Obama Admin Seeks Permission TO LIE In Response To FOI Requests - Even To The COURTS

:smoke:


" One of the President Obama's first promises after becoming President of the United States was a commitment to usher in a new era of unprecedented government transparency . http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/ Instead the Obama administration has exhibited what may be an unprecedented obsession with government secrecy including blocking numerous law suits by invoking the doctrine of "State Secrets." The administration has even come up with an interpretation of the Patriot Act which many in Congress who have seen it claim is overly broad and bestows more power on the Executive Branch than was intended by Congress when they passed it.



Unfortunately those in Congress who have seen this document are not permitted to divulge its content, and we, the public, cannot see it because the administration has chosen to classify it as a "State Secret." In other words, you might be doing something that the Obama Administration believes violates the Patriot Act, but you won't know it until they indict you for breaking a law you did not know existed (I might be breaking it just by penning and publishing this article).



Now the Obama/Holder Justice Department is attempting to re-write the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), empowering or even compelling government agencies to deny the very existence of records they know to exist if they believe they are legitimately exempted from disclosure. Of course they are most likely the sole arbiter of whether they are indeed exempt from disclosure. In effect the Obama/Holder Justice Department wants to be free to legally lie about the existence of records in response to FOIA requests. Apparently they want to avoid the embarrassment and inconvenience of being officially rebuked by the courts for doing exactly that (lying to a Federal judge), as occurred earlier this year http://www.mainjustice.com/files/2011/04/Cormac-Carney-Order.pdf when, in a strongly worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the "Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court." The solution is simple: re-write the law so the government, in many circumstances, can affirmatively mislead the court.



Despite substantial opposition by such groups as the ACLU, The National Press Club, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, OpentheGovernment.org., Judicial Watch, et al to this radical re-write of the FOIA Law , this controversial effort by the Obama Administration to evade the very transparency it so passionately promised to deliver has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media which is supposed to the guardian of the people's right to know. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or neither, this move by the Obama administration should trouble you deeply. Is this change we can believe in???



Below are snippets of reports on this controversy, none of them from a mainstream media source. That was not my intent. I just could not find any. I learned about it just this morning in an e-mail from the National Law Journal:





"The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies. Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist," rather than citing the relevant exemption. The proposed rule has alarmed government transparency advocates across the political spectrum, who've called it "Orwellian" and say it will "twist" public access to government.




cont'


http://www.opednews.com/articles/Transparency-In-Government-by-Jerry-Policoff-111025-906.html


.

I can believe in!

Federal Register Volume 76, Number 54 (Monday, March 21, 2011)
Pages 15236-15244

People, who want to, are always free to comment on proposed rules

It's pretty easy to get the text:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

Those are some Fast Finger Eddies, clicking away for less transparency.

Lol.

:puke:

the OP posted? :shrug:

I feel very good about each kick and rec this thread has received since I pointed out early efforts to suppress the topic. Thanks for asking.

what topics are being unred'd on a so-called progressive board.

Where are "We the people..." in this government that is supposed to function with "Public Servants" that we elect?
Is not the Government in a democracy supposed to function and work for the people?

But apparently there's some magical list floating around that negates it all. Oh, and the Republican congress made him do it.

:eyes:

Con in the White House and the Democratic party suddenly coalesces around a civil liberties plank again how is that going to play out? It won't Obama has now set precedent for future Con abuses. What the hell happened to our principles in the last 2 years?

Assuming that we trust that we will only use this for good (a huge stretch), what about the next administration??

Those used to be untouchables, but he put them on the table and now they're all talking about it and planning for their demise.

That is the greatest shame of all this. He has turned what used to be right-wing talking points into mainstream, bipartisan status quo.

This is a Bush III administration, but even more effective because there is no longer a united Democratic opposition.

:(

if the Bush administration was doing this ?? I think we know the answer. He seems to think that it is OK, because he says the right things. How much of that should we be willing to accept??

This place sure has changed, huh? This would be prime material for the Top 10.

I'm sure you've seen the statistics of how many people vote solely on party and don't care about issues. They are a (insert R or D or L or whatever) and they will vote for that party until they die.

Although, there are some people that are just ignorant. A few weeks ago I was having drinks with some friends and the new girlfriend of a buddy of mine was there. We got to talking politics and somehow she made the comment "well, at least Obama closed Gitmo." The rest of us were like "no he didn't" and she responded "yes, it was one of the first things he did as president."

