DOJ Proposes Lying to American Public … Then Backs Off (Updated)
This is, of course, nothing new for an administration which has taken nearly two years to generate four blank pages on a routine FOIA request asking for highly routine information.
Farrell was perhaps more blunt:
The most transparent administration in history is going out of the way to be opaque. It’s Orwellian, it’s circular double talk. The law that exists is more than adequate (to preserve secrecy when needed.) They don’t have the guts to do this legislatively so they do it by regulation.
From Farrell’s point of view — and mine — this is deadly dangerous stuff from the standpoint of the health of the republic, coming as it does while Obama is signing yet more executive orders:
“It’s an incremental slide down the slope. It’s a corrosion of the public’s trust,” he said. “If the government is giving itself permission to affirmatively lie to you, how can you ever have accountability?”
There is some hope this egregious policy will not become a federal regulation with the force of law. Even the ACLU — not the most conservative of organizations, nor exactly enemies of the current administration — is howling bloody murder. According to Fox, there was so much pushback after the original public comment period that the proposed regulation was reopened for public comment a second time.
With supreme irony that is apparently lost on them, the DOJ is claiming their move to destroy transparency … has been open and transparent:
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.
Of course, that’s what the aforementioned Glomar response is for. Also left aside is who gets to decide what an excluded record is. Given this administration’s history of excluding even the most innocuous records on the flimsiest of pretexts, it would seem imprudent at best to give them more ability to do so.
How much trust would such a policy generate among the public? How much cynicism? How much divisiveness would it create down the road when the current administration is voted out and the new administration comes in? Such rules are fundamentally detrimental to a free society.
Typical for Obama. Transparency that does not allow anyone to find the truth.
Interesting timing, what with Fast & Furious, and all.
And the focused effort of Sheriff Joe’s cold case posse on B.O.’s eligibility.
Well, if certain Federal agencies don’t want to give average citizens documents under the Freedom of Information Act, just imagine what these same government agencies are NOT giving Congress. Even under a court order, how do we know Congress is getting all of the information that it needs to properly investigate Fast and Furious? The answer is that we don’t, and that makes this lie even worse and the coverup to protect it even more heinous. With this administration, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of Fast and Furious, especially if they’re voted out of power in 2012.
With 2012 and the tossing of Obama out, Eric will find himself facing criminal charges. Like many of those Obama tried to put in his Chicago gangster administration.
When are we going to accept that this administration will stop at NOTHING to increase its power while destroying our democracy? I am now like Godfather Vito Corleone in the council of all godfathers: if a natural disaster strikes this country, I am going to blame the people in that room.
Is the Obama administration the most corrupt, un-American administration in our history? Ignore the Constitution, ignore laws — whatever they decide is holy and just. And the Lefty Media just sits there at “takes” it. And they wonder why sites like these are popping up everywhere.
Sounds like it is time to go get the documents with a federal judges order to comply then. Enen if it takes a few Crongressmen and a Judge to show up to execute the order.
Or how about the US Marshals?
During one of the legal inquiries into the constitutionality of ObamaCare,
the lawyers for the administration answered a question on limits of federal
control through legislation by saying that there are none.
Yes, you read right, they said the federal government can pass any law it likes.
Why be surprised when they claim the right to keep any secret they like ?
They deny the authority of the Constitution they swore to uphold; Throw them out !
But Herman Cain may have made an off-color joke to the wrong person!
Seriously, this is the most totalitarian regime in the history of this country and the media are focused on spectacles.
The fact that they even considered this policy is a clear warning sign. The totalitarian instincts of this administration are there for anyone who wants to witness them…and the propaganda machine is there to cover up, conspire to secrete and keep from the American public.
This one, may not get implemented…today.
Tomorrow…another freedom, another liberty, may turn up missing.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/justice_department_pulls_proposal_allowing_government_to_lie_about_foia_requests.php
Integrity is racist! (C’mon, left/liberals, you know know you want to say it.)
It’s a felony to lie to a Federal Agent. It’s a job requirement for them to lie to us.
That’s no government by, of and for the people in my world.
The word “delicate” disturbs me, but for classified national security documents the policy makes sense, which is why it supposedly originated with Edwin Meese. Classified means classified. If you tell someone a document exists directly or indirectly, it violates the classification and could be a way many spies and anti-American persons harm U.S. national security. For example, what about, during the cold war, documents containing names of suspected Soviet spies in the British Parliament. Today, documents containing payoffs to Chinese generals, phone records of calls to Iranian embassy staff serving in Iraq or Afganistan, draft plans for a nuclear attack on Iran. None of those documents are ones that would be helpful to have known exist. My concern is that the formalization of this policy may be Holder’s way of getting rid of it in sensible circumstances. That would only mean more sensitive information in the hands of Americas enemies.
We have been ruled by a feudalist controlled shadow government for a very long time. Our political parties create a bi-partican sock puppet show, always to the benefit of the Monarch-Monopolists. Note the Glomar Explorer happened under Nixon. The official Meese announced FOI policy under care-taker Reagan. As VeePee, Bush delivered Iran-Contra and the S&L crisis. As Presindent, Bush incresed “carbon endangerment finding” research from $20 million to $2 billion in 1988. As I stated in one of my articles, “If all you fund is findings for danger, danger is all you will find”.
We have been taught Faux Science and Faux History, supported by a Faux Media to create this very dangerous Faux Democracy. These Fauxs are the foes of freedom. Find and share truth….as fast as you can !
DOJ must really be worried about the reams of documents they must have concerning F&F. And, lets not forget the DOE loans to companies run by Democrat campaign bundlers, that went bankrupt. Did any of that taxpayer money end up back in Democrat party campaign coffers?
Get real. You know that the Obama administration would use such a change in the law to hide documents containing damning information. This would be used the same way the Brits use the Official Secrets Act, as a means to hide government corruption and criminality.
Do any of Herman Cain’s accusers work for the DOJ? Because, if I was going to lie, I’d want a special rule passed that said I wouldn’t be punished for lying
My translation and perspective: Presently “they” are not allowed to lie. That is not to say that “they” always tell the truth, as it is. But at least the laws that hold them some what accountable if “they” are caught lying have been kept in place with the FOIA to help discover such lies
Note 2 advocates; COINTELPRO and propaganda and their “Agent Provocateurs” from the rogue factions of the Alphabet Soup now appear to be outsourced to private companies too.
http://toxicreverend.blogspot.com/2011/10/roid-cops-takes-advenuters-into-strange.html
Example from the above blog:
Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD
http://gawker.com/5850054/meet-the-guy-who-snitched-on-occupy-wall-street-to-the-fbi-and-nypd
If it is made legal to suppress information, there is no freedom of information.
Obviously Obama and his minions think Orwell’s Winston Smith was the bad guy as they seem to want to mimic Orwell’s myopic regime in every last detail, excepting appointing gay men like Kevin Jennings to gov’t positions who think the gov’t teaching ‘fisting’ to high schoolers is cool.
Even Winston’s enemies weren’t that depraved.
We should applaude this newest transparency of the Obama regime. We know that the government has been lying to us for decades, for generations. Now, it it out in the open so there’s no mistaking it for what it is.