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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."
You can't look at Obama as left/right lib/conservative, you have to consider him as authoritarian.
http://www.dark-wraith.com/
He had him pegged as this at least a year ago, if you check his archives.
Dave
Our founding fathers had a dream: they set out with the goal that G-D should provide for the people of this great nation, and that the government would not interfere. That's why they won our independence from Ireland in 1812. For a while, our Country got along fine. Now, everyone talks about bad presidents, but I want to talk about a recent one: Obama almost ruined the dream of our Founding Fathers. He tried to remake this nation in his image between the years of our Lord 2008 and 2012, and was the worst president since Roosevelt! I know, I know, but everyone hates on Roosevelt. I wanted to do something different.
Obama, if he'd gotten his way, would have had my hard-earned taxpayer dollars to educate other people's children, improve roads for other people's SUvs, and to defend other people's homes from fire. He was really a fascist, socialist nutjob: what kind of society does that lead to? I mean, when you help out other people, all anyone does it sit around all day waiting for a handout. And after that, what happen is sodomy, and even worse, atheism. I'm glad Sarah Palin put a stop to that when she beat Obama in 2012. I'm glad we don't have elections anyone. Sometimes elections lead to bad people like FDR and Obama being in charge. I can't wait for Sarah's next State of the Union: I hear she'll have five tanks at this one! Those soldiers are soooo cute.
*giggle* but anyway, I mean, at first, Obama's reign wasn't all that bad. He tried to force credit card companies to not give the American people certain offers; he called them "lies", but as Ronald Reagan said, it's really government that's the problem. If he'd been on Mount Rushmore back then, he would have cried. I do have to give credit where credit is due: he stopped those evil commies using the "freedom of information" act to give away our government to China. That law should have been called the "freedom of spying act". I mean, if Sarah hadn't repealed it, China might have found out we'd nuke them in 2019.
The worst part of Obama's reign was when he tried to ruin the best healthcare system in the world by shoving rules and regulations and taxes down our throats. I'm glad that was repealed. Today, we still have the best health care system in the world. If I'm successful, someday I hope to be able to buy into it! I hear they can actually cure tuberculosis! My parents miss too many days at the factory because they keep coughing up blood. I'd love for them to be able to work real, honest 65 hour weeks like God said they should. That way, we could get our own place!
But I digress. This speech is about hope for the future. If we all work hard, we can earn more and more until we get into a lower tax bracket and we're happy. Isn't that what life is about? I know everyone can do it: if at our class reunion, you're poor, it's because you're a bad person, and I know none of my friends are bad people.
- Cynthia LeBaron, Texas, class of 2027 graduation speech
The Obama Administration claims to the right to slay U.S citizens in "targeted killings" in the GWOT. But like the Bush Administration before it, the Obama Administration defines the "battlefield" as the entire planet. Which means that Obama claims the right to assasinate U.S. citizens anywhere, by invoking that magic word that suspends the Constitution: "terrorist". Nevermind that you can only be a suspected terrorist until you're convicted in a court of law. Nevermind that many of these people are not out on the front lines fighting American troops, but going about their daily lives when they are hit by a drone attack (see recent Slashdot discussion.
Then Obama is patting himself on the back for his transparency and accountability, at the same time he's issuing veto threats over bills that would strengthen Congressional oversight of intelligence.
But this really doesn't make any damned sense. It did for poppy Bush, because he was a CIA man. But Obama never worked for the CIA, so acting like a hard neocon on military/intelligence issues is baffling. Just as his acting like a neoliberal corporatist is baffling, as he's a self-made man and owes very few people any favors (compared to your normal politician).
Change you can believe in!
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.
Same (or worse) as the old boss. Is anybody really surprised?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Why do you hate atheists, pudge?
Why does the right wing appeal to you, pudge? Were you beaten as a child? Do you think lack of success in life is a moral failure? Are you the guy who goes around moderating any post that has a hint of sympathy for the human condition "-1 offtopic", while making sure all the "YOU CAN'T TELL A BUSINESS WHAT TO DO, COMMIES" posts are moderated through the roof? I thought that smelled a little funny, even for the Slashdot crowd.
