Posted on 11/10/2011 12:35:02 PM PST by Driftwood1
The President promised the country transparency and open government, so rather than just let FOIA requesters assume they are being lied to, the DOJ recently proposed coming clean and making such lies official policy. Freedom of information advocates could rejoice knowing that their government is transparent about not being transparent.
Here's how it's supposed to work: The Freedom of Information Act allows access to records of all departments, agencies, and offices of the Executive Branch of the federal government, including the Executive Office of the President, unless those records fall under one of several exemptions. When asked to produce certain documents pertaining to law enforcement or national security, the federal government can withhold those documents under one of the exemptions, or it could issue a "Glomar" response “neither conforming nor denying the existence” of those records.
But as the ACLU’s Michael German explained, the government felt there was a need:
. . .to protect ongoing investigations from people who were misusing FOIA, these criminals who are trying to uncover criminal investigations or find informants or, perhaps a hostile nation trying to find out if there is a classified program in existence. If you got an ambiguous answer, like a Glomar response, and you felt that the documents might actually exist, you'd go into court and try to assert your rights to access those records. But if you got a ‘no records’ response, you would tend to believe that the government was telling the truth and, therefore, not challenge them in court. So that’s what the Department of Justice proposed, a regulation that would allow it to lie under the FOIA statute — which, German said, the government has been doing anyway. This proposal would only make it official.
(Excerpt) Read more at citmedialaw.org ...
“Everything about socialism is sham and affectation.” - 23.11 Ch.23 Evil; Economic Harmonies; Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
You can’t make this crap up. Is there no end to what this administration is allowed to do?
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