FOIA

The Obama Administration’s “Open Government” Empty Rhetoric

by Hans Bader on March 20, 2011

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Legal

Liberal “open government” advocates are giving the president a medal for supposedly promoting “government transparency.”  He shares their liberal ideology, but not their alleged commitment to transparency. In reality, President Obama is so hostile to open government that “the Obama administration censored 194 pages of internal e-mails about its Open Government Directive,” according to the Associated Press. For example, “it blacked-out one e-mail discussing how to respond to AP’s request for information about the transparency directive.”

Moreover, “the Obama administration has developed a reputation for ruthlessly prosecuting whistleblowers for leaks to the press.” It recently demoted a whistleblower who revealed to Congress how the Department of Homeland Security was violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The administration discriminates in responding to requests for documents under FOIA. It illegally forces its critics to wait years for the documents to which they are entitled — well beyond the 20-day legal deadline for responding — or refuses to even respond to their requests for documents. Meanwhile, it gives many of its supporters the documents they seek in just a few days.  These are just a few of the ways that Obama has broken his promise to have the most transparent administration in history.

[click to continue…]

CEI Weekly: CEI Sues NASA to Uncover Key Global Warming Docs

by Ryan Lynch on May 28, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Environment, Features, Global Warming, Natural Resources, Odds & Ends, Zeitgeist

CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.

CEI Weekly

May 28, 2010

>>CEI Sues NASA to Uncover Key Global Warming Docs

CEI is suing NASA in federal court! We have asked the court to order NASA – which has evaded our Freedom of Information Act requests for three years – to turn over documents related to global warming activities undertaken by federal employees. Chris Horner, along with the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, is leading the charge to determine whether NASA facilities and staff were employed to push a specific policy agenda. As Congress ponders legislation that would increase the price of energy, thereby creating a massive new tax on Americans, it is vital that the general public know the extent to which the government’s own scientists have been fueling the alarmist political agenda while ostensibly being paid by taxpayers for impartial climate research. The text of CEI’s court filing is here (PDF). The Washington Times covered our lawsuit in a front page story, which can be read here.

>>Shaping the Debate

Kerry-Lieberman plan has ‘something to harm everyone’and lacks bipartisan support.

Myron Ebell’s quote in The Orange County Register

Regarding climate change, Kerry should heed science

William Yeatman’s letter in The Hill

Liberate to stimulate – Live in the UK!

Iain Murrary’s op-ed in The Examiner Opinion Zone

Pests over people

William Yeatman’s op-ed in The Washington Times

Cuccinelli Is Following the Law; Mann Up, UVa

Chris Horner’s op-ed in The Richmond Times-Dispatch

John Kerry* Imitates the Onion

William Yeatman cited in The Wall Street Journal

The Other Blumenthal Scandal

CEI cited in The Wall Street Journal

Outlook for broadband policy and net neutrality grim

Wayne Crews’ quote in San Jose Mercury News

>>Best of the Blogs

CEI Statement on Senate Passage of Restoring American Financial Stability Act

by John Berlau

Senate Passes Financial “Reform” Bill, 59-39; Will Wipe Out Jobs and Increase Credit Card Costs

by Hans Bader

In Letter and Spirit: Equal Treatment Under the Law

by Angela Logomasini

>>LibertyWeek Podcast

Episode 94: The Nanny State Diaries

Richard Morrison and Jeremy Lott welcome guests Marc Scribner, William Yeatman, Lee Doren, and Angela Logomasini to episode 94. We tackle politics in the Aloha state, freedom of information at the University of Virginia, Bureaucrash’s best and brightest, and the attack of the nanny state.

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Obama Justice Department Sued Over Stonewalling and Cover-Up in Black Panther Case

by Hans Bader on May 26, 2010 · 2 comments

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Judicial Watch is suing the Obama administration over its stonewalling in the Black-Panther voter intimidation case, where the administration has flouted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to hide how it protected members of the racist, anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party. Although FOIA requires that documents be released within 20 days, the administration has withheld for over a year the records Judicial Watch requested about how the administration dismissed a lawsuit that career Justice Department lawyers had won against Black Panthers who used a nightstick and racial epithets to drive white voters away from a polling place.

Earlier, a career Justice Department lawyer resigned after the Obama administration illegally defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Commission is investigating the administration’s politicization of the Justice Department and its selective refusal to enforce the Voting Rights Act against the Black Panthers and black political bosses.

A former Justice Department lawyer describes the Obama administration’s stonewalling, cover-up, and deceit at this link. The Black Panthers that the Obama administration sought to protect by dropping the lawsuit included a local Democratic official and Obama poll-watcher.

One of the Panthers, who has been videotaped saying “that he wanted to kill white people,” is shown in a recent documentary talking about “how much he hates and wants to kill white people, including white babies.” He called a terrified black poll watcher a “race traitor,” and told him there would be “hell to pay” if he interfered with the Panthers’ campaign of voter intimidation.

In their campaign of voter intimidation, the Panthers told a white former civil-rights lawyer and former publisher of the liberal Village Voice, “Now you are going to find out what it is to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” They called a white poll watcher who lives nine blocks from the polling place a “white devil” and a “cracker,” telling him he would be ruled by the black man the next day, and he would have to get used to “living under his boot.”

The New Black Panther Party, which has a venomous hatred for what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is designated as a hate-group even by the liberal SPLC, because of its anti-Semitism.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that discrimination against whites is prohibited under federal law (including voting discrimination). The Obama administration seemingly disagrees with those rulings (which include a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision).

LibertyWeek 94: The Nanny State Diaries

by Richard Morrison on May 26, 2010

in CEI Projects, Features, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Richard Morrison and Jeremy Lott welcome guests Marc Scribner, William Yeatman, Lee Doren and Angela Logomasini to Episode 94 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We tackle politics in the Aloha state, freedom of information at the University of Virginia, Bureaucrash’s best and brightest and the attack of the nanny state.

