Homeland Security Giving Extra Political Scrutiny To 'Activist' Groups FOIA Requests, Singles Out EFF
from the freedom-deserves-extra-scrutiny dept
When President Obama first came into office, one of the things he pledged was greater transparency, including in responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. As we've seen with things like ACTA, where the USTR refused FOIA requests with a totally bogus claim of "national security," the administration has regularly failed to live up to that promise and at times appears to be even worse than previous administrations. Over the last year, reports have come out that FOIA requests from certain groups and reporters are being singled out for political review. That's not the way the FOIA process is supposed to work, but apparently Homeland Security has alerted various FOIA officials that requests from certain groups need to first be sent up the chain for political review, both potentially delaying the release of the information, and subjecting it to reviews and possible redactions that go beyond what the law establishes. As the EFF notes, it seems to be among the groups singled out for special scrutiny, and the letter outlining this policy highlights three specific EFF FOIA requests. So, apparently the plan is "transparency, except when it might hurt us politically."Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: freedom of information, homeland security, politics
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Don't they realize that it is better to come clean (even if it hurts them politically), and just release that information before it ends up in Wikileaks or something similar (which it will), and causes a lot more damage (both direct and collateral)?
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Change!!
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Amazing
On the other hand, the electorate looks like Charlie Brown, who believes that, this time, Lucy will not take away the football.
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Possible solution
The premise is anyone depriving you of your rights under the U.S. Constitution is breaking the law (the constitution supersedes copyright, bogus national security, etc., etc.). Thus, officials/bureaucrats are PERSONALLY liable, along with their company/organization, to lawsuits and/or criminal charges.
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Re: Possible solution
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Any person or group who does anything the government does like, or that inconveniences the government is automatically considered the enemy. I thought everyone knew this...
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The NSA has their own ideas as to who the good guys and bad guys are.
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I'll contribute to the EFF
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so why bother voting anymore
YOU DO NOT REPRESENT the MAJORITY WILL OF THE PEOPLE
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Re: so why bother voting anymore
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
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Re: so why bother voting anymore
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What a Joke
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FOIA is to a large degree a fraud -
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Open face chilling sandwich
I'm used to Mike making arguments ad absurdum (because it's important to think about the long term potentional for policies), and so I thought that's what this was.
BUT NO, It basically says, "Report anything that we might not like along with all the identifying information on the requester. Thanks, your friendly Gestapo."
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Re: Open face chilling sandwich
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