U.S. Agencies Advised to Release FOIA Information to Public, Replacing Restrictive Bush Policy

[babylonsister]

U.S. Agencies Advised to Release Information to Public

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 19, 2009


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration advised federal agencies on Thursday to release records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued new guidelines fleshing out President Obama’s order of Jan. 21 to provide more government records to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, whenever their release is not prohibited by another law.

Mr. Holder also urged agencies to voluntarily make information public in widely usable formats even before it is requested.

The new standard replaces a more restrictive policy imposed by the Bush administration.

Mr. Holder also directed that the new standard be used to re-evaluate the government’s position in some pending lawsuits challenging prior decisions to withhold records.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/us/politics/20holder.html?ref=us

[Horse with no Name]

1. Just curious if you know

Are there any Abu Ghraib photos left? Or have they been systematically destroyed?
I'd like to see that particular FOIA ruling be upheld.

[babylonsister]

2. I know there was a batch at one time that had not been

released to the public, but I haven't read that they were destroyed. So I guess I don't know.

[formercia]

3. I should have waited

I put in a FOIA request to the FBI a while back to get a copy of my file. They said there were no records. I know it was bullshit but the time to appeal has expired, so I'm screwed.

[babylonsister]

4. Why are you so positive you have a record? nt

[ThomWV]

6. Probably the livestyle.

[formercia]

10. I tended to piss-off Soviet agents.

One of my supervisors told me once: "You piss off people that don't even know you."

[formercia]

7. I worked with Robert Hanssen and was one of the suspects

the FBI had under surveillance for years. I was detailed to work at FBI headquarters on a project that Hanssen was a lead agent.
Our Counterintelligence people contacted me and asked me to pass on information to the FBI that they possibly had a Soviet agent on their staff. I provided this information to them and a short time later, I was removed from the project at the insistence of Hanssen. He claimed I was "interfering with his operation."

The rest is History.

[babylonsister]

8. Thanks. I'd say you have a little file going.

Is it illegal to re-request under the new rules? I hope you can get around this somehow.

[formercia]

9. A file?

More like a warehouse full.

There was a whole generation of agents that made their career on my back.

It was the mother of all fuck-ups.

[autorank]

15. And what a history

In the film, the female lead, head of the get Hanssen team, said 'How would you feel if everything you did for the past 20 years was for nothing' meaning that the Soviets had all the information that the FBI had. Am I misinterpreting that or was that the case - the full dummp invalidated tons of work?

Thanks for sharing, as they say!

[formercia]

16. They put Hanssen in charge of the investigation

He knew who was guilty all along.

Louis Freeh should be in jail right along with him for about a zillion counts of obstruction of justice. If it wasn't for Freeh and his Opus Dei minions, Hanssen wouldn't have lasted a year. I had already pulled his CIA pass because I was getting complaints from above that he was showing up unannounced and poking his nose into places he had no business going.

[ThomWV]

5. So, will the remaining 30-or-so DOJ Memos be released today?

Torture, wire tapping, and god only knows what else.

[formercia]

11. Reaction at FBI:

:rofl:

[formercia]

12. The worse thing about the FBI

is that they never admit that they are wrong.

They can hound you to your grave and if it turns out they were wrong, they never say they're sorry.

They're an arrogant bunch of assholes.

The untouchables.

[formercia]

13. K&R

[formercia]

14. Here's another kickey-poo

Just in case some agent is lurking. I want to make sure they read this thread.

[autorank]

17. So about all that torture.

The FBI had an agent or agents in Gitmo, as I understand. I saw one of them had reported the torture
supposedly and then, on camera I believe, said 'We don't do that.' It had an air of CYA to it and
apparently was for the record because there was no big controversy about it. Had they wanted to,
the FBI could have stood tall and brought the entire process to a halt.

What was FBI up to with this one-time-only PR stunt?