It feels bizarre to have to write this story here. And I know a lot of it is because of the election and folks getting lost in their emotional support for their candidate. And I do respect that. But it’s disappointing (understatement) to hear Democrats, of all people, not understanding and respecting the vital importance of open records laws and the implementation of transparent, accountable government.
So let’s start basic. What is FOIA? FOIA stands for the Freedom of Information Act. It is a federal law that ensures that most government records are subject to public review. There are exceptions of course for classified material and to protect the privacy of private citizens mentioned in documentation and e-mails. It also provides options for fee waivers so that documents requested in the public interest are not limited to those with resources.
The most obvious beneficiary from the law is the general public. The ability of the average citizen in the country to be able to request information on the activities of the government and elected officials is a powerful tool. It makes politicians drastically more accountable for their actions and dramatically improves government transparency. www.newspaperlinks.com/...
In addition to the law, most (if not all?) states have a state version which provides citizen access to records on the state level. State laws can be stronger but are often much weaker than the federal law. I’m re-using this same link to provide you some quick examples:
- FOIA requests gave the Associated Press conclusive proof that accused Nazi war criminals had collected Social Security benefits long after they’d fled from U.S. soil
- Thanks to mandatory FOIA disclosures, a military reporter discovered nearly 6,000 defective armory vests that were quickly recalled, thereby saving many lives of our nation’s finest that might otherwise have been lost
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Documents requested via FOIA revealed that some firefighting safety devices malfunctioned upon exposure to heat or moist air and thereby were worthless during times of extreme crises www.newspaperlinks.com/...
To state it mildly, that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of important information that has come from FOIA. I’ve personally reviewed thousands of pages of documents obtained through the FOIA, many of which were e-mails discussing the topics we were interested in. We used this information to educate the public through workshops, roadshows, and press releases and we used this information to hold government agencies accountable for laws they were breaking. So this issue is very important to me, and I find it really troubling when I hear about government attempts to circumvent FOIA laws. Attempts to circumvent public records requirements are a common Republican trick:
However, just weeks after he was elected, Kasich’s office chose to solicit resumes for government positions through a private Web portal — FixOhioNow.com — and has refused to make the names and resumes of applicants public. His office claims that the website is privately funded and therefore the resumes are not subject to the state’s public records law. This compelled The Enquirer to publish a scathing editorial in late November calling the practice “uncommon nonsense,” and the reasoning for nondisclosure a “crock.” - See more at: www.rcfp.org/...
That is just one example featuring a Republican currently running for President. And yes, you should be pissed off about it. You know what else I was pissed off about when it happened?
Most of the activities of the Energy Task Force have not been disclosed to the public, even though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (since 19 April 2001) have sought to gain access to its materials. The organisations Judicial Watch and Sierra Club launched a law suit (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia: Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) under the FOIA to gain access to the task force's materials. After several years of legal wrangling, in May, 2005 an appeals court permitted the Energy Task Force's records to remain secret.[16][17] en.wikipedia.org/...
We made a big stink about Cheney keeping these records secret and that big stink was made here on Daily Kos. The trick here was that Cheney set up the committee in a way to circumvent the FOIA — specifically allowing private industry significant access but technically not making them members. Then they used an exception under FOIA to protect deliberative proceedings. The point being that Cheney gamed the system to undermine the public will for transparency. We protested this repeatedly.
That’s just one example. We also complained when the Bush White House destroyed e-mails. And we’ve been complaining about Republicans using private e-mail servers to hide communications for a long time. This one also fell under the Presidential Records Act but it gives you an idea of where this practice originated:
As we have been reading for the past 6 months, Karl Rove established a clandestine system of e-mail domains (gwb43.com, rnchq.com, georgewbush.com) used by senior White House officials which violated the Presidential Records Act. The system appears to have been set up to shield what should have been official government from public or Congressional scrutiny. www.dailykos.com/...
Here is a front-paged article citing Congressional Democrats complaining about the private e-mail server set up by Rove:
Why did Mr. Jennings and his staff assistant use private "gwb43.com" accounts rather than their "eop.gov" accounts to correspond with Administrator Doan’s office about the PowerPoint presentation?
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A second letter was sent to White House Counsel Fred Fielding asking him for information and a briefing regarding White House e-mail policies, citing the new revelations that White House officials have been conducting official business using nongovernmental e-mail accounts.
www.dailykos.com/...
After a few years of silence to take care of myself and my life, I was a bit shocked to come back to Daily Kos to find people asserting that setting up a private e-mail server, an act that specifically acts as a work around against public disclosure laws, and that was very similar to Republican actions we had protested over the years, is suddenly ok. Not only that but people were calling criticism of the action a “Republican Dirty Trick.” NO. The real Republican Dirty Trick is using private e-mail servers to escape transparency laws. The Republic Dirty Trickster Rove helped start this practice. And demanding accountability for these actions is what Democrats have always done — until now.
Centrists, liberals, and even conservatives have a long proud history of demanding government accountability and transparency. Without full transparency (with reasonable limits obviously), we simply cannot function fully as a democratic country. So, i’m not here to complain specifically about Hillary and her private e-mail server. Mostly i’m just worried about the fallout from it right now because we cannot afford a Trump Presidency. But I hope that this provides context for those that don’t quite get why it’s an important issue to discuss. Maybe you’ve never worked with FOIA to help right wrongs. Or maybe it never occurred to anyone that a majority of the news stories that cover government actions would never happen without FOIA. We’d be largely clueless about our history of secrets from McCarthy to Nixon tapes to Iran-Contra, and the hands of activists would be tied as they try to stop drone strikes or expose collusion with the energy industry.