Ethics

Congressman Intervening in FOIA Request

By Ed Brayton

An update on my FOIA battle with the White House: Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) is urging his colleagues to sign on to a letter he intends to send to the US Trade Representative demanding the release of the settlement they negotiated with Canada, the EU and Japan regarding our online gambling laws. One of his aides contacted me last week and asked for a copy of my FOIA denial letter and, a few days after I sent it, the Congressman sent a letter to all of his colleagues in the House about it.

The memo to his colleagues is titled Support U.S. Sovereignty: Congress should know why the WTO ruled against US internet gambling laws and why the USTR response is classified as "national security." The memo also contains some details about the WTO settlement process that suggests that the settlement contains something other than direct payments to the three other governments. More likely it contains our agreement to allow those countries to place retaliatory sanctions on other sectors of the economy. Rep. DeFazio writes:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).