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Government Transparency Hits Record Low
Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
“It’s National Security”…Government Transparency Hits Record Low in 2012 Under Obama
Surprise, surprise... the 'most transparent administration ever' is, well, the least transparent. Not that any of you are shocked by this revelation, but a new report by the Associated Press demonstrates just how secret our government and intelligence agencies have become. Not only did they claim “national security” over and over like a bunch of drunk parrots, they also claimed the need to protect “internal deliberations.” Specifically, the number of times the government withheld or censored reports in 2012 was 479,000 times, up 22% from 2011. The CIA denied 60% of requests, up from 49% in 2011. From the Associated Press:
The AP examined more than 5,600 data elements measuring the administration’s performance on government transparency since Obama’s election.
When the government withheld or censored records, it cited exceptions built into the law to avoid turning over materials more than 479,000 times, a roughly 22 percent increase over the previous year.
In a year of intense public interest over deadly U.S. drones, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, terror threats and more, the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times — a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama’s first year in office. The secretive CIA last year became even more secretive: Nearly 60 percent of 3,586 requests for files were withheld or censored for that reason last year, compared with 49 percent a year earlier.
U.S. courts are loath to overrule the administration whenever it cites national security. A federal judge, Colleen McMahon of New York, in January ruled against The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to see records about the government’s legal justification for drone attacks and other methods it has used to kill terrorism suspects overseas, including American citizens. She cited an “Alice in Wonderland” predicament in which she was expected to determine what information should be revealed but unable to challenge the government’s secrecy claim. Part of her ruling was sealed and made available only to the government’s lawyers.
Think about how scary that is. Judges just accept government claims and then the public isn’t allowed to see the relevant parts of her ruling.
Let’s now finish with this statement from Alexander Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney for its national security project:
"In some ways, the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration."
Full article here.
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It's all Bush's fault.
5 years later, Liberals use the same talking points.
It's not Bush's fault, it's not Obamas fault it's the peoples fault. You want more government accountability? Demand it. You don't live in fucking North Korea.
You're right. North Korea doesn't kill its citizens with UAVs or get involved in undeclared wars for resources everywhere.
The Korean War was naked agression, idiot ! North Korea is too cheap to waste UAV's on killing their serfs .... starvation and firing squads and gulags are much cheaper ! What a completely brain dead cunt post you are make ?
Communists will sell us the crude oil .... to make the napalm .... we dump on them !
"The Korean War was naked agression"
Which side are you referring to here?
On the spectrum of evil, I think the governments of US and North Korea are pretty close but for very different reasons.
According to George Washington's contemporaneous blog the citizens have record transparency [??] while according to this blog the government has record opacity??
Sounds like everything is according to plan...
I'm going to start a WH petition for eliminating all WH petitions that ask for something Americans already have.
I don't think it will get enough signatures.
Am I clear? ;)
Regardless, it pays to prep no matter which country you live in...
Three is at least some truth in what you say, James_Cole. We get what we voted for.
I didn't vote for this shit.
That's not what your Diebold said. Dadum SHick!
Me neither I was in the 1% that voted Gary Johnson.
If you voted, you voted for this shit.
I used to write in Gus Hall for shits and giggles. When friends would ask me who I voted for I would tell them. Always got puzzled looks. Nobody knew who he was.
I have always wondered when we would go full bore to whatever was the latest "ism" is anyway. We seem to fast approaching a very ugly new "ism", I don't know what they will call it. It seems to be a mashup of all the other "isms".
This last election I wrote in the Riot Dog. Next election I am writing in "shits and giggles"... that's if we have an election or I haven't been droned.
Oh, just got back about a week ago from a well deserved vacation. Did the whole Simon Black thing in Chile... just kidding. Did go to Chile though. Great beer, wine, food and two legged Ferrari's.
Central Plannerism?
So next year you'll vote in Pinochet.
The higher voter turnouts have gone, the more certain those that won believe they were put there to fuck over those that lost.
You really think if we had 100% turnout, that somehow all our rights would be magically protected?
It's the Judicial System that is destroying us. They have had the power to say "No".
But they do not.
It's now up to the states to nullify the unconstitutional laws.
Some veterans are waiting six months to see VA doctors to fix their broken dentures or artificial knees and at least two veterans died last year from diseases “due to delay in care” at their local VA hospitals, according congressional testimony delivered Thursday.
