U.S. won’t disclose records on security of health website

WASHINGTON — After promising not to withhold government information over “speculative or abstract fears,” the Obama administration has concluded it will not publicly disclose federal records that could shed light on the security of the government’s health care website because doing so could “potentially” allow hackers to break in.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied a Freedom of Information Act request by the Associated Press for documents about the kinds of security software and computer systems behind the HealthCare.gov website. The AP requested the records late last year amid concerns that Republicans raised about the security of the website, which had technical glitches that prevented millions of people from signing up for insurance under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Medicare told the AP that disclosing the documents could enable hack- ers to break into the service.

“We concluded that releasing this information would potentially cause an unwarranted risk to consumers’ private information,” CMS spokesman Aaron Albright said in a statement.

The AP is asking the government to reconsider. Obama instructed federal agencies in 2009 to not keep information confidential “merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

In 2011, a U.S. Supreme Court decision significantly narrowed a provision under open records law that protected an agency’s internal practices.

Even when the government concludes that records can’t be fully released, Attorney General Eric Holder has directed agencies to consider whether parts of the files can be revealed with sensitive passages censored. CMS told the AP, however, that it will not release any parts of any of the records.