God, the terrible and declining quality of Slashdot's community makes sense when one of the key people behind the site is himself a right-wing lunatic who beats off to authoritarianism and theocracy.
I don't have to read it. A government takeover of healthcare is wrong on its face.
And one of the main reasons is that it requires laws thousands of pages long that nobody can possibly understand.
Stupid troll.
Young Republicans clubs? Out of work blue-collar Republicans who feel empowered by becoming teabaggers (and I personally know quite a few of those)?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Highly likely.
It's also possible that the right-wing media are making requests for information that is expected to be embargoed, in an attempt to pump up these numbers.
It's also clear that there's little in the way of a breakdown as to whether the exemptions are being applied correctly more often now or before.
The whole issue has been obfuscated by mediocre journalistic practices which embellish a simple statistic to suggest much more than the statistic implies.
I was having this exact same thought. Man, the conservatives just bubbled out of the woodwork lately, gettin the floors all slimy.
This proves that the Obama administration is more open, when they'll admit to blocking 23,000 more documents than Bush did.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The same old pattern repeats itself. Those who disagree with the numbers are quick to argue their fallibility. Plenty of rationalizations are provided to argue that these claims are untrue. It easy to dismiss something when it doesn't fit your worldview. At the other end we've got the people who openly embrace these claims and then will refer to them as gospel. Yet another bit of evidence to support your mindset.
I don't see why it's so hard to believe for some that this administration may actually be rejecting requests in greater numbers. Of course, it's meaningless because it isn't like the Bush administration was a pushover. It's very likely that the number of rejections would have gone up were he still serving as president.
The real problem I see is that there are still people out there so naive as to believe that politicians actually care about any of us. I don't understand how people can continue to be fiercely loyal to either republicans or democrats. There certainly must be politicians out there who care, but you'll find those guys are small-time unknowns who have no say in the fundamental workings of this country. And they'll never be in a position of influence because they wont play the game. The big players are all looking out for themselves and the special interests they represent.
Funny that you say that, considering ever since Reagen Republicans have done far more to increase the size of government and our national debt than Democrats. So what *is* your stake in Republicans exactly?
Either that or they just completely skip over the comment because your AC.
Funny, I completely skip over comments that use 'your' where 'you're' should have been used. You may have had something insightful to say, but you lost me at that point.
Bush took positive, harmful action. He discussed invading Iraq before September 11. He began his warrantless wiretapping program before September 11. He repeatedly floated privatizing social security, and appointed two radical supreme court justices.
On the other hand, Obama has tried to take constructive action and has been stymied in the legislature. Do you seriously think that he wouldn't pass cap-and-trade, financial reform, and healthcare tomorrow if they landed on his desk?
Equating Obama and Bush is wicked and intellectually dishonest. Your sophistry is typical of righties trying to rationalize a worldview that hurts them and their families.
More sophistry. Without right-wing obstruction, much more would have already been done.
Sure, he should have. But with the right screaming bloody murder that a terrorist or two might be housed in a federal prison on *gasp* US soil, he's decided this fight isn't worth the political capital it would cost to win it. See, again? The right attacks him no matter what he does: close the prison, and he's bringing dangerous terrorists onto US soil. Keep the prison open, and he's breaking a campaign promise.
again, what the heck does "wrong on its face" mean? It is empty rhetoric. If you want to mention specific items that you think are wrong, great. I may even agree with you. But, if you want to not read something and then dismiss it outright as just being wrong then to me you have no ground to stand on. People are losing health insurance left and right or their rates are skyrocketing. Should we just let the status quo remain? What are your ideas for fixing this serious problem? The only one I've heard from Republicans is Tort reform. Sure, sounds good. That maybe takes care of a few percentage points of the costs that are bringing the system slowly to its knees but that only will slow the catastrophe down a year or two in the long run. Any other ideas from the Republicans? From you?