The American Civil Liberties Union—which has been nearly silent on the homeland security bill—on November 14 belatedly issued a statement condemning the Total Awareness Information program, after details were made public by New York Times columnist William Safire. All Americans “will find themselves under the accusatory cyber-state of an all-powerful national security apparatus,” the ACLU statement said.
There are sweeping new restrictions on the application of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), whose operation has already been virtually suspended by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The White House has the legal power to exempt the internal functioning and intelligence-gathering of the new department from FOIA disclosure requests, by citing “national security.” Similar restrictions already apply to the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other military and intelligence bodies.
The new law goes beyond this, extending the exemption from the Freedom of Information Act to information voluntarily supplied to the Department of Homeland Security by private companies. If companies request in writing that the information be kept confidential, officials who make disclosures to the press or the public could be fined, fired, or jailed up to one year.
There are sweeping new restrictions on the application of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), whose operation has already been virtually suspended by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The White House has the legal power to exempt the internal functioning and intelligence-gathering of the new department from FOIA disclosure requests, by citing “national security.” Similar restrictions already apply to the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other military and intelligence bodies.
The new law goes beyond this, extending the exemption from the Freedom of Information Act to information voluntarily supplied to the Department of Homeland Security by private companies. If companies request in writing that the information be kept confidential, officials who make disclosures to the press or the public could be fined, fired, or jailed up to one year.