be invited
on a nice junket to Norway to meet all the other information
commissioners around the world in what will be their sixth
annual Conference of Information Commissioners, and see what
kind of lessons can be drawn from all those amazing, very
different experiences.
I think it is a vote of real respect. I would go beyond
what Ms. Mutchler said about to keep it out of the Department
of Justice. I think also this designation from the requester
community and from the Congress for the National Archives to
host this office is a profound vote of confidence and respect
in the National Archives as an independent institution. It just
needs to take this and run with it.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. Norway sounds tempting. Maybe I need
to dust off my resume.
Dr. Weinstein.
Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I am running
with anything, but let me run my mouth off a little bit on some
of this, after all these provocative and appreciative comments.
I get the sense from most of my colleagues at the Archives
that they would not find unwelcome the idea of a senior level
appointment of this kind and the Archivist playing this role.
Neither would I, I suppose. It follows what I have been looking
for when I have been stressing perhaps in my fundamental
naivete we've managed.
The fact is that goodwill is going to help this process. We
have seen that. I have seen it very directly in connection with
several other committees, as you know, which have been working
with the administration to try to negotiate different results
with some success. We have been involved in a few of those.
I would like to strongly urge you and your colleagues,
whatever you may decide about the senior officer of this
process, to see if it would not be possible, even at this late
date in the game, to sit down privately with representatives of
the majority and minority on the Hill, the White House, we are
happy to play a role if we can, to try and get this process
back on track so it becomes a consensus project. In fact, I
think that would help it tremendously down the road. But as for
what the committee does, we serve at the pleasure of Congress
and we will just await what happens.
Thank you.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for your suggestion.
Now I would like to recognize my friend.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to pursue this issue. Ms. Mutchler, you talked about
the memo that was released when it was discovered by Attorney
General Ashcroft, and there is a temptation, I think, maybe
among many of us who don't appreciate this administration's
attitude toward transparency, to say, well, 125 days from now
things are going to be fine, we do not have to worry about
this. It will obviously be better. But I suspect that all of
you have experiences with other units of government, both maybe
Federal and elsewhere, that would illustrate that resistance to
this type of transparency is not limited to the Ashcroft
Justice Department.
Ms. Mutchler. I would agree with that, Congressman. What I
have seen is that it is the one issue that goes across party
lines, to be honest.
Mr. Yarmuth. I am trying to be bipartisan.
Ms. Mutchler. Exactly. And that is another reason why I
think that, in my experience, what I have seen is that
Democrats and Republicans, alike, have used the Freedom of
Information Act as a way to deny information to citizens. That
is why I stress in my remarks that keeping this out of Justice
does not, per se, speak to this administration in and of
itself.
You know, you need to protect this and shield this and have
this in an agency such as archives that has a reputation for
fairness, that, as my colleague said, is a vote of confidence,
and no one should believe that this is one particular party or
administration over another.
What I have found is--and I am still looking to the answer
as to why--people in public bodies start with the premise that
the record is closed and not available, and that is a critical
difference that needs to be changed, and it is why I underscore
that you need a director that will have the independence to
push to create that presumption of openness, no matter who the
requester is and no matter what political powerhouse is holding
the record. It is the only way it is going to work.
Mr. Yarmuth. Mr. Blanton, you seem to be chomping at the
bit there to say something.
Mr. Blanton. Well, as you probably know, Congressman
Yarmuth, President Johnson had to be dragged kicking and
screaming into even signing the bill. I think if Bill Moyers,
his press secretary, hadn't set him up with some nasty
newspaper editors calling in and saying you had better sign
this, it never would have happened. It is a bipartisan problem.
All bureaucracies across world history resist this kind of
openness and accountability. I think one of the geniuses of the
American system is that we count on it, we rely on it, it is a
basis.
I would just make one point, though. The current
administration produced that Executive order 2 years ago. I
just wanted to give a compliment to President Bush, which is a
rare thing when approval ratings are running 28 percent, but he
did an Executive order on Freedom of Information improvement to
make it more citizen centered back 2 years ago.
[Hearing closed off record.]
[Whereupon, at 3:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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