Some people only see what they want to see. This is why networks like Fox News and MSNBC are killing the democratic process. They filter everything so much that people believe their party is so wonderful, all the members are amazing people, and they would never do anything wrong. MSNBC and Fox are not news, they are propaganda that is making our country dumber each day.

The ' D ' next to his name becomes nothing more than window dressing.

because of how right all the other networks are. But it is not propaganda and it tells the truth. Olberman, Maddow, O'Donnell and Rattigan have all gone after Obama when it was appropriate. They report things factually even if they are doing it in a commentary. The are not misinforming people the way Fox does and I think to equate them to Fox is not only incorrect, it is dangerous.

My beef with O'Donnell and Maddow at this point is they keep covering the horse race when they could be informing people about the reasons OWS is happening, reporting on how and why we have this 1%. I may have to stop watching them until after the presidential elections. :(

avert our eyes also.

And yet, ironically enough, the people who are able to see through the list appear to see so much more of what is taking place.

Fancy way of saying that actions mean more than words.

So far:

Words "A"
Actions "D+"

Toronto WTO or some such meetings, so many people here were praising the President's oratory skills.

But NO President, especially one versed in the Constitution (as Obama supposedly is), should ever be addressing any of these world org meetings. They are all about enslaving the peoples of sovereign nations to the bidding of the top 120 families.

And to think that people here praised that speech was difficult to consider.

I would have mentioned some other things but this list is a good start. It's good to see that each claim is supported by a link to a source.

You know, the sad thing about 'The List' is that it wouldn't be needed by Obama's defenders if he were even halfway doing what a Democratic President should be doing. In that case people would already know he'd been doing right.

Short on time and enthusiasm right now though.

opposite of their true meaning. Up is down, war is peace, transparent is opaque, democracy is fascism etc. How he can do this with a straight face is truly alarming.

why this is the REAL liberal position to take for transparency in Government.

It is very educational and a great help in my study of the Neo-Liberal Republican mind-set.
(R)epublicans in (D)rag are killing the party and I think we need to dissect them if we are to make it a Democratic party again.

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945
Milton Mayer
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

administration, how eerily similar the progress from democracy to totalitarianism there was to what was happening here, under Bush. And now, what we thought was going to be the reversal of that progress, has instead become an acceleration of it.

I wonder how the far right feels now about their support for all of this under Bush. I remember often asking them would they trust a Democrat with the powers they were willing to give Bush. At the time though, I never thought it was possible a Democrat would continue down that road, I was just trying to scare them. Now, what can they say? They can't oppose now what they supported then with any credibility.

And the same goes for anyone now on the 'Left'. They should ask themselves how they will feel when a Republican has these powers they are so willing to dismiss right now. Germany could not have happened if people had spoken out when it first began. But as the author said, 'it didn't happen all at once, it was incremental' and, he said, you kept accepting things that made you uncomfortable until it was too late to stop it.

Since we are seeing a continuation and acceleration of the Executive and all governmental laws that apply to people , not corporations, it proves that this was not a one party or one presidential corruption.

We are definitely watching a soviet style Politburo working hard to control us (and the world). Thom Hartmann was saying the other day he could scientifically prove that America was run by a few corporations.

Presidents, congress-people, etc. are just actors. A very few of them seem to actually want to represent Americans, they don't have much luck. The apparatchiks and their politburo handlers make sure of it.

If OWS doesn't "do it" then we must find a way to end this tyranny.

We are slaves to a few wealthy international industrialists and it must stop.

see the switching of power to Democrats, after Republicans had it, before it became clear that just changing parties was not going to change much. The War Machine is still running, the privatization of public funds progressing even faster now etc.

But now that the people have figured it out to some extent, I hope it's not too late. There are so many entrenched and very powerful institutions that remain in power no matter which party wins. The MIC eg, the CIA, the Corporations for whom they all work. Even if we got a great president and a majority Progressive Democratic Congress, I'm not sure if even that would be enough. That might bring them out in the open more but I think the power has shifted from the people and I don't know what it would take to change that.

the people, or even a significant percentage of them, have figured it out?

Wish I could believe that.

Not only do they get to eat the cake still, but they get to blame the Dems for it.

Seventy percent rise in censorship requests to Google by US government or police
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2185214&mesg_id=2185874

ACLU report on Obama and core liberties
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2069714



Thank you for posting that reminder.

And so is capitalism ---

All we have to do now is "move on" -- find a truly liberal democrat for 2012 --

and let's go!!

How about James Galbraith -- did you read his comments to the "Cat Food Commission"?????


:hi:

Thank you for the link. This is just so obvious yet so many just don't see it.

