Please note also the following excerpt from an editorial in the Boulder Daily Camera,

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/editorials/article/0,1713,BDC_2489_1541757,00.html

"The House version of the bill crafted a massive exemption from the federal Freedom of Information Act. The bill would allow private corporations, which are said to own 90 percent of the nations critical infrastructure, to "voluntarily submit" information about their vulnerabilities to the new department. All such information would be exempt from FOIA, irrespective of whether the information had anything to do with national security.

"This is an open invitation for corporate abuse. Under such a law, any company hoping to hide embarrassing or incriminating facts would need only share them with the new department. Then — presto! — the information would be a classified government secret."

...

"Other civil-rights issues are also unresolved. Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to establish a massive. citizen-based domestic-spying program called the Terrorism Information and Prevention System. The bill as approved by the House would have outlawed TIPS. It's not clear if the Senate intends to pass a similar restriction."

- Boulder Daily Camera editorial, 11/13/2002

So, to paraphrase a sage, union protections bad, freedom of information bad, citizen spying on citizen good, ...