Shays Garners Support from 2 Groups
Staff Reports
The Connecticut Post
April 15, 2006

Two groups commended Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, this week.

On Wednesday, the Newspaper Association of America applauded Shays and two other congressmen for their bipartisan work "to advance the cause of open government."

The Citizens for Global Solutions on Thursday recognized Shays "for consistently supporting sound foreign policy instead of the party-line position."

The NAA said that Shays and Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Henry Waxman, D-Ca., spearheaded open government provisions in a lobbying bill approved by the House Government Reform Committee.

The provisions eliminated the unregulated use of terms known as "pseudo classifications" on information. Each federal agency uses a different set of standards to determine what material should receive these types of designations, such as "sensitive, but unclassified" or "for official use only," the NAA said in a statement.

In recent years, this practice has led to wildly different definitions of exactly what material should receive the designations, the NAA said.

In applauding the work of the three congressmen, NAA President and CEO John Sturm said that the committee "is sending a strong message that agencies cannot randomly attach designations, but must justify these types of restrictions& ."

Meanwhile, the CGS gave Shays an A-plus, as well as extra credit for his stand on such issues as genocide in Darfur, funding for U.N. operations, torture, nuclear proliferation, international funding to help people with AIDS and climate change.

Shays was one of only 25 congressmen to receive "extra credit" for outstanding work on behalf of global issues, the CGS said in a statement.

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