WASHINGTON — Congress on Tuesday struck back at the Bush administration’s trend toward secrecy since the 2001 terrorist attacks, passing legislation to toughen the Freedom of Information Act and increasing penalties on agencies that don’t comply.
The White House would not say whether President Bush will sign the legislation, which unanimously passed the House by voice vote Tuesday a few days after it sailed through the Senate. Without Bush’s signature, the bill would become law during the congressional recess that begins next week.
It would be the first makeover of the FOIA in a decade, among other things bringing nonproprietary information held by government contractors under the law. The legislation also is aimed at reversing an order by former Attorney General John Ashcroft in the wake of the attacks, in which he instructed agencies to lean against releasing information when there was uncertainty about how doing so would affect national security.
The overwhelming congressional support for the legislation owes in part to administration allies who successfully insisted on stripping out language explicitly reversing Ashcroft’s order.
That victory, said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., is evidence that “we’ll continue to try to balance national security with the vital interests of open government.”
Last year, the government received 21.4 million requests for information under the 40-year-old law, according to statistics provided by the Justice Department. Of those, agencies processed nearly 21.4 million, nearly 1.5 million more than the previous fiscal year, the department said.
The bill restores a presumption-of-disclosure standard committing government agencies to releasing requested information unless there is a finding that such disclosure could do harm.
Agencies would be required to meet a 20-day deadline for responding to FOIA requests. Their FOIA offices would have to forward requests for information to the appropriate agency office within 10 days of receiving them.
It they fail to meet the 20-day deadline, agencies would have to refund search and duplication fees for noncommercial requesters.
They also would have to explain any redaction by citing the specific exemption under which the blacked-out information qualifies. Nonproprietary information held by government contractors also would be subject to the law.
The legislation also creates a system for the media and public to track the status of their FOIA requests. It establishes a hotline service for all federal agencies to deal with problems and an ombudsman to provide an alternative to litigation in disclosure disputes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has said he expects the president to sign the legislation.
