Obama's secrets

[Beacool]

The Obama administration should rethink its outrageous proposal that would allow the government to lie to citizens about whether documents exist.
October 31, 2011

One of the most disappointing attributes of the Obama administration has been its proclivity for secrecy. The president who committed himself to "an unprecedented level of openness in government" has followed the example of his predecessor by invoking the "state secrets" privilege to derail litigation about government misdeeds in the war on terror. He has refused to release the administration's secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, which two senators have described as alarming. He has blocked the dissemination of photographs documenting the abuse of prisoners by U.S. service members. And now his Justice Department has proposed to allow government agencies to lie about the existence of documents being sought under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.

At present, if the government doesn't want to admit the existence of a document it believes to be exempt from FOIA, it may advise the person making the request that it can neither confirm nor deny the document's existence. Under the proposed regulation, an agency that withholds a document "will respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

This policy is outrageous. It provides a license for the government to lie to its own people and makes a mockery of FOIA. It also would mislead citizens who might file an appeal if they knew there was a possibility that the document they sought was in the possession of a government agency. Such an appeal would allow a court to determine whether the requested document was covered by an exemption in FOIA.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-secrets-20111031,0,273702.story

What happened to the promised transparency? Politicians go to Washington promising to change it and they are the ones who end up changing. Same old, same old..........

:eyes:

[dionysus]

1. not good, but i can give you this!

:hi:

[Beacool]

3. Happy Halloween!!!

A frog banky!!! That's a new one for my collection. I needed the bankies this Saturday for warmth. The weather was just awful.

Thank you, my friend!!!

:hug:

[dionysus]

9. did you get the snow Bea?

[Beacool]

12. Yep, Saturday was very nasty.

I didn't lose power, but other towns are still without electricity due to the downed power lines. They said that a lot of trees fell because the leaves are still on them and made them heavier when the snow clung to the leaves.

:-(

[dionysus]

15. my folks got it in maine.. i'm calling them later to see how they made out. at least you have a

large collection of bankies to keep you warm! :hug:

[Beacool]

18. Yep, I buried myself in bankies and dared the storm to howl outside.

I hope that your folks are alright.

:pals:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blm]

4. Looks like Obama is following the Clintons when it comes to continuing secerecy that always seem to

benefit Bushes in the long run.

[Beacool]

5. Going back to past administrations?

Let's deal with the current one. Obama was the one who portrayed himself as a new kind of politician, or don't you remember his campaign speeches? Apparently he doesn't remember them either.

:eyes:

[blm]

10. I remember them - and then he got into the WH and took too many Clintonites with him.

And we've been stuck with Clinton 2 even though most of us didn't want Clinton 2 BECAUSE of the secrecy issue that always ended up protecting Bushes.

Gee - wonder what happens when you walk into the WH for your first meeting with BushInc.?

[Beacool]

11. Don't blame the staffers.

Why do Obama supporters always deflect and blame someone else? HE is the president, ultimately he is the one responsible for all decisions made by his administration.

:shrug:

[redqueen]

14. Observing history isn't deflecting blame.

Triangulating, DLC, sold-out, useless puppets are no good for this country no matter who they are or what position they're in.

Hopefully someday the electorate will stop voting for them. Until then... expect more of the same, no matter what the name is.

[blm]

16. He IS to blame for believing the 'experience' Clintonites brought with them was crucial, especially

since that 'experience' was heavy on triangulation and taking care of BushInc.

And now Hillary's doing her saber-rattling best with Iran. Sh!t!!!!!!

[Beacool]

17. Yeah, because Iran is pure as the driven snow...........

:eyes:

[blm]

19. No...but, the US sure as hell isn't, either the last few decades. And it was CIA who

overthrew the democratically elected government when it put the Shah back in power, so lets not pretend that Iran is way out on a limb on this. Every 10yo child in Iran knows what the US did then, and it is without a doubt that US schoolchildren would NEVER be taught the real truth of recent history of US' involvements in Iran.

[redqueen]

21. Hear hear! (nt)

[newspeak]

22. we're talking about the MO

and I agree with BLM--after clinton was elected, it was let's look to the future, forget about that little thing Iran-contra, BCCI thing. Oh, and poppy had a great idea on that NAFTA free trade deal, I'll pass it for him. Some of those who were involved in that felonious scandal wound up in little boot's administration, so it hurt the american people big time.

Obama comes into office, and some of us, again, are looking for justice. Nope, we got to look towards the future, forget about those previous damaging actions of the previous administration.

It is important to look at the past, because some of the same damaging players wind up being involved in the future. Some do not truly comprehend what happened with the iran-contra BCCI scandal. How a trade was made guns for drugs-drugs put on our streets. How a pakistani bank allegedly laundered money and why it's important to seek connections between laundering and terrorism. How a rogue group without the consent of congress was doing a backroom deal in our name. You just don't know how far down the rabbit hole those past actions have taken us. The people who died attempting to get at the truth.

It opened my eyes about some of the slime deals made by some in our government and we're talking about murder, corruption and the disintegration of the rule of law.

By their actions, we, the american people are the ones that are being hurt; economically and image wise.

[gateley]

6. Heard a guy from the ACLU speaking about this, and he said

they could leave the law/plan as is, and if they are queried for a request that they feel is questionable (their reasoning, hostile countries, criminals phishing to see if they are being investigated, etc.) they could merely respond that they feel the request is make for questionable purposes and will not be pursuing the action.

Sounds good to me.

He also said they've been pretty much doing this (lying about having documents) all along anyway, so is a bit puzzled as to why this action is being proposed.

[Beacool]

13. Good point.

I don't know why they are doing it either.

;(

[Octafish]

7. Sunstein, anyone?

Obama Confidant's Spine-Chilling Proposal

[TBF]

8. The ACLU has been fighting his efforts,

and thank god for that or this will be a completely fascist enterprise before this guy is out. This is why so few people are interested in voting anymore. On the one side you have batshit crazy and the other side you have all this secrecy and continuation of Bush policies that I thought all of us wanted to get rid of. It's very frustrating.

[Whisp]

20. BOO!

:rofl:

[DirkGently]

23. More in the pattern of solidifying & legitimizing Bush's illegal tactics. Sad.