«You have a president who comes in and says, I’m committed to transparency and agencies should make discretionary disclosures whenever possible, but he’s not applying that to his own White House,»
Snow falls at dusk by the White House, Monday, Feb. 16, 2015, in Washington.
WASHINGTON — The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office.
The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails.
But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It’s also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.
«The irony of this being Sunshine Week is not lost on me,» said Anne Weismann of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.
«It is completely out of step with the president’s supposed commitment to transparency,» she said. «That is a critical office, especially if you want to know, for example, how the White House is dealing with e-mail.»
Unlike other offices within the White House, which were always exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, the Office of Administration responded to FOIA requests for 30 years. Until the Obama administration, watchdog groups on the left and the right used records from the office to shed light on how the White House works.
Read more at: USA TODAY
Mnar Muhawesh habla con el periodista Daniel McAdams sobre la prohibición permanente de Twitter, la censura en las redes sociales y más.
Mientras millones se reúnen en Santiago y familias enteras marchan contra la privatización y la creciente desigualdad, los medios corporativos están ocupados defendiendo al presidente multimillonario de Chile.
Una entrevista con la activista contra la guerra Cindy Sheehan sobre cómo los liberales aprendieron a amarla, su enfrentamiento con la Marcha de las Mujeres y más.
Es inconcebible para los Estados Unidos que una fuerza "trapos" como la de los hutíes de Yemen, con armas caseras, supere el poder de cien mil millones de dólares y la sofisticación de los sistemas de vanguardia que Washington ha prodigado. los sauditas