Meanwhile, staffers at several Veterans Affairs medical centers were found to have rigged computer records to make it appear as though there are little or no wait times for ex-service members when, in reality, backlogs for veterans needing exams and treatment can span six to eight weeks, additional testimony revealed.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/14/17315012-epic-waits-gaming-th...
That is nothing new. My grandfather who is in his 90s now is a WWII vet and what takes 6 months to get done for most everyone else with the VA they fast track him because of his WWII service and it gets done in 3 in most cases.
Got to love computers.
Indeed.
One can get hold of all kinds of information these days that goes unreported on by government media outlets...like the inspector generals report on the Department of Injustice...
– “Many of those individuals told the OIG that they believed that the reason the voting rights laws were enacted was to protect historic victims of discrimination and therefore the Section should prioritize its resources accordingly. Additionally, some of these individuals, including one current manager, admitted to us that, while they believed that the text of the Voting Rights Act is race-neutral and applied to all races, they did not believe the Voting Section should pursue cases on behalf of White victims.”
– Threats were made to African American employees by other Justice Department staff.
The threats were made because the black employees were willing to work on cases like the New Black Panther voter intimidation case and a case in Mississippi involving a black wrongdoer and a white victim. I testified about this disgusting hostility toward race-neutral enforcement of the law, and today’s report confirms it took place.
– Attorney General Eric Holder was approached by Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King: King complained about cases that Voting Section Chief Chris Coates was bringing. Coates had brought and managed the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.
Holder greenlighted King: do what was necessary to take care of Coates.
– Attorney General Holder told us that he understood from what others told him that Coates was a divisive and controversial person in the Voting Section and that one concern about Coates was that he “wanted to expand the use of the power of the Civil Rights Division in such a way that it would take us into areas that, though justified, would come at a cost of that which the Department traditionally had done, at the cost of people [that the] Civil Rights Division had traditionally protected.”
Full report here:
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/s1303.pdf
One day i'm just gonna strike all the little red words from my little black book and make it simple.
I can't lay finger to the passage that relates to this law...maybe I have your edited edition ;-)
So people suffering from ailments that don't require immediate action...are prioritized accordingly.
The horror.
I don't understand why James Cole is getting junked, he is right. The people get what they deserve.
If they were smart enough to see past the false Repub/Dem choice, they could change everything.
North Koreans don't have that choice, even if they were smart enough to use it wisely.
Those of us who don't vote and don't want government are getting what all of the others deserve.
Most people are biologically designed to believe in government and not to believe in freedom. The 1% for freedom are screwed.
Most people are biologically designed to believe in government and not to believe in freedom.
What does that even mean 'believe in freedom'? People say stupid shit like that all the time as if it means something.
Tis pity youhave to ask.
It's a type of nonsensical word combination popular in political / ad slogans. Things that make people feel good but on closer inspection are meaningless.
Romney's "Believe in America" - what the fuck does that mean?? That I believe it exists? Sure, i'm pretty certain it exists. Do people not believe it exists? Is there some inference here that if I beleive it exists and say its name 3 times it will magically sprout wings and fly?
No, but it might bloom twice as fast.
ruby slippers, bitchez
Ruby slippers and one life time from here.
The slippers were silver.
It means believing that freedom will work much better than government currently does. I certainly do, given the hundreds of millions killed by government in the twentieth century. And maybe $100 trillion stolen, And $10s of trillions of property destroyed.
And actually, I modified a quote from a scientist for that post.
And now they are being psychologically trained to vote for fee stuff.
Who needs outright totalitarianism when you have the best PR money can buy?
The fact that someone on here would even entertain a comparison between living as a national within North Korea and living on American soil as an American shows how effective the PR is.
Hopefully it'll work out like the ending to the wizard of Oz, "what?? I had a brain the whole time???"
no, you woke-up in a black and white shit-hole Kansas farm house
James touches on an uncomfortable truth. They did have a viable third choice in Gary Johnson who though he ran on the libertarian line was the conservative candidate that was ridiculed by the establishment (like Ron Paul). The same candidate that voters ignored who didn't vote because they were turned off by Romney or held their noses voting for him is now reemerging in the Republican Party as Rand Paul.
Methinks you are getting junked because many on here believe that our election system is a Diebold farce and that voting is much like political circle jerking. Feels good but in the end it's just a handjob.
