President Obama promised on his first full day in the Oval Office “an unprecedented level of openness in government.”
Obama also said the federal Freedom of Information Act “should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”
But six years later, journalists, whistleblowers and taxpayers are seeing anything but such openness.
Meeting jointly in Chicago last week, members of the American Society of News Editors, Associated Press Media Editors and AP Photo Managers were briefed by Sally Buzbee, the wire service’s Washington bureau chief, on “the eight ways the Obama administration is making it harder for journalists for find information and cover the news.”
Two of the eight examples cited by Buzbee concerned the FOIA, the 1966 law that guarantees the public’s right to access federal documents, subject only to nine specific exceptions:
“One of the media — and public’s — most important legal tools, the Freedom of Information Act, is under siege,” Buzbee said.
“Requests for information under FOIA have become slow and expensive. Many federal agencies simply don’t respond at all in a timely manner, forcing news organizations to sue each time to force action,” she said.
But Buzbee also pointed to a disturbing new trend in how the Obama administration treats the FOIA:
“The administration uses FOIAs as a tip service to uncover what news organizations are pursuing. Requests are now routinely forwarded to political appointees. At the agency that oversees the new health care law, for example, political appointees now handle the FOIA requests,” Buzbee said.
In response, the administration claimed that “over the past six years, federal agencies have gone to great efforts to make government more transparent and more accessible than ever, to provide people with information that they can use in their daily lives, and to solicit public participation in government decision-making and thus tap the expertise that resides outside of government.”
That, according to C.J. Ciaramella, a Washington Free Beacon reporter who also edits FOIA Rundown, a weekly email newsletter, was the administration’s “regular non-statement when asked about the disparity between its stated commitment to transparency and its actions.”
Buzbee may actually have understated the degree to which Obama administration political appointees control FOIA responses.
Cause of Action, a nonprofit watchdog group led by former congressional investigator Daniel Epstein, recently filed suit against a dozen federal agencies claiming they allowed White House officials to determine how they responded to multiple FOIA requests.
Epstein said the administration justified its actions by claiming the FOIAs involved “White House equities.” The Cause of Action suit is now making its way through the federal court system.
Ciaramella also pointed to a Sept. 10 congressional hearing on the growing plight of whistleblowers in the federal government.
Carolyn Lerner, the chief attorney in the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, said “the numbers are through the roof” concerning whistleblowers in federal agencies, according to Watchdog.org.
Lerner, whose office assesses agency responses to whistleblowers, said the problem is the numbers are running against employees who point out waste, fraud and corruption.
Of the 2,900 cases in 2013, at least 1,400 involved retaliation against the whistleblowers and they prevailed against their agencies less than a fourth of the time, she said.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
