PROMISES, PROMISES: A closed meeting on openness - AP

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091206/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_open_government

WASHINGTON – It's hardly the image of transparency the Obama administration wants to project: A workshop on government openness is closed to the public.
The event Monday for federal employees is a fitting symbol of President Barack Obama's uneven record so far on the Freedom of Information Act, a big part of keeping his campaign promise to make his administration the most transparent ever. As Obama's first year in office ends, the government's actions when the public and press seek information are not yet matching up with the president's words

Yet on some important issues, his administration produced information only after government watchdogs and reporters spent weeks or months pressing, in some cases suing.

Those include what cars people were buying using the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program (it turned out the most frequent trades involved pickups for pickups with only slightly better gas mileage); how many times airplanes have collided with birds (a lot); whether lobbyists and donors meet with the Obama White House (they do); rules about the interrogation of terror suspects (the FBI and CIA disagreed over what was permitted); and who was speaking in private with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (he has close relationships with a cadre of Wall Street executives whose multibillion-dollar companies survived the economic crisis with his help).

The administration has refused to turn over important records. Obama signed a law that let the Pentagon refuse to release photographs showing U.S. troops abusing detainees, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates then did so. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has refused to release details about the CIA's "black site" rendition program. The Federal Aviation Administration wouldn't turn over letters and e-mails among FAA officials about reporters' efforts to learn more about planes that crash into birds.

[pinto]

1. As far as the meeting itself goes, and the meeting only, I don't necessarily see a red flag here.

Other than AP's choice for a lead line.

Sounds like a staff meeting to me. Those are usually closed meetings in any organization. AP is playing on the irony of the purpose of the meeting and the fact that it's "staff only".

The other Freedom of Information items mentioned are another matter, yet I'm not reading a hidden agenda into a closed staff meeting.

[rocktivity]

2. Consider the source--and you'll smell sour grapes.

"You didn't invite me? Well, I didn't want to go anyway, and besides that, you're a big poopy head, so there!"

:eyes:
rocktivity