Monday, August 12, 2013

President Obama Talks Transparency But Is He Living Up To His Word


 


Barack Obama

Due to the Edward Snowden leaks regarding the illegal NSA program PRISM, being used by the Obama Administration to spy on innocent people, President Obama is promising transparency in government. 

However, Obama made this same promise in 2009 and as you can see, PRISM went full throttle after that.
I would like to take the President at his word, but sadly I and many others know better and all too well, as we have seen his administration engage in brazen cover-ups of government wrongdoing and criminal activity, from Fast and Furious to Benghazi.

On a personal level, I have witness Obama's DOJ and FBI illegally hide and withhold FOIA documents that to this day the are unlawfully refusing to release in violation of the Freedom of Information Act enacted by Congress.

The Judiciary Report must ask, Congress, what was the sense of enacting the Freedom of Information Act when you have agencies like the FBI arrogantly and disrespectfully spitting on people like me and organizations like the ACLU and EFF, who legally and properly demand documents under the Act, only to be sent pages of redacted information not revealing anything.

Some individuals and organizations are reporting receiving the equivalent of blank pages from the FBI in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. This kind of immature, unprofessional conduct should not come from any entity claiming to be attached to a democratic government. It is disgraceful and a mockery of democracy. At the end of the day, accountability and oversight are supposed to come from Congress on these matters and the legislature is failing in this regard.

In closing, due to the ongoing FOIA misconduct many people like myself and the aforementioned organizations are experiencing, I do not believe the Obama Administration's promises of transparency and you the public should not be taken in by them either, as they do not deserve your trust and will let you down...again.