Carolyn Maloney: “This amendment is about the need to continue to make information available to the public, to keep our uniformed military…”

“This amendment is about the need to continue to make information available to the public, to keep our uniformed military safe, and ensure tax dollars are not wasted on aircraft with serious performance and maintenance issues. It would simply narrow section 1081 of the act under consideration, and this amendment would ensure the military cannot hide subpar maintenance of military aircraft or other preventable shortcomings from disclosure under the guise of keeping important tactical information from our enemies. It ensures an adequate balance between the Defense Department's appropriate need to protect tactical information while ensuring the public can learn, for example, when the military is not putting our pilots in the best maintained aircraft in the world. Just ask the parents of Jeffrey Smith, with whom I have spoken, one of 45 pilots who died in noncombat accidents in Harrier jets. The Los Angeles Times' reporter Kevin Sack pored through military investigative records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to show military investigators believe a small shard of plastic clogged the fuel line of Smith's jet as it tore down the runway, leading the jet to crash at the end of the runway. The investigative series used the military's investigative records to show other problems with the Harrier jet, eventually winning a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.…”