Obama Administration Withholds FoIA Requests More Often Than Bush's 601
bonch writes "Agencies under the Obama administration cite security provisions to withhold information more often than they did under the Bush administration. For example, the 'deliberative process' exemption of the Freedom of Information Act was used 70,779 times in 2009, up from the 47,395 of 2008. Amusingly, the Associated Press has been waiting three months for the government to deliver records on its own Open Government Directive."
Biased much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Breitbart.com? Really? Has Slashdot become Free Republic?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And which progressive and left-oriented site WOULD write about this, on the condition that it was true?
Because you DO realise that the only difference between your system of fairness and totalitarian-fascism is the premise that leftwing sites would write about everything that was true and relevant, so that you can legitimately reject everything on other sites as biased?
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
And which progressive and left-oriented site WOULD write about this, on the condition that it was true?
An honest one.
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Informative)
You'd be surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If I had been logged in, I would have been treated like a breitbart.com was treated in this case, and the precise content of what I had said would always be drowned out by a chorus of argumentation. If you have unpopular views, being AC is the only way to have people consider whether those views are actually accurate or not, which is all I want.
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Funny)
That's easy enough to avoid. Just prefix your post with "I know I'll get modded down for this, but..."
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
No he's right to a degree. I've been modded down countless times for expressing or at least addressing unpopular views. As an AC the more vindictive mods will just ignore you as not being worth the points. Slashdot is not terribly tolerant of diverse viewpoints, even if they are well argued and not just idle trolling. AC is often the way to go if you have something to say that's intelligent but contrary.
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps it's because conservatives viewpoints are less controversial on slashdot than you'd think at first glance?
I have a fairly liberal viewpoint, it's not even extreme. And yet I get modded Troll quite often for writing comments that are by no means trollish.
I think it's the liberal viewpoints that get hammered here on slashdot... really it's the extremes of both sides. But thinking on the topic over the past couple years has led me to one conclusion on the topic... people with axes to grind will spend their modpoints grinding that axe, many of them without consideration for the actual content of the post.
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I think we trend towards libertarianism more than anything else around here. The underlying reasoning being something along the lines of: politicians are almost exclusively corrupt morons and I don't want them telling me what to do on any topic.
Means that neither intrusive conservatism nor intrusive liberalism are well received, by in large. Holding a controversial view goes over well enough but espousing the need to push it onto others, not so much.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Last week I decided to give the "hide comment scores" option a try, and I have to say I really like. You spend more time actually reading what people say, rather than blazing over the comments that weren't modded up.
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Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally agreed. That it is from breitbart is utterly irrelevant. And the raw number is not too interesting unless you know the number of requests, and probably the specific agencies (and topics) the requests were for. Though while, yes, more years will reveal better data, there's nothing wrong with looking at it in-progress.
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Comparing stormfront to Breitbart? Really?
Look at the byline of the linked story
"By SHARON THEIMER
Associated Press Writer"
You won't see that over at Stormfront because Stormfront is a fraking White Supremacist BBoard.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Interesting)
They denied FOIA requests in their entirety based on exemptions 20,005 times last fiscal year, compared with 21,057 times the previous year.
Notice the conclusions are the complete opposite? Welcome to reporting by the AP. They are biased, but they are biased in both directions -- and they do it by spamming out stories to stir up controversy. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. But even the usually well respected AP has an angle, and it's important to remember that. So I ask again, is it any wonder why Brietbart picked the article it did?
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Informative)
That's deceptive. You quoted one part of the article, which taken out of context makes it sound as if they refused less FOIA requests this year than last. That's untrue -- they refused less FOIA requests *in their entirety* this year than last, by a small amount. There's also about 10% less FOIA reqeusts this year than last (yet the ones refused in their entirety only fell ~5%). That article makes no mention of the total number of bits of information withheld. The one at breit does -- [quote]The agencies cited exemptions at least 466,872 times in budget year 2009, compared with 312,683 times the previous year ...[/quote].
The conclusions are not the complete opposite, and even the 'administration-friendly' article you linked doesn't at any point insinuate that Obama's administration is any more open and transparent than Bush's.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Although, of course, there IS something wrong with jumping to conclusions based upon incomplete data.
