Our "Transparent" White House

Do you remember when candidate Obama promised a transparent administration?   Its okay if you don't remember - I have a clip right here of some of that audio.



Now, in a further example of  thumbing his nose at the American people,  "Obama's Justice Department has proposed a regulatory change that would weaken the Freedom of Information Act. Under the new rules, the government could falsely respond to those who file FOIA requests..."

Wait a miute !   What!    "...the government could falsely respond ..." ????      Beautiful!!!   Our beloved President (aka "Mr Transparency") doesn't seem to understand the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act.   It is designed so ordinary citizens can get information.   Not misinformation and not disinformation.

On the upside, Barack Obama's lack of transparency has brought the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and the conservative Judicial Watch into agreement.    You can find the entire article here .

As it stands now the government does have a "deniability" out in cases of National Security - "Under FOIA's current national security exemption, bureaucrats can already deny access to documents without acknowledging their existence. This was noted by the ACLU (joined by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpentheGovernment.com) in a comment on the proposal. In instances where there is a legitimate grounds for not confirming a document's existence, "the agency should simply respond that 'we interpret all or part of your request as a request for records which, if they exist, would not be subject to the disclosure requirements of FOIA pursuant to section 552(c), and we therefore will not process that portion of your request.' This response requires no change to the current FOIA regulation." Such a response would preserve a requestor's right to appeal to a federal court."

Our President wants a license to lie.