From the FOIA blog:
The National Archives and Records Administration has made a release of documents pertaining to Sonia Sotomayor. However, under provisions of the Presidential Records Act, many pages have been withheld because a former president (in this case, Clinton) can shield certain records from disclosure up to twelve (12) years from the time [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Closing Access category.
Bill Clinton Fails the Transparency Test
CIA Fights Full Release Of Detainee Report
From the Washington Post:
The CIA is pushing the Obama administration to maintain the secrecy of significant portions of a comprehensive internal account of the agency’s interrogation program, according to two intelligence officials.
The officials say the CIA is urging the suppression of passages describing in graphic detail how the agency handled its detainees, arguing that the [...]
Obama Criticized for Withholding Visitor Logs
From the Washington Post:
President Obama has embraced Bush administration justifications for denying public access to White House visitor logs even as advisers say they are reviewing the policy of keeping secret the official record of comings and goings.
In recent days, the Secret Service has rejected requests from two organizations for the logs, which document the [...]
Senate OKs block of alleged abuse photos
From CNN:
The Senate passed by unanimous consent Wednesday a bill (S. 1285) that would prevent the release of controversial photos of alleged U.S. abuse of prisoners and detainees.
The bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, had originally been part of the war funding supplemental bill passed [...]
Obama Closes Doors on Openness
From Newsweek:
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding “secret energy meetings” with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White [...]
CIA Urges Judge To Keep Bush-Era Documents Sealed
From the Washington Post:
The Obama administration objected yesterday to the release of certain Bush-era documents that detail the videotaped interrogations of CIA detainees at secret prisons, arguing to a federal judge that doing so would endanger national security and benefit al-Qaeda’s recruitment efforts.
In an affidavit, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta defended the classification of records [...]
Abuse Photos Part of Agreement on Military Spending
From the New York Times:
Congressional negotiators reached tentative agreement on Thursday on a $105.9 billion spending measure that would provide money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September but would drop a ban on the release of photographs showing abuse of foreign prisoners held by United States forces.
The deal was concluded after Rahm [...]
Obama’s support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law
From Salon:
The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating [...]
Lawmakers Keep Expenses Off-Line
From the Wall Street Journal:
Lawmakers have demanded greater openness from companies receiving government bailouts but have yet to release online or electronic versions of their own office expenditures — including taxpayer-funded tabs for leased cars and staff retreats at hotels.
House and Senate lawmakers are given an annual allowance of $1.3 million to $4.5 million to [...]
Lieberman Looks to Make Detainee Photos Indefinitely Secret
From OMB Watch:
Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) has submitted an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (S. 2346) which would withhold any “photograph relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States” if the Secretary of Defense certifies that the release of [...]