And you know just as well as I do that the article at breitbart is intended to lead people who like to jump to conclusions that support their politics.
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breitbart is utterly irrelevant
Bullshit. You're giving attention and ad revenue to a political operative. As others have indicated, Slashdot could have linked to a "neutral" reproduction of the AP article.
And why isn't Breitbart's very same AP article neutral? His Big Hollywood/Government/Journalism sites are advocacy sites. Breitbart dot com is not. It's just a news aggregator, with no editorial content. Google News does the same thing. If there was editorial content by Andrew Breitbart himself somewhere in the article, please, point it out to us. I saw none. It's just an AP piece. If you're going to complain about who owns the site, what was your stance when CNN was founded and run by a politically active
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Funny)
Bullshit.
False.
You're giving attention and ad revenue to a political operative.
Bullshit.
Wow! What cogent reasoning. Let me add my counterpoint:
Your mother wears combat boots.
Haha! Now that I have totally demolished your argument, what will you do?
Seriously, though, how is linking to Breitbart and not the AP story NOT giving money and attention to Breitbart?
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Right, I thought that you were implying that AC was me, which is why I responded. If I want to call morons like you or pudge retarded, I am not going to hide behind AC, I'm fucking well known for being an outspoken asshole, you douchebag.
I've got so much karma, nobody can touch it. I can take fifty troll mods a day and come out smelling like roses. I don't need to care if people think I'm an ass, because I can get multiple +5 upmods whenever I damn well please.
Hope that clears things up for you, but based o
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I'm so glad you took that in the humorous light in which it was intended. :)
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No, Slashdot should have linked to a neutral source of the AP story. But with a troll story like this, that' hardly to be expected.
Furthermore, your attitude reflects a drought to critical thinking, and it's insidious. You're equating legitimate, fact-based advocacy of a policies that will improve the standard of living of middle class in this country (the left), with the propaganda outlets of the right, who lie, cheat, distort, and photoshop fake crowds in order to convince average chumps that it's really
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
I may not be rich enough to benefit from the Republicans' policies, but I'm also definitely not rich enough to pay for the Democrats'.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you considered that might be because we have the wealth inequality of a banana republic [wikipedia.org]?
If we were to restore 1950s and 1960s top-end tax rates rates, which were upwards of 90% on the very wealthiest, you'd find that we would not only have enough money to pay for the education and infrastructure, but that we'd be able to pay down the national debt as well.
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You're (probably) not rich enough to *have* to pay for actual liberal policies.
Like the middle class? It was built with 90+% top marginal tax rates. Now Warren Buffett pays a smaller % than his secretary.
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What's your stake in the game? Why would you advocate a point of view that will hurt you, your family, and all your friends? Nobody here is rich enough to truly benefit from Republican policies, nor will anyone reading this comment ever become that rich in his lifetime. It's time to realize we're all in this together and stop playing the "I've got mine, buddy. Go fuck yourself" political game.
Let's make a deal: I'll stop voting Republican/Libertarian if you stop voting Democrat. We'll both only ever pick candidates running under the big 'I'.
Works?
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Either your salary or your oxycodone prescription must be huge if you think it's not a problem to give legitimacy to right-wing propaganda outlets.
Defining media outlets you simply dislike as "propaganda outlets" is not convincing to anyone, other than people who are as closed-minded and hypocritical as you are.
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Are you really claiming that the NYT is as biased as Breitbart? Odd.
Well, *I* would never in a million claim that the NYT is as biased as Breitbart.
The NYT exceeds the level of bias at Breitbart by orders of magnitude.
Strat
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Not all conservatives are Glenn beck fans, or Rush Limbaugh fans, or fans of anyone who prostitutes their conscience for ratings and money. You complain of lies and distortions by the right, yet you yourself are more than willing to collectively a
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Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Informative)
FTA: Google edition:
The agencies cited exemptions at least 466,872 times in budget year 2009, compared with 312,683 times the previous year, the review found. Over the same period, the number of information requests declined by about 11 percent, from 493,610 requests in fiscal 2008 to 444,924 in 2009. Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request.