Demanding accountability and actually getting it are two entirely different things. Thinking that demanding accountability from a government that has overtly displayed zero concern for accountability or transparency for years is delusional. How can anybody expect an institution whose members are just waiting to be bribed (oops, I mean lobbied) with counterfeit money (oops, I mean unlimited, fiat currency) to respond to demands for accountability?
Because that is so effective in the bastardized states of corporate lawlessness.
TARP = record bonuses for fags while the straight rot.
Get a fucking clue.
"You want more government accountability? Demand it."
Truth is treason in an empire of lies. So, in demanding it, we'd be legally committing treason (note the new definitions of "terrorism" and "combatant"). Yet, you say:
"it's the peoples fault"
You, sir, have your head in the sand.
5 years later, dumbfuckers disease still compels the masses to delude themselves into the liberal/conservative fiction while both sides ass rape them into eternal bondage to their nonpartisan overlords.
kill yourself. Or at the least please don't reproduce.
It is now a War Crime to report a war crime.
It's not a crime if you work for the gvt, although working for the gvt in itsself is a crying shame of a crime, because you support everything gvt believes in and does.
run that that by Bradley Manning
Secrecy is preferred when you are doing illegal and unconstitutional actions. It doesn't help you win Nobel prizes.
Yes, we can - get away with anything.
Government transparency is an oxymoron...
...like giant shrimp!
Or "genuine artifical leather" "military intelligence" or "free sex"
Obama, he is most transparent to me...I see exactly what he is trying to do.... and it is socialism.
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
-James Madison-
No, no, Obama just mis-spoke...
He didn't mean transparent, he meant to say translucent.
Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket!
Obama wouldn't know transparency even if he could see his own lying purple lips shining though it!
Oh he knows what it is. He just knows it's better to give purple lip service because people will eat it up.
it rots in the ground completely in a fortnight.
-G. Washington, as quoted by T. Jefferson
I believe what he is specifically trying to achieve is called a Totalitarian Democracy. Google it, folks. I think it fits pretty darn well.
"It recognizes ultimately only one plane of existence, the political. It widens the scope of politics to embrace the whole of human existence. It treats all human thought and action as having social significance, and therefore as falling within the orbit of political action. Its political ideas are not a set of pragmatic precepts or a body of devices applicable to a special branch of human endeavour. They are an integral part of an all-embracing and coherent philosophy. Politics is defined as the art of applying this philosophy to the organization of society, and the final purpose of politics is only achieved when this philosophy reigns supreme over all fields of life.
Both schools affirm the supreme value of liberty. But whereas one finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose." -excerpt from
Origins of Totalitarian Democracyby Jacob L. Talmon
This is truly evil shit.
+1
Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy and the New World Order
- F. William Engdahl
http://www.amazon.com/Full-Spectrum-Dominance-Totalitarian-Democracy/dp/398132630X
Actually it's Inverted Totalitarianism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Origins of Totalitarian Democracy
by Jacob L. Talmud
Fixed it for you.
Really smart people, the Talmud boys
+1 I couldn't have said it better myself.
He said fundamental change. Thats what we're getting.
What r they hiding
I expect B. H. Obama will be very forthcoming with his March Madness picks this year.
Nothing to add to the threads here that hasn't been expressed a dozen times already, but what are they hiding? In a word, crimes. State secrecy has always been used to hide theft, murder, smuggling, lies, and even embarrassing indiscretions.
"National security" is this century's get out of jail password.
But but but but! He's better than Romney!
/like that is supposed to be an argument...
lol... I've made that argument. Being BB's buttbuddy seems to pale in comparison to our current path.
Government Transparency.....
a perennial and universal oxymoron..............................
crap we-weed beat me to it.................
Not a problem...
...glad others are thinking along the same lines! Well done!
We'd better use the 'cone of silence' chief...
~~~
Maxwell Smart [Agent 86]
The rule of law bitchez. Staying in your house isn't illegal, maybe?
Whenever someone in .gov says, "I'm going to do X." Know that they will do the ass end opposite if anything at all....
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment
"My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."
"I'm going to do X" -> "I have determined I or someone I know can make money if we X"
Who cares about transparency when they can put American brains through the modern media spin cycle?
It's completely transparent for all to see who have eyes, it's a Fascistic Corporate Kleptocracy.
