CDC sits on documents

Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have generated about 4,000 pages of documents assessing risks to the agency’s reputation posed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s reporting.

But the CDC is keeping those records secret, despite directives from the Obama administration that federal agencies presume government records are open to the public under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

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Release of the CDC records “would interfere with the agency’s deliberative process and have a chilling effect on employee discussions,” CDC freedom of information officer Lynn Armstrong said in a letter sent this month to the AJC.

The AJC asked for the documents in January 2007, after the newspaper learned that the agency was conducting risk analyses of this reporter’s news-gathering rather than releasing information of interest to the public. At the time, the AJC was pursuing stories about morale problems and an exodus of key scientists from the Atlanta-based agency, CDC’s chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina, lab animal welfare violations and costly taxpayer-funded construction projects at the agency’s campus on Clifton Road.

For complex document requests, the CDC reports that its median processing time is just 38 days (and just 11 days for simple requests). But several AJC requests have been pending for a year; some for more than two years.

The newspaper learned CDC staff were performing risk assessments on my reporting after a copy of one of the SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — assessment memos was leaked in the fall of 2006. A few weeks earlier, the AJC requested documents about a $10 million no-bid contract; CDC officials directed an employee to analyze threats if the information became public. The firm that got the contract was associated with and recommended by a volunteer adviser to then-CDC Director Julie Gerberding.

According to the leaked memo: “No assurance that CDC received the best value solution to its concerns because [of the] procurement process used.” It noted a “potential conflict of interest” and said “Negative publicity will further question top CDC management, as it was so involved in the early process.”

After publishing an article about this memo, the AJC filed its January 2007 FOIA request for all other such memos and risk documents. CDC had released nothing until this month, when it sent a response by FedEx on April 1 that contained 46 pages of documents, most of which were copies of articles published in the AJC or other publications, and a letter denying access to about 4,000 other pages of records.

On Jan. 21 — his first full day in office — President Barack Obama issued a memo to all federal agencies reinforcing the importance of the Freedom of Information Act. Government transparency is important to democracy, he said.

“The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears,” Obama said in the memo.

Until recently, federal agencies operated under a 2001 directive issued by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. His memo directed agencies to emphasize protecting institutional, commercial and privacy interests over public disclosure.

Obama’s memo and additional guidelines issued in March by Attorney General Eric Holder instructed federal agencies to focus on releasing information.

Based on anecdotal reports of documents being released, the openness directives seem to be working, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which is based in Washington.

In recent weeks, other federal agencies have released or agreed to release controversial records about terrorism interrogation tactics and bird-airplane collisions. So why did the CDC withhold in their entirety 4,000 pages of documents about the AJC’s reporting?

Armstrong and CDC risk communication specialist Barbara Reynolds declined to be interviewed. Reynolds works in the CDC Office of Enterprise Communication, which has a stated mission that includes “environmental scanning to determine emerging threats to the agency’s reputation.”

The Freedom of Information Act presumes that government records belong to the people and only allows information to be withheld for a few, limited reasons, such as national security or to protect trade secrets or medical privacy.

The law allows agencies — at their discretion — to withhold certain internal agency records involving advice, recommendations or opinions that are part of the decision-making process. This is the exemption CDC cites.

“This is the area where there is the greatest potential for increased disclosure,” said Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the office of information policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Her office has been conducting training sessions on the new policy.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent agency, said employees who handle FOIA requests have been briefed on the new policies.

“HHS is committed to honoring FOIA requests in a manner that ensures our department is open, transparent and respects the FOIA,” spokesman Nick Papas said. “If The Atlanta Journal-Constitution decides to appeal the CDC decision on the case in question, that appeal will be reviewed at the department level.”

The AJC has appealed.