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FOIA Review: More
Government Secrecy Under Obama Than Bush
Another promise of "change" miserably
fails
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 An
Associated Press review of Freedom of Information Act reports
filed by 17 major government agencies has revealed that, despite
Barack Obama's promise to make government more transparent,
more information is now being withheld from the public.
The review finds that during Obama's first year in office,
a FOIA provision that allows the government to conceal details
of its internal decision-making was invoked more frequently
than during the outgoing year of the Bush administration.
The provision to refuse the release of internal documents was
cited some 70,779 times during the financial year of 2009, compared
with just 47,395 times in 2008.
"Obama specifically directed agencies to stop using that
exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have
been widely ignored." the
AP report states.
Indeed, according to the review, every one of the nine different
exemptions under FOIA law was invoked more by Obama agencies
in 2009 than by Bush departments the previous year.
In total, federal agencies used exemptions to avoid releasing
material at least 466,872 times in 2009, over 154,000 times
more than the year before, despite the fact that there were
some 48,000 less FOIA requests than in 2008.
The 17 agencies reviewed were the departments of Agriculture,
Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services,
Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior,
Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans
Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Federal
Reserve Board.
The day after he was inaugurated, Obama announced
that he
had ordered government agencies to fully comply
with the intended use of Freedom of Information Act law in order
to ensure greater transparency and avoid charges of secrecy.
"All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure,
in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied
in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government,"
Obama wrote in a memo to federal agencies on January 21, 2009.
"The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all
decisions involving FOIA." he added.
"The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies
should take affirmative steps to make information public,"
the new president continued.
"They should not wait for specific requests from the
public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform
citizens about what is known and down by their Government. Disclosure
should be timely."
Clearly these instructions have been ignored by the agencies
in question and unenforced by the incumbent administration.
The news comes on the back of further revelations that the
Obama Administration has threatened
to veto a congressional intelligence bill owing
to the fact that the legislation would subject intelligence
agencies to greater scrutiny and oversight.
The proposed bill would allow for a General Accountability
Office review of US intelligence agencies, which are currently
immune from Congressional audit.
So much for the promise of open government then.
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