Rejected Recovery.gov FOIA Appealed

A watchdog group is contesting the government's denial of a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act to see the entire contents of the controversial, potential $18 million contract for the redesign of Recovery.gov.

OMB Watch, which submitted the original request on Aug. 14, announced on Thursday that it has appealed the decision handed down by the General Services Administration on Aug. 24. GSA is managing the contract for the makeover of the official stimulus-tracker Web site on behalf of Recovery.gov's overseer, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.

The original request asked the government to disclose information withheld from the public regarding the agreement that will cost taxpayers $9.5 million through January 2010 and up to $18 million if all options are exercised. The board on July 31 posted a redacted version of the agreement online, after government transparency advocates demanded to see contract details that would explain how the board will spend the money and what taxpayers will receive in return.

Despite the deletion of many pricing descriptions, the online release of a contractor's bid is unprecedented.

Government officials and Maryland-based technology firm Smartronix, which was awarded the work on July 8, cooperated to remove proprietary information. U.S. Code permits certain details to be withheld from the public, such as technical design, nonfederal customer and supplier lists, overhead and operating costs, names of consultants and subcontractors or any information that would place a company at a competitive disadvantage for winning future government work.

Here's an excerpt from OMB Watch's appeal letter to GSA:

"[GSA] argued that the information was protected under Exemption (b)(4) of the FOIA. . . .Exemption 4 protects some proprietary information contained in government contracts and other documents. In particular, the statute exempts from disclosure 'trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.' 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4). In this case, however, the extensive redactions of the released contract document appear to extend outside of the specific category of proprietary information, confidential and obtained from a person or business that is covered by under Exemption 4. Of interest to the public, and to this requester in particular, is the nature of services for which the government is spending taxpayer money in conjunction with Recovery Act accountability. For instance, redactions include the number of visitors the website is being designed to handle, the rate of pay for programmers working on the site, as well as all description of work that major subcontractors such as KPMG are doing. These details are needed for the public to determine if tax dollars are being spent wisely and for a good product. The contract document released by GSA in this case is redacted in such a way that little meaningful insight can be gleaned about the nature of the work performed by a contractor who was paid more than $9 million for services connected to redesigning Recovery.gov."

. . .If portions of this document must be withheld, out of genuine concern for proprietary and commercial information under Exemption 4 of the FOIA, the redactions must be reviewed carefully under the standard of that exemption. Under this exemption nondisclosure is only permitted if information is 'obtained from a person' and is 'privileged or confidential.' The exemption does not allow withholding based on generalized claims of potential harm. Portions that can be segregated and released without harm to the interests protected under Exemption 4 must be released.

. . .Disclosure of information about government contracts is vital to taxpayers' understanding of government spending. In particular, in the context of the current financial crisis, it is vital that the public understand the use of federal funds for work performed by private contracts to track recovery spending."