LibertyWeek 72: Champagne Wishes and Climate Change Dreams

by Richard Morrison on December 7, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Your host Richard Morrison teams up with collaborators Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman to bring you Episode 72 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with UN climate hypocrisy in Copenhagen, presidential arm-twisting on health care and a cloudy look at government transparency. We conclude with the end of the tobacco road in Virginia and scandal of banking and nepotism in Venezuela.

ClimateGate gets even more bizarre

by Fran Smith on December 3, 2009 · 3 comments

in Environment, Global Warming, International

ClimateGate is serious.  When prominent climate scientists fudge results, refuse FOIA requests, take steps to restrict publication of dissident views, etc., it’s serious business, especially when their global temperature records were used by policymakers to call for a transformation of modern economies.

However, there is some humor in ClimateGate.  Here’s some odd stuff a commenter on the website Climate Audit picked up as a result of checking out the file HARRY_READ_ME.txt – one of the hacked files.  The “Harry” file tells the tortured story of a programmer at CRU struggling to make sense of inconsistent, missing, and incompatible data files and seemingly to try to replicate them.  Many of those files had earlier been compiled by someone named “Tim,” who seems to have really made a mess of things.  According to the commenter, this “Tim” seems to be Tim Mitchell – who worked at the Climactic Research Unit at University of East Anglia when he was a Ph.D. student and then received his degree.  At the time, he also was a member of — no joke — South Park Evangelical Church, as he notes in his religious writings on climate change and religion.

Here’s an example:

The government urges us to reduce our energy usage so that we may indulge ourselves in other ways, but we have a higher motive for reducing waste (1 Timothy 6.17-19). Although I have yet to see any evidence that climate change is a sign of Christ’s imminent return, human pollution is clearly another of the birth pangs of creation, as it eagerly awaits being delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans. 19-22).

That does make me a little uncomfortable about this guy being in charge of global temperature records to show we’re destroying the earth.  Can’t check out his academic/research papers at CRU.  Surprisingly, they’ve been taken down.

LibertyWeek 63: Suing the Government into Honesty

by Richard Morrison on October 5, 2009

in CEI Projects, Features, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Your host Richard Morrison welcomes guest co-host Jeremy Lott and Editorial Director Ivan Osorio for Episode 63 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with CEI’s FOIA fight with the U.S. Treasury, 7-Eleven’s attempt to give consumers a big gulp of government and the solution to a jobless recovery. We then move on to union pension politics, Ireland’s regrettable embrace of EU hegemony and some scantily-clad Olympic News.

LibertyWeek 61: How About FCC Neutrality?

by Richard Morrison on September 21, 2009

in CEI Projects, Environment, Features, Global Warming, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Your host Richard Morrison welcomes returning guest co-host William Yeatman and special guest commenter Ryan Radia to the program for Episode 61 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the FCC’s just-announced proposal for “net neutrality,” Treasury documents that reveal the true cost of cap-and-trade legislation and the plan for getting over California’s great depression. We then move on to the G20 Summit’s potential path to prosperity and the ever-expanding scandal that is ACORN.

WaPo on CEI’s FOIA release – biasing by innuendo

by Fran Smith on September 17, 2009

in Environment, Global Warming, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Today the Washington Post carried a follow-up article on CEI’s release of Treasury’s estimates — through a FOIA request –  on the cost of cap-and-trade legislation.  The article by Steven Mufson was quick to find and quote those who said CEI’s interpretation of those costs – an extra $1,761 each year for each American household – were built on false assumptions.  What was more interesting about the article, however, is the subtle slant the reporter gave in his depiction of both CEI and Declan McCullagh, who broke the story.

First, in its only description of CEI, the article states:  “. . . Competitive Enterprise Institute, which questions whether human and industrial activity is linked to global warming. . . .”  That certainly doesn’t describe CEI and the many issues it works on nor its approach to global warming.  Why didn’t the reporter depict it as “a free market policy group” and then go on to describe its global warming position accurately?

Second, the article disparagingly referred to Declan McCullagh as “A CBS News blogger named Declan McCullagh.”  Now, McCullagh is a respected and accomplished journalist, and he is listed on the article referenced by WaPo as “a correspondent for CBSNews.com.” Here’s what his bio says:

Declan McCullagh is a senior correspondent for CBS News’ Web site. He became the chief political correspondent for CNET News in 2002, where he remains a frequent contributor, and lives in the San Francisco area after spending over a decade in Washington, DC.

An award-winning journalist, McCullagh writes and speaks frequently about technology, law, and politics. From 1998 to 2002, he was Wired’s Washington bureau chief. Previously he was a reporter for Time Magazine, Time Digital Daily, and The Netly News, as well as a correspondent for HotWired. At CBS, McCullagh writes for the Taking Liberties section, the successor to a weekly column he started in October 2008 titled Other People’s Money.

Guess straight-forward descriptions didn’t fit what Mufson and the Post wanted to get across.

LibertyWeek 35: Dodd Man Out?

by Richard Morrison on March 24, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist welcome back special guest co-host Michelle Minton for Episode 35 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with a celebration of human achievement and a peek into the realm of secret government documents. We then investigate how the White House is going to waste another $1 trillion of your money and how the British beer tax has managed to kill off 20,000 jobs. Finally we focus on the history of the scandal-addled Sen. Dodd of Connecticut and the future of U.S. Olympic glory.

BONUS BOOK FEATURE: We congratulate our good friend Steve Milloy on the publication of his new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Ruin Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them. The book is a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive takedown of the entire environmental movement that will open your eyes to a looming threat to our economy, our civil liberties, and the entire American way of life.