Watchdog slams government’s legal opinion limiting access to information

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz wants Congress to amend the 1978 Inspector General Act with a new law that says that the only information a federal agency can withhold from its inspector general are records that Congress explicitly decides it does not want watchdogs to see.

Horowitz’s proposal is in response to a controversial opinion issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel last month. That opinion said agency officials can withhold documents from inspectors general if a law, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, blocks their dissemination.

If Congress didn’t actually mean “all” when it wrote in 1978 that “all records” within an agency’s possession should be given to its inspector general, then it should pass a new law detailing which documents IGs cannot have, Horowitz said Thursday on Federal News Radio. Otherwise, the Inspector General Act should override the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other laws referenced in the Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion, such as those protecting information stemming from a wiretap or grand jury proceeding, he said.

“Do you want independent oversight or do you not want independent oversight?” Horowitz rhetorically asked lawmakers. The legal opinion says that IGs have to ask permission to review information from the very officials they are supposed to be overseeing. “That, in our view, is not independent oversight,” he said.

“It turns the whole principle of independent oversight on its head,” he added.

The 72-member Council of Inspectors General that Horowitz leads is “in complete agreement” that their access to information “must be absolute,” he said.

Beyond potentially hindering investigations, the watchdogs worry that the legal opinion could both having a chilling effect on potential whistleblowers and rank-and-file government workers trying to do their jobs.

“We are concerned that witnesses and other agency personnel, faced with uncertainty regarding the applicability of the OLC opinion to other records and situations, may now be less forthcoming and fearful of being accused of improperly divulging information,” the council recently wrote to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

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