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PROMISES, PROMISES: Is gov't more open with Obama?
WASHINGTON — The government's use of legal exemptions to keep records secret rose during President Barack Obama's first year in office, despite promises of increased openness, an Associated Press review found.
The review of annual Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that overall, the use of nearly every one of the open-records law's nine exemptions to withhold information rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.
Among the most frequently used exemptions: one that lets the government hold back records that detail its internal decision-making. Obama had directed agencies to stop using that exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have been widely ignored.
Major agencies cited that exemption to refuse records at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, compared with 47,395 times during President George W. Bush's final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.
Departments used the exemption even though the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, which advises them on FOIA, told them after Obama took office that they could exercise discretion and disclose such records. Doing so "will be fully consistent with the purpose of the FOIA," it said.
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Yeah we got our change! A change to further extremes. The next time change happens is going to be in Novermber. Ignore the majority of citizens? A slap in their face? What is Obama's rating right now again? Laughable.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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You don't see me jumping for joy yet anything can still happen. So cash don't be so quick to throw in the towel.
I am sure you will have a lot to say if things don't go your way just like I will. But you know if health care is voted in I am going to lord it over you like stink on poop.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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White House Blocking Media Access To Elena Kagan's Family
In a move unlikely to reassure Elena Kagan skeptics who want to know more about the Supreme Court nominee, the Obama administration is evidently keeping Kagan's family from talking to the press on the grounds that the White House is "uncomfortable with the idea at this time."
A growing number of Kagan critics worry that it's nigh-impossible to judge the Supreme Court nominee on the basis of her extremely limited record of public statements on the principal legal issues of the day.
But reporters trying to conduct standard interviews with Kagan's family members or sit in on a constitutional law class taught by Kagan's brother Irving have been shut down by the White House, in the latter case after Irving Kagan and his school had already tentatively agreed to the request.
Even Kagan's cousin, Gail Katz-James of Minneapolis, was silenced a mere two days after telling the New York Times her family "just really enjoyed debating and discussing everything. When the same reporter tried to get more comment from Katz-James after the story ran, she replied, "I'm sorry, I'm not able to talk to you."
As Ben Smith notes, this move isn't difficult to understand, and there's precedent in the tight management of the Obama family, friends and even college roommates during the 2008 presidential campaign. But it does create, as Smith writes, "a strangely, artificially limited portrait."
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