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Obama Edicts Boost FOIA and .gov Websites
Ian Lamont writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the National Security Archive are praising President Obama's executive orders to make the federal government more open. Yesterday, Obama issued two memos and one executive order instructing government agencies to err on the side of making information public and not to look for reasons to legally withhold it. The moves are expected to make it easier for people to file Freedom of Information Act requests, and should also boost the amount of information that agencies place on their websites. The general counsel for the National Security Archive (an NGO that publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) even predicts that agencies will use blogs to share information. Obama's directives reverse a 2001 memo from former US Attorney General John Ashcroft instructing federal agencies to generally withhold information from citizens filing FOIA requests."
The courts had ordered the Pentagon to release additional prison torture pics and vids, stuff Congress had viewed in private and turned a lot of stomachs. Currently the Pentagon is illegally sitting on these pics. Can we get all the ugly in the open so we can start to earn our respect back?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So, one point for "Technology Policy" ? The rest are still 0?
Does this mean that the use of drug trafficking by the Bushes and Clinton will get a decent airing? ... probably not.
Now maybe I'll file a FOIA request with the BATFE to reveal the NFA registry contents (with personal names & addresses redacted, of course) to demonstrate errors and abuses, especially involving 922(o). Don't see how, under this EO, they could say "no". Results could be VERY interesting...
(If you don't grok that, Google is your friend.)
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Does this executive order seem a little contradictory to anyone else (boost the "executive privilege" stonewall)?
Admittedly, I may be misreading or misunderstanding it. My question is sincere.
The dirty little secret behind Area 51: that command consists entirely of a captain, a couple of lieutenants, several dozen enlisted men and a whole freakin' lot of printing presses. Their sole brief is to insure a constant stream of leaks to the media, mistakes and suspicious behavior centered around all the exotic alien technology stored there, so that all the effort of breaking the government's veil of secrecy concentrates where there's absolutely nothing to find. This'll make it much easier to conceal the real work elsewhere, since most of the people who might investigate will be occupied out in Nevada.
Personally I think that Occam's razor applies to alien technology and Area 51:
I would think it would be #2. I remember reading about people spotting "triangular-shaped" UFOs in the 80s in that area. Of course UFO conspiracists declared it had to be alien vehicles. Then in 1988, the military acknowledged the existence of the F-117 Stealth Fighter developed by the Skunk Works division of Lockheed Martin.
Interestingly, I think the military allows the UFO enthusiasts to espouse their theories unchecked. Even if their observations are correct (and they were about the F-117), most people would dismiss them due to their theories.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I found this very interesting:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt
The WhiteHouse.gov website's robots.txt file has been trimmed to:
User-agent: * /includes/
Disallow:
Under previous administrations it was pages long. I suppose this may bode well for openness.
-CR
"So is the BSD licence even more 'free' (than GPLv2)? Yes. Unquestionably." --Linus Torvalds (TinyURL.com/2vugzl)
>> Can we get all the ugly in the open so we can start to earn our respect back?
Yeah. That worked so well with Abu Ghraib.
Help the victims. Heal them physically and mentally. Pay them. Acknowledge wrongdoing. Admit guilt. State the facts. Do this all extremely publicly.
But burn those goddamn pictures. All they will do is piss people off, no matter how hard you try to make things right.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I just hope the government doesn't swing too far, and start exposing all that mountains of data programs produced under prgrams started by Bush; without first doing a real through check to see what kind of data is actually there. I'm only afraid the new cabinet will steamroll this EO to make Obama "look" effective without considering the true risk(s) associated with some of that information.
However, I've always felt it is the right for a citizen (or consumer) to aquire data from any agency which collects data about him/her self in unfiltered form, regardless of the risk(s).
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
The frustrating part is that the successes of Area 51 are a matter of public record. The U-2 flew out of Area 51, the SR-71 flew out of Area 51, the F-117 was developed out of Area 51. With all these planes known to come out of Area 51, you'd think that people would give up on the whole "aliens from Roswell" thing. There are no flying saucers coming out of that area. Merely highly classified projects throughout the Cold War. There's even evidence to suggest that Area 51 operations have wound down in today's post cold-war culture. (See the government's official admission of Area 51's existence in 2003 for an example.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It took about 6 hours before it showed up on the site.
Hate to break it to you, but that's damn quick *especially* when you consider that it was the first day and they were still having issues with some of the staffers even being able to access the White House.
Grow up and use some common sense. Reporting takes a little bit of time. It doesn't just happen the moment the event occurs.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
I am kinda curious though which one OP was interested in.
Aside from general curiosity and expectation that a peek in the registry would reveal some surprising facts...
