Bush Administration Looking To Weaken Journalists Right To Ask

[JABBS]

The Bush Administration has provided a $1 million grant to a Texas Law School, to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of data available to the public through freedom-of-information requests.

<snip>

What's really going on? Conservatives are once again looking for ways to restrict the power of what they see as a liberal, anti-Bush press. Other conservatives have been talking up re-establishing a U.S. Office of Censorship, seemingly for similar reasons.

Over the past four years, the Republican-led Congress has closed some meetings and restricted some access to records for fear of making information available to terrorists, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Va.

Irrational fear? Possibly. A back-handed way to obstruct what they see as "liberal media bias?" Absolutely.

Let's remember, the First Amendment provides for freedom of the press -- not freedom of the press when convenient. When Congress seeks to restrict our freedoms, ask yourself: what kind of democracy are we fighting to bring to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere?

***

Read the whole story by clicking here.

[yellerpup]

1. Chilling

Wish it was surprising.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. not new at all. while this one story may be, check this out:

The Day Ashcroft Foiled FOIA

By Ruth Rosen, San Francisco Chronicle.


The President didn't ask the networks for television time. The attorney general didn't hold a press conference. The media didn't report any dramatic change in governmental policy. As a result, most Americans had no idea that one of their most precious freedoms disappeared on Oct. 12.

Yet it happened. In a memo that slipped beneath the political radar, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously urged federal agencies to resist most Freedom of Information Act requests made by American citizens.

Passed in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Freedom of Information Act has been hailed as one of our greatest democratic reforms. It allows ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable by requesting and scrutinizing public documents and records. Without it, journalists, newspapers, historians and watchdog groups would never be able to keep the government honest. It was our post-Watergate reward, the act that allows us to know what our elected officials do, rather than what they say. It is our national sunshine law, legislation that forces agencies to disclose their public records and documents.

Yet without fanfare, the attorney general simply quashed the FOIA. The Department of Justice did not respond to numerous calls from The Chronicle to comment on the memo.
http://www.alternet.org/story/12169/

lots of links on this, and some disagreement on the overall effect, but those who deal with this on a daily basis agree that, in keeping with this regime's reputation as BY FAR the most secretive in US history, they've made it a POINT to make it as difficult, time consuming, and expensive to assure that we have transparency in government

bet you didn't hear about this, which I caught on the radio today, from a lawyer who specializes in FOIA lawsuits. this is REALLY disgusting. they don't want us to know, just as in the secret Cheney energy meetings, who's influencing our FOOD safety:

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=116&sid=837469

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture Department must release the calendars of five senior officials to a consumer group under the federal Freedom of Information Act, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Consumer Federation of America wants the appointment calendars to see if department officials met with industry lobbyists who opposed stricter food safety rules. The group filed a FOIA request in 2004 and a lawsuit in 2005.


The government argued the calendars were personal records and shouldn't be disclosed. The officials did voluntarily release their schedules. But they were heavily censored _ for example, 82 of 86 entries were deleted from the March 2003 calendar of the top food safety official, then-Under Secretary Elsa Murano.


Consumer Federation argued the schedules for the high-ranking officials should be released because they were kept by federal employees during work hours on government computers and shared with other employees.

[JABBS]

3. the jabbs article

notes that since 2002, congress has closed various meetings and tried to restrict access to FOIA.

The article you site has one inaccuracy. The FOIA goes back to 1966, not 1974.

[oasis]

4. "It's your (tax) money" said the Chimperor.

[Minnesota Libra]

5. This is truly scary - they are systematically ............

......gutting the entire Constitution and before 08 I truly expect "Martial Law" somewhere in this country. If nothing else this administration needs to know how many and how long the American people will tolerate having military in the streets.