AP's Curley, Cox's Alexander Among 21 Inducted Into FOIA Hall Of Fame

By: E&P Staff Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley and Cox Newspapers D.C. Bureau Chief Andy Alexander will be inducted into the National Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Hall of Fame March 16 along with 19 other "champions of freedom," it was announced Wednesday.

Other inductees with newspaper connections include Kevin M. Goldberg, a law partner at Cohn and Marks LLP who serves as counsel to several press associations, including the American Society of Newspaper Editors, White House Correspondents Association, Regional Reporters Association, and the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors; and Robert D. Lystad, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Baker & Hostetler LLP who is counsel to the Society of Professional Journalists.

They are among the 21 people to be inducted into the FOIA Hall of Fame during the National FOI Conference, which is being held in conjunction with the second annual Sunshine Week beginning March 12.

The Hall of Fame is sponsored by a coalition of more than 30 organizations that work for expanded access to government information. New classes of members are named every five years, making these inductees the third class since the Hall was established in 1996.

"The Hall of Fame was established to recognize the work and accomplishments of those who have made a difference in the battle against government secrecy," said Paul McMasters of the First Amendment Center, who coordinated the selection process for this year's group.

Criteria for induction into the Hall of Fame include "long-term or significant instances of leadership, advocacy, accomplishments or scholarship on behalf of the federal Freedom of Information Act in particular or open government in general."

Besides McMasters, the following were members of this year's Hall of Fame selection committee: Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists; Scott Armstrong of the Information Trust; Rick Blum of OpenTheGovernment.org; Scott Bosley of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Barbara Cochran of the Radio-Television News Directors Association; Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Jane Kirtley of the Silha Center at the University of Minnesota; Robert Leger of SPJ; Patrice McDermott of the American Library Association; and Pete Weitzel of the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government.

The induction will take place at a conference and luncheon at the Freedom Forum World Center in Arlington, Va.

More information on the National FOIA Hall of Fame and previous inductees is available at the First Amendment Center's Web site or directly here.

Following is the complete list of 2006 inductees:


Andy Alexander, Washington bureau chief for Cox Newspapers who organized the national Sunshine Week initiative.

Gary Bass, the founder and executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization founded in 1983. Bass helped lead efforts to implement the first law to mandate online access to government information in 1986.

Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog.

David Burnham, a writer, investigative reporter and researcher who is the co-founder and co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Tom Curley

Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest organization that champions the rights of whistleblowers.

Kevin M. Goldberg

Morton H. Halperin, director of U.S. advocacy at the Open Society Institute, executive director of the Open Society Policy Center, and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Charles W. Hinkle, who founded the security review and freedom of information directorate in the office of the Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon's principal Freedom of Information Act office.

Kathleen A. Kirby, an attorney with Wiley Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C., and counsel to the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

Susan B. Long, a faculty member at Syracuse University in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and co-founder and co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Robert D. Lystad

John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a military and intelligence information Web site that he founded in 2000.

Ronald L. Plesser, a noted authority on federal privacy law and information policy who died in 2004.

Russ Roberts, a now-deceased FOIA officer in the late 1960s at what is now Department of Health and Human Services who is being recognized as a "a first-generation FOIA officer who helped set a tone that encouraged government agencies to maximize disclosure under the new Freedom of Information Act and to view disclosure of government information to the public as the role of the FOIA officer and staff."

A. Bryan Siebert, a senior executive at the Department of Energy, Bryan Siebert who the "Openness Initiative," described as the federal government's largest review of classification policy in the last 50 years.

David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Thomas M. Susman, a partner in the Washington office of Ropes & Gray who was chief counsel to the congressional Antitrust and Administrative Practice Subcommittees.

Mark Tapscott, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy.