Jennifer L.

Peebles
Texas Watchdog
5535 Memorial Drive
Suite F, No. 601
Houston, TX 77007

June 29, 2009

Ms. Dyann Whittaker

Supervisory Attorney Advisory
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Transportation Security Administration
3838 N. Sam Houston Parkway East, No. 510
Houston, TX 77032

Re: Texas Public Information Act request dated May 26, 2009, from Jennifer
Peebles for "records indicating how much the Houston Airport System paid
all of its employees between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2008. These records
should the employees' name, the amount of their pay, their job title or
classification and the unit, division or office of the airport system for which
they work.

Dear Ms. Whittaker:

I am writing you today to ask that you require the Houston Airport System (HAS) to
make public all the records to which I have requested access under the Texas Public
Information Act.

Ms. Evelyn Njuguna of the Houston city attorney's office has asked that you classify a
list of airport employees, and the amounts they were paid last year, as "sensitive security
information that must be withheld from public disclosure." In this letter, I will make three
arguments as to why this information should remain public.

A. The Houston Airport System has failed to show how public release of airport
personnel's names would endanger the airports.

Neither the Houston Airport System nor the Houston city attorney's office has shown
how names of employees, and their salaries, would be "sensitive security information."

The city attorney's office cites 49 USC Section 40119(b)(1), as well as a federal
regulation, 49 CFR Section 1520.3(a), which prohibits the release of "[a]ny information
that the TSA has determined may reveal a systemic vulnerability of the aviation system,
or a vulnerability of aviation facilities, to attack." This includes, but is not limited to
"details of inspections, investigations, and alleged violations and findings of violations."

Again, at no point does the city attorney's office ever explain how the release of names of
airport workers somehow "reveal[s] a systemic vulnerability of the aviation system, or a
vulnerability of aviation facilities to attack." (If it did reveal a systemic vulnerability, then
the Houston Airport System would be guilty of revealing that systemic vulnerability on
its own by publishing employee names, job titles and photographs on its own Web site, as
I will show later in this letter.)

The names and salary information for employees of the Los Angeles airport system are
public, have been released to the media there and are available for the entire world to see
via the Web site of the Los Angeles Daily News newspaper (an attached printout of the
Web site is EXHIBIT A). Ditto for employees of the Chicago airports, O'Hare and
Midway, whose names and salary information are available via the Chicago Sun-Times'
Web site (EXHIBIT B).

Both Los Angeles International and O'Hare are considerably larger -- in terms of
passenger traffic -- than Houston's Bush Intercontinental. Have the cities of Los Angeles
and Chicago revealed systemic vulnerabilities to LAX and O'Hare by releasing
employees' names? No.

Federal laws and regulations must be applied fairly and evenly across all 50 states. If it is
the intention of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to close off names of
employees of the Houston Airport System, then the Department and TSA owes a full
explanation to the public of why release of names of employees at Bush Intercontinental
somehow makes that facility more vulnerable to terrorist attack, while the public release
of the names of employees at LAX or O'Hare somehow doesn't have any effect on those
facilities' vulnerability.

If the Department that if it does intend to close off public access to names of all
employees at all airports across America, it is likely to face a serious challenge from
journalists and watchdog groups across this nation on First Amendment grounds.

The city's argument based on 49 USC Section 40119(b)(1) also falls short. That law gives
the Under Secretary the authority to close off otherwise-public information "obtained or
developed in carrying out security or research or development activities." But at no point
in its letter does the city attorney's office ever explain how a list of identifying all the
janitors, typists and computer operators at an airport, and how much they make a year, is
somehow "obtained or developed in carrying out security or research or development
activities."

Government agencies do not obtain or develop payroll lists in carrying out security
activities. They do not obtain or develop payroll lists in carrying out research activities.
They do not obtain or develop payroll lists in carrying out development activities. They
develop and maintain payroll lists as part of the everyday administrative activity of
performing their governmental functions.

B. The airport system has already published the names and job titles of at least 98 of
its workers on the airport system's own Web site.
The Houston city attorney wants the Department and TSA to believe that the Houston
airports and their travelers could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack if the city were to
release the names of the people who work at the airports.

If that's true, then the Houston Airport System is -- at this very moment -- aiding and
abetting terrorists.

That's because the Airport System has made the names and job descriptions of at least 98
Airport System employees -- from the man in the front office to maintenance workers for
the airports' buildings and automobile fleets -- publicly available on the Houston Airport
System's own Web site.

A random sampling of the people whom the airport system mentions by name in its own
promotional materials on its Web site:

 Manual Martinez and Charlie Herrera, who are airport system physical plant
maintenance employees;
 Roshonda Passmore, an HAS airport security officer;
 T.J. Jennings, who helps maintain the motor vehicle fleet for HAS;
 Willie Bingaman, director of cargo operations for HAS;
 Dawn Hoffman, airport operations supervisor for Hobby Airport;
 and Brian Rinehart, manager of Ellington Airport for HAS.

