Good if it happens
We read:
"It has received the least attention of his first-day decisions, but President Barack Obama's memorandum on reviving the Freedom of Information Act stands as the clearest signal yet that his campaign talk about `a new era of open government' wasn't just rhetoric; it's for real. The key phrase comes right at the top: `The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.'
Source
11 comments:
Later in the source it says:
Later in the memo: "All agencies should adopt a presumption of disclosure. … The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA."
All this means is that anything they don't want the public to know about will be by word of mouth or by personal, non-governmental means.
Our government is corrupt from the top down. I've been trying to vote out our Senator (Levin) for years ... hasn't happened yet.
if it sounds too good to be true...
The One doesn't want to get rid of his Blackberry.
He claims it's because it's more convenient than doing everything on pen and paper (can he write longhand?).
It is indeed more convenient, as there are no records kept of what he does with it, therefore nothing a FOIA inquiry can uncover.
Apply that to all staff above a certain level (the lowly workerbees of course must be tightly controlled lest they do something they're not supposed to like have criticism of their overlords) and you can safely have a FOIA that lets everything that's written down be disclosed as nothing of value is ever written down and what is can easily be explained away as unsanctioned actions by minor functionaries.
We'll see how open Obama's administration is. The press is already being hamstrung by the white house. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482804,00.html
Anon 3,
That link is broken. Can you give us something to search on?
Wide open govt. The biggest benefactor of this is the media. This is Yomama's payback to the MSM for their zealous, cult-like support. Good idea? We'll see if it's evenly applied.
The Fox story probably relates to Obama's ban of any (press) cameras in his presence except those used by official White House staff.
Only photos of The One supplied by the White House may be published.
Obama will be our doom.
The problem is that this is public posturing, if he's like the rest of the Democrats (and the Republicans) this is the public face. Behind the scenes he's more likely to be telling them to deny the existence of anything that would deny the happy state they want to project.
"Don't believe everything you read, only half of what you see, and none of what you hear."
If I understand correctly, Obama's edict of disclosure applies to FORMER presidents. This would preclude the magnificent one from adhering to his own directive. This might possibly change again by the time he leaves office.
How well do you think the media would have handled it if Bush had a BlackBerry and told everyone he used for only personal matters? I'm sure than pravda-MSNBC would be just as cool with that, right?
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