I don't like this one bit.
Sen. Richard Burr's cure for infectious-disease outbreaks and dangerous bioterrorism agents includes a big dose of government secrecy.
The North Carolina Republican has introduced legislation to create the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, a new bureaucracy that would help spur research and development of drugs and vaccines to blunt the impact of a pandemic or bioterrorist attack. The agency, to be part of the Department of Health and Human Services, would get something no other agency has: a full exemption from the Freedom of Information Act.
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"It is an act of contempt for the public and for open government that hopefully will not be adopted," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. "They are asking for more of an exemption than the CIA, more than the NSA [National Security Agency] has, more than any military or intelligence organization has."
Exempt this group from the FOIA, and in a few decades when we find out they were making biological weapons we'll be kicking ourselves in the ass for not making them more open and accountable.
I understand national security, but the more you keep secret the more opportunity you have for bad things to go on with no notice or control.
The general rule should be to make as much as possible open and transparent. This is a bad, bad idea.
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