A New Ultra-Secret Government Agency

Legislation is moving in the Senate to create a new government agency to combat bioterrorism that will operate, unlike any other agency before it, under blanket secrecy protection.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) has introduced the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005, S1873, that would create a new agency in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to research and develop strategies to combat bioterrorism and natural diseases. While Congress has created several agencies recently in response to homeland security concerns, most notably the Department of Homeland Security, Burr proposes for the first time ever to completely exempt this new agency from all open government laws. The legislation has already passed out of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and is now before the full Senate.

The Act creates the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) to work on countering bioterrorism and natural diseases. Apparently in an attempt to protect any and all sensitive information on U.S. counter-bioterrorism efforts or vulnerabilities to biological threats, Burrs has included in the legislation the first-ever blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The legislation states that, "Information that relates to the activities, working groups, and advisory boards of the BARDA shall not be subject to disclosure" under FOIA "unless the Secretary or Director determines that such disclosure would pose no threat to national security."

Neither the CIA nor the Defense Department has such an exemption. Burr’s spokesperson argues that the exemption is necessary to protect national security claiming that "there will be times where for national security reasons certain information would have to be withheld." For instance, the BARDA should not, according to the spokesperson, be required to publicly disclose information pertaining to a deadly virus.

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3195/1/404

Any time they want that type of secrecy, it's because they want to hide something bad THEY are doing.

Who are our best contacts to support killing this abomination? If anyone seriously doubts ZERO oversight is safe, then they have not been paying attention to the lack of oversight we already have on legal groups.

NoFederales

that's why it's such a big secret. national security, you know.

Secrecy is not in the interest of disease control.
Science works best when there is an open exchange
and review of research.

This measure lets the pharmaceutical industry
develop and test drugs without public scrutiny,
immune from liability. The big national security
interest here seems to be industry property rights
and trade secrets. This doesn't help us fight the flu.