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Obama Administration Withholds FoIA Requests More Often Than Bush's
bonch writes "Agencies under the Obama administration cite security provisions to withhold information more often than they did under the Bush administration. For example, the 'deliberative process' exemption of the Freedom of Information Act was used 70,779 times in 2009, up from the 47,395 of 2008. Amusingly, the Associated Press has been waiting three months for the government to deliver records on its own Open Government Directive."
That's change I can believe in.
I'd like to be surprised - but it seems like all the presidents are mostly interchangeable these days.
Meaningless, it's an AP story. Would you feel better reading it on The Stamford Advocate? Or the San Jose Mercury News?
I'd also like to point out that a knee-jerk accusation of bias sounds and awful lot like . . . bias.
-Peter
The AP's review of annual Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the administration's use of nearly every one of the law's nine exemptions to withhold information from the public increased during fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Totally agreed. That it is from breitbart is utterly irrelevant. And the raw number is not too interesting unless you know the number of requests, and probably the specific agencies (and topics) the requests were for. Though while, yes, more years will reveal better data, there's nothing wrong with looking at it in-progress.
1) This is an AP story, Breitbart didn't write it.
2) If you don't think 2,000 pages that nobody has read which rebuilds 17% of the US economy according to the whims of a couple hundred Democrats doesn't represent an oppressive regime, then I don't know what to tell you.
I know you are trolling but one of Pres. Obama's big campaign points was that he was going to "change" Washington. He was going to run this wide open and "transparent" government. So far he has been anything but transparent. It's disappointing, I had some hopes about Pres. Obama (and I did not vote for him).
And which progressive and left-oriented site WOULD write about this, on the condition that it was true?
An honest one.
If the media really cared about open government and barring corruption, they would be publishing daily headlines about denials to FOIA requests, how long they have been waiting, and what the alleged reason is. If the press did their job and informed the people rather than preach propaganda, people could be better armed with information to put pressure on elected officials and force them to move on come election day if the officials don't mend their ways.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The first reaction, especially given the headline is, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
But, as pointed out in the article: "Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored."
Then we look into the details. The fiscal year that this article is covering started in October 2008 and ended in October 2009. So for the first quarter of the time period covered by this article, we weren't even in the Obama Administration.
Also, if we assume that the decision to exempt information from FOIA requests is made by senior officers in the respective agencies, and we know that Bush had 8 years to appoint people who shared his views, and that the Senate Republicans have been doing an impressive job of blocking and delaying Obama's appointments, let alone the "cleaning" that occurs once the new bosses are in place.
Should it come as a surprise to anyone that this last year was no better, and perhaps even worse than the previous year? Absolutely not. I would expect that this coming year should show improvement, provided the white house is willing to back up Obama's directive now that they have had time to get more of their appointments into positions of authority.
That said, I sure hope this article makes it to the President's desk and that he thinks long and hard about it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Bullshit. Bipartisanship works both ways... The Democrats are asking the Republicans to "work with us", yet the Democrats are refusing to do the same! If you disagree, please explain the purpose of the closed door meetings between Dems and the Pres on healthcare. In what way can a closed meeting promote "working together" when half of the decision makers are not even invited...
What he's up against? He made his bed (By touting "change" and "openness"), and now he needs to lie in it... The truth has come out in the past year. He's a politician... Plain and simple. Sure, his campaign made it look like he was something different, but the reality of the matter is in the end of the day, they are all politicians...
hehe, he asks which progressive and left-oriented site would write about it, you answer an honest one, but don't provide any....does that mean there are no honest left-oriented sites?
That's the whole point. It makes the numbers meaningless, and therefore makes the conclusion invalid. The important statistic would be "percentage of FOIA requests denied". I'm guessing that THAT statistic didn't *jive* well with the author's pre-conceived conclusions, and so was conveniently ommited.
AccountKiller
Watch a little Rachel Maddow, read a little of the HuffPo, you'll be surprised just how many times liberal sources DO report on stuff like this. The liberal blogosphere is kinda pissed that Obama isn't the far-left bleeding-hear socialist that conservatives make him out to be, and they call him out on it quite a bit.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Every time I read a story about how Obama is continuing a Bush administration policy, or extending and exceding it, I post it to http://obamaisthenewbush.tumblr.com/
Having kept this up, on and off, for the last 6 months some patterns definitely appear. The Justice Department is seriously entrenched in covering its ass, cracking down hard on individual freedoms and privacy, and almost always falling on the side of big business.
I'm not disappointed because I believed all the pablum about "Change" and "Hope," but because Obama was a frickin' law professor. He should know better!
No that's Bullshit. Democrats have presented a bill that's far to the right of a bill that Republicans would have even proposed, and Republicans are refusing to be a part of it at all. If there was not bi-partisanship than they would have rammed this through Congress and I'd be sitting pretty with socialized medicine right now. The problem is there have been far too many overtures to bi-partisanship.
Republicans don't want bi-partisanship. They want Obama to fail.
Closed door meetings? Stop bringing up bullshit Limbaugh talking points. There are always closed door meetings on capital hill. Are Republicans having public meetings on crafting there competing health care bill? That's a bullshit point.
In the Bush days? You're wrong - even now, Bush is still responsible for everything happening. Unless it's good. Depending on who you ask, of course.
(Yes, this is an exaggerated statement, but I am trying to make a point.)
No he's right to a degree. I've been modded down countless times for expressing or at least addressing unpopular views. As an AC the more vindictive mods will just ignore you as not being worth the points. Slashdot is not terribly tolerant of diverse viewpoints, even if they are well argued and not just idle trolling. AC is often the way to go if you have something to say that's intelligent but contrary.
Either your salary or your oxycodone prescription must be huge if you think it's not a problem to give legitimacy to right-wing propaganda outlets.
Defining media outlets you simply dislike as "propaganda outlets" is not convincing to anyone, other than people who are as closed-minded and hypocritical as you are.
Ok, so less than 5% reduced denials on 11% less requests...Sounds like statistically likely evidence that denials are more likely.
I may not be rich enough to benefit from the Republicans' policies, but I'm also definitely not rich enough to pay for the Democrats'.
Not sure why your post was marked troll, even if it's a little paranoid. It's quite likely that teabaggers and other anti-obama people have affected these nnumbers, even if unintentionally.
So this is all just a giant conspiracy? A vast, right-wing secret attack on Obama? A backhand way to make him look bad? "Hey boys, lets fill out another hundred or so of those FOIA requests today! We're almost at our goal".
Wow. There's paranoia, and then there's you guys.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Sorry, have to disagree there. I say fairly controversial (read: anything remotely approaching a conservative viewpoint) things all the time but I make sure to do it either eloquently enough or humorously enough that I've been modded down so little I can count the negative point comments on one hand.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
Honestly, I think we trend towards libertarianism more than anything else around here. The underlying reasoning being something along the lines of: politicians are almost exclusively corrupt morons and I don't want them telling me what to do on any topic.
Means that neither intrusive conservatism nor intrusive liberalism are well received, by in large. Holding a controversial view goes over well enough but espousing the need to push it onto others, not so much.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.