Posted on 01/21/2009 6:56:37 PM PST by Red Steel
Barack Obama's first acts as president included signing three orders today that could open public access to documents and records that had been closed off during the Bush administration.
Obama reversed George W. Bush's restrictions on access to records of former presidents. He also told the Justice Department to write new guidance to agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to improve transparency, and gave top officials in his administration four months to create a new "Open Government Directive" that he said would go beyond the requirements of the open records law.
If the new rules are followed within the government, they could open scores of records that have been closed for years to the public and reporters. Some agencies, with the encouragement of the Bush administration's legal advisers in the Justice Department, have reached deep into FOIA's exemptions to withhold information.
During the military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, for example, the names of drugs forcibly administered to prisoners were withheld, claiming they would create "an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" -- one of the law's reasons for rejection. News organizations and local citizen groups have had little access to information on toxic chemical spills that used to be readily available on the Internet. And agencies have tried to rebuff The Post and other news organizations on such requests as the schedules of high-level officials, the names and salaries of political appointees, and inspection results for government-owned or subsidized housing.
-snip-
The two memoranda to agency heads reverse the Bush administration's policy of rejecting requests for records whenever there is a justification in the loosely worded Freedom of Information Act.
One of Obama's memos says: "The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Does this include your government record too Obama?
Hawaii Birth Certificates?
Area 51?
JFK files?
This is stupid and could put a lot of people in danger.
Releasing dirt on the Clintons?
I guess we’ll have to wait until he’s a “former president” before we see his actual birth certificate.
On the other hand the second he issues such a directive I'm going to ask for the FBI "raw files" on every managing editor of the Washington Post, Newsweek, Berkshire-Hathaway, New York Times, etc.
I'm sure his closer confidents will bring him around on this issue ~ BTW, this sort of cr*p is little more than "throw ups" from his remaining campaign staff. They're all nuts. Few of them will get real jobs.
Yep. He’s gonna get us all killed.
Starting with him ...
Does this release passport records as well? If so, we need to put in a FOI for Obama’s passport information.
This does not sound like a good idea.
Bring it on!
It had better include your Democrat buddines in Congress too. I’d love to take a peek at their ‘records’.
Especially the secret TARP meetings where billions of taxpayer dollars are going to ... ???? ... we have no idea.
Is this to benefit his Kissy Poopy buddies in the press..
What’s next? C.A.I.R.-types using FOI to gain our real-time military intelligence on Iran or Al Qaeda.
Lord help us.
i’m thinking it will be dirt on Bush instead...you know how Piglosi is jonesing to try him on “war crimes.”
So that WAS Sandy Burglar I saw pounding on the doors of The National Archives a couple of minutes ago.
Second, we shall see that he is a huge hypocrit (as if we did not already know).
Will FOIA provisions apply to his birth certificate? to his college records? to those things he, as President, feels should be kepot under wraps?
Objective: Destruction of the US. Full speed ahead.
There is a lot of info released that WILL be very useful for the terrorists.
This could raise some eyebrows. Talk about opening a can of worms....
I can see libs and nuts all over salivating over the prospect of finally finding the locations of the Bushcheneyhaliburton Concentration Camps, actually seeing the Secret Bush Plans of 9/11, and the US military plans to take over the World....LOL!
Typical liberal bull crap. The rules apply to everyone except the fraudulent illegal alien and his cadre of hypocrites. What a crock!
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