So, the number of requests declined 11% and the number of exemptions was much higher.
Awesome.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Informative)
They denied FOIA requests in their entirety based on exemptions 20,005 times last fiscal year, compared with 21,057 times the previous year.
Oops. So much for the damming evidence. Clearly though, I think we can all agree that we should all be pushing for less denials and more transparent government. If we sit around stirring the shitpot about who's guy is better, then we're doing ourselves no good at all. Well, except for generating a little ad revenue for slashdot and brietbart.
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, so less than 5% reduced denials on 11% less requests...Sounds like statistically likely evidence that denials are more likely.
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Also, we're talking about the fiscal year, which begins in October. Obama was only in office for part of the last fiscal year.
In other words, complete bullshit.
so the numbers are not comparable (Score:3, Insightful)
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From TFA:
Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request.
Making these numbers, and this article completely meaningless. Perhaps the Obama admin is just more "open" in citing multiple exemptions.
I would like to suggest that everybody now go back and RTFA on today's why you should stop mindlessly quoting statistic [slashdot.org]
Or for more fun, voting for Gore causes death by cancer! [slashdot.org]
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We should probably wait until Obama's first four years are over.
I'm always amused when people say something like this...you all remember we're not actually required to elect presidents for two terms, right? I think relatively few people of either party believe he's doing well enough, so far, to deserve a second term in any case.
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I don't think one year comparison between the two administrations is really fair. We should probably wait until Obama's first four years are over.
Unfortunately, by that time it will be a moot point. If we assume that he doesn't get reelected, then the we will only be able to look back and say "yep, Obama was more secretive." If we assume that he does get reelected, then we still lose those 3 years of having greater information available. Those are 3 years that you cannot get back. Either way, we lose something by waiting another 3 years.
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaningless, it's an AP story. Would you feel better reading it on The Stamford Advocate [stamfordadvocate.com]? Or the San Jose Mercury News [mercurynews.com]?
I'd also like to point out that a knee-jerk accusation of bias sounds and awful lot like . . . bias.
-Peter
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Informative)
The fact that other papers reprint AP stories verbatim doesn't make the AP an unbiased source.
They've been caught several times in the past writing items at least as biased as anything on Fox News.
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Interesting)
The headline is misleading, despite the source. The source was willing to go as far as saying that this figure is in spite of Obama's own directive to stop using these loopholes for the FOIA. So whether it is lack of proper pressure, simple insubordination, or a deluge of requests (these figures should appropriately be compared to the overall requests, right?) the bottom line is that the President directed it to not happen and it is happening anyway.
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or a deluge of requests (these figures should appropriately be compared to the overall requests, right?)
That's the first thing that crossed my mind. For example, Hawaii is still getting hit with requests for Obama's birth records.
If someone requests 10 times something that's legitimately blockable, do those 10 still count to the denied requests?
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In the Bush days, the President was responsible for everything that happened, regardless if he directed one way or the other.
(Looking forward to that mod-down now, thanks much.)
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the Bush days? You're wrong - even now, Bush is still responsible for everything happening. Unless it's good. Depending on who you ask, of course.
(Yes, this is an exaggerated statement, but I am trying to make a point.)
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Well, I must say (Score:4, Insightful)
That's change I can believe in.
I'd like to be surprised - but it seems like all the presidents are mostly interchangeable these days.
Surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Only to people that buy political bullshit by the ton.
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I post by default at +2, but give it time :-)
No, but not for the obvious reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The first reaction, especially given the headline is, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
But, as pointed out in the article: "Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored."
Then we look into the details. The fiscal year that this article is covering started in October 2008 and ended in October 2009. So for the first quarter of the time period covered by this article, we weren't even in the Obama Administration.
Also, if we assume that the decision to exempt information from FOIA requests is made by senior officers in the respective agencies, and we know that Bush had 8 years to appoint people who shared his views, and that the Senate Republicans have been doing an impressive job of blocking and delaying Obama's appointments, let alone the "cleaning" that occurs once the new bosses are in place.
Should it come as a surprise to anyone that this last year was no better, and perhaps even worse than the previous year? Absolutely not. I would expect that this coming year should show improvement, provided the white house is willing to back up Obama's directive now that they have had time to get more of their appointments into positions of authority.
