On December 9th I put up a post expressing my concern about US Special Ops ordering bibles. At the time I outlined why I thought custom bibles weren’t a good thing.

Opinion varied. Many previous military personnel had no issue with the order for 10 thousand custom bibles from the International Bible Society.

Now the order has been withdrawn.

Stephen Peacock of the Binghamton Progressive Media Centre asked for a copy of the planned bible or a CD rom containing the details and instructions the army was sending to the International Bible Society. His request was filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

USA Col. Charles T. Cleveland has advised me that the documents I am seeking – the documents detailing which pictures and what additional text would be added to the Bibles – fall under what is known as FOIA exemption (b) (5). According to letter dated Feb. 10 sent to me by Col. Cleveland, the now-cancelled Bibles have since been categorized as “proposed plans to procure.” A consequence of that action is that the Army may deem those records as exempt from disclosure — or so it claims.

A review of Dept. of Defense (DoD) FOIA guidelines reveals how Col. Cleveland conveniently neglected to include all relevant parts of the DoD guidance he is citing.

Simply put, a government document’s inclusion in any “proposed plans to procure” is not sufficient to justify exemption from disclosure under the FOIA. Such plans may be exempted, in DoD’s own words, only when such information “would provide undue or unfair competitive advantage to private personal interests or would impede legitimate Government functions.”

Special Ops intended to carry out the custom-Bible project via a sole-source contract. Awarding a sole-source contract to IBS indeed is legitimate, as the company holds the copyright to the New International Version of the Bibles (which is the version, minus the “Army designed color photographs and text inserts,” specified under the proposed contract). However, the critical question isn’t whether a one-source contract is permissible under the circumstances; the question is whether the disclosure of the “Army designed color photographs and text inserts” would be unfair to IBS if disclosed to competing Bible publishers. The answer clearly is ‘no.’ Furthermore, disclosure is in the public interest, not for the specific business interests of this segment of the publishing industry.

Mr. Peacock is appealing to Pentagon’s Office of Freedom Information & Security Review.

Hard to know whether this is your basic bureacratic bumbling or not.