Mike Levin: “today I join with Senators Leahy, Byrd, Jeffords, and Lieberman to introduce the Restore Freedom of Information Act…”

“today I join with Senators Leahy, Byrd, Jeffords, and Lieberman to introduce the Restore Freedom of Information Act, Restore FOIA, that will provide the public with access to information, while at the same time ensuring that information voluntarily submitted to the government by companies is not improperly disclosed. In order to ensure public access and limit improper disclosure, we need to reexamine some aspects of the Homeland Security Act, HSA, which was rushed through Congress last year, dropping several carefully-crafted, bipartisan measures which had been adopted by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, along the way. Dropping those measures left ambiguities in the law that need to be clarified, and today's bill is an attempt to make those clarifications and address certain problems that could otherwise result. The issue this bill addresses is public access to information in the possession of the Homeland Security Department. Although some seem to want to shroud all homeland security efforts in secrecy, as Judge Damon Keith, writing for the U.S. Sixth Circuit of Appeals, recently warned "Democracies die behind closed doors." The principles of open government and the public's right to know are cornerstones of our democracy. We cannot sacrifice those principles in the name of protecting them.”