:(

:mad:

that's the reply to this yes we can hide the corruption and illegality.

I am astonished at how sold out Obama was even from the start. I guess I'm too naive. Even so, we have a choice between bad and worse.

His record will not look good in the history books.

We must win this struggle for freedom or be relegate to a paragraph in a "history" book, near the '60's Hippies. Man, that was an organized revolution, too.

while govt. constantly remains in a time warp of its own making, the reality is that history has vindicated the left on every social issue raised.

civil rights came out of the 60s. women's rights came out of the 60s. GBLT rights came out of the 60s. reform of cannabis laws came out of the 60s. anti-imperialism came out of the 60s.

those things that were considered too strange to imagine at that time are now commonplace.

as far as govt. goes - yes, since Reagan the reactionaries have won many battles - but not the war. and we see that, when they try to create third-world worker situations here, as they have been trying to do since the globalization of labor - there comes a time when people say "enough."

I see that the pendulum is swinging back.

the reality is that most change in cultures occurs over generations - but the trend is with progressive views of society. our govt is never at the forefront of that. even FDR was responding to the civil unrest of the 1930s and the fear of a worker's revolution here. things change when people get out into the street and make it too uncomfortable for the powers-that-be to continue their current actions.

that's where we are now, again.

I am optimistic for the future because issues of importance, rather than Fox News blond shark week, are on people's minds and tongues.

Early on suspicions.

And like you say, it's being run by the Powers from Above that we have a choice between Obama and the Inquisition!

The only good thing to happen lately is the OWS movement.

business (which means, it's not ours) and this is the same thing. Total opacity. People who argued he's at war and his secrecy is necessary can now like it here at home because this is just an extension of the same authoritarian logic.

his #1 Koch Bros. DLC Rahm Emmanuel and his Wall St. team --

at this point, he should be impeached -- unfortunately this is something the RW likes!!


Can it still be lost on the public that a MIC and CIA are a threat to freedom everywhere --

not just in foreign nations?

Torture has been reintroduced as a first step in intimidating and controlling citizens!



:hi:

given the state of the country and our political culture, it's not clear that anyone else would have negotiated the corruption any better.

been game playing with the GOP --

Obama had a huge mandate and threw it away to resurrect the GOP from the ashes!

And certainly his back room deals with Big Pharma and the private H/C industry didn't

happen by accident!

And, recall that Rahm "crows" about all they did and how "grateful" business should be to

Obama --


If you missed it -


Rahm "crowing" about how they "preserved the private H/C industry" and how "grateful" business

should be to Obama ...

In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts: his advocacy of greater international trade and education reform open markets despite union skepticism; his rejection of calls from some quarters to nationalize banks during the financial meltdown; the rescue of the automobile industry; the fact that the overhaul of health care preserved the private delivery system; the fact that billions in the stimulus package benefited business with lucrative new contracts, and that financial regulation reform will take away the uncertainty that existed with a broken, pre-crash regulatory apparatus.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=B2F85DDF-18FE-70B2-A835FE1E7FA8D74C


the fact that the overhaul of health care

preserved the private delivery system

Read it all -- there's no mistaking what they were working to do --

And if that doesn't make you sick to your stomach re Obama, nothing will -- !!


Since then we've had public education, teachers and their union under attack thanks to

Obama/Duncan/Emmanuel --




:hi:

All the spin in the world does not change the record.

-Laelth

Rec'd with disgust!

K&R

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:evilgrin:

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Thanks so much for posting this.

After watching this administration use the excuse of "state secrets" like a get out of jail free card this certainly doesn't surprise me. What continues to surprise me is seeing all of the people so willing to defend them in whatever they do.

"Wonderful. Give me a $30,000 campaign contribution and I'll get you a big fat loan guarantee for your company. And by the way, after we give you the loan we'll reorganize it so that none of your big investors will lose any money. The taxpayers will have to foot the bill."

"But isn't that unethical and perhaps against the law"?

"Not to worry. We rewrote the laws so we can lie to the courts!"

Please people. If there any of you left out there supporting Obama, please stop. We have got to throw the bum out and run another candidate next year or we will face a White House and a Congress run by repugs and probabaly a Supreme Court that will have a conservative majority for the next 20 years.

prior to Obama winning office because he said that he couldn't be trusted. Am I embarrassed now.

Here's another jaw dropping story.

http://jonathanturley.org/2011/10/22/the-unholy-marriage-between-the-cia-and-nypd/#more-40803

before they would say "I can neither confirm nor deny"... they want to change that language. I don't think it is a big deal.

some SECRET REPUBLICAN OPERATIVES who have somehow weaseled their way into the Obama administration.