Now ROTATE INTO EQUITIES damn peasants! The beatings will continue until morale improves!
The peasants are rotating in.
Right over the barrel...how convenient.
re: "most transparent govt is really the least transparent"
Basically whatever Obama (and his minions) say - just know that when they are grandstanding they usually mean the opposite. (If they make any sense at all when they speak) Often Obama and people like Harry, Nancy, Debbie; are quite good at blaming anyone that is in thier way with the very tactics that they themselves are employing. Not so much brilliance here as much as old fashioned "bully in the school yard effective". It takes some elected officials with balls and courage to stand up, Push Back, and... Impeach Obama Now.
i.e. Look at Rand Paul last week: What he said was not as important as what he did. He stood up and acted like a leader - to amazing applause from all sides. Simply because it was so unusal to see someone take a stand on something. Imagine if the rest of Congress woke up and took back thier power and called Bullshit Bullshit: 1 Senator and 1 Representative at a time.
It is a fairly safe bet that the more secretive the state becomes the more they have to hide. Just assume the worst and prepare accordingly, you are free, act accordingly and remember, "in our country the lie has not just become a moral category but a pillar of the state" Alekksandr Solzhenitsyn
"in our country the lie has not just become a moral category but a pillar of the state" Alekksandr Solzhenitsyn
The problem with that is two things; people like to be lied to (see Reagan) & often don't like to think (see most of the commenters on here).
In order to recognize a lie one has to first think, that's difficult! It's much preferable to sit on the sidelines and whine about an abstract evil entity know as government than put in the effort to get the power of the government into the hands of the people - where it should be.
"In order to recognize a lie one has to first think, that's difficult! It's much preferable to sit on the sidelines and whine about an abstract evil entity know as government than put in the effort to get the power of the government into the hands of the people - where it should be."
That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read. It doesn't matter who wields a weapon that functions by stealing, killing, destroying, and enslaving, it's never going to stop being evil until it's gone.
Government is innately anti-civilization.
Clearly you are a starry eyed idealist - power systems don't roll over and die simply because you want them to. And if you fight the US gov on its terms you will lose.
The only way to remove power from a well resourced elite government is to take its power from the few and distribute it to everyone.
Then you can start to figure out what to do with that power and what it's limits should be, whether it should exist at all etc.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
And I suppose you are not a "starry-eyed idealist" for believing that a hierarchical structure designed to concentrate control in the hands of the few can be converted into control in the hands of the masses.
How did that work out in Russia?
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
-James Madison-
here is the link master O get the little squid to read it to you! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent
"...the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration..."
is anyone surprised that bush's twin brother, the very indonesian citizen who has lied about his birth certificate and has a forged selective service registration, is now more secretive than a soviet era kgb agent? this is the same man who won't release his college transcripts because they reveal his indonesin citizenship. this is the same man who goes to the oval office every day to find americans he can murder because he thinks that they may be terrorists.....
obama works for the nazi rockefellers while bush works for the associated bush crime syndicate.....transparency is nazi-speak for "fuck off peasant"
Every fucking thing about this guy is a lie. We don't even know what hisnfuckingnname is! Obama?? Soetero?? Soebarkah?
I got 3 passports, a couple a visa's, you don't even my real name.
You were sane until the last paragraph. Then I wondered who wrote such crazy conspiracy nonsense. I mean at least try to back up your theory with something real comrade. The Rockefellers? SERIOUSLY?
Ya, the rockefellers..............their wealth is a 'state secret'
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2012/09/15/rockefeller-global-tent...
You must be new. I used to post the exact same thing until reason, evidence, and a dash of persuasion from those who actually know about this stuff convinced me that there is more than a modicum of truth in their logic.
I take it for granted that there are powerful family businesses out there whose only purpose is to consolidate their wealth through the most convenient vehicle: political power, which nowadays has evolved to global politics. No different than how things were in the days of Rome.
There is a rather simple way to stop the government from [REDACTED] all that is required is [REDACTED].
As former defense secretary Robert Gates once stated shortly after jumping ship following the "Osama Slaying" in may of 2011, Obama is getting "pretty good at this covert ops stuff".
Government Transparency.....
Hope and change…..
Obamacare saves money....
I will close Getmo......
I will pull our troops out when elected....
Etc....
