Christopher Collins

Wichita Falls Times Record News

Open government advocates are urging Congress to revise a proposed Department of Defense law that could keep vast portions of military documents secret from the public.

The advocates, including the National Press Club and the American Civil Liberties Union, assert in a letter sent Wednesday to leaders of the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services that some provisions of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act would act as an "unnecessary" restriction of public access to military documents.

The NDAA lists budget appropriations for the Department of Defense each fiscal year but also includes provisions regarding how the military operates. The Senate's version of the 2017 act includes a provision that would shield from public disclosure unclassified "information on military tactics, techniques and procedures" that might currently be considered public.

Most military records — along with other federal documents — can be requested by the public through the Freedom of Information Act. The act, commonly referred to as FOIA, also lists the types of documents that may be exempted from disclosure, such as some classified military records or documents whose release could threaten national security.

For the most part, though, federal agencies are urged to treat records requests through the FOIA with a "presumption of openness," President Barack Obama has said.

Open government advocates argue in their letter that the authorization act's new provision could create an overly broad exemption from FOIA rules, effectively allowing the Pentagon to keep secret vast swaths of records that previously were available to the public. The letter was sent to the chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services panel, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and the committees' ranking Democrats.

"The DoD's proposed language concerning the impact of release on operations is so broad that it could allow DoD to withhold almost any classified document at all related to Defense Department operations and could be used to justify concealing just about any material DoD creates," the letter says.

The open-records advocates say the proposed change could allow the military to hide documents showing the military's handling of sexual assault complaints, oversight of contractors and its drone program, for example.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said Thursday that broadening FOIA exemptions for DoD records would decrease military accountability.

"I'm convinced that this country will make better decisions about how we use our armed forces, and when we put our service members' lives on the line, when the public is better informed and more engaged," O'Rourke said. "That depends on accurate, informed reporting and analysis, which in turn is dependent on access to the information that shapes our national security policy."

The provision comes at a crucial crossroads for FOIA, a law that has been derided in Congress and the public for allowing federal agencies to withhold records and force those making requests to wait years for information and pay huge sums of money to get requested information.

Obama signed into law this year the FOIA Improvement Act of 2015, which aimed to reform the law. Advocates assert that the DoD request to keep unclassified documents secret "ignores the new reforms to FOIA and allows DoD to excuse itself from the hard-fought and necessary reforms passed just a few months ago by this Congress."

The El Paso Times contributed to this report.