Appropriations--Cutting Phone Lines in the Executive

This is from the 2006 Agriculture Approppriations Act. I vaguely remember the incident that prompted it--I think the House committee had requested data from USDA. When the bureaucracy came up with the data, someone else got it at roughly the same time. Who was the "someone else"? Someone at OMB or the White House, if I remember correctly. Anyway at least one House member got on his high horse:

"SEC. 716. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration shall be used to transmit or otherwise make available to any non-Department of Agriculture or non-Department of Health and Human Services employee questions or responses to questions that are a result of information requested for the appropriations hearing process."

So the result of the flap is to make such data top secret. The fungal filament creeps into the executive branch and cuts the phone lines.