Overview
- The Defense Department formally sent Congress a legislative proposal to create a statutory FOIA exemption for certain controlled unclassified information, with the Pentagon framing the request as a national security measure.
- The draft would let the defense secretary withhold records the military says show national defense vulnerabilities and would bar state and local governments from releasing covered records under their own open‑records laws.
- Transparency groups and watchdogs have sharply criticized the plan as unnecessary and risky, and the National Archives has stressed that CUI marking currently does not by itself permit withholding under FOIA.
- The proposal arrives after Congress passed the FOIA Improvement Act of 2026, which requires agencies to show a concrete foreseeable harm before withholding records, and after the Pentagon tightened reporter access to the building, a policy now tied up in appeals.
- The Defense Department's growing FOIA backlog—reported at 30,476 backlogged requests for fiscal 2025—adds urgency to oversight concerns and leaves uncertain whether Congress will include the exemption during defense bill negotiations.