Slashdot Mirror
Obama Admin Fights Missing White House Email Lawsuit
DesScorp writes "The AP reports that the Obama administration has picked up where the Bush administration left off on the missing White House email issue by trying to have a lawsuit dismissed that would have kept investigating whether or not email was still missing. Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President expressed disappointment with the Obama administration's actions. Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government. The Justice Department 'apparently never got the message' from Obama, Blanton said."
I don't think people quite got what "YES WE CAN" really meant. They didn't read the "FUCK YOU OVER" at the end that was implied.
They didn't get the email.
Does anyone seriously believe the excuses as to how the emails went 'missing'?. Even if they deleted the emails there would be numerous copies on the backup tapes.
I kinda like leaving it the courts. If it does go to court and a decision is rendered, it might help stop future sneaky behavior. Wishful thinking, I know, but it'd offer better protection than just capitulating would.
The new Administration has fallen far short of a lot of people's expectations, including mine. Two points though. One, it's been only a month. And two, if you consider the situation that they have been handed, I think they are at least trying to do best that they can. I can't comment on the e-mail case specifically, but I have done a lot of reading on the black hole of illegally held terrorism suspects. In that case, they have two choices: bring lawsuits against a greater part of the current government and past governments involved, or do the right thing from here on out.
Personally, I would love to see every senior officer kicked out in disgrace over what they have done to American principle. Even if it's often violated in secret, at least we could pretend that we had some moral standards. But when the President and Vice President are ordering torture, renditions, and even assassinations, the chain of command is simply doing it's job. If the new Administration spent years wringing the necks of officers following orders, would the chain of command still work?
Perhaps if the economic situation weren't so bad, there could be a good year of congressional hearings, where dirty laundry is thrown on the table and people who deserve it are thrown in jail. And sure, the economic crisis may be something that the Obama Administration is intentionally overplaying in order to have some breathing room on everything else. They're not stupid, so they either believe the situation is that dire, or they are pretending to for political purposes.
For the sake of argument, imagine if you bought out a poorly run company. You may find mountains of incriminating papers, a staff that was half corrupted, and accountants who deserve to be set on fire. But if you're to turn this company around, would the smart thing to do be to march them all into the street for a mob lynching, or quietly and over time reform the company without completely ruining it's reputation in the process? The absolutely right thing to do is probably bankrupt the company and start over. It may be that in the current steaming pile of shit situation that the Bush dynasty has left us, re-forming the government is correct, but reforming the government is prudent.
We must not allow the government to operate in secret. It is our lack of vigilance that put us where are today, with a government that becomes more corrupt with every passing day. We don't need you making excuses for them.
What?
Slashdot articles about Obama are hilarious. There's always the initial, hysterical article about how Obama is doing something oh-so-terrible (e.g. killing net neutrality). Then, some days or weeks later (if we're lucky) there will be a followup article calmly stating that the previous article was overreacting (e.g. nothing against net neutrality in the stimulus bill).
Remember all those complains about the stimulus package being full of pork? Then we discover that the supposed "pork" is actually money for schools and Internet access.
I have no doubt that this effect is replaying itself yet again. It's a good sign that there are so few real scandals that we have to invent our own, but a bad sign that we are so eager to be distracted by scandal.
"Obama is showing hypocrisy in record time, he's barely been in a month. It's not like he is reneging on a campaign promise, it sure makes it seem like practically his ENTIRE stated message about transparency in government was total bullshit."
Whoa whoa whoa, lets look at the actual facts before accusing Obama of "total bullshit."
The reason this is in the news right now - ie, what actually happened recently - is that the National Security Archive (the good guys who are suing for the emails) filed a response to the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the suit. So what's in the news right now isn't about a recent Obama decision.
The motion to dismiss was made on January 21st, which is right after the inauguration. Now, if Obama's absolute top priority was to change the government's position on defending against this suit, he could have ordered the justice department not to make the motion. But, what's much more likely, this motion was made by staff attorneys at the Justice Department, completing the job they were ordered to do earlier in January. It seems likely to me that they had finished drafting this motion to dismiss on the prior business day. Since the inauguration was holiday, and the day before that was MLK day, and before that the weekend... its likely the motion to dismiss was ready to be filed on January 16th, and that's when the lawyers' bosses ordered it done.
Since Obama wasn't in charge of the Justice Department until Jan 21st, the day the motion was filed, it's very likely there's nothing he could have done to stop it - he, and his staff, probably didn't know the motion was ready and ordered to be filed, and probably hadn't replaced the drafting lawyers' bosses yet anyway.
In fact, that the motion to dismiss was made the day after the inauguration makes it seem very likely that Bush holdovers were just doing everything they could, as fast as they could, to keep the cover up going.
You should hold your outrage until Obama (who's been pretty damn busy - passing a 800B stimulus package in the first month is unprecedented, but more on point is is ordering all agencies to presume in favor of disclosure when making FOIA decisions) actually has a chance to take a stance in this case.