Why did President Obama rewrite the Freedom of Information Act without telling the rest of America?
An April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructed the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved “White House equities.” You might rightly ask,
What the heck are White House Equities?
That phrase is nowhere to be found in the FOIA, yet the Obama White House effectively amended the law to create a new exception to justify keeping public documents locked away from the public.A serious breach
The Greg memo is described in detail in a new study made public today by Cause of Action, a Washington-based nonprofit watchdog group that monitors government transparency and accountability.
How serious an attack on the public’s right to know is the Obama administration’s invention of the “White House equities” exception?
“FOIA is designed to inform the public on government behavior; White House equities allow the government to withhold information from the media, and therefore the public, by having media requests forwarded for review. This not only politicizes federal agencies, it impairs fundamental First Amendment liberties,” Cause of Action explains in its report.
Equities are everything
The equities exception is breathtaking in its breadth. As the Greg memo put it, any document request is covered, including “congressional committee requests, GAO requests, judicial subpoenas and FOIA requests.”
And it doesn’t matter what format the documents happen to be in because, according to Greg, the equities exception “applies to all documents and records, whether in oral, paper, or electronic form, that relate to communications to and from the White House, including preparations for such communications.”
Essentially, the change gives the White House effective carte-blanche to decide what information it wants to divulge and how to present it, but perhaps just as sinister, the change means FOIA deadlines are a thing of the past. Since the White House equities exception took effect, it may potentially be impossible for some requests to meet the 20-day mandatory response deadline.
Is this actually “the most transparent administration in history?”
Source: Washington Examiner
VERY TIRED OF THIS SELF APPOINTED DEMIGOG FORGETING THAT OUR CONSTITUTION HAS CHECKS AND BALANCES TO PROTECT US
do you really have to ask why ???? if you do your to stupid to tell you why !!!
he is a $#%&!@*.
No one is holding him responsible for his actions
Impeach Obama… NOW
What’s up my doude
If they take our guns the United States is going to change like Mexico . In Mexico not only the government taxes the people the mexicans president and the mexican politics send the cartels to text the business people and the poor people so much money they can afford and they borrow from relatives. A lot of times the cartels and the Mexican police kidnapped mom,s dad,s and children,s and they ask their relatives for a lot of money if not they will kill them and send you the pieces that’s what they say to pressure the family N end up doing it. In Mexico they don’t have guns to defend themselves . There was a small group in Michoacan name autodedensas off Dr Mireles they were defending themselves and their hometowns they found on cartel people cell phones video recordings politics meeting with the cartels . The Mexican government didn’t like this people were defending themselves against the cartels and the bad police and bad politics. So they arrested 87 people on Friday 6. 27.2014 . For defending themselves and for having weapons. The Mexican government sad ,45, 50 caliber RA.15, AK.47 . Grenade another weapons were weapons exclusive of the military so they took him away right now he’s in jail the Mexican police and military planted drugs n hot weapons to give him more time in jail so the people won’t have their leader to defend themselves. good people from the United States we should help him his name is Dr Mireles he’s trying to make a better Mexico where Mexicans can defend themselves you can find his videos on YouTube
If he goes behind our backs, go behind his!
refuse to comply to any of his laws, break as many laws as you can get away with, if Obama can do it so can we…civil resistance is mandated in times like this.
This is the man our forefathers warned us about and why we have the Second Amendment…