Tim Graham:
The Obama administration – which pledged to be the “most transparent in history” – has turned the Freedom of Information Act into the Freedom to Get Nothing Act. The Associated Press reported on its own investigation of 100 government agencies in 2015:
The Obama administration set a record for the number of times its federal employees told disappointed citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page requested under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a new Associated Press analysis of government data.
In more than one in six cases, or 129,825 times, government searchers said they came up empty-handed last year. Such cases contributed to an alarming measurement: People who asked for records under the law received censored files or nothing in 77 percent of requests, also a record. In the first full year after President Barack Obama’s election, that figure was only 65 percent of cases.
AP even was disgusted enough to remind of Obama’s boasting on the subject: “The new data represents the final figures on the subject that will be released during Obama’s presidency. Obama has said his administration is the most transparent ever.”
Although the AP’s headline avoided any president’s name: “US gov’t sets record for failures to find files when asked.” They cited this expert:
wonder what the terrorist is hiding? do any of you recall when Air force 1 made a surprised and unauthorized visit into NYC air space to do some photo shoots for the fool??? Ever wonder what that was about?
They could just take shelter under the 5th amendment to save time.
Sounds like entirely inept records keeping and deliberate, calculated lack of transparency to the smallest most insignificant degree. There are a few things we should know.
How many agencies and departments make up our government and what are their specific functions. Sound simple try to find out, you can find out how many employees, but contractors sub contractors that are also eating on our dime.
The Pentagon was inundated with so many studies in 2010 that it commissioned a study to determined how much it cost to produce all those studies.
We should study this who is doing the studies and if gov employees the Studies agency?