What is wrong with me. I do not know anyone who voted for Obama and when I watch the news everything feels like a lie.
I know plenty of folks who voted for him; and they still love him. ?
After all, what's a pinhead without a corkboard?
Less Transparent is More Transparent
Spending is Saving
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
2 + 2 = 5
Yep. And as awareness of the crimes being committed by them filters out to the mainstream, general population, the more they are going to have to pump the market so that they will not be brought to justice. BTFD
Do not just buy a rifle, buy a bolt action long barrel rifle and practice sighting it in at 300, 400, and 500 hundred yards. You are going to need it.
The banksters got their wish with the drones against Americans now China is bringing up a massive drone airforce. And they know, all they have to do to get their way is to target the banking families. The elite must be retarded in a very big way unless they also control China but I don't think so. I think they have lots of defenses against drones in any case but a godzillion of them hard to say.
Obama, Hillary Clinton, Pelosi and Reid are all lying communists. They lie about everything they promote as good for the country while they piss on the Bill of Rights and steal our freedom.
No offense, but your list is horribly incomplete.
Not only incomplete, but mislabelled. They are not communists, they were tools of the plutocracy.
there is no tranparency about most important things that influence our lives happening behind the scenes. Even Obama knows shit about it, only takes orders at correct time.
Okay, we heard ya the first time.
there is no tranparency about most important things that influence our lives happening behind the scenes. Even Obama knows shit about it, only takes orders at correct time.
Read my lips. No new lows!
Good money forces out bad money .... especially in free markets .... socialist criminality and deceit force out fairness, honesty and transparency .... infectious cancer .... as our socialism increases .... truth is inconvenient .... it's pretty well documented .... except, socialist rewrite history on the fly .... you don't have to wait a generation .... anymore !
The biggest secrets are government employee compensation and privilege and welfare data .... FFIA .... Freedom From Information Act !
Jonathan Pollard worked hard for transparency. Just kidding. He should rot in jail, forever.
OK, what did I miss? When was government transparency high?
My answer, kralizec, is:
Immediately after the Revolution, up until the days of President Jackson. Then downhill since the days of Lincoln, getting worse, faster, during almost every President thereafter, especially since the few relatively better Presidents ended up being assassinated.
"In some ways, the Obama administration is actually even more aggressive on secrecy than the Bush administration."
IN SOME WAYS????
Politicians placate. To expect them to tell you the truth is the epitome of hubris. A statesman, now that is a different matter. They are hated by the tawdry tarts because they remind the whores of what they are not.
Another .02second headline translation: Lower transparency=even more in shambles than before with even more shananigans.
Barack Obama: "The only was you can hold us accountable is if you know what we're doing."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mkl0jYKIN1I
I voted for Putin.
Why not?
If you're going to let any foreigner run...
Everyone else voted for some dead guy in Connecticut.
What "government?"
There is no fucking government, only a mirage.
You quacks on ZH are totally clueless. Organized crime is your "government" -- blatantly obvious looking at even a single symptom of this zero transparency era.
Totally clueless.
Let's do a thought experiment and for a moment ask ourselves what would happen if we got Cass Sunstein over to the side of the American people and gave him the job of countering the government's secrecy.
His solution would be to make up really, really bad stuff and lie that the government was planning to do it (even falsely attributing the information to actual government officials) and then it would probably still fall short of the actual truth but at least you would get the word out.
Like Eddie Izzard says:
And it sure is easier to say you're transparent than to be transparent. Think of all the inconvenient truths you might have to admit!
"Surprise, surprise... the 'most transparent administration ever' is, well, the least transparent."
Welcome to the Bizarro Mirror World, Folks! Since society is controlled by the best professional liars, and immaculate hypcrites, ONE CAN COUNT ON whatever they say ending up the opposite to what actually happens. Since Obama was the best professional liar and hypocrite, he won the elections, and then DID the utter opposite to everything he said he would do!
Our whole civilization is fundamentally based on organized lies, operating organized robberies, operated by the people who are the best at deceits, backed by destruction. We have not seen anything yet, regarding the longer term consequences of everything being controlled by legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. Eventually, that whole system will cause its own psychotic breakdown!
Since the vast majority people have been brainwashed to be incapable of critical thinking, there are no reasons to doubt that this runaway triumph of the best liars will not continue driving civilization to become completely mad and self-destructive!