White House Declares Office Off-Limits

[cal04]

Administrator of Missing E-Mails Not Subject to Open-Records Law, It Says


The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers.

The claim, made in a motion filed Tuesday by the Justice Department, is at odds with a depiction of the office on the White House's own Web site. As of yesterday, the site listed the Office of Administration as one of six presidential entities subject to the open-records law, which is commonly known by its abbreviation, FOIA.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit group, filed a lawsuit in May seeking Office of Administration records about the missing e-mails, including when they were deleted from government computer files. CREW said it understood that internal White House documents had estimated at least 5 million e-mails were missing from March 2003 to October 2005.

(snip)
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said that "one has to wonder if this is an effort by the White House to keep secret the details of how millions of White House e-mail suddenly went missing. The OA's disingenuous claim that it is not subject to the FOIA is contradicted by its own actions and statements."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082202441.html

[whistle]

1. Bush/Cheney going deeper and deeper into their bunker, the end is near

[Old and In the Way]

2. My thoughts exactly.

Just what do they have to hide if they have done nothing wrong? Obviously, there are clearly criminal acts that they are trying to obstruct am investigation from uncovering. What a joke this administration is turning into.

[NYC Liberal]

5. Use their own arguments against 'em.

"If you have nothing to hide, then what's the problem?!"

See how they like it.

[AndyTiedye]

6. The End of Bush**Cheney or the End of Our Democracy?

It has been looking a lot more like the latter lately.

[BeHereNow]

3. What ever happened to the copies Palast had?

Remember that story?
I've heard NOTHING about it since.
BHN

[rodeodance]

4. ha ha so funny!

[Bluebear]

7. Gee, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!

Isn't that what these sorry excuses for human beings have been saying for 7 years?