AUGUSTA – Members of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee expressed skepticism Wednesday about a proposal by Gov. S. Angus King and state Attorney General Steven Rowe to create exemptions in the state’s right-to-know laws for homeland security measures.

“Isn’t this overly broad language?” asked Rep. Charles Laverdiere, D-Wilton, co-chairman of the panel, which held a public hearing on the proposal Wednesday afternoon. “There is a balancing act here and we need to make sure there is a balance.”

The legislation would allow officials to hold meetings behind closed doors to discuss security plans concerning potential terrorist targets and to keep secret whatever plans are developed from those meetings.

Concern among committee members over the proposal was bipartisan. Rep. Paul Waterhouse, R-Bridgton, asked several questions about the bill and stated that in a free society, there always will be a risk of terrorist activity.

“A lot of the people back home expressed to me that they felt as though Maine was jumping on the bandwagon,” he said. “They don’t think a lot of what has been passed is needed.”

Waterhouse said Maine is at relatively low risk for a terrorist attack and questioned if the bill is needed, as did some other panel members.

Supporters of the measure said that while Maine law allows the plans and investigative techniques of police organizations to be confidential, certain state agencies, such as the Maine Emergency Management Agency, are not covered by a similar exemption to the public records law. Chief Deputy Attorney General Linda Pistner argued that security plans of such nonpolice agencies need a similar exemption.

“This bill is not intended to create a broad new exemption to the public’s right of access to government records,” she said. “It simply builds on an existing exemption to ensure that security plans that could be misused to destroy the government operations they are designed to protect would be kept confidential.”

Col. Michael Sperry, chief of the Maine State Police, supported the legislation. He said security planning goes beyond law enforcement agencies, and the proposed exemption is needed to make sure plans do not “fall into the hands of terrorists.”

Bill Libby, deputy commissioner of the Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, said current law does not adequately protect security plans. He said it would be difficult to get private companies that might be potential targets of terrorists to cooperate in security matters if they thought their plans would “end up on the front page of the Maine Sunday Telegram.”

But several lawmakers and opponents of the legislation said the language of the bill is so broad that government agencies could use the exemption to hide from public scrutiny.

“While I understand that the intent of this bill is to help aid in the battle against terrorism, keeping the public in the dark won’t achieve that goal,” said Jeannine Guttman, executive editor of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. “An ignorant public is not a vigilant public.”

She said the proposal was a “meat cleaver” approach that would significantly gut the state’s public access and public records laws and could be used by government agencies to avoid accountability.

Augusta lawyer Gordon Scott, lobbyist for the Maine Press Association, said the scope of the measure needed to be narrowed significantly. He said the definitions in the measure could be interpreted to keep even basic budget information secret under the claim that information could compromise security plans.

John Christie, president of the Kennebec Journal in Augusta and the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, opposed the measure, as did Suzanne Goucher, executive director of the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

“We are here to oppose this bill in its current form as being far too overboard and ill-defined,” she said. “The more sunshine in government, the better.”

Joan Sturmthal, legislative council of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, also spoke in opposition to the measure.

She did note that for all of the comments at the hearing about the public, no “real members” of the public attended the session. All who spoke at the hearing were government officials, news media representatives or lobbyists such as herself.

The committee will discuss the measure in a work session next week. Several proposals to amend the legislation are expected.