Dec. 16, 2005 - 20:44 MST

AND MOP UP

A small editorial in the Rocky Mountain News this morning makes a good point. Quoted in full:

FED'S CULTURE OF SECRECY STILL NOT LIFTED

"President Bush this week issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to streamline their procedures for releasing records under the Freedom Of Information Act and to appoint chief FOIA officers to see that the changes are carried out."

"We're skeptical about whether the order will make a difference. It would have served the public and the cause of open government better if he had instructed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to rescind a memorandum to the agencies trom his predecessor, John Ashcroft."

"That memo still defines the Bush administration's approach to FOIA. When in doubt, the agencies were told, they should err on the side of secrecy, the opposite of the law's intent. And records were to be released to the public "only after full and deliberate considerations of the institutional, COMMERCIAL, and personal privacy interest that could be implicated by disclosure of the information."

"In other words, the agencies were to aggressively seek out reasons not to disclose information."

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Seems to me that since the panic and paranoia ensuing from 9/11 every effort to make any action or motive of the administration a deep dark secret has been taken. Layer upon layer of secrecy and ignoring the need of the public to know what is really going on is just part of the problem, I think.

Maybe the only solution is to start at the beginning, back up AND MOP UP

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