US reconsiders, now says it's not really OK to lie to reporters

US reconsiders, now says it's not really OK to lie to reporters


The Justice Department has gotten the message from journalists, interest groups and government watchdogs and has decided to withdraw its proposal to allow federal agencies to lie to people seeking sensitive documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Currently, if a requested document is so sensitive that it would be dangerous to acknowledge its very existence, the government is allowed to tell you that it can neither confirm nor deny whether there is such a document.

Last month, the Justice Department proposed a rule revision that would let government agencies tell requesters there is no such document — even if there is. According to the proposal, which was retrieved by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica, agencies would be allowed to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/04/8641787-us-reconsiders-now-says-its-not-really-ok-to-lie-to-reporters

It is troubling they even went there in their thought processes.

And, by the way, in the real world, I'd like to hear of at least one single example of a document from any time since world war two that is so sensitive it's dangerous to acknowledge its existence. That would imply that the event covered by the document was so secret that no one could ask for it under the FOIA in the first place.