Politicians craft bill on public security

Feds criticize state open records law

BRAD SHANNON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Monday, March 11, 2002

OLYMPIA -- Six months after two hijacked jetliners hit the World Trade Center, Washington state legislators are about to throw a thicker sheet of secrecy over information that might help terrorists strike other targets.

Information that identifies where bridges and other public structures are vulnerable to explosives, for instance, won't be available to the public under legislation that is poised for passage in the Legislature.

The same secrecy protection will be given to computer codes. Also protected is counterterrorist intelligence or investigative information that the FBI agents and other federal authorities share with state authorities about specific terrorism threats.

"It should allow federal officers ... to exchange information (with state officials) as it directly relates to terrorism," said Rep. Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, who worked with Attorney General Christine Gregoire and newspaper editors to fashion a bill that protects the public's right to know about dangers that affect them directly.

Gregoire had complained that she was nearly excluded from a federal anti-terrorism briefing U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft called last year.

The federal officers worried that Gregoire might disclose sensitive details of the meeting, citing what they claimed was an overly broad Washington open records law.

Gregoire got into the meeting, but later said she wasn't allowed to take away any paperwork.

The public's right to know won't be thrown away by the new law, said Haigh and Sen. Georgia Gardner, D-Blaine, who worked on the bills.

The most difficult area for lawmakers dealt with information that, in the words of Diana Kramer, executive director of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, "can be used for good or for evil." Lawmakers had to decide, for instance, if the public should have a right to know about a fuel pipeline assessment that showed it was vulnerable to breakage.

The compromise represented in House Bill 2411 and Senate Bill 6439 would let neighbors near a pipeline get that information, said Gardner, whose Whatcom County district was the scene of a tragic pipeline blast a few years ago.

However, the legislation would keep secret any details about a local fire or emergency response team's plan for responding to a suspected terrorist act.

Any assessment showing where the pipeline or a bridge might be vulnerable to explosives would similarly be kept secret.

"It allows the attorney general to go to briefings and to have something on the statutes that she can show the federal government that she doesn't have to disclose what is going on. It allows them to do planning for terrorist events and not have those plans released," said Rowland Thompson, executive director for Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington, which objected to early proposals that included a more sweeping shroud of secrecy over government documents.

Gardner said the legislation errs on the side of caution. Overall, the public should feel safer, Gardner said.

Advocates of the public's right to know had questioned whether any new law was needed, because police already have a right to withhold specific intelligence information if its disclosure can be expected to put an investigation in peril. Laws already protected some vulnerability assessments from disclosure as well.

Brad Shannon, political editor for The Olympian, can be reached at 360-753-1688 and at beshanno@olympia.gannett.com.

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