Shredded: Hundreds of thousands of government documents

[Tinoire]

Shredded: Hundreds of thousands of government documents
Hundreds of thousands of government documents are destroyed in the great Freedom of Information Act scandal

By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
23 December 2004


Hundreds of thousands of secret Whitehall files are being shredded before the public gains the right to see them under the Freedom of Information Act on 1 January.

Figures obtained by The Independent show a dramatic escalation in the destruction of confidential papers before the new rights of access come into force. Whitehall departments, including the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), have almost doubled the number of files they have destroyed since the Freedom of Information Act became law.

Although the legislation was passed in 2000, Whitehall was given more than four years to prepare for its introduction. Ministers are bracing themselves for a flood of demands to see confidential documents. Freedom of Information will give the public unprecedented access to previously secret files, including details of ministers' diaries and confidential briefing papers.

(snip)

Julian Lewis, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, warned that the frantic activity could deprive academics and historians of potentially vital information about the run-up to the Iraq war and previous conflicts such as the Falklands. Mr Lewis said: "There has been a dramatic and disturbing increase in the number of files that have been shredded. The steep rise in shredding in some departments is hard to account for other than the awareness that information in these files will no longer be classified as confidential. In the past, the Government could say nothing until 30 years had elapsed.

"It looks like there has been a bonfire of historical records."


(snip / interesting article)

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=595640

[Melodybe]

1. Kick this should be one the front page of every newspaper

along with the recount and the condition of our soldiers.

[Zhade]

2. I'm sorry, Blair hasn't been impeached WHY?

Hello! CRIMINAL ACTIONS! Is anybody fucking HOME?

[w4rma]

3. The Labor and Tory Parties are corrupt. The uncorrupt members of the Labor

Party can't get Blair out because the Tories vote with the DLC-type Labor folks to keep him in. The Liberal Democratic Party seems like a very good alternative but they are a somewhat close 3rd behind the Tory Party in popularity.

[DBoon]

7. "I'm sorry, Bush hasn't been impeached WHY?"

the rest of the world needs to know

[lovuian]

4. Burning the truth!!!

Horrible Horrible!!!

[OneBlueSky]

5. same things's happening here . . .

BushCo has, for example, taken on the task of destroying the ERIC data base, an irreplacable resource that houses information about virtually all educational research and development that has taken place in the past half century . . . if it doesn't support BushCo policy, it's getting deleted . . . this isn't just re-writing history; it's destroying it altogether . . . a crime of the first order worthy of the worst kind of fascist state . . . fortunately, there are people who value this history and are working hard to copy the entire data base before it is completely destroyed . . .

[Tinoire]

8. When they said New World

they seem to have meant it in earnest!

[BrotherBuzz]

6. Suppose Executive Order 13292 will have any impact

on shredding of our documents?

http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html

[NYC]

9. So much for freedom of information.

They certainly are breaking the spirit of the law, if not the letter of the law.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Geez.... they are going to put the revisionists out of bidness.... n/t

[goforit]

11. Murderers covering their tracks, eh?

[goforit]

12. clem-c-rock's banished thread......"CIA removing records."...(con't)

CIA removing documents from National Archives



http://www.underreported.com/modules.php?op=modload&nam...

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/adcom/mtgnts/c13733.htm


LBN.......Hmmmmm......

Well catch the info if you can.

[SlowDownFast]

13. kick