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West Virginia Won't Release Broadband Report Because It Is 'Embarrassing'
An anonymous reader writes "The Charleston Gazette is reporting that the state of West Virginia hired a consulting firm for over $100,000 to investigate the state's use of Federal stimulus money (which included the purchase of $22,000 routers for tiny buildings). Unfortunately, the state government is now refusing a FOIA request to release the firm's report. The reason? The findings 'might be embarrassing to some people,' according to Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette."
Replace the word 'embarassing' with 'incriminating'.
how is that even a legal reason to refuse a Freedom of Information request? Last I checked, "we don't want to" isn't an acceptable reason to refuse.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
That's not a legitimate reason to refuse request under FOIA.
In fact, it's explicitly not a legitimate reason.
I too honor the brave and ethical stance made by the WV leadership 150 years ago. However zero of that honor is conveyed to people simply because they happen to currently inhabit the same geographic area.
An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect plan. -- George Patton
If the federal government was going to bring broadband to West Virginia, they should have gone in and installed it. Handing money to a Red State government for technology is like handing the remote control to your dog.
Come to think of it, I'd expect more from the dog.
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The #1 reason was the same sort of divisive party politics that continues to this day, with the same party names even. You know what the Republican fringe was saying about Obama during the last elections? That was pretty much what the Democrats were saying about Lincoln, except replace "socialism" with "abolitionism".
Looks to me like it was the south that made slavery the issue on which they opposed Lincoln; divisive politics based on slavery...
Then there was the whole movement from rural, agriculture-based societies to urban, industrial society. Always a cause for major upheaval. And guess what? East Virginia was mostly agricultural, and West Virginia was mostly coal mines (and thus economically aligned with the Northern cities they fueled).
Slavery was part of that; industrial societies don't work so well with outright slave labour. Agricultural societies often do - or at least, more primitive ones based on large plantations.
It's all well and good to be against shredding live puppies, but do we really want to bring back the Nazi party in order to use it to protect the puppies? I mean, I think we can agree that would be worse, right? Right?!?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
We've already lost that. There are hardly any hard-nosed beat-reporters out there. Journalism in 2013 (and for most of the last fifteen years) has consisted of pulling down and repeating the AP feed and rehashing PR faxes.
Slavery was only the third or fourth most important issue,,,
...but it was the only one that people weren't willing to compromise on. As an example, the North wanted high tariffs, and the South wanted them low; over the years, they went up and down as different factions got enough power to change them. States Rights and Federal Authority clashed over and over, with varying results, but on Slavery, neither side would budge and eventually, the southern hot-heads got their way and we ended up with the Civil War.
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Releasing it might put Government Officials and Elected Representatives' lives at risk.....when the general population see how poorly they've handled things.