-----Original Message-----
From: Aftergood, Steven [mailto:saftergood@private]
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 9:35 AM
To: secrecy_news@private
Subject: Secrecy News -- 01/29/02
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2002, Issue No. 10
January 29, 2002
** A NEW TOOL FOR CONGRESSIONAL ACCESS TO INFORMATION
** WHITE HOUSE SEEKS TO REVERSE "35 YEARS OF DECLINE"
** NASA RESUMES RELEASE OF SHUTTLE MAPPING DATA
A NEW TOOL FOR CONGRESSIONAL ACCESS TO INFORMATION
While officials grapple over the proper boundaries of Congressional
oversight of executive branch activities, a federal court has upheld the
use of an unusual statutory mechanism called the Seven Member Rule to
compel agencies to disclose certain types of information to Congress.
Last year, sixteen members of the House Government Reform Committee sued
the Bush Administration for access to census data that the
Administration did not want to release.
The lawsuit cited the Seven Member Rule, which is a 1928 statutory
provision dictating that an agency must release information if it is
requested by seven members of the House Government Reform Committee (or
five members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee) and concerns
a matter under the Committee's jurisdiction. This provision had never
before been tested in court.
In a landmark January 18 decision, the Court found the Rule valid and
applicable, and ordered the requested data to be disclosed.
Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the Committee, hailed the
Court decision. The Seven Member Rule could become "an important tool
for the public's right to know," Waxman told the New York Times.
See the Court's ruling and related documentation here:
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_other/other_census.htm
See also "Judge Allows Unusual Bid to Get Data from Census" by David E.
Rosenbaum in the January 26 New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/26/politics/26ACCE.html
WHITE HOUSE SEEKS TO REVERSE "35 YEARS OF DECLINE"
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday that the
Administration's refusal to disclose information requested by the
General Accounting Office concerning Enron and the Vice President's
Energy Task Force was a matter of high principle and was intended to
reverse decades of erosion in Presidential power.
"I think it is to stop the decline of the power of the presidency that
have taken place the last 35 years or so," Fleischer told the Associated
Press, echoing remarks made by Vice President Cheney over the weekend.
But what was it that happened 35 years ago, years before Watergate, that
initiated this supposed decline in the power of the Presidency?
The answer seems to be the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was
enacted about 35 years ago, in 1966.
By granting members of the public a legal right to public information,
the FOIA and related "sunshine" laws did in fact diminish the power of
the President to arbitrarily withhold information and to evade public
accountability. Whether this is a sign of decline or of political
maturity is evidently a matter of perspective.
NASA RESUMES RELEASE OF SHUTTLE MAPPING DATA
NASA this month resumed the public release of certain highly precise
digital mapping data collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
(SRTM) in February 2000 following a moratorium on disclosure late last
year.
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which is an SRTM
co-sponsor, had ordered a halt to release of the digital maps after
September 11 due to security concerns, according to the Washington Post
(12/17/01). The agency also withdrew certain SRTM maps of U.S. military
installations and other sensitive locations from public access.
Release of the mapping data, which requires special application software
for viewing, recommenced earlier this month. For further information,
see the SRTM homepage here:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/
******************************
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to majordomo@private with
this command in the body of the message:
subscribe secrecy_news
To UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to majordomo@private with this command
in the body of the message:
unsubscribe secrecy_news
OR email your request to saftergood@private
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@private
voice: (202) 454-4691
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun May 26 2002 - 11:38:41 PDT