Watchdog seeks to amend legal opinion limiting data access.

• Position: GOVERNMENT RECORDS

US. Department of Justice (DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has asked Congress to amend the 1978 Inspector General Act to specify that the only information a federal agency can withhold from its inspector general (IG) records that Congress specifically states it does not want watchdogs to see, according to the Washington Examiner.

Horowitz's proposal is in response to a controversial opinion issued by the DoJ s Office of Legal Counsel, stating that agency officials can withhold documents from IGs if a law, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, blocks their dissemination.

According to Horowitz, if Congress didn't actually mean "all" when it wrote in 1978 that "all records" within an agency's possession should be given to its IG, then it should pass a new law detailing which documents IGs cannot have. Otherwise, he told Federal News Radio, the Inspector General Act should override the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other laws referenced in the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion, such as...