JEFFERSON CITY - A draft report of the Joint Committee on Terrorism, Bioterrorism, and Homeland Security is recommending that Missouri's Sunshine Law be altered to allow for so-called "critical infrastructure" exemptions.
Businesses could voluntarily turn over records and other information related to such infrastructure to the government, where they would then become off-limits to the public. The Missouri Department of Homeland Security cited the change as necessary to protect locations such as the Callaway nuclear power plant.
At the federal level, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already moved to enact similar provisions. But those rules have come under fire by critics as too broad -- allowing for basic public safety information related to energy and environmental hazards to be declared secret.
"Far more people in the United States have died from dam failures, fuel explosions, chemical accidents, and other preventable hazards than from terrorism," said officers of the Society of Environmental Journalists in an open letter to DHS earlier this year. "But these deaths are only preventable if the public is aware of the hazards and urges companies and the government to provide real safety rather than hide the hazards."