Court Says White House Can Keep Memos on Bush E-mails Private

[pepperbear]

Source: Washington Post

A federal appeals court ruled this morning that the White House does not have to make public internal documents examining the potential disappearance of e-mails during the Bush administration.

In upholding a ruling last year by a federal judge, the appeals court found that the White House's Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group filed a lawsuit in 2007 seeking to force the Office of Administration to comply with a FOIA request for documents related to the alleged sloppy retention of e-mails between 2001 and 2005, a period that included the Iraq war.

The Office of Administration, which performs a variety of services for the Executive Office of the President, had complied with FOIA requests for years. But the office announced in 2007 that it no longer would process FOIA requests because officials did not believe the office was subject to the law. White House officials argued that the Office of Administration provides only administrative support and services to the president and his staff and does not exercise enough independent authority to fall under FOIA.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051901322.html?hpid=topnews

[villager]

1. terrific -- less and less "transparency..."

n/t

[SpiralHawk]

2. more and more republicon-style occultism

Ptooey. This is fundamentally anti-democracy.

[Soylent Brice]

3. i am so confused.

[No Elephants]

11. Why? Seems fairly clear.

[Soylent Brice]

16. as to why.

or how rather.

what i really mean is:

:wtf:

[No Elephants]

17. Ah. Not so much confusion as consternation, then?

[Soylent Brice]

21. exactamundo.

[KansDem]

4. What are they afraid of?

Why all this covering-up of torture, emails, Iraq invasion, CIA lying, DOJ malfeasance, etc.etc.etc.

What are they afraid of? :shrug:

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. Precedent. They don't want the next administration airing the Obama Admin's dirty laundry in public

[No Elephants]

12. Exact;ly why America needs Presidential dirty laundry aired. The goal should be not to CREATE dirty

laundry while occupying the WH. As long as you know your successor is NOT going to air your dirty laundry, you have less incentive to keep your own skirts clean, as it were.

And then there is that pesky right of voters and taxpayers to know stuff, which the Obama administration and the court just blithely threw out the window.

We are sliding through the mud from an enlightened, informed democracy to a very dark place, IMO.

[stubtoe]

5. This is from a lawsuit filed in 2007.

I don't see a connection with the current administration here.

[jtrockville]

6. The decision to release/not release emails falls on this admin.

It also means going forward, no adminstration (including this one) has to release their emails to the public.

[PassingFair]

20. This is about the release of documents ABOUT missing e-mails...

Not releasing the content of the e-mails.

The Bushies were using unofficial
channels of communication for official
business.

Why was such a big deal made of Rosemary
Wood "accidentally" erasing 18 minutes of
a tape, but no one BLINKS when an administration
acts ENTIRELY in secrecy?

Why did we sit still for this:

[No Elephants]

13. The lawsuit was filed in 2007 against the Bush administration, but the Obama administration is the

one now fighting in the same case for the right of the Bush administration--and administrations that come after the Bush administration, starting with the Obama administration-- to keep things secret.

[jtrockville]

7. The days where emails are missing:

C.R.E.W. has a pretty comprehensive list of the happenings on the days (or days surrounding) when emails are missing:
http://citizensforethics.org/files/Office%20of%20the%20Vice%20President%20Bullet%202.doc

They also have an article briefly listing what was happening on some key days when Cheney's emails are missing:

Court decisions regarding whether or not Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings could be kept secret.

Justice Department and FBI announce they'll investigate the outing of Valerie Plame.
http://citizensforethics.org/node/30851

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. While they may not fall under the FOIA, they would still fall under subpoena power

of someone with jurisdiction and authority, like the Congress or an Independent Counsel.

[No Elephants]

14. Do you have a link to support that? Bc the court seems to be saying that

this office is no different from the President. Congress is not all that agressive with the President, even when the President and Congress are of opposite Parties. And when they are in the same Party, fuhgeddaboudit.

BTW, the Office of Independent Counsel no longer exists. And the D of J rarely appoints a Special Prosecutor to investigate the President. I can't see either Gonzalez or Holder doing that. I suspect that will get even rarer as the policies of secrecy grow more numrous.

[No Elephants]

15. Wrong spot. Dang. Sorry.

[aquart]

9. Pissing me off.

[No Elephants]

18. Very sorry to see that Obamadmin took the same legal position as Buscho--AGAIN. The policy

underlying the Freedom of Information Act is the right of citizens and taxpayers to know what their government is doing so that citizens and taxpayers can hold their government accountable. Obama ran on greater transparency, but fought for greater opacity.

"Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the suit seeking to force the White House office to comply with a 2007 request for documents related to the alleged sloppy retention of e-mails between 2001 and 2005, a period that included the lead-up to and start of the Iraq war. The group was seeking the records to get a better sense of what happened to the e-mails, said Anne Weismann, the organization's chief counsel.

The Office of Administration, which performs a variety of administrative services for the Executive Office of the President, had complied with similar requests for years. But officials changed the policy after CREW's request, arguing that the office does not exercise enough independent authority to be subject to open-records laws."

The period includes not only the start of the Iraq War, but the start of torture and maybe even the period during which Bushco had a memo warning of an attack and did nothing and the period during which Bushco refused to either withdraw or surge in Iraq. And the period when it allegedly lost Bin Laden in Tora Bora and withdrew precipitously from Afghanistan. All very important stuff.



Guess we'll never know what the cheerleaders think of things like this because they apparently never notice threads on this kind of subject.

[Raster]

19. Right-O...how's that transparency thing workin' for y'all?

"The Office of Administration, which performs a variety of services for the Executive Office of the President, had complied with FOIA requests for years. But the office announced in 2007 that it no longer would process FOIA requests because officials did not believe the office was subject to the law."

Oh yes, this is the *CHANGE* I voted for.:sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

22. I believe you mean, "How's that opacity thing workin' for y'all?"

[Raster]

24. You are correct!

"Transparency...we don't need no stinking transparency."

[No Elephants]

23. In court, where it counts, has Obamadmin ever disagreed with Bushco yet?