That said, I sure hope this article makes it to the President's desk and that he thinks long and hard about it.
-Rick
Today's Government (Score:2, Insightful)
Obama is the great unifier ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... and he doesn't need to answer to the ignorant masses or explain himself to them.
The media can win this (Score:5, Insightful)
If the media really cared about open government and barring corruption, they would be publishing daily headlines about denials to FOIA requests, how long they have been waiting, and what the alleged reason is. If the press did their job and informed the people rather than preach propaganda, people could be better armed with information to put pressure on elected officials and force them to move on come election day if the officials don't mend their ways.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The Nine Exemptions (Score:5, Informative)
(From the EPA report, though all agencies use the same criteria)
a. Exemption 1: Classified national defense and foreign relations information
b. Exemption 2: Internal agency rules and practices
c. Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law
d. Exemption 4: Trade secrets and other confidential business information
e. Exemption 5: Inter-agency or intra-agency communications that are protected by legal privileges
f. Exemption 6: Information involving matters of personal privacy
g. Exemption 7: Records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, to the extent that the production of those records (A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, (D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, (E) would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or (F) could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual
h. Exemption 8: Information relating to the supervision of financial institutions
i. Exemption 9: Geological information on wells
Some of those exemptions provide for a certain amount of creativity on the part of the denier.
the missing birth certificate statistic (Score:5, Funny)
What goes unmentioned:
97% of the millions of denied FoIA requests that make up this statistic were requests for Obama's birth certificate.
What was the nature of the inquiries? (Score:3, Interesting)
Obama is the New Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I read a story about how Obama is continuing a Bush administration policy, or extending and exceding it, I post it to http://obamaisthenewbush.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com]
Having kept this up, on and off, for the last 6 months some patterns definitely appear. The Justice Department is seriously entrenched in covering its ass, cracking down hard on individual freedoms and privacy, and almost always falling on the side of big business.
I'm not disappointed because I believed all the pablum about "Change" and "Hope," but because Obama was a frickin' law professor. He should know better!
Re:Obama is the New Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
You expect a lawyer to be faithful to their word?
Idiot.
Misleading Framing of Numbers (Score:5, Informative)
Go get more informative numbers from here [sunshineingovernment.org]. In 2008 56% of requests were granted. In 2009 61% of requests were granted. 2009 also worked to clear up the request backlog. It is a move in the right direction and as others have pointed out Bush was still in charge for part of FY 2009, so he might have skewed the numbers for the year.
How this works (Score:5, Informative)
I've done some work with federal agencies and how they process FOIA requests:
A request for information under the FOIA can be granted, partially denied, or denied. If the request is granted, the exact records requested are returned unedited. If the request is denied, one or more reasons (exceptions) must be stated from a list of allowed exemptions. If a request is partially denied, one or more exemptions must be stated and what the requester receives back will either be a subset of what was asked for or will be redacted to remove sensitive information. For example, PIA (personally identifiable information - like SSNs, birth dates, medical records, etc.) is an exemption and is grounds for a partial denial, but it usually only means that this information will be redacted from the requested records.
So if you are looking at statistics (annual FOIA reports are required by law from every government entity and the reports themselves are either published or available via FOIA request themselves), you need to know the total number of new requests, the total number of requests held over from the previous fiscal year, the number of requests granted, the number partially denied, and the number totally denied. There are also individual statistics for denials and partial denials broken down by exemptions. There isn't anything on the annual report about how many exemptions were applied to individual requests - that would just have to be averaged out.
The Obama administration did encourage more release of records under the FOIA and a relaxing of exemptions. The idea was to assume that any record could be released unless an exemption prevented it. The previous directive was to presume that any record could not released and then try to justify it. If they couldn't justify denying it, they would grudgingly release it. The other thing that has been encouraged is pre-emptive release. For any request that is granted (no exemptions) there is no reason to not put that record on the agency's public web site to avoid processing any future requests for it. Or if there are certain types of records that can be released and that get requested often, go ahead and publish them. Theoretically this will reduce the number of FOIA requests processed, but I think it's probably too early to see a difference based on this policy.
