http://www.publicrecordsguy.com/president-obama-foia/ Uncovering The Facts Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:09:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.publicrecordsguy.com/president-obama-foia/comment-page-1/#comment-1274 James F. Grant Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:58:10 +0000 http://www.publicrecordsguy.com/?p=479#comment-1274 I think you should read the FAS commentary on what Obama has done, and don't celebrate too much. His order only applies to "discretionary" material which is a very small portion of gov't records. Most material that is classified is rendered so by statute, not agency whim. As the FAS blog says: " Inevitably, several caveats are in order. A “presumption of disclosure” really only applies to records that are potentially subject to discretionary release, which is a finite subset of secret government information. Vast realms of information are sequestered behind classification barriers or statutory protections that remain unaffected by the new policy statements. “In the face of doubt, openness prevails,” the President said. But throughout the government secrecy system, there is not a lot of doubt or soul-searching about the application of secrecy." See: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ I think you should read the FAS commentary on what Obama has done, and don’t celebrate too much. His order only applies to “discretionary” material which is a very small portion of gov’t records. Most material that is classified is rendered so by statute, not agency whim. As the FAS blog says:
” Inevitably, several caveats are in order. A “presumption of disclosure” really only applies to records that are potentially subject to discretionary release, which is a finite subset of secret government information. Vast realms of information are sequestered behind classification barriers or statutory protections that remain unaffected by the new policy statements. “In the face of doubt, openness prevails,” the President said. But throughout the government secrecy system, there is not a lot of doubt or soul-searching about the application of secrecy.”
See: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

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