TheAgitator.com
More on That FOIA/Office of Administration Ruling
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Tim Lee has a nice summary of the case at Ars Technica.
The judge determined that the Office of Administration is more like a White House house cleaning service than a policymaking executive agency like the EPA or DOJ.
Perhaps, but then why not go ahead and subject them to FOIA, given that they may have information about the email purge? Where’s the harm in that? What’s to stop this or future administration from first running future information that they want to hide through the Office of Administration?
Looks like the ruling was a close one on the law. The real question here is, If the Bush administration is telling the truth when it says the emails weren’t purged on purpose, why is it doing everything it can to keep the process that led to the purge from becoming public?
“…The real question here is, If the Bush administration is telling the truth when it says the emails weren’t purged on purpose, why is it doing everything it can to keep the process that led to the purge from becoming public?…
The answer is simple. Bush is just trying to make sure people don’t waste a bunch of time and money chasing after phantoms. He’s saying “There’s nothing to see here, folks”, and it’s unpatriotic to argue about it.
The same reason they are arguing so hard for immunity for the FISA violations by the Telecoms. They don’t want anyone looking under the hood to see what they are really doing.
I’m going to really roll the dice with my answer and say that it’s because they’re lying.
Couldn’t this all be fixed by Congress (with the 2/3 majority needed to override a veto, obviously) passing an expansion to FOIA that includes the Office of Administration?
(Of course, what’s the chance of that happening?)
To add to that – Congress itself is mostly exempt from FOIA. In line with Jeff’s point: If congress moves to take a crowbar to the Executive branch, they might have to give up their own shield of FOIA protection. So the chances of Congress doing anything worthwhile is nil.
Larger point: Even if it wasn’t done on purpose, the administration broke the law big time on this. The record keeping act doesn’t distinguish between accidental deletions or purposeful deletions. It just says that the emails must be kept, making any discussion of intent irrelevant.
That said, if you believe the deletions were anything but purposeful, I have this wonderful oceanfront property in South Dakota to sell you.
Way to go, Radley…..this one attracted the kooks from your audience like moths to a light……..
While I do think that “they have something to hide”, the administration’s reflexes have always been to hide everything, legal or not, ethical or not, moral or not. So the value of this as evidence that they were doing something wrong is a bit lessened, because they’d hide everything anyway.
Whoops. I see that this particular office used to respond to FOIA requests, and now doesn’t, which rather neatly puts a hole in my thesis.
jwh,
Funny you should mention kooks. Several posts down, you asked
Please name any Gitmo detainee who has been falsely imprisoned by the government’s abuse of the Patriot Act? I only want one name…..just one…….
So, I gave you a couple of names, but you never responded. Why is that?
Hey, here are a few more!
http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/prisoner_345.php
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html
I’ll repeat my question to you, and hopefully you’ll answer it this time: why do you trust the government to be 100% efficient at arresting only guilty people when it’s not 100% efficient at doing anything?
Really, it all just so much shit. The administration shits on the constitution, and talking heads and pundits make apologies. People are imprisoned without trial, and talking heads and pundits make apologies. bin Laden roams free and talking heads and pundits make apologies. Torture is now the law of the land, and talking heads and pundits make apologies.
What rot. Fuck it all really. I love my country. They used to say, ‘My country right or wrong.’ but I wonder if they knew how wrong we would go. A militarized police force, check points in Washington D.C., etc. etc. etc.
It is no longer a left right dichotomy, it is an authoritarian liberty dichotomy. It is a shame it has come to that. I used to think they just wanted to re-fight the civil war, but I realize now that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the ultimate goal.