Free Republic

The Justice Department said it intends to provide its inspector general with quicker access to documents that the watchdog office says it’s been delayed in receiving. Those materials include grand jury testimony, credit information and communications obtained from law enforcement wiretaps. The announcement follows a directive from Congress for the department — and several other federal government agencies — to be more responsive to information requests from their internal watchdogs. …

When you hear the phrase “tax treaties,” your first response (besides yawning) would be to assume that, out of all the treaties the United States is involved in, these would be the most harmless. Generally, you’d be right. When we talk about tax treaties, we usually mean agreements between countries to ease excessive taxation (usually double taxation) while promoting cooperation in tax compliance. But pending in the Senate right now are two tax treaties that are particularly dangerous to privacy, to U.S. sovereignty, and to the security of individuals and human rights.

President Obama boasted Friday about his administration's exemplary record on transparency related to nuclear materials, and cited as an example his decision to share U.S. security protocols with the world, along with information about the size of the U.S.'s highly enriched uranium stockpile. As of Sept. 30, 2013 the nation had 585.6 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, a fact that hasn't been declassified in 15 years, Obama noted during the summit's opening session. The last public figure was 740.7 metric tons, and the difference shows the U.S. has reduced its stockpile by more than 20 percent. "This type of...

Chris Matthews at Center of NBC’s Latest News Scandal MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews isn’t much for keeping his promises of transparency when it involves political contributions to his wife’s congressional campaign. Last June, the blabbermouth commentator insisted on his show that he would be “transparent and fair in our coverage” after his wife, Kathleen, announced that she was running as a Democrat for the open seat in Maryland’s 8th District. Since then, Kathleen Matthews, a former news anchor and Marriott exec, has received a total of $79,050 in campaign contributions from prominent former and current politicians featured on her...

Former US Attorney General Eric Holder is a huge fan of NBA hall of famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So much so that Holder used Abdul-Jabbar's birth name, Lew Alcindor, as an alias for his official Department of Justice (DOJ) email account, raising more questions about the email practices of top Obama administration officials, and about the ability of US government agencies to track down correspondence in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Related: A Judge Has Scolded the State Department for Blowing the Deadline on the Clinton Emails The Lew Alcindor revelation was made in a February 16 letter...

Meretz chairwoman Zehava Galon blasted Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the Transparency Law at Monday evening's discussion of the bill in the Knesset. “This is not transparency; it is political persecution,” she charged. “Those who slander Israel are actually Ayelet Shaked and her settler friends. The world hates Israel not because of what the [leftist] organizations make public...

The Knesset on Monday night approved the first reading of the so-called “Transparency Law”, initiated by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. The bill would require Israeli NGOs who receive more than half of their funds from foreign states to disclose their sources of funding and identify themselves as "foreign agents" when lobbying MKs. 50 MKs voted in favor of the bill and 43 voted against. The bill has been criticized due to the fact that it will only affect left-wing organizations, who receive funding from European countries and the United States, as opposed to right-wing groups who are more likely to...

President Obama claimed to be the most open and transparent president ever but did not follow through. During her term as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton showed her persistent openness and transparency to friend and foe alike.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXWTdTnhebs Right. Hillary demonstrated her openness and transparency to the entire world  -- friend and foe alike -- through her use of an unsecured home-brew server for e-mails containing classified national security information. As of late December, more than 1,200 e-mails found on Hillary's server had been deemed classified. More continued to be found. According to a report by Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III dated January...

The backers of the Jeffco recall effort (read: Teachers Union) campaigned on the lie that the Jeffco School Board was lacking in transparency. That is why yesterday's ruling that Jeffco United, the nonprofit engaged in the recall effort, violated campaign finance laws is so, so delicious. The organization made a $90,000 donation to the recall effort without disclosing its donors. According to an administrative law judge, that is verboten. Its punishment is not so simple. The organization must pay $1,000, register as a political committee, and (here is the delightful part) disclose its donors. While nonprofits are not typically required...

A group of 29 European journalists have filed complaints with the EU's Court of Justice, demanding access to documents that will show how members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been spending their allowances. The reporters filed freedom of information (FOI) requests with the European Parliament, asking for copies of documents that show details for the MEPs' travel expenses, accommodation expenses, office expenses, and assistants expenses for the past four years. ...

