NYT On Freedom Of Information Act






Opinion/Editorial

      Taken a break for the last couple weeks my apologies.Todays OPED is from yesterday December 20,2014 entitled "Freedom to See Government Records."
      It begins "Among the disappointments of the lame-duck congressional session was Speaker John Boehner’s refusal to schedule a House vote on a broadly supported Senate bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, the federal law that allows journalists and the public to access federal government records.The House unanimously approved a similar measure in February. Both the House and Senate bills would codify the presumption that requests for government documents will be granted and the rule against withholding information absent a “foreseeable harm” to specified government interests that President Obama established in a 2009 executive order
. Both bills would provide judicial review of whether a document request was properly denied, which is currently unavailable. The Senate bill would impose a 25-year limit on withholding government documents that were part of an internal deliberative process.Mr. Boehner’s refusal was frustrating because the chief sponsor of the House version, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, had called for House passage of the Senate bill that Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pushed through the Senate on Dec. 8 with no dissent.Once the House failed to act, Mr. Issa urged the Senate to approve the House bill. That didn’t happen because of the late timing and because of Senate opposition to House provisions that would add $20 million to the cost of improving government websites.This should not be the final word. Given the rare level of bipartisan support for F.O.I.A. reform, both Mr. Boehner and the next Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, should see the wisdom of revisiting the issue early in the next Congress." In red is this a ringing endorsement of Sen.McConnell for Senate Majority leader a liberal rag endorsing an establishment RINOpublican