If you toil in the fields of government information, you may be interested to know that an urgent campaign is underway to strike language from the Senate version of the Farm Bill which would create a substantial new FOIA exemption and severely restrict public access to important information about farm animal health under a National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
OpenTheGovernment.org has written a letter to Senators expressing opposition to the non-disclosure language in the Senate version of the bill, and the American Library Association, Special Libraries Association, and American Association of Law Libraries are among the 28 organizations to sign on. Please see the letter at:
http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/farm_bill_letter.pdf
As the letter states, Section 10305 of the Livestock Title of the Farm Bill approved October 25 by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee gives the Secretary of Agriculture broad authority to restrict and control disclosure of NAIS information, and imposes "disproportionately harsh penalties for press activities protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." The letter seeks to strike Section 10305 from the bill.
As always, it's important that legislators hear from THEIR constituents.
If you wish to lend your voice to this effort, please call or fax your Senators and let them know that you support the principles of transparency and disclosure expressed in the OpenTheGovernment.org letter, and urge them to oppose any version of the bill which includes
the non-disclosure provisions. Senate phone numbers are available on
the Senate website, and fax numbers are available from the sites of individual members:
http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm . A complete reiteration of all the points made in the letter isn't necessary - what's most important is that they hear from you, their constituents, that you want the non-disclosure language of Section 10305 removed. Senate floor action could come at any time this week, so please act quickly.