In all, the number of employee names I found on the airport system's Web site totaled 98.
I am including a complete list of those names with this letter as EXHIBIT C, complete
with Web addresses, so that the attorney general's office may verify my claim. I am
enclosing with this letter printouts of 10 of the Web pages in question as they appear as
of this moment, on June 22, 2009. These are marked EXHIBIT D.

Just to be clear: I didn't obtain these airport system employees' names by hacking into
some password-protected area of the airport's Web site. I didn't bribe anyone with special
security clearance to retrieve these names. No, these airport employees' names and job
descriptions -- and in some cases, even their photographs -- are all sitting right there on
the airport system's public Web site in the Houston Airport System's monthly newsletters,
which are written and compiled by the airport system's own communications and public
relations staffers. These public-relations-type materials were produced by the Airport
System, with public funds, for the benefit of the public.

Also, the names, photographs and short biographies of nearly a dozen of the Airport
System's very top officials are on a special page of their own on the Airport System's
Web site. Indeed, the name of the man who was the head of the Houston Airport System
in 2008, Richard M. Vacar, appears so many times on the airports' Web site that I lost
count.

In short, the Houston Airport System wants the public -- indeed the world, and anyone,
anywhere with Internet access -- to be able to access the names of these employees who
have access to the restricted areas of Houston's airports. It willingly published this
information and made it available to you, me and Osama bin Laden himself (assuming he
has Internet access).

The city of Houston and the Houston Airport System cannot on one hand publicize the
names and job descriptions of 98 of its own employees and then, on the other hand, claim
that releasing employees' names would somehow make the airport system vulnerable.
This defies common sense. If the airport system's argument is to be believed, then the
leadership of the Houston Airport System is compromising their own airports' security.

C. The Houston Airport System has failed to prevent its employees from voluntarily
disclosing the requested information via the Internet.

If release of the identities of HAS employees really would make the airports unsafe, then
Doug Frankhouser is compromising airport security. So is Albert Ausberry. And Ivory
Davis.

They're all Houston Airport System employees -- Frankhouser is head of HAS' security,
data and wireless systems; Asberry is an operations coordinator; and Davis is an
electrical supervisor. And they all have voluntarily identified themselves, and described
their jobs for HAS, on the Internet via the free social-networking service LinkedIn.com.

Aside from the 98 HAS employees whose identities I culled from HAS's own Web site, I
found a total of 42 other HAS employees who are voluntarily broadcasting their identities
to the world on LinkedIn.

Using nothing more than a Google search, I was able to find these 42 other people who
identified themselves by name as current HAS employees, and all but one of them listed a
job title or job description. A complete list of these employees, and their job titles, is
enclosed as EXHIBIT E. Printouts of some of these Web pages are enclosed as EXHIBIT
F.

This is simply another way in which the Houston Airport System has already allowed the
requested information to be released to the public via the Internet.

If the release and publication of the names and job descriptions of HAS employees would
really compromise airport security, as the Houston city attorney's office argues, then why
has the Houston Airport System not prohibited its employees from disclosing their
identities and job descriptions via the Internet and social-networking sites such as
LinkedIn?

While we all enjoy First Amendment rights that guarantee us freedom of speech, courts
around the country have held that employers have some legal rights -- not an absolute
right, but some rights -- to limit certain employee activities outside the workplace. One
example: As a journalist who is expected to remain objective, my boss has the right to
forbid me from putting campaign signs in my yard supporting political candidates. And
the Internet is littered with stories of people who were fired from their jobs because of
indiscreet postings on MySpace, Facebook, personal blogs and the like.

If the Houston Airport System really wanted to prevent HAS employees from identifying
themselves on the Internet, it could have forbidden such activity on security grounds.
Clearly, it has not done so.

Therefore, as I said earlier, the Houston Airport System has already allowed the
information I requested to become public via the Internet. Thus, it should be released to
me as I requested under the Texas Public Information Act.

To summarize: The Houston Airport System has approximately 1,600 employees,

according to its most recent comprehensive annual financial report. Using the Internet, I
was able to compile a list of 140 employees' names -- and job titles or descriptions for all
but one of them -- using information published by the airport system itself or by the
employees themselves. That group -- 140 of 1,600 -- constitutes nearly 9 percent of the
total workforce of the Houston Airport System whose IDs are already on the Internet.
The information I requested is already out there in the public eye.

In closing, I would repeat the words of President Barack Obama in his Executive Order
on the Freedom of Information Act, dated Jan. 21, 2009:

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew

their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era
of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all
decisions involving FOIA. [Emphasis added.]

If your office has any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. My e-mail address is
jennifer@texaswatchdog.org and my phone number is 281-656-1681. I appreciate your
time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Peebles