The Supreme Court has rejected an anti-abortion group's bid to force disclosure of confidential Planned Parenthood and federal government records about a contract for family planning services in New Hampshire. The justices on Monday let stand a ruling that allowed the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to withhold some documents in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by New Hampshire Right to Life. ...

In the sadistic era of fraudulent Hope and Change, inspectors general inside the federal government have been kicked, neutered and starved of the authority and information they need to do their jobs. It's transparently clear: President Obama loathes and fears independent watchdogs. Accountability is an empty talking point without whistleblower protection and investigative autonomy. That is why Capitol Hill must do everything in its power to stop the White House war on the public's ombudsmen. Federal inspector generals across dozens of agencies are begging lawmakers to grant them access to public records as guaranteed by the 1978 Inspector General Act....

Part 255 of 253 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War MADISON, Wisconsin — State Democrats claim to be the champions of open government. But while they rail against an ill-conceived and short-lived GOP plan to close some open records, the left has been strangely silent about liberal state Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson’s reluctance to turn over communications that would shine light on her behind-the-scenes legal activities. That silence is deafening among the left’s best friend, the mainstream media. Abrahamson has hired an attorney to defend her in the records request filed by conservative targets of Wisconsin’s unconstitutional John Doe...

‘Toby Miles’ account linked to government businessLois Lerner had yet another personal email account used to conduct some IRS business, the tax agency confirmed in a new court filing late Monday that further complicates the administration’s efforts to be transparent about Ms. Lerner’s actions during the tea party targeting scandal. The admission came in an open-records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm that has sued to get a look at emails Ms. Lerner sent during the targeting. IRS lawyer Geoffrey J. Klimas told the court that as the agency was putting together a set of...

New York City’s mayor says he’s not micromanaging his image by having his lawyers review requests for public information that could “reflect directly on the mayor.”Bill de Blasio made the comments on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” Wednesday when asked about a memo obtained by The Associated Press. That May 5 directive by a mayoral lawyer instructs attorneys at city agencies to forward to City Hall their responses to a range of documents, including sensitive or controversial requests, made under the Freedom of Information Law. …

Scattered around the U.S. Capitol complex are a series of Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facilities, or SCIFs, which are typically used to hold Top Secret information. But today in these deeply secure settings are a series of unclassified documents—items dealing with the Iran nuclear deal that are not secret, but that the Obama administration is nevertheless blocking the public from reading. The Obama administration delivered 18 documents to Congress on July 19, in accordance with legislation requiring a congressional review of the nuclear deal. Only one of these documents is classified, while the remaining 17 are unclassified. Yet many of these...

Things got very awkward on Thursday when Chris Matthews asked DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz what the difference was between the modern Democratic Party and Socialism. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was completely stumped. She couldn’t answer the question. We haven’t seen that dazed look since Rachel Dolezal was busted as a fraud. Because, as we all know, there is no difference between today’s Democrat Party and radical Socialism. On Sunday DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was again asked to explain the difference between the modern day Democratic Party and Socialism. Again She failed. “You know Chuck it is always fun to...

Last Tuesday, a 159-page PDF of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was leaked online. Paragraph 36 was the most shocking of the agreement — a part the president would probably prefer hadn’t become public, as it demonstrated just how much of a joke the pact actually was. According to the deal’s 36th paragraph, any party — Iran or any future U.S. president — can essentially end the Iran nuclear deal with 35 days notice. Iran can claim that any one of the P5+1 nations is “not meeting its commitments” under the deal. That will then set off a 35-day

On The Daily Show, President Obama blamed Republicans for the IRS scandal: “You’ve got this back office, and they’re going after the Tea Party. Well, it turned out, no, Congress had passed a crummy law that didn’t give people guidance in terms of what it was they were trying to do. They did it poorly and stupidly. The truth of the matter is that there was not some big conspiracy there. They were trying to sort out these conflicting demands. You don’t want all this money pouring through non-for- profits, but you also want to make sure everybody is being...

What happens when a Congressional committee demands documentation from a hostile executive-branch bureaucracy? The panel usually gets a chance to learn a tremendous amount on just about every subject under the sun except for the issue at hand, which is exactly what Trey Gowdy has experienced. The State Department has insisted that it’s complying with the House Select Committee on Benghazi and brags about the number of pages of documents it has released to the investigation, but what’s actually in those document dumps? Everything Congress has ever wanted to know about Richard Gere’s public relations, and more, Gowdy explainsGowdy on...