Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of Virginia is preventing the passage of a bill improving transparency under the Freedom of Information Act. The bill would establish a standard in a 2009 memo from Attorney General Eric Holder putting higher value on disclosure by requiring government agencies to withhold information only when harm is likely to result from disclosure. In obstructing the passage of the bill that has substantial support on both sides of the aisle, Rockefeller is responding to claims of federal agencies that provisions in the bill would hurt their ability to prepare for legal cases by allowing corporate defendants to file FOIA suits to obtain internal memos between agency lawyers and government officials. (Politico, December 7, 2014, by Josh Gerstein)
The bipartisan amendment to the FOIA also includes an important 25 year sunset provision to prevent abuse of Exemption 5 misused to withhold documents from the public. (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, December 4, 2014, by Adam Marshall)
Trevor Timm, Freedom of the Press Foundation, December 7, 2014, calls Rockefeller’s act “shameful” but also faults the Obama administration for its ongoing lousy record on transparency and the press itself for failing to cover the story adequately even though they file vast numbers of FOIA requests annually.