Resolution of INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS AND EDITORS, Inc., In Support of the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT We, the 1,500 members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, are journalists dedicated to informing the citizens of this nation about their government. We work in newspapers, broadcasting and publishing in all 50 states, at national and local levels. We share the belief that democracy can thrive only in an open society, and that an informed citizenry is essential to sustain a government that is truly of the people, by the people and for the people. We frequently use the Freedom of Information Act to discover information of vital interest to the people of America. Now, some factions of the United States government propose to restrict the flow of information obtainable through the Freedom of Information Act. While we recognize the cost and inconvenience sometimes imposed on government agencies to comply with citizens' requests for information, we believe that the cost of secrecy and ignorance is infinitely higher. Therefore, the members of Investigative Reporters and Editors hereby resolve to oppose any legislative or administrative effort to narrow the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, and thereby to narrow the window through which this nation's citizens may view the workings of their government. Adopted by the Executive Committee on July 12, 1981, as directed by the Meeting on June 27, 1981, San Diego, Cal. | James Polk, NBC News, Washington, chairman Myrta Pulliam, Indianapolis Star, v. pres Mr. ENGLISH. Next, Mr. Ed Asner on behalf of the Fund for Open Information and Accountability, Inc., and Bob Schieffer, CBS News, on behalf of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi. I want to welcome you and thank you for coming before us today. Mr. Schieffer we will let you proceed. STATEMENT OF BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS NEWS, ON BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS, SIGMA DELTA CHI Mr. SCHIEFFER. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Freedom of Information Act. I am Bob Schieffer, CBS News national correspondent and as a former newspaperman with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and now a broadcast newsman. I am honored and pleased to present the views of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi. As you may know, Sigma Delta Chi is the oldest, largest and most representative organization of journalists in the United States. We were founded in 1909 and have 300 chapters and more than 28,000 members around the country in all branches of communications and every part of the profession from television news to newspapers, magazine, free lance reporting and journalism education. Mr. Chairman, we have submitted the society's statement for the record and I would like to capsulize it if I might. With me today is Robert Lewis of New House Newspapers, chairman of the National Freedom of Information Committee of the Society, and Bruce W. Sanford of Baker and Hostetler, the society's legal counsel. Mr. ENGLISH. I might say without objection your entire testimony will be included and made part of the record. Mr. SCHIEFFER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on the Fourth of July 15 years ago President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act. We are happy to be here today, Mr. Chairman, because we believe this act has been a worthwhile thing. It was enacted at a time when Government was growing rapidly in size and complexity. It was designed to enhance public accountability and promote everyone's knowledge of Government operations so that citizens might participate more effectively in the deliberations of Govern ment. Mr. Chairman, the reporters of Sigma Delta Chi want to report to you this morning that the act has served its original purposes well. We still have a ways to go to make all the information available to the public that ought to be available. But information concerning the day-to-day operation as well as the more dramatic decisions of Government agencies is now more accessible to all. We are also aware, however, that this is a time when critics of the act are proposing various amendments to carve out broader exemptions from the act's mandate and we believe these amendments would weaken the act. Time and again when the act is discussed by members of Sigma Delta Chi the discussion quickly turns to just how relevant the act remains today. We also believe it is important to keep the original purposes of the act in mind as well as its fundamental success as we review it today. Journalists are charged with a unique role in implementing the act, and the draftsmen of the act perceived that special role. It is the journalist as well as the scholar or author who most commonly serves as the public's surrogate, to use Chief Justice Burger's phrase, in obtaining information about governmental operations. The journalist is the conduit by which citizens typically learn about Government. Despite some misleading statistics to the contrary, journalists use the act constantly, in diverse and often resourceful ways; the press' use of the act enables the public to obtain previously-inaccessible information concerning governmental decisions and actions. If the society achieved no other purpose here today, we would like to dispel the much bandied-about myth that reporters do not make much use of the act. Many reporters, if not most, do not always identify themselves when making Freedom of Information Act requests. Good reporters guard their sources and their news gathering techniques. But even more significant Mr. Chairman, in my view the statistics do not reflect the enormous amount of information received from the mere presence of having this act on the books. Any journalist can give illustrations from personal experience about how agencies voluntarily disgorge information at the mere mention of a possible Freedom of Information Act request. Sometimes these days you do not even have to mention it. We sincerely believe the fact that it is there, helps us in getting information. The act is an excellent tool to research events touched by the Federal Government. It should not be portrayed as simply the specialized chisel of "investigative" reporters, although certainly it has been useful in uncovering an awesome number of wretched excesses by law enforcement officials and other public servants where zeal, greed, or indolence transcended their judgment. And who knows how many abuses of authority it has effectively prevented by denying a bureaucrat an assurance of secrecy? Journalists who report on everyday agency activity rank among the act's prime beneficiaries. In fact, it was access to information regarding the day-to-day operations of administrative agencies, not the exposés, that Congress had primarily in mind in drafting the act. As former Representative John Moss, then chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, recognized in 1966-the bureaucratic reverence for secrecy is completely understandable and singularly unremarkable. "The barriers to access," he said then, "the instances of arbitrary and capricious withholding, are dramatic only in their totality." The Society of Professional Journalists commends the subcommittee's attention to a study issued on February 27, 1981, by the Congressional Research Service which compiled news stories based on documents released under the FOI Act. The study evidences the wide and varied use of the act by all types of reporters. Examples compiled by the CRS in its report, while not exhaustive, serve to illustrate its value to news media and the public alike. At the same time as the society terms the act a success, we recognize that unforeseen use or even abuse of the act has given rise to some unanticipated administrative work. The society hears from agencies such as the FBI complaining about the cost of compliance with the act. To a great extent, these complaints strike us as hollow even in these days of budget cutting and cost containment. The simple fact is there is a price tag for liberty. Government responsiveness and accountability does cost something. And while we spend over $100 million on military bands, it does not seem unreasonable to spend something less than that or even more than that to insure that Americans will have access to information kept by our Government. The information will not always be as stirring or uplifting as a Sousa march, but it will frequently be more valuable in preserving democracy. But journalists can empathize with the agencies' complaints about heavy FOIA workloads. Clearly, much of the work stems from requestors who use the act for private rather than public purposes. Administrative costs and delays have risen, for instance, as the act has been used increasingly as a Government-subsidized discovery vehicle for private litigation, particularly in the antitrust field. Journalists, who invariably work under tight time constraints even when preparing indepth articles rather than spot news, would welcome efforts to expedite agency response time under the act. However, the society urges both caution and restraint in the consideration of any amendment or fine-tuning of the act. Congress must be wary of bureaucratic attempts to dismantle the act under the guise of cost containment or other euphemisms. Agencies, after all, never liked the idea of the FOIA. And human nature being what it is, virtually any civil servant prefers secrecy to openness or public accountabililty. Thus, the society would urge that any finetuning of the act be done with screwdrivers, not crowbars. Any perceived problems should be corrected at their precise sources, leaving intact the tools needed to fulfill the act's primary purpose of providing ready access to information for the public and the public's surrogate, the press. Journalists have three specific concerns with the FOIA as currently administered, and the society would ask the subcommittee to bear these concerns in mind in exercising its oversight duties or in considering any legislation affecting the act. Three words symbolize the three concerns: Delay, dollars, and damage. First, delay. The greatest deterrent to usage of the act by journalists is the specter of delays-the threat that any agency will stall until a story loses timeliness or a journalist loses interest. Recent proposals threaten to add more formidable delays. Submitters of confidential information-it has been suggested-should be notified and granted a hearing before an FOIA request is granted. Such suggestions would doubtlessly increase substantially the delay for those seeking information for valid purposes under the act. We recognize the due process concerns here, yet would urge that in this area, as in others, any problems be attacked with precision, without scuttling effective use of the act for the public's benefit. We recognize the point Mr. Erlenborn raised earlier. If the business community though is concerned about the release of true trade secrets, then a finely focused procedure limited to certain selected types of Government records should be on the table for discussion, not a proposal to give everyone named in a Government record a right to a hearing prior to compliance with an FOIA request. Dollars are a universal concern these days. Will Rogers-your fellow Oklahoman, Mr. Chairman, told us on the subject of dollars and politics that "politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with." Well, certainly journalists realize that while everything is expensive these days, agency-imposed fees are often so excessive that they effectively bar access to information. The act requires that fee waivers be granted when it is in the public interest; however, it leaves to each agency the discretionary decision of whether a particular waiver is in the public interest. A few agencies presume that journalists will be using the act in the public interest and automatically grant waivers to reporters and authors. However, where no such presumption exists, fees can often become an economic barrier to access to information. Just last month a regional office of the Small Business Administration sought to charge a reporter for the Memphis Press Scimitar a whole series of fees including labor time charges to interview the Nashville director of the SBA. Such horror stories are unfortunately common. They effectively discourage access not only to the reporter, but to those people to whom the information would mean financial relief. The ultimate solution, of course, is legislation favoring fee waiver when a requestor indicates that the information is sought for public purposes such as news dissemination. The third concern of journalists involves another presumption in the act-one that Attorney General Griffin Bell strengthened with a policy directive to all Federal agencies and one that has been undermined by Attorney General Smith's recent rescission of that policy-a presumption favoring disclosure. In his memorandum, Smith terminated the requirement that an agency prove that demonstrable harm would result from release of documents which fit under a particular exemption. Thus, agencies are encouraged to treat exemptions as conclusive and resist rather than facilitate disclosure. The society would respectfully urge this subcommittee, Mr. Chairman, to consider at the appropriate time legislation which would restore the proper emphasis favoring a presumption for disclosure under the FOIA. The demonstrable harm or danger standard is a sound concept which reduces government litigation over the act and fosters speedy compliance with the act. In closing, Mr. Chairman, I thank the subcommittee on behalf of the Society of Professional Journalists for its diligent exercise of its oversight responsibilities and would make one final suggestion. The Freedom of Information Act gives journalists, as the public's surrogate and as citizens themselves, the opportunity to augment confidence in a Federal Government which many people believe deserves little trust, much less the benefit of the doubt. It is ironic that Capitol Hill is being pressed with proposals that would virtually dismantle or dismember large sections of the FOIA so shortly after the highest court in the land has spoken unanimously and |