Obama Cabinet Fails Disclosure Test With 19 In 20 Ignoring FOIA Requirements
Saturday, September 29, 2012
It's not just his cabinet; Obama has a modus operandi:
On the day prior to the Nobel committee's announcement giving Obama its peace prize, and after two courts had unanimously ruled that the American people have the right under FOIA to see the photographs of detainee t0rture and abuse suppressed under the Bush administration, Joe Lieberman successfully gutted FOIA, the 40-year-old law championed by the Democrats in the LBJ era and long considered a crowning jewel in their legislative achievements by inserting into the Homeland Security appropriations bill an amendment to provide an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's mandates. The amendment empowered the Defense Secretary to suppress and destroy the photographic evidence of American war crimes.
http://www.salon.com/2009/10/08/photos_11/
Obama's support for the Graham-Lieberman Secrecy Law
Then on 10/22/09, Congress passed legislation that gave the Defense Department the authority to suppress evidence of its own misconduct:
See here.
In an unprecedented move, Congress passed legislation Tuesday including an amendment which would maintain one of the most contentious hangovers of the Bush administration, allowing the Department of Defense to exempt torture photos of US detainees overseas from public access under Freedom of Information Act requests.
An amendment sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, slashes a huge hole in FOIA. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) was a key figure in stopping Lieberman's photo suppression bill the first time around. Slaughter explained that this time, the provision was slipped into the Homeland Security spending bill during the conference between House and Senate negotiators -- "apparently under direct orders from the Administration."
Obama signed the bill into law a week later out of public view, and when he was safely out of the country (in China), SoD Bob Gates permanently 'buried' the evidence. For those who don't recall, Obama ran on releasing those photographs for the American people to see just what was done "in their names" during the Bush administration.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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