On June 19th, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced the Restoration of Freedom of Information Act of 2003 (H.R. 2526) or “Restore FOIA” in an attempt to address the recent problems of information access. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Senate companion bill (S. 609) in March. The bill amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296) and provides for the protection of voluntarily furnished confidential information. The Homeland Security Act places a requirement on government to keep voluntarily submitted critical infrastructure information (CII) from companies confidential. While it may be important for the government to obtain this information, the legislation does not allow the government full use of the information to actually resolve vulnerabilities. In addition, the CII provisions are extremely broad, potentially permitting companies to hide too much information from the public, and criminalize whistleblowers. For details on the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed CII rule, see OMB Watch’s analysis. The Restore FOIA bill would clarify which records could be classified as CII, preventing widespread abuse of the law by companies wishing to hide information from the public. The bill would also remove restrictions on how the government can use the information to resolve vulnerabilities, and would allow whistleblowers their full protections under law. Regardless of the troubling repercussions of these DHS provisions there are those that would expand them even further. For instance the at a recent National Defense Industrial Association security conference Capt. Robert Magee, the Deputy Director for Industrial Base Capabilities and Readiness reiterated the desire for a similar provisions for information the Department of Defense (DOD) receives. The DOD goal of its own CII provisions was reported in this May 5, 2003 Watcher article. Many public interest groups have spoken out against the current CII provisions. Wide support was gathered for the Senate version of the “Restore FOIA” bill (see sign-on statement). The House bill has been referred to the Committee on Government Reform and the Select Committee on Homeland Security. The Senate version remains in the Committee on Judiciary.