Political Quotes

“today, as we approach the national celebration of Sunshine Week 2008, I am pleased to join with Senator Cornyn to introduce the OPEN FOIA Act of 2008, a concise and straightforward bill to further strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA. This bill is the next step in the important work that Senator Cornyn and I have undertaken to reinvigorate and strengthen FOIA, and it follows the enactment late last year of the Leahy-Cornyn OPEN Government Act, a law which made the first major reforms to FOIA in more than a decade. The OPEN FOIA Act simply requires that when Congress provides for a statutory exemption to FOIA in new legislation, Congress must state its intention to do so explicitly and clearly in that bill. This commonsense bill mirrors bipartisan legislation that unanimously passed the Senate during the last Congress, S.1181. I hope that the Senate will once again promptly and unanimously pass this good-government bill. While no one can fairly question the need to keep certain government information secret to ensure the public good, excessive government secrecy is a constant temptation and the enemy of a vibrant democracy. For more than 4 decades, FOIA has served as perhaps the most important Federal law to ensure the public's right to know and to balance the government's power with the need for government accountability.”