CJR ONLINE REPORT
THE FOIA FIGHT
BY JOHN GIUFFO

Since it came to light in January, the memo about Freedom of Information Act requests issued last October by Attorney General John Ashcroft has worried many reporters and good-government groups. In it, Ashcroft encouraged federal employees to look for reasons to restrict access to information and assured them that the Justice Department would support such efforts. Until recently, there has been speculation only about what might be restricted under Ashcroft's edict. But a better picture of the change is beginning to emerge, both on the national and state levels, heightening the sense of alarm.

Some journalists and open records advocates are already feeling the impact. The issue was the subject of number of panels at a mid-March conference in Philadelphia on computer-assisted reporting, sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, The number of Freedom of Information requests refused is rising, attendees said, along with the time it takes to process such requests. And it's not just access to sensitive data about infrastructure and water supplies -- which most conference attendees acknowledged was reasonable to limit -- that is being blocked. "We're beginning to hear about a few problems, which I think signal a different tone with the Bush administration and the Attorney General," said Barbara Fought, a FOI law officer at Syracuse University, during one of four panels convened to discuss the impact of the Ashcroft memo. Others panel members said that the problem was broader than just the one memo. "The larger problem with the Bush administration is its attitude toward secrecy," said panelist William Ferroggiaro, director of the Freedom of Information Project of the National Security Archive. He pointed to a number of recent actions by President Bush -- his sealing of Ronald Reagan's presidential records and the White House's battle with the General Accounting Office, for example -- as proof of a restrictive view of access to government information (See "The Short Distance Between Secrets and Lies" in the May/June issue of CJR).

Some journalists, particularly CAR reporters, for whom unfettered access to governmental databases is their bread and butter, see battles ahead over issues of privacy and national security. "I think it's genuinely a crisis," said Doug Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Fighting it will "require broad cooperation among FOI advocates." One advocate, the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press issued a white paper in March titled "Homefront Confidential," in which the group outlines how, since September 11, "the United States government embarked on a path of secrecy unprecedented in recent years." Another, OMB Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based good-government group, keeps track of the information removed from government Web sites since September 11 at www.ombwatch.org/article/view/213. Both groups sent representatives to the conference.

Many reporters also see state governments -- which set their own sunshine law standards -- following the example set by Ashcroft. Florida is Exhibit A. Since the terror attacks of September 11, 136 bills have been introduced in the Florida legislature that seek to, according to another Philadelphia panelist, Orlando Sentinel editor Timothy Franklin, "weaken or completely gut the states FOI laws." Recognizing the threat, Florida's daily newspapers have hired lobbyists to convince lawmakers of the importance of the state's sunshine laws, and they've mounted a public education campaign.

Titled "Sunshine Sunday," it was a statewide effort to voice opposition to the legislature's attempts to curb Florida's famously liberal open-records laws. Twenty-five daily newspapers from all over the state published editorials on the issue that day, and many ran accompanying stories, detailing the efforts of lawmakers to curtail access. The Sentinel went a step further and included a small sun logo next to the top of each story published that day that had benefited from information gained through FOIA. Editors at the conference hoped the Florida papers' response might serve as a model for newspapers in other states.

The key to fighting the assault on open records, many of the Philadelphia conference attendees agreed, was to publicize the trend in news stories, making readers aware of the role FOIA plays in newsgathering. After all, according to IRE's First Amendment lawyer, David Smallman, "We're going to be fighting these battles for the next couple of years."