Clipper committee: open meetings required by law?

[""L. Detweiler"" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

 Subject: Clipper review committee must hold open meetings, etc!
 Date: Tue, 06 Jul 93 15:48:18 -0700
 From: gnu@cygnus.com

According to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 USC app. 2), the
panel of cryptographers who are reviewing the Skipjack algorithm
qualify as an advisory committee, and must hold open meetings,
announce the location and duration of meetings, make transcripts
available under FOIA, etc.

        5 U.S.C app. 2 (sec. 3) (2) The term "advisory committee"
        means any committee, board, commission, council, conference,
        panel, task force, or other similar group, or any subcommittee
        or other subgroup thereof (hereafter in this paragraph
        referred to as "committee"), which is:

                (A) established by statute or reorganization plan, or
                (B) established or utilized by the President, or
                (C) established or utilized by one or more agencies,

        in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations for
        the President or one or more agencies or officers of the
        Federal Government, except that such term excludes (i) the
        Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, (ii) the
        Commission on Government Procurement, and (iii) any committee
        which is composed wholly of full-time officers or employees of
        the Federal Government.

        (3)  The term "agency" has the same meaning as in section
        551(1) of Title 5.

...
        (sec 10) (a) (1) Each advisory committee meeting shall be open
            to the public.

            (2) Except when the President tdetermines otherwise for
            reasons of national security, timely notice of each such
            meeting shall be published in the Federal Registers, and the
            Administrator shall proescribe regulations to provide for
            other types of public notice to insure that all interested
            persons are notified of such meeting prior thereto.

[Administrator = Administrator of General Services]

            (3)  Interested persons shall be permitted to attend, appear
            before, or file statements with any advisory committee,
            subject to such reasonable rules or regulations as the
            Administrator may prescribe.

        (b)  Subject to section 552 of Title 5, United States Code
        [the FOIA], the records, reports, transcripts, minutes,
        appendixes, working papers, drafts, studies, agenda, or other
        documents which were made available to or prepared for or by
        each advisory committee shall be available for public
        inspection and copying at a single location in the offices of
        the advisory committee or the agency to which the advisory
        committee reports until the advisory committee ceases to
        exist.

        (c)  Detailed minutes of each meeting...shall be kept...

        (d)  Subsections (a)(1) and (a)(3) of this section shall not
        apply to any portion of an advisory committee meeting where
        the President, or the head of the agency to which the
        advisory committee reports, determines that such portion of
        such meeting may be closed to the public in accordance with
        subsection (c) of section 552b of Title 5, United States Code
        [the Government in the Sunshine Act].  Any such determination
        shall be in writing and shall contain the reasons for such
        determination... 

[This lets them close portions of the meeting that are classified.
But they must hold an open meeting anytime their discussion is not
classified.  And they must vote publicly about what portions of the
meeting to close.]

...
        (sec 11) (a)  Except where prohibited by contractural
        agreements entered into prior to the effective date of this
        Act, agencies and advisory committees shall make available to
        any person, at actual cost of duplication, copies of
        transcripts of agency proceedings or advisory committee
        meetings.

Read over the whole act (it's in the annual Justice Dept. "FOIA Case
List" publication) and then let's find out whether NIST is following the
rules here...

The Sept 91 case list has about 40 FACA cases listed.  The recent
controversy over Hilary's health care advisory task force is also an
FACA case.

Thanks to Whit Diffie for thinking of this.

        John






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