Fw: [IRE-L] unfortunately, serious concerns about Obama transparency

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

2009/6/18 Henk Vreekamp <vreekamp at knoware.nl>

> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: kimo
> To: IRE-L at PO.MISSOURI.EDU
> Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:13 PM
> Subject: [IRE-L] unfortunately, serious concerns about Obama transparency
>
>
>
>
> http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/17/transparency/index.html
>
>
> Glenn Greenwald
> Wednesday June 17, 2009 06:18 EDT
> Obama and transparency: judge for yourself
> (updated below - Update II - Update III)
>
>  "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of
> openness in Government" -- Barack Obama, January 28, 2009
>
>
>
>  Promising "a new era of openness in our country," President Obama [said]:
> "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this
> presidency" -- CNN, January 21, 2009
>
>
>
>  "A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires
> transparency.  As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, 'sunlight is said to be the
> best of disinfectants.'  In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act
> (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most
> prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open
> Government.  At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability
> is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike. . . .
>
>  All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order
> to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher
> in a new era of open Government" -- Barack Obama, January 21, 2009
>
> * * * * *
>
> Has Obama fulfilled those pledges and lived up to those commitments -- even
> remotely?  Just examine the facts and judge for yourself:
>
> February 9, New York Times:
>
>  In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture [Mohamed v.
> Jeppesen Data], a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a
> panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument
> for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush
> administration.
>
> February 21, Huffington Post:
>
>  The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is
> trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of
> missing White House e-mails.
>
> February 27, Associated Press:
>
>  The Obama administration has lost its argument that a potential threat to
> national security should stop a lawsuit challenging the government's
> warrantless wiretapping program. . . . The Obama administration, like the
> Bush administration before it, claimed national security would be
> compromised if a lawsuit brought by the Oregon chapter of the charity,
> Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, was allowed to proceed.
>
> April 7, The Atlantic:
>
>  The Obama Administration still wants to keep its secrets. Yesterday, the
> Justice Department [in a case brought against Bush officials for illegal
> spying] embraced the argument that the state secrets privilege . . . should
> shut down any litigation against the National Security Agency for its
> arguably illegal warrantless surveillance program.
>
> April 28, New York Times:
>
>  A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by five men
> who say they were tortured as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s
> “extraordinary rendition” program could proceed, dealing a blow to efforts
> by both the Bush and Obama administrations to claim sweeping executive
> secrecy powers.
>
> May 12, Washington Times:
>
>  The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence
> sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of
> a former Guantanamo detainee. . . . In February, the British Foreign Office
> claimed that the U.S. government had threatened to reduce intelligence
> cooperation if details of the interrogations and treatment of Mr. Mohamed
> were disclosed.
>
> May 14, Washington Post:
>
>  President Obama yesterday chose secrecy over disclosure, saying he will
> seek to block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting the abuse
> of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad.
>
> May 22, San Francisco Chronicle:
>
>  A federal judge on Friday threatened to severely sanction the Obama
> Administration for withholding a top secret document he ordered given to
> lawyers suing the government over its warrantless wiretapping program. . . .
> The National Security Agency has also refused the judge's previous orders to
> provide security clearances to two of the charity's lawyers so they can view
> the top secret document.
>
> June 1, Washington Post Editorial page:
>
>  The [Graham-Lieberman] measure, supported by the White House and passed
> May 21 as an attachment to a Senate funding bill, would put beyond the reach
> of FOIA any photographs taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009 . .
> . [W]hat makes the administration's support for the photographic records act
> so regrettable [is that in] taking a step aimed at protecting the country's
> service members, Mr. Obama runs the risk of taking two steps back in his
> quest for more open government.
>
> June 9, 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 describing the contents of the 92 videotapes, their destruction by
> the CIA in 2005 and what he called "sensitive operational information" about
> the interrogations.
>
> June 12, Associated Press:
>
>  The Obama administration has decided to keep secret the locations of
> nearly four dozen coal ash storage sites that pose a threat to people living
> nearby.  The Environmental Protection Agency classified the 44 sites as
> potential hazards to communities while investigating storage of coal ash
> waste after a spill at a Tennessee power plant in December.
>
> June 16, McClatchy:
>
>  Defense Department officials are debating whether to ignore an earlier
> promise and squelch the release of an investigation into a U.S. airstrike
> last month, out of fear that its findings would further enrage the Afghan
> public, Pentagon officials told McClatchy Monday.
>
> June 16, ABC News:
>
>  After being briefed today on President Obama’s firing last week of Gerald
> Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community
> Service, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by
> the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors
> General. . . . “The legislation which was passed last year requires that the
> president give a reason for the removal," [McCaskill said]. McCaskill, a key
> Obama ally, said that the president’s stated reason for the termination,
> “Loss of confidence’ is not a sufficient reason.”
>
> June 17, 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.
>
> Balanced against all of that, Obama complied with a court order directing
> the release of Bush-era OLC memos on torture; issued an Executive Order
> creating additional procedures before executive secrecy under FOIA could be
> asserted; and ordered his agency heads to interpret FOIA with a
> "presumption" in favor of disclosure.  It should also be noted that -- as
> Think Progress documented yesterday -- Obama's position in denying access to
> visitor logs is a direct violation of his statements about the Bush
> administration's practices in doing the same, and the same is true for his
> use of the Bush-era version of the state secrets theory.
>
> Finally, it's worth emphasizing that the above excerpts pertain only to
> transparency issues.  None of this has anything to do with what The New York
> Times in May -- referring to Obama's Bush-replicating policies on detention,
> rendition, denial of habeas rights, military commission and the like --
> described as "how he has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways,
> from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and
> even from his first days in the Oval Office."  No matter how you look at it,
> this is quite a record.
>
> * * * * *
>
> I'll be on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman this morning at roughly 8:30 a.m.
> EST to talk about Obama and issues of transparency and secrecy.  Live video
> feed is here.
>
>
>
> UPDATE:  On Twitter, Sen. Claire McCaskill says the Obama administration
> has now provided additional information about its reasons for firing the
> Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service and
> that the information provided now fulfills Obama's legal obligations.  So
> that is one case where pressure from one of Obama's closest Senate allies
> compelled additional disclosure.
>
>
>
> UPDATE II:  Via Dan Froomkin, here is an animated cartoon from Ann Telnaes
> mocking Obama's behavior on transparency issues.  Independently, here is
> Froomkin on what looks to be another item to be added to this list:
>  attempts by the CIA to keep suppressed a 2004 CIA Inspector General report
> detailing what a failure the Bush torture program was.
>
> Finally, here is the video of the segment I did this morning on Democracy
> Now regarding Obama and transparency.   It begins at roughly 35:50:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> UPDATE III:   From Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo (h/t sysprog):
>
>  OBAMA: I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain
> things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are
> governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of
> justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people;
> the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they
> are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.
> (Applause.) . . .
>
>  Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.
>
>  AUDIENCE MEMBER: Barack Obama, we love you!
>
>  PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.)



Hmm, de ´weerbarstige praktijk´, Henk, of moet die nog op de schop?

Henk Elegeert

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