Protecting information, or hiding it?

(Continued from page 1)

This wouldn't be the first time that government officials have waved the banner of homeland security to try to close off basic information that would have easily been deemed public before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Earlier this year, a federal court in California ruled that Santa Clara County could not use the homeland security issue to withhold its computer data on land boundaries and other geographic data, which were open under that state's public records laws.

Another example: Two years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deemed five major dams in four states as being at "high risk" of collapse, including Wolf Creek Dam on the Cumberland River in Kentucky.

The Corps declined to publicly release their detailed maps showing whose house would be flooded and whose would stay high and dry, saying homeland security concerns trumped the federal Freedom of Information Act. (Everyone knows there are population centers downriver of the dam, national FOI advocate Charles Davis told the Louisville Courier-Journal at the time: "It doesn't take Osama in a cave to figure this out.")

Getting information about homeland security itself can be even harder. People in New Jersey had trouble a few years ago finding out how their state was spending federal homeland security money, the AP reported. But one purchase did leak out: The city of Newark spent $300,000 of it to buy two air-conditioned garbage trucks.

Unfortunately for people wanting open government, the homeland security argument -- and the accompanying secrecy -- can carry the day. Abbott's office ruled in 2007 that the Houston Airport System did not have to turn over organizational charts and other airport information -- information not described in the ruling -- because federal law gave TSA the authority to determine what records might be sensitive. Abbott's predecessor, John Cornyn, now a U.S. senator, also punted to TSA when someone asked for information about San Antonio airport workers in 2002.

Just to drive home the point, go over to Chron.com's repository of databases of public workers' salaries in the Houston area. See which agencies you can search for. City of Houston? Check. Port of Houston? Check. The Houston school system? Check? But airport workers are nowhere to be found.

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