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Miss Annie
10-26-2011, 08:09 AM
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Transparency-In-Government-by-Jerry-Policoff-111025-906.html


Obama Admin Seeks Permission To Lie In Response To Freedom Of Information Requests - Even To The Courts

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 . 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 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:

National Press Club Urges Administration to Reconsider Draft Rule on Freedom of Information

"Under the new Department of Justice proposal, in replying to a request for information under the freedom-of-information law, if the information is allowed to be withheld under certain statutory exceptions, then federal officials "will respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist"--even if that is not the case.

"No rule or law should allow, let alone require, the government to mislead the press or the public about anything," said Mark Hamrick , a broadcast journalist with the Associated Press who is the 2011 president of the National Press Club. "If enacted, it appears that this proposed rule would offend the precepts that informed the Freedom of Information Act, and it would tarnish the government's credibility.

"What's more, the change seems unnecessary," he said. "If agencies are exercising legally allowable exceptions to the law and withholding certain records, they can just continue to do as they do today: neither confirm nor deny the information's existence.""
Justice Dept. proposes lying, hiding existence of records under new FOIA rule

"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.
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4065/13456011.png

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.

In a public comment regarding the rule change, the ACLU, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and OpenTheGovernment.org, said the move "will dramatically undermine government integrity by allowing a law designed to provide public access to government information to be twisted to permit federal law enforcement agencies to actively lie to the American people."

"Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch has also lambasted the proposed rules change

"Upon taking office, President Obama released a memorandum declaring his administration was "committed to operating with an unprecedented level of openness. Specifically, he pledged to bolster the strength of the FOIA act, calling it "the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government."

Government Could Hide Existence of Records under FOIA Rule Proposal

"The ACLU, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpenTheGovernment.org said the move would "dramatically undermine government integrity by allowing a law designed to provide public access to government to be twisted.

"Open government groups also contend that the proposed rule could undermine judicial proceedings.

In a recent case brought by the ACLU of Southern California, the FBI denied the existence of documents. But the court later discovered that the documents did exist. In an amended order , U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the "Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court."

DOJ's draft FOIA rule was first published in March , but DOJ re-opened comment submissions in September at the request of open-government groups. The new comment period ended October 19"

PeacePlan
10-26-2011, 12:09 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13DnVMAD358

Miss Annie
10-26-2011, 03:37 PM
I am constantly amazed at the levels that people are sinking to. Horrendous!!

amy31416
10-26-2011, 04:05 PM
I can find absolutely nothing on this on the web from any "mainstream" sources so far...granted I just did a pretty quick search.

RDM
10-26-2011, 04:07 PM
They're asking for permission to lie? Why now?

Miss Annie
10-26-2011, 04:34 PM
Here it is on FOX.... not sure if you would call that Main stream media......


Justice Department Proposes Letting Government Deny Existence of Sensitive Documents

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/26/justice-department-proposes-letting-government-deny-existence-sensitive/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1bviGf3YG


A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land -- in effect a license to lie -- if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks.

The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests "as if the excluded records did not exist."

Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, says the move appears to be in direct conflict with the administration's promise to be more open.

"Despite all the talk of transparency, I can't think of what's less transparent than saying a document does not exist, when in fact, it does," Sekulow told Fox News.

Justice Department officials say the practice has been in effect for decades, dating back to a 1987 memo from then-Attorney General Edwin Meese.

In that memo, and subsequent similar internal documents, Justice Department staffers were advised that they could reply to certain FOIA requests as if the documents had never been created. That policy never became part of the law -- or even codified as a federal regulation -- and it was recently challenged in court.

Earlier this year, in a case involving the Islamic Council of Southern California brought against the FBI after the plaintiffs learned about the existence of documents denied by the FBI, a federal judge in California expressed great concern about the agency using the internal policy not only in response to the FOIA but to mislead the court.

"The government, cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the court. … The court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the government does not tell the truth," the judge wrote in a stinging rebuke.

A final version of the proposal could be issued by the end of 2011. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law.

But the Justice Department got so much pushback in response to the proposal that it took the unusual step of re-opening the public comment period after it had already been closed. That second comment period closed last week.

When the new comment period began, the American Civil Liberties Union became one of the most vocal critics of the proposal. Mike German, Policy Counsel with the ACLU, authored a lengthy letter in opposition.

"It's shocking that you would twist what is supposed to be a statute -- that's supposed to give people access to what the government is doing -- in a way that would allow the government to actually mislead the American public," German told Fox News.

Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, said the entire consideration process for the proposal "has been open and transparent."

She also notes that sensitive information requires special consideration.

"To ensure that the integrity of the exclusion is maintained, agencies must ensure that their responses do not reveal the existence of excluded records," Pustay said.

Sekulow says he is not buying that argument, and argued that FOIA requesters who get a response telling them that officials can neither confirm or deny the existence of documents now can at least go to court to sue for more information.

If they're told that no documents exist, there is no basis for a legal challenge at all, Sekulow said.

"The real concern is here is it changes the entire dynamic of what the law was intended to do, and really gives the Department of Justice the upper hand in area where they shouldn't have it."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/26/justice-department-proposes-letting-government-deny-existence-sensitive/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1bvhzlUpC