Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

A bill moving rapidly through the Senate would create a secretive national research center to respond to bioterrorism threats and natural disease outbreaks

The bill, co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), would shift the main responsibility for developing bioterrorism countermeasures out of the Department of Homeland Security and into a new Biological Advanced Research and Development Agency in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The agency, commonly referred to as BARDA, would be given a first-year budget of $1 billion and some unusually strong powers.

It would have authority to shield drug manufacturers from liability lawsuits in the event a drug used to counteract a bioterrorism event or disease outbreak caused death or injury.

It also would be granted a blanket exemption from the federal Freedom of Information Act

Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader (R-Tenn), used the by now familiar politics of fear to justify the secretive center in a speech to Harvard.

In a June speech at Harvard University, Frist warned that the world may soon face "a front of unchecked and virulent epidemics, the potential of which should rise above your every other concern."

"I propose an unprecedented effort, the creation of a Manhattan Project for the 21st century, not with the goal of creating a new destructive agent, but to defend against infectious diseases and biological weapons."

The consensus seems to be that the proposed secrecy legislation is certainly unprecedented, and could harm the health of the US government.

"This bill breaks new ground in the area of government secrecy," said Steven Aftergood, director of a Federation of American Scientists project on official secrecy.

Aftergood said other federal agencies can legally deny access to government documents if they decide the material deserves an exemption under the federal Freedom of Information Act. But BARDA would have blanket exemption for any FOIA requests, he said.

"It is an insult to the public," Aftergood said.

"These provisions turn the concepts of 'open government' and 'democracy' on their heads," said the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government in a letter to senators. "To our knowledge, an entire agency has never received a blanket exemption from compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.

"Even those agencies which deal with sensitive national security information on a regular basis --including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense -- must comply with FOIA," the letter states.

Although his name is not mentioned in the article, one can be forgiven for wondering if David Addington acted as a consultant when drafting the bill, which states:

"Information that relates to the activities, working groups, and advisory boards of the BARDA shall not be subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code, unless the Secretary or Director determines that such disclosure would pose no threat to national security. Such a determination shall not be subject to judicial review."

Section 552 is the Freedom of Information Act.

Although the measure does not require BARDA's director to respond to FOIA requests, it contains no requirement that employees of the agency maintain secrecy about matters that are deemed to involve national security.