Re:How this works (Score:5, Interesting)
I just wanted to add my two cents... A month or so ago, I filed my first FOIA request. I requested some non-sensitive statistical data from an office associated with the Dept of Defense. Despite the banality of the data I was requesting, because it was related to the military and the shear volume of it (over 10M records), I was expecting some foot dragging. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. The very next day, the FOIA officer emailed me and then followed up with a phone call. She kept me apprised of the status of my request and about three weeks later, the data was FTPed to me. She even found someone to answer some questions I had about the formatting of the files.
I was fully expecting a more adversarial process considering the reputations of FOIA requests. But I learned that FOIA officers seem to care a great deal about facilitating requests. Just wanted to give kudos here where some is due.
Summary is inconsistent! (Score:3, Interesting)
This makes no sense: it uses the frequency of use of the (non-security) "deliberative process" exemption as a supposed example of the Obama administration using "security provisions" more frequently than Bush's did. It clearly isn't an example of that, since the deliberative process exemption isn't a security provision.
It's like saying "John Doe owns more pickup trucks than Bob Smith. For instance, John Doe owns 36 Toyota Corollas, while Bob Smith only owns 24."
Re:Needs more data (Score:5, Insightful)
The AP's review of annual Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the administration's use of nearly every one of the law's nine exemptions to withhold information from the public increased during fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.
Re: (Score:2)
What are the exceptions to "nearly every one of the law's nine exemptions"?
Re:Needs more data (Score:5, Informative)
The original article does have some additional data, for example, in addition to the "deliverative process" exemption going up to 70,779 from 47,395, total exemptions also went up, to 466,872 from 312,683. Most damning, though, seems to be that total requests went DOWN, from 493,610 to 444,924, which means that they cited more exemptions than they actually received information requests (I wonder if that's ever happened before).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed. It's the same as when MS says that Linux/BSD is less secure because it had more fixes in a certain time period than Windows did in the same time period. It tells you nothing about (1) Severity, (2) Potential for exploit, (3) Timeliness of fix, etc.
All that is mentioned is that the Obama administration turned down more requests in the first full year than the Bush administration did in it's last full year. So what if the Obama administration is just cleaning out what the Bush administration left
Re:The truth is, I trust him more than Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
1) This is an AP story, Breitbart didn't write it.
2) If you don't think 2,000 pages that nobody has read which rebuilds 17% of the US economy according to the whims of a couple hundred Democrats doesn't represent an oppressive regime, then I don't know what to tell you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
2) If you don't think 2,000 pages that nobody has read which rebuilds 17% of the US economy according to the whims of a couple hundred Democrats doesn't represent an oppressive regime, then I don't know what to tell yo
As opposed to not doing something because a couple of hundred Republicans oppose it? Every time Republicans mention that the majority of Americans oppose the Health bill, I want to ask them if they ever polled anybody other than their constituents. Because, you know, those of us who actually like the bill think we ought to be counted as Americans as well.
You're right (Score:3, Insightful)
Drudge and Breitbart are Fox News on the Web.
What do you expect to happen in 5 years when people catch on? Those will become the top two sites on the Web, like Fox News is on cable?
You seem to hate them because they actually hire people who aren't liberals. Apparently "non-biased" means "100% liberal".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't have to read it. A government takeover of healthcare is wrong on its face.
And one of the main reasons is that it requires laws thousands of pages long that nobody can possibly understand.
As opposed to all of the other bills that go through Congress every year? Every interest group (commercial, union, or private) has a huge number of lobbyists and legislative specialists who pore over every bill that goes through congress.
Believe me, they have read this bill.
And government isn't "taking over" healthcare. They are not privatizing the health care market, they are setting up conditions to allow a real market in individual / small business insurance to exist.
Mitt Romney did something similar
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Re:Excuse me? He's the President (Score:5, Insightful)
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Have you seen what he's up against? The Democrats were never as obstructive to President Bush.
The problem is that Obama's main idea of change - bipartisanship - is the least productive way of making change
in America.
Re:Excuse me? He's the President (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Bipartisanship works both ways... The Democrats are asking the Republicans to "work with us", yet the Democrats are refusing to do the same! If you disagree, please explain the purpose of the closed door meetings between Dems and the Pres on healthcare. In what way can a closed meeting promote "working together" when half of the decision makers are not even invited...
What he's up against? He made his bed (By touting "change" and "openness"), and now he needs to lie in it... The truth has come out in the past year. He's a politician... Plain and simple. Sure, his campaign made it look like he was something different, but the reality of the matter is in the end of the day, they are all politicians...
Re:Excuse me? He's the President (Score:5, Insightful)
No that's Bullshit. Democrats have presented a bill that's far to the right of a bill that Republicans would have even proposed, and Republicans are refusing to be a part of it at all. If there was not bi-partisanship than they would have rammed this through Congress and I'd be sitting pretty with socialized medicine right now. The problem is there have been far too many overtures to bi-partisanship.
Republicans don't want bi-partisanship. They want Obama to fail.
Closed door meetings? Stop bringing up bullshit Limbaugh talking points. There are always closed door meetings on capital hill. Are Republicans having public meetings on crafting there competing health care bill? That's a bullshit point.
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Bipartisan ship means that the right-wing folks need to accept some of the left wing folks' ideas.
Bull. That's not bipartisanship. That's horse trading.
Bipartisanship would be the Dems not liking the way insurance companies ride roughshod over subscribers, and the Reps not liking the idea of the government taking over 1/6th of the economy, so they reach an agreement that answers both concerns. A law that would require insurance policies to match one of a few DHHS outline policies, or state clearly how they differ.
Dems are concerned about the huge cost of the tax liability and portability between jobs
RTFA! (Score:4, Informative)
The agencies cited exemptions at least 466,872 times in budget year 2009, compared with 312,683 times the previous year, the review found. Over the same period, the number of information requests declined by about 11 percent, from 493,610 requests in fiscal 2008 to 444,924 in 2009.
Seriously, there is no need to speculate when the information was right there in front of you eyes.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As an example of how these numbers may be worthless and misrepresent the reality (although it's certainly possible that the situation is worse now than before as well):
Year 1: 500,000 requests, Year 2: 400,000; a 20% decline
Ye
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As I said, since we don't have all the facts, it's also possible that "Obama's record" is worse than Bush's. Even if we had enough data to get to that comparison, it's still not worth all that much.
When you get to such a levels of "horrible" with politicians, any varying level of "worse" seems so inconsequential.
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This is slashdot. The article is not 'right in front' of anyone's eyes :P.
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The agencies cited exemptions at least 466,872 times in budget year 2009, compared with 312,683 times the previous year, the review found. Over the same period, the number of information requests declined by about 11 percent, from 493,610 requests in fiscal 2008 to 444,924 in 2009.
So total requests went down and the number of denials went up.
Re: (Score:2)
If I understand it correctly, more than one exemption can be used in a single denial. It's entirely possible that more exemptions are being filed while at the same time a higher proportion of requests are being honored, with the rejected requests simply getting multiple exemptions where before they would only get one. Not saying this is the case, just that even with those numbers it's not possible to see the whole picture.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So total requests went down and the number of denials went up.
Not necessarily. The number of "cited exemptions" is not the number of denials, it is closer to the number of reasons for denial. Like a lawyer, these agencies will frequently cite more than one reason to avoid release. It may even be that given Obama's directive to be more open to FOIA requests that the agencies are just covering their asses and citing a lot more exemptions when they do deny a request. For example, if the average number of exemptions went from 1 to 2 per denial, that would mean an actu
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:is someone running up the numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why your post was marked troll, even if it's a little paranoid. It's quite likely that teabaggers and other anti-obama people have affected these nnumbers, even if unintentionally.
So this is all just a giant conspiracy? A vast, right-wing secret attack on Obama? A backhand way to make him look bad? "Hey boys, lets fill out another hundred or so of those FOIA requests today! We're almost at our goal".
Wow. There's paranoia, and then there's you guys.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see you didn't bother to read my post before replying... you know, the part of my post that actually explains what I think may be a contributing factor, that has *nothing* to do with any kind of conspiracy.
Although, FWIW, there *are* groups that coordinate to send FOIA requests on topi