REC.

Hardly...plenty of Bush people they never dispensed with to begin with.

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...many of us have been roundly criticized and mocked for holding Obama to the high standards that the Office of the Presidency requires. Were such behavior carried-out in the Bush WH, it would have been and was regularly and roundly pointed out and critiqued here. But now it seems that with an even worse abridgement of those standards and of our rights they are now to be overlooked. The closing of the ranks and all that. Those of us who have the temerity to point this double-standard out, will quickly have their "Democratic" bone fides questioned.

I'm sorry, but this isn't about a political party, nor is it about Obama. And if anyone can't see this, then I have no use for them whatsoever. It is just this sort of cult of personality worship that has lead to the establishment of authoritarian regimes in the past. I see no difference now. I believe some think that the establishment of a police state here in America is not possible.

- They would be wrong, it's already here......

K&R

:thumbsup:

Our ONLY hope is the folks in the streets right now. My heart and my hopes are with them even tho I can't be.

:(

we've always been at war with Eastasia.

As I said, we've always been at war with Oceania.

They are the one's that make this administration look bad. Now it seems to be too late or they have absolutely no supervision and are allowed to do as they please at will.

Future administrations take note - get rid of any appointee's from previous administrations. They will take down your presidency.

why did he keep little boot's minions? I mean it seems that cleaning your house would be a prerequisite for a new transition, especially if you really were going for sweeping change.

everywhere possible. There will be no Third Way triangulating when they're back in.

all of the liberal advisers that built the populist image that got him elected, and surrounded himself with republican and corporate advisers.

Starting with a Republican International Trade Adviser to pursue Free Trade Agreements, which immediately broke his promises right from day-one to clean up NAFTA and CAFTA, and add labor and environmental protections to free trade agreements.

He took a hard turn to the right starting from the very first day, but those of us who looked at his change in advisers, and started shouting about what it meant, were all shouted down by the cheerleaders who insisted that we had to give him nothing but praise and the benefit of the doubt for half of his term, or his first full term doing whatever he wanted before we could form an opinion and criticize anything.

How could we possible see anything worth criticizing when he hasn't had time to do anything yet? Give him several years, and then!... But of course, if you that, it's too late to have an opinion about everything he's done during those first years.

To hell with hero worship. We All should have been holding his feet to the fire. We couldn't, because of the hero worship. We still can't, because of the hero worship. We keep getting republican policies out of him because of it.

Every time I bring up his appointment of Geithner and Daley alone, the apologists ignore it. I really want to know how an Obama apologist can believe they also support OWS. They don't go together.

That word... I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

simple!

Then any administration may invoke it where the standards apply.

This is faux outrage - if the administration uses a law, it is obeying the law. If the law had no exceptions it would be one thing, but if that law has categories of exception, there is nothing wrong with the president invoking it. Aggrieved parties may have legal recourse.

Being for transparency doesn't mean that the President seeks to let everything out - there are State Secrets for a reason. Any such item can come up for question.

Things like this are not in black and white or either/or - leave that stupidity to the right wingers.

This post doesn't give us any reason to think there are no exceptions in the laws.

There are things the government cannot reveal. That is a set of standards created over time.

...but we're talking about denying the very existence of records that have been requested. You seem okay with that, so could you please humor me and provide a hypothetical situation that justifies it?

The part that says they get to LIE -- to the public, to a court, to anybody! Hell, with a system like that, they can just disregard any and all FOIA requests. And don't think for a second that they wouldn't do exactly that!

So much for transparency.

Bake

Change

I

Can

Believe

In


?

I don't know who is going to run against him in the primaries, but someone must be found. I don't think we can wait for someone to emerge, I believe this person is going to have to be drafted. Obama is a poor excuse for a Democrat. Someone else needs to represent the party and they need to found fairly soon.

It would be nice Nov 2012 to choose a non-Republican for pres.

Who would want to face that --

That money not only has the power to defeat a candidate but to humiliate him/her!

I do think, however, that we could get a real democrat to run based on conscience --

don't know if we can move Bernie Sanders because would have to be split ticket --

and we need him in Congress.

But -- we do need someone to run --

and asfaics the message of OWS is that government is dysfunctional -- no trust in it

any longer -- two party duopoly is finished. And so is capitalism.

Now we need the "moving on" part -- and we need a liberal candidate to do it!!



Would Alan Grayson do it, perhaps?





Meanwhile, the Dem Party has been transferred from hands of Koch Bros. DLC into hands

of Third Way and moving even further right -- !!