Per your comments:
1. I'm wondering if "taxpayer information" could, under the new FOIA rules, be revealed so long as personally identifying info (name, address, etc.) was redacted. I don't care so much about who has registered, I'm wondering if certain obscure loopholes have been used to register otherwise prohibited items at all.
2. That's the loophole [ab]use I'm primarily interested in: whether obtuse wording in 922(o) has resulted in backroom deals to legally (letter of law, decidedly not spirit thereof) register otherwise prohibited new items. I can't find any above-board use of the exception at all, despite the usefulness & desirability of the banned products to many. Methinks some are pulling strings to quietly get new stuff that the rest of us would have to pay a 2000% markup for just to get old/used versions, if available at all.
3. Police are specifically exempted. I'm also curious how far that exemption is being stretched ("you are hereby an honorary deputy - now where's your $1400 for that new M4 you wanted? Yes it's legal, just don't tell anybody.").
4. Can't re-register those (not to be confused with "I've got the paperwork to prove it, even if the BATFE lost their copy"). No amnesties have been granted for a _long_ time.
Many of us DO care if any of these are true. Obtaining a real M16 illegally is not an option, even if you've got the $20,000 for one (20+ years old and well used, as opposed to recent-manufactured listing for $1400 for those who can get 'em legally), as the penalty is $250,000 and 10 years in federal prison. Some of us DO want to play by the rules.
What this OP really wants is his own M4.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
This last one is a biggie. GWB's very FIRST executive order was to seal, forever, the records of his dad and Reagan. It appears that is now undone. Maybe we will now get the truth about Iran-Contra, finally.
Barack Obama has a remarkable gift for oratory, but does it mask a fatal indecisiveness, asks Janet Daley., "what I sense in Obama's love for abstract concepts and diffuse rhetorical devices is not so much the use of language as a facilitator of action, but as a way of disguising lack of decision."
Well, Janet, it would appear that you couldn't be any more wrong if you tried with both hands.
I would have read more of the article, but the sheer amount of EPIC BITTER in the comments crashed my browser.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Eisenhower had it right when after liberating a concentration camp he told the troops to pick up every scrap of film, every picture because someday some idiots would claim that it never happened.
People should have their noses rubbed in it. Faces can be obscured to protect the participants but the American public needs to know what these people it elected did.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Um, they did? The high-altitude weather balloon experiment is also a matter of public record after Project Mogul was declassified in the 90's. The news stories at the time even managed to dig up a few witnesses and show them reproductions of the weather balloon. The witnesses confirmed that the space-age materials shown to them (which were very foreign in the 1940s) were in fact what they saw back at Roswell.
As you said, it hasn't stopped people from believing.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Holy shit...
Sec. 4. Concurrence by Incumbent President.
Absent compelling circumstances, the incumbent President will concur in the privilege decision of the former President in response to a request for access under section 2204(c)(1). When the incumbent President concurs in the decision of the former President to request withholding of records within the scope of a constitutionally based privilege, the incumbent President will support that privilege claim in any forum in which the privilege claim is challenged.
Have I gone batty, or did Redneck Nero actually presume to dictate the actions of subsequent presidents there???
All of which is well and good. Of course, "just following orders" has been rejected as a defense in war crimes trials in the past. So where exactly do you draw the line? Or, do you argue that the Nurenburg trials came to the wrong concluion?
when you bring up that argument, I think of My Lai and especially Hugh ThompsonThompson would argue you otherwise...
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
... it encourages strict, micro-managing rules all the way to the bottom. It's done this because it's afraid of complete chaos, so it must control the only thing it can control: themselves. Might be good for 18th C riflemen and parade drill, but it doesn't work for highly complex, irregular modern warfare. Especially in the age of the "strategic corporal" where not only your actions are strategic, but the consequences can be far reaching as well.
Also, go read your military history. The Germans encouraged the same thing. There was strict rules and an authoritarian atmosphere, but there was also free thinking and dissent, which encouraged initiative on the battlefield.
God forbid we have soldier-scholars again with an ethical and free thinking backbone. We might eventually give rise to another Sun Tzu or Clausewitz. Hmmmmm ... I wonder why we don't have any equivalent today? Oh, that's right, cause the American military is a mindless, unethical automaton that squashes dissent and any ounce of thought.
And how did that work out for you? I *finally* talked to my family about my agnosticism and my mother-in-law was outraged, virtually to the point of tears. She said to me "You don't know what it is like to be in war... you've never had to experience being in a foxhole praying to God for your life".
Anyway, your comment just reminded me of that experience (just this weekend).
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Yes, Thompson did the right thing in that situation, but he also had friends with guns covering him when he confronted his commanding officer. Things may not have gone so well for him if that wasn't the case, sad to say.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace