BUSH REGIME PLANNING TO UNDERMINE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION LAWS

RICHARD WILLING, USA TODAY - The federal government will pay a Texas law
school $1 million to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of
sensitive data available to the press and public through
freedom-of-information requests. Beginning this month, St. Mary's
University School of Law in San Antonio will analyze recent state laws
that place previously available information, such as site plans of power
plants, beyond the reach of public inquiries. Jeffrey Addicott, a
professor at the law school, said he will use that research to produce a
national "model statute" that state legislatures and Congress could
adopt to ensure that potentially dangerous information "stays out of the
hands of the bad guys.". . . Critics say the research plan overstates
the need for secrecy and is likely to give state and federal governments
too much discretion to withhold material. "Restricting information (for)
security and efficiency and comfort level, that's the good story," says
Paul McMasters, a specialist in public information law at the First
Amendment Center in Arlington, Va. "The bad story is that it can also be
a great instrument of control. ... To automatically believe that the
less known the better is really not rational."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-05-foia-research_x.htm