Holder's 'Right To Lie'

[Janice]

No rotten eggs here ...

Holder's 'Right To Lie'

Scandal: A Department of Justice withholding Fast and Furious gun-running information from Congress proposes shredding the Freedom of Information Act by being able to deny certain documents even exist.

The most transparent administration in history has struck another blow for opaqueness with a proposed new federal regulation expanding its ability to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as the new rule states, "as if the excluded documents did not exist." >>>

"The government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the court. The court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the government does not tell the truth," the judge wrote.

Neither can a democracy long sustain itself if the government has a right to lie.

Yet Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, which wants to function like George Orwell's Ministry of Truth, says government does have the right to lie. >>>

A final version of the proposed rule could be issued by the end of this year. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law. Presumably the Nixon White House could have used the rule during Watergate to say, "Tape? What tape? >>>

The rule comes at a time when the Department of Justice is actively stonewalling Congress on requests for information on the Fast and Furious government-sponsored gun-running operation that smuggled 2,000 weapons into Mexico. The weapons were involved in the deaths of two U.S. agents >>>

This Regime lies? Nooooooo way. Its the most transparent administration ever. Just ask Stretch Pelosi.

 

[thundley4]

I'm not sure congressional requests/subpoenas are treated the same as FOIA requests.  I don't see how the administration can just start doing this in violation of FOIA either. It would be similar to the administration ignoring judges rulings in federal cases or ignoring national laws that they don't want to enforce.

 

Oh that's right , Obama has already done those things.

[Erasmus]

I think there are some laws on the books that address this.  Were someone actually willing to do it, he could be jailed.

[Janice]

On FOIA, Obama wants a license to lie

It's not often that the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and conservative Judicial Watch agree on anything, but the Obama administration's lack of transparency has brought the two together. Obama's Justice Department has proposed a regulatory change that would weaken the Freedom of Information Act. Under the new rules, the government could falsely respond to those who file FOIA requests that a document does not exist if it pertains to an ongoing criminal investigation, concerns a terrorist organization, or a counterintelligence operation involving a foreign nation.

There are two problems with the Obama proposal to allow federal officials to affirmatively assert that a requested document doesn't exist when it does. First, by not citing a specific exemption allowed under the FOIA as grounds for denying a request, the proposal would cut off a requestor from appealing to the courts. By thus creating an area of federal activity that is completely exempt from judicial review, the proposal undercuts due process and other constitutional protections. Second, by creating a justification for government lying to FOIA requestors in one area, a legal precedent is created that sooner or later will be asserted by the government in other areas as well. >>>

Our Justice Department and this White House have been lying w/o a license anyway, but to pass a law that makes it legal is beyond the pale. Holder and this regime need to go.

Is there not even one conservative within the republican leadership anymore?

[CG6468]

If this becomes legal, then we have the right to loudly call the son-of-a-bitch a LIAR!