Reply #98: NPR: Critics Skeptical Of Obama's 'Openness' Vow

[L. Coyote]

Critics Skeptical Of Obama's 'Openness' Vow
by Ari Shapiro
Listen Now - 4 min 19 sec - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103143642


All Things Considered, April 15, 2009 · President Obama came to the White House promising a new era of openness in government. On his first full day in office he said, "The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable, and the way to make government accountable is to make it transparent." Now, some activists say, he has not done enough to keep that promise on the national security front.

A major test of the Obama administration's openness on national security issues is coming on Thursday. The Justice Department faces a court-imposed deadline to say whether it will release some controversial classified memos from the Bush administration.

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With all of this as backdrop, another major test of this administration's openness on national security issues is imminent. Thursday is a deadline for the Justice Department to release controversial legal memos that authorized harsh CIA interrogations. The department could release the memos in full, release heavily redacted versions of them or refuse to release them at all.

Jaffer of the ACLU, who sued to get the documents, says, "It'll be very difficult for the new administration to claim that it has made any progress whatsoever toward that promise of transparency if it's withholding these legal memos."

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