I won't be voting for it -- and won't be contributing to it -- any of it!!

We need someone like Elizabeth Warren, and the time is right.

Horrors. This is worse than the Roman Empire. At least you had some chance of escaping the Romans if you were willing to live in some forsaken outpost of civilization.

Here is the letter (PDF) sent to DOJ


Sounds like a debate over nuance. Still, it would help to adjust the language.

How can this be interpreted as a good thing?

Is this the openness that was suggested as a part of a new administration?

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"How can this be interpreted as a good thing?"

...exactly are you asking: why the organizations are suggesting the language read, "“we interpret all or part of your request as a request for records which, if they exist, would not be subject to the disclosure requirements of FOIA pursuant to section 552(c), and we therefore will not process that portion of your request."

I mean that doesn't confirm the existence of the document either. You know why: because that's how certain documents have always been treated. The organizations don't like the language, but they are not arguing that the records should be divulged. They consider "if they exists" to be truthful.

OpenTheGovernment



That's nuance.

Some don't want to see this, however... probably among them are those who had to have their responses to you deleted. Pretty weak and cowardly I say.

This is something you think should continue?

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It is bad enough we have the undemocratic 'super secret committee', now the govt just wants to flat out OWN US and deny it in COURT!

FUCK YOU! I will NEVER believe in my country again if this passes and becomes law. NEVER.

If this is true, then Obama has betrayed the whole notion of government transparency.
Totally unacceptable.

:evilgrin:


:hi:

...from an administration that has failed spectacularly to deliver on many of its campaign promises and done nothing more than offer up weak excuses and lame rationales whenever it's actions merely continue the policies of the previous administration...

Strange how the rah-rah copy-and-paste bullshit artists have avoided this thread...:eyes:

'Nuff said.

This really makes my blood boil!

Why can't we see who stole the money that our Social Security and Medicare is suppose to replace?

See. With the last administration, this kind of thing would be expected. The difference is that under bush, all of the Democrats would howl bloody murder. bush/cheney would have liked to try something like this but they know they would catch hell for it. But now, half the Democrats are in thrall with their guy and won't speak up. The same ones who would have had their knives out over this, sit quietly or, even worse, try to make it sound reasonable.

And until he completes his term(s) as president, we cannot start to rebuild what he has torn down.

The toadies on here will never believe the truth. The toadies on here are no different than the teabaggers and the loyalists who projected upon Cheney/Bush the imprimatur of infallibility for eight years for, you see, when Obama does it that means it is NOT illegal and it IS liberal.

But come Nov 4, we all have to close our nose and cast a vote for Obama because in our democracy, the only people allowed to gain the 2 parties nomination is to be 100% in the tank for the MIC/globalists.

exist because it is a secret

He just keeps pushing me further away with his dictator wanna be grabs for power and criminal acts.

He must think that if he does one Ok thing he can balance that by acting like he an write his own laws on other matters.

It don't work that way in a functional democracy. Obama just keeps adding to the gov's dysfunction.

More change I can believe in.

only the new guy speaks in complete sentences.

:kick:

just sayin'

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(and perhaps another manifestation of the same kind of attitude unfortunately....)

They all play by the same book......they love power and secrets and use every possible means to deny the citizens information. I'm afraid the only wan to remedy this is not going to be by way of the ballot box. We will have to take our nation back block by block from the usurpers. Obama talks a good talk but he can't walk the walk. He is as bad as the Republicans in this regard.

by denying that documents exist. That way they will not have to black out large areas of the documents that they currently have to give Congress.



I should point out that while currently we have a Democratic Administration and Justice Dept. this will probably change at some time in the future. Imagine how wild a Republican administration could run if they could lie to Congress.

WELL, JUST THE LEADERS ARE INSANE. THE 99% GETS IT.

But, that won't stop any of you bashing on Obama.
Just make up shit, post it at DU, and see what shit sticks to the walls.

Pathetic.

Pathetic... and pretty stinking weak and cowardly too.

Tossing out names in a general way might qualify.

please explain what is false

as to the reporting. Hopefully we can "remind" our Fave Sites...that something "bad is going down" and they need to "get on it ASAP!"

interested in the facts?

Is there a movement to so this? :shrug:

This gov't is broken.

Nixon did the exact same thing. Stating that telling the truth (or telling anything) would threaten national security and undermine the president's ability to do hos/her job.

Yeah, checks and balances and stuff. Re-read the Declaration of Independence...I think Jefferson addresses the problem with this situation.

PB