CREEPING SECRECY

It’s getting harder and harder to get information out of the federal government. Bureaucrats by nature often play their cards close to the chest. The 9-11 attacks gave solid basis for considering new limits on what can be told about the government’s affairs. But the Bush administration has gone far beyond the needs of national security in restricting the outflow of government information.

A recent 90-page report gives many examples of excessive secrecy in the administration. It was prepared by the minority staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform at the request of the ranking member, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, a Democrat from California.

For instance:

. The administration has narrowed the reach of the 1966 Freedom of Information Act, a valuable tool for historians, civic groups and news organization. Agencies now are encouraged to delay their response to information requests and charge hefty fees for research and copying. Attorney General John Ashcroft advised agencies to look for technical grounds for rejecting requests. And the administration directed agencies to withhold from release a new category of documents: “sensitive but unclassified.”

. President Bush has undermined the 1978 Presidential Records Act through an executive order giving former presidents and vice presidents new authority to block release of their records.

. The Patriot Act, passed and signed in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, empowered the administration to expand the use of secret wiretaps, obtain telephone and library records without the knowledge of the people involved, and search homes and offices without notice.

. The administration showed agencies how to avoid the terms of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires openness, accountability and balance of viewpoints. But subcommittees have been able to operate in secrecy, and Vice President Cheney successfully defied efforts to learn about the membership and proceedings of his energy task force. The president’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and his Commission to Strengthen Social Security also were able to avoid public and congressional scrutiny.

Longtime users of the Freedom of Information Act are feeling the pinch. Harry Hammitt, editor of Access Reports, wrote: “The Bush administration has shown a dislike for the concept of open government from the top.” Jane E. Kirtley, former executive director of the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press and now a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, wrote that the Justice Department regards the Freedom of Information Act exemptions “as loopholes to be interpreted as broadly as possible in order to thwart the public’s right to know what its government is up to.”

Government officials, too, are critical. J. William Leonard, director of the Information Oversight Office, told a seminar of classification officials in June: “Unfortunately, I have lately found some to use war as an excuse to disregard the basics of the security classification system.” And Carol A. Haave, a deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence, is quoted as acknowledging that half of all government secrets are improperly classified.

As President Bush prepares to enter his second term, he would do well to heed Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ dictum that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” and strike a better balance between safeguarding the national security and letting the American people know what their government is doing.