Thread by @jason_paladino

Thread: The Pentagon is AGAIN trying to weaken FOIA, something they have tried every year since 2015. Congress has rejected this proposal each time. If the Pentagon gets its way, this new exemption will almost certainly be abused.

This continues a trend of the Pentagon towards secrecy, treating the press and FOIA requesters as potential adversaries, and attempting to withhold information based on some ill-defined notion of "operational security." I wrote about this trend here. pogo.org/analysis/2019/…

If the proposal were approved, the DoD would almost certainly abuse the new exemption, breaking an already broken FOIA system. Last year, the department's backlog grew from 13,215 to 16,000 a 21% increase. open.defense.gov/Portals/23/Doc…

The Office of the Secretary of Defense took an average of 359 days to respond to complex (read: the vast majority) of requests in FY 2020. Reporters should not have to sue to get timely information about the operations of the their military.

Allowing the department to withhold information based on whether "public disclosure could reasonably be expected to provide an operational military advantage to an adversary" is arbitrary and will be used to hide harmless, yet newsworthy information

DoD has proven it will assume even the most general information, like delayed numbers of troop deployments by country, could be operationally useful to adversaries. This lacks credibility. The DOD should be moving in the other direction, reversing the damage done in Trump years.

See legislative proposal here: ogc.osd.mil/Portals/99/OLC…

Shoutout to @saftergood who has been writing about this for years.

don't worry folks, they pinky-promise they won't abuse this

The DoD claims that a Supreme Court decision narrowed the scope of the FOIA. That opinion (8-1 btw) ruled in favor of a FOIA requester, and denounced attempts by DoD to create a "sweeping exemption," and held that the government already has plenty of tools to withhold info.