Promises Promises

Beach Fanatic

Mar 18, '10 · 7:13 PM311

According to this AP article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the current Administration is denying far more requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) than its predecessor as the overall number of requests declines. (Emphasis in quotes is mine.)

One year into its promise of greater government transparency, the Obama administration cited exceptions to the open-records law to withhold federal records more frequently than in the last year of the Bush administration..
....
Over the same period, the number of information requests declined by 11 percent, from 493,610 in fiscal 2008 to 444,924 in 2009
......
Major agencies cited the exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush's final full budget year, according to annual reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.

I'll bet that this is change no one expected.....

Edited Mar 18, '10 · 7:13 PM

Replies

SoWal Expert

Mar 18, '10 · 7:22 PM#2

What you failed to note (but was mentioned in the article) was that many of the agencies are blatantly ignoring Obama's instructions to be more open and to stop using one of the most common justifications for denying information.

Would also love to see a further breakdown, as 3 of the 12 months included in those statistics are the end of Bush's term.

Edited Mar 18, '10 · 7:23 PM

Beach FanaticAuthor

Mar 18, '10 · 7:26 PM#3

What you failed to note (but was mentioned in the article) was that many of the agencies are blatantly ignoring Obama's instructions to be more open and to stop using one of the most common justifications for denying information.

Wait, what Branch of government are those agencies in? Who do they work for again?