SSI – Sensitive Security Information
SSI may be the most awesome of the anti-open government acronyms. The designation provides an exemption from FOIA for information related to the security of airports, seaports, transit systems and the nation’s transportation in general. It’s lineage goes back to a calmer day when people just hijacked airplanes to take hostages and make demands.
In 1974, the Federal Aviation Administration began gathering information from airlines about their passengers in an effort to anticipate hijackings. It considered the information sensitive for a number reasons: there was personal information about passengers, there was data that could be considered commercially competitive, and it was investigative information about the safety of air travel. It called the data Sensitive Security Information and said the agency would withhold it from public disclosure.
A DC court in 1993 said the FAA had the legislative authorization to treat the information as exempt from FOIA. But the definition remained limited – information related to the safety of air passengers – until 2002. Then in a spate of post-9/11 legislation, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security and with it the Transportation Security Administration. TSA was given responsibility for aviation security. The Coast Guard was given maritime security. And by deleting two words, “air” and “passengers,” and changing “safety” to “security,” Congress greatly expanded the statutory definition of SSI.
It is now any information whose release the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard or the Department of Transportation finds “could be detrimental to the security of transportation.”
In the regulations implementing SSI, the transportation agencies said they intend to gather security-related information from seaports and airports as well as private carriers of both passengers and cargo and that this information will be automatically treated as SSI. “Born protected” is the way the Congressional Research Service described it. At the same time, through non-disclosure agreements, the agencies intend to also secure that information in local or state government files and to gag local officials.
The regulations can be found at 49 CFR 1520, page 20866 Vol. 69, No. 96 of the Federal Register, published May 18, 2004.
