I have no idea why they did this, either.
Treasury FOIA office redacted Tom Steyer’s headshot from a Lew briefing memo for some reason http://t.co/lcc03wiMWO pic.twitter.com/qj55KOpaeo
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) April 8, 2015
…and apparently, no, it wasn’t consistently done, either.
It’s trolling them so. Darn. Hard: “The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject all requests for records to that office… the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming as it did on National Freedom of Information Day.” And it’s Sunshine Week! Can’t forget that.
You get the feeling that USA Today is either scratching its head over the timing of it all, or at least trying to look like it’s scratching its head; while the change doesn’t actually make the White House’s emails permanently inaccessible*, the timing is odd. As the article notes, the court decision that this action is based on happened back in 2009, and they’re just getting around to formally noting it now. Then again, from 2009 to, oh, about two or so weeks ago the question was kind of obscure anyway for most people. Continue reading The White House trolls transparency advocates.
I ask because it’s like this administration never passes up the chance to do that particular group wrong:
One day after being sworn into office, President Barack Obama instructed federal agencies to ensure government transparency by complying with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act law.
[snip]
One year later, Obama’s requests for transparency have apparently gone unheeded. In fact a provision in the Freedom of Information Act law that allows the government to hide records that detail its internal decision-making has been invoked by Obama agencies more often in the past year than during the final year of President George W. Bush.
Major agencies cited that exemption to refuse records at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, compared with 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies.
Continue reading Did a digital libertarian run over Obama’s dog once?