DOJ Drops FOIA Rule To Permit Lying

schwit1 writes "The Department of Justice has canceled a controversial revision to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) rules that opponents said would have allowed federal agencies to lie about the existence of records. In a letter to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley on Thursday, the DOJ wrote that the proposed rule 'falls short' of its commitment to transparency, and it 'will not include that provision when the Department issues final regulations.' The concern now is that the DOJ has been lying for some time and this rule was an attempt to provide cover for past denials concerning the existence of documents."

Comments

What if they are lying about not lying?

[ohnocitizen]

If they are suspected of having lied in the past, and having issued the lying provision to provide cover for past lies, how can we trust their commitment to not seek approval for lying is truthful? (Debating this question would make a fantastic drinking game).

Re:What if they are lying about not lying?

[Tastecicles]

reminds me of a scene in Labyrinth. I don't have the exact quote to hand, but it basically goes:

There are two doors. Each guarded by one guard. Both will tell you which door goes where (one to where you want to go, the other to certain doom), but there's a catch. You can only ask one of them, and one always tells the truth while the other always lies. So you ask one of them "If I had asked the other guard which door was the correct door, which door would he have pointed to?", and whichever door he points to, you take the other one. It's a twisted logic, but there you go.

Re:5 Step Program

[The Master Control P]

I'm going to assume this is a joke, since no one would be stupid enough to actually conflate Bush's trillion-dollar, decade-long, 4000-soldiers-dead, 100000-civilians-dead, all-based-on-lies catastro-phuck with Obama spending less than 1/1000 that much to do exactly what he said he wanted - help a popular movement topple an insane (not "merely" stalinesque evil, but full-on dementia insane) dictator - with zero American casualties, in 6 months.

Between his enthusiastic expansion of illegal spying, his desire to expand the most spectacularly and massively failed policy of all time (the drug prohibition) and his otherwise lukewarm-at-best support for socially liberal policies, there's plenty shit he actually does wrong to whine about. There's no need to make shit up, sonny.

Re:5 Step Program

[anagama]

The scary part about Libya was that Obama ignored even the weakass nod toward the constitution that is the War Powers Act. Our founders wanted to make it so that one person was not able to embroil our country in arbitrary wars. That is why the constitution requires that Congress declare the war, and the Executive branch fight it. Giving the power of war to one branch makes the system susceptible to serious abuse.

The War Powers Act is the lame requirement devised to cover the unconstitutionality of all our recent wars, and it requires that the President come asking for permission, after the fact, from Congress within 60 days of warring. Obama completely ignored that law with Libya.

So, while Libya didn't attain the scale of Iraq, it moves us one step closer to a Napoleonic Presidency and is in its own way, a signifier that Obama is just Bush III.

Re:The secret to a good FOIA enquiry...

[Hatta]

Since such enquiries are covered under a Statutory Instrument

Public officials already take an oath of office. We should amend this oath to make any lies whatsoever perjury.