US Citing Security To Censor More Public Records
” WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. government, led by the Pentagon and CIA, censored or withheld for reasons of national security the files that the public requested last year under the Freedom of Information Act more often than at any time since President Barack Obama took office, according to a new analysis by The Associated Press.
The AP’s analysis showed the government released all or portions of the information that citizens, journalists, businesses and others sought at about the same rate as the previous three years. It turned over all or parts of the records in about 65 percent of requests. It fully rejected more than one-third of requests, a slight increase over 2011, including cases when it couldn’t find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the request was determined to be improper.
The administration cited exceptions built into the law to avoid turning over materials more than 479,000 times, a roughly 22 percent increase over the previous year. In many cases, more than one of the law’s exceptions was cited in each request for information.
In a year of intense public interest over deadly U.S. drones, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, terror threats and more, the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times – a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama’s first year in office. The secretive CIA last year became even more secretive: Nearly 60 percent of 3,586 requests for files were withheld or censored for that reason last year, compared with 49 percent a year earlier.
Other federal agencies that invoked the national security exception included the Pentagon, Director of National Intelligence, NASA, Office of Management and Budget, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Communications Commission and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.”
Illustration By Jeff Parker
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The more that the government does this sort of thing, the more I am becoming a fan of the people in Anonymous that go after the government.
Yes , and it even makes it harder to be pissed off at the Bradley Mannings and Wiki-Leaks types too . Government credibility is virtually non-existent in my eyes .
I was thinking the same exact thing however, there is a real problem with that, and it is because he is being held to his Oath, by fellow members of the armed forces that took the same Oath. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it happens to be a Hanging Offense (In time of War, it could be Firing Squad, in execution of Sentence), but deals and assurances for anything but a Death Sentence, because the US Army.., would carry it through. The Army is not playing any games and it is not being treated like a joke.