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Homeland Security Okays Closed Proceedings
CNet is reporting that a newly created branch within the Homeland Security Department that brings together many different federal agency employees and private sector players has been given the go-ahead to disregard a law requiring meetings to be open and proceedings public. From the article: "The 1972 law generally requires such groups to meet in open sessions, make written meeting materials publicly available, and deliver a 15-day notice of any decision to close a meeting to the public. The last is a particular point of concern for Homeland Security officials, who anticipate that private emergency meetings may need to be scheduled on short notice."
As near as I can tell, this means that somewhere there is a guy named "Homeland Security Okay", and these Closed Proceedings belong to him.
But speaking seriously:
The 1972 law generally requires such groups to meet in open sessions, make written meeting materials publicly available, and deliver a 15-day notice of any decision to close a meeting to the public. The last is a particular point of concern for Homeland Security officials, who anticipate that private emergency meetings may need to be scheduled on short notice.
The private sector, fearing that sensitive data will get to the wrong hands, has continued to resist sharing important information with the feds, the Department of Homeland Security said, citing government auditors' findings from late 2003.
Making the meetings public would amount to "giving our nation's enemies information they could use to most effectively attack a particular infrastructure and cause cascading consequences across multiple infrastructures," another departmental advisory council warned in August.
Is this not a valid reason for a group charged with advising on issues dealing with critical public infrastructure?
Also, please note that ANY meetings under FACA can already be closed, but a 15-day notice must be given of such closure. The end result, since 1972, is still that the meeting is closed.
The issue here is that the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council may decide it needs to have an emergency meeting, AND that it should be closed, but can't wait 15 days to hold the meeting. The waiting period would seem designed to discourage federal agencies from routinely closing meetings without an announcement period that presumably may allow for recourse, official or otherwise, if such a closure is improper. However, the importance of a critical infrastructure advisory board holding an emergency meeting trumps the waiting period. Remember: being able to hold a closed meeting is NOT new; the only new element is not having to give a 15-day public notice that such a meeting will be closed.
I'd encourage everyone to actually read the article. Of course, if you think nothing should ever be secret and think this is part of another conservative/Republican plot, then you probably won't agree with any reasoning for keeping such critical meetings secret, and/or not having to wait 15 days to hold such meetings.