'Most transparent' WH Ever rewrote FOIA to suppress politically sensitive docs

[Wilikon]

http://causeofaction.org/assets/uploads/2014/03/Sunshine-Week-Project-FINAL.pdf

It's Sunshine Week, so perhaps some enterprising White House reporter will ask press secretary Jay Carney why President Obama rewrote the Freedom of Information Act without telling the rest of America.

The rewrite came in an April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructing the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved "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."

Forget making FOIA deadlines

The FOIA requires federal agencies to respond within 20 days of receiving a request, but the White House equities exception can make it impossible for an agency to meet that deadline.

In one case cited by Cause of Action, the response to a request from a Los Angeles Times reporter to the Department of the Interior for "communications between the White House and high-ranking Interior officials on various politically sensitive topics" was delayed at least two years by the equities review.

"Cause of Action is still waiting for documents from 16 federal agencies, with the Department of Treasury having the longest pending request of 202 business days.

"The Department of Energy is a close second at 169 business days. The requests to the Department of Defense and Department of Health and Human Services have been pending for 138 business days," the report said.

So much for "the most transparent administration in history."


http://washingtonexaminer.com/most-transparent-white-house-ever-rewrote-the-foia-to-suppress-politically-sensitive-docs/article/2545824

[tkbx]

Anyone who trusts the federal government to do anything right deserves whatever they get. No presidential administration has had any transparency in a long time, and I doubt any will for a while.

[Wilikon]

A quick look at how the sausage gets made, or doesn't...

On Tuesday night, The New York Times reported that no reporters would be traveling with First Lady Michelle Obama to China, and that she would be giving no interviews while there. Nicholas Kristof, the Times columnist, called the First Lady's decision "a mistake," and said it "signals weakness or fear of coverage." Several conservative outlets picked up the Times report, including the influential Drudge Report, which linked to a Weekly Standard article about it.

Shortly after noon on Wednesday, I reached out to the First Lady's office to inquire about the decision. A spokesperson for the First Lady responded to my inquiry but declared the response "off the record," meaning I wasn't allowed to use the information therein. When I told the spokesperson that I needed a response I could use, the spokesperson replied with another off-the-record statement regarding the First Lady's trip.

The spokesperson then wrote, "If you need something attributable, you can take this on background from a White House official..."

The statement that followed did not address my original inquiry. Instead, it offered a formulaic explanation about "the power and importance of education" and "reaching people," followed by an explanation that the First Lady would participate in open press events and take questions online and in forums.

By now it was 5 p.m. ET, nearly five hours after my initial inquiry. When I told the spokesperson that I did not see why the quote needed to be anonymous and attributed to "a White House official," the spokesperson said if I needed something on the record I could refer to the First Lady's travel guidance and a transcript of a press call regarding the trip. These documents did not contain an answer to my question regarding why no reporters would be traveling with the First Lady.

Now, I'll leave frustration over Michelle Obama's trip to The New York Times, Nick Krisfof, The Weekly Standard and Drudge Report (a motley crew right there). What I want to know -- and what I've wanted to know since last October -- is why the spokesperson in the First Lady's office didn't want to give me a name I could put on a harmless, formulaic quote?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/03/the-most-transparent-administration-cont-185401.html

[Wilikon]

A CBS reporter from Arizona reveals that President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing. In fact, she says, the reporters often receive the answers in advance of the briefing, too.

According to the reporter, Jay Carney told her this yesterday at the White House:

http://youtu.be/eEexpBWwY-s

"It was a very busy day. We started here shortly after 8 o'clock with a coffee with press secretary Jay Carney inside his office in the West Wing," says the reporter.

"And this was the off-the-record so we were able to ask him all about some of the preparation that he does on a regular basis for talking to the press in his daily press briefings. He showed us a very long list of items that he has to be well versed on every single day.

"And then he also mentioned that a lot of times, unless it's something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask -- the correspondents -- they are provided to him in advance. So then he knows what he's going to be answering and sometimes those correspondents and reporters also have those answers printed in front of them, because of course it helps when they're producing their reports for later on. So that was very interesting."

The reporter, from a local CBS Arizona affiliate, interviewed President Obama yesterday.

UPDATE: Carney denies:

.@RalstonReports Briefings would be a lot easier if this were true! Rest assured, it is not.


http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/reporter-wh-press-secretary-gets-questions-reporters-press-briefing_785607.html

[Khadaji]

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.

Surprising me not at all... President Obama has extended the powers of the Presidency beyond any prior Presidency - and if the Judicial branch continues to let him get away with it, we deserve what we vote for.

[Spendulus]

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.

Surprising me not at all... President Obama has extended the powers of the Presidency beyond any prior Presidency - and if the Judicial branch continues to let him get away with it, we deserve what we vote for.

"Miss me yet?"

---Bush Jr.

[Khadaji]

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.

Surprising me not at all... President Obama has extended the powers of the Presidency beyond any prior Presidency - and if the Judicial branch continues to let him get away with it, we deserve what we vote for.

"Miss me yet?"

---Bush Jr.

I'm quite far to the right, and Bush was no saint either. His rollout of drug benefits was a tremendously dumb economic move.

Unfortunately, we cannot get into office those that would do us the most good... we really do deserve what we vote for.