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During Sunshine Week, MuckRock Looks At Some of the All-Time Greatest Redactions (muckrock.com)
v3rgEz writes: It's currently Sunshine Week, a chance to celebrate government transparency, or, this year, the lack thereof, as it came out that the Obama administration secretly undermined Congressional FOIA reform despite pledges to be the "most transparent administration in history." Transparency site MuckRock has compiled a list of the all-time most egregious redactions to honor the administration's hard work.
To pile on, it's worth mentioning that Obama also started a war on whistleblowers.
"On his watch, there have been eight prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than double those under all previous presidents combined."
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/16/whistleblowers-double-standard-obama-david-petraeus-chelsea-manning
For those who still believe the US governments position of freedom and liberty is the sacrosanct advocacy of the altruistic definition of these concepts, Its worth advocating a book by Noam Chomsky called "Manufactured Consent." Our upcoming elections, for example, are while often considered "free" in actuality quite encumbered. A complex system of gerrymandering, voter ID and registration laws, as well as delegate and superdelegate system operate in concert with the electoral college to ensure party endorsed --not popular-- candidated get elected to office. This promotes doctrinal stability adherent to the US definition of "democracy" at the expense of governing by the will of a majority of americans.
Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden are all immediate examples of Americas stern opposition to the kinds of transparency that more than a dozen other countries in the world --all democratic-- advocate. the Iranian revolution, and subsequent contra scandal as well as the election in iraq during the most recent war are prime examples of the fact that we champion democracy only if and when the elected leader is our preferred candidate.
The facts remain: The US still maintains a secret torture prison on an island. we have used kidnapping in our wars. we have an entire secret court system to try -- in absentia -- american citizens and sentence them to death by drone strike. We have a drone warfare program that is not up for any public discussion and this fact is tacitly endorsed by all major forms of US media. our law operates with impunity in nearly every soverign nation, so powerful as to force sweden to ground the flight of a diplomat without any discussion by american news or accountability by any politician. We have an entire criminal justice system that by a nearly 3:1 margin incarcerates one race above all others, with no accountable reason for doing so. we have engaged in proxy warfare through state-sponsored terrorism in the Ukrane, Syria, south america, and the middle east all under the transparent doctrine of freedom and democracy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
But for who? China? The former USSR in absentia? The new lslamic state?
